simplify is my motto

my new motto for life is simplify. i love it. i have been reading alot of andy stanley, and he has a less is more outlook on life. it is really good stuff. our family, for instance, is only setting up 1/3 of our Christmas decorations, but our house looks great! we are focusing on quality instead of production and quantity.

so to go right along with this new outlook on life, in staff meeting today Rob, our teaching pastor, said that he heard of an andy stanley technique that he adopted called the top three, or something of that nature. what it is, is you write down the three things that you are going to accomplish tomorrow, and do those three things well. i love this!

i have lists upon lists of stuff to do that i just get lost in so often. the top three is a focusing technique that i am adopting for my life. but i am adding to it. i have the top three in proffesional and the top three in personal life for the day. when i do those things, and have done them well, i have accomplished my goals for the day.

so here we go. simplify. is that a bumper sticker? if so i want it, that and giterdun.

Christmas starts

so tonight our youth ministry is going over the Christmas story. it should be fun. there is a cool trivia about Christmas around the world, stupid facts that i always seem to stumble on, and a message on business. we are looking at lessons learned from the innkeeper and the shepherds. God chose to speak to the only ones who had the time to listen. everyone else was busy with their own lives. God comes and speaks to those who have time to hear.

I was thinking about the multitude of angels that the shepherds saw. it was probably the most amazing thing mankind has ever witnessed, millions of angels all singing in perfect harmony lighting up the sky. a few lowly shepherds got to see it. all because they had time.

sometimes in ministry you are made to feel guilty if you are not busy busy. If you are not busy then you are lazy, is most pastors mottos. sad. we should most definently NOT be lazy, but we are also not to be so full of ourselves that we miss opportunity to hear from God. I met a youth pstor in our area a while back, and he could not stop talking about himself, all he does for God. He didn't ever once try to connect with me, he was living life in a hurry, like a stone skipping across a pond.

maybe if we slow down a bit to hear from God, we won't miss out on what he is doing and saying.

an sad sad fact i recently learned

i just learned today that the average age of a homeless person in america is 9. that is no typo. nine years old. this is truely a sad statistic.

dream home news

hey we met the investor who bought our dream home, and he's not dirty at all. he was real nice, and may be able to work with us to buy the house. please pray that we can make this house work. every time we go into a house we compare it to this one. its sad. it is THE ONE! it is going to need a lot of work, but it will all be worth it. it will be a good home to raise our family in.

family shot two

here is isaac and his nana and papa, mama and daddy.

family shot

this is our thanksgiving family photo. kara is beautiful, isaac is cute, and my beard is outta control! i have not trimmed it in two months now. the plan is to go to christmas without trimming. we'll see.

the good one

this is the good picture of derek april and samantha. samantha is a little doll. she has a laugh just like the babies on tv in those commercials

you best be takin a picture soon or...

this came out funny. derek was trying to get samantha to look at the camera, but it looks like he is chewin me out.

a cute picture

this one is too cute not to post

our table

i made the table, and kara decorated it.

decorated

here is our house decorated for thanksgiving. everything went great, and tasted great too.

isaac and his mama

isaac helped make pies for thanksgiving.

hurry get the camera

he was being really cute so i dashed for the camera and caught this moment.

that's my hat

he is actually wearing my hat that is too small for me. it looks real cute on him though.

git em up

he says git em up cowboy yee haw while he rides his horsey. then he gives his horse a hug.

how cute is this? little lumberjack and his horse.

punk profile

this is the punk profile. he's cute.

rock on

isaac is going punk

i made a table today!

we just did everything for our thanksgiving dinner. my feet hurt so bad. i am so excited for tomorrow though. the turkey is brining, the stuffing is ready to bake, the yams are ready to bake, the pies are cooked, the table is set.

i actually made a table today. we bought an 8 X 4 of compressed wood, and i cut a 6 X 4 oval out of it with a hand saw. yeah! we placed that on our corrent table, which is only 2 1/2 X 4. i think i'll go to bed now.

thanksgiving here we come

so i love to cook. it is relaxing for me. this is the first year we are to have thanksgiving at our house, so there is alot of cooking going on. i just made the brine for the turkey, and the actual turkey is thawing to go into the brine for 15 hours in the morning. then it sits in the fridge for 8 hours, and gets thrown in the oven on thanksgiving day for 4ish hours. it is going to be good.

there is a funny story about my turkey, i had no room in my freezer for it, so i put it in the freezer at church. well our church is big on giving out food, and they gave away my turkey. they replaced it though.

we shall see how things go thursday. i am hoping to do better than i am expecting the lions to do far far better.

true american dog

so mazzy has been on her treadmill a few times now. she loves it, she begs for it. she has run 6 miles today, and would do more if i had the time. i sit and watch. maybe i'll get on it too one day. she is alot calmer now though, which if you know my dog, is a miracle in itself.

in the christmas spirit

so we are a bit early this year with decorating. we downloaded all our favorite christmas songs today (legaly from walmart) perry como, frank sinatra, johnny cash, dean martin, chet atkins, and the most amazing vince guaraldi (charlie brown jazz trio). so we were listening to christmas music and decorating. i hope it doesn't get old too fast.

newest waste of time

www.linerider.com
the best way to waste time.
you just need to go there to see why.

house hunting still

so we went to look at a house today, and i think we would have bought it, but the neighbors did not like us. when they found out i was a pastor they went inside the house, took the stereo speakers and put it at the windows and started blaring rap music. i believe the song was called f$%! the world. because that was the chorus. and the verses went something like f%#& the president and went on to curse everything else using that word, and then he brags that he uses that word 93 times in this song. interesting. i think this action was more of a statement to God than us. they are just mad at the world and God i guess. i wish i could sit down with them and just listen to their worldview.

happy late halloween

okay, so i know its like thanksgiving in a few days, but i just got the pictures of our halloween pumpkin that we did with our friends rob and cherie. we entered it into the hershey contest for $10,000. pretty cool.

doggy treadmill

so our dog mazzy is the most hyper dog on the planet. we watch some ceasar millan "the dog whisperer" and he suggests letting the dog get some energy out on a treadmill. we found a treadmill. i am so excited because our dog is great when she is not so stinkin hyper. just put her on the treadmill for 45 minutes in the morning on a slight jog, and booyah, good doggie for the rest of the day. there are some special dog treadmills out there but they cost like $1500. yeah right. so we got to borrow one from a friend at church.

jack bauer for president 2008

1 month 29 days 10 hours 43 minutes and 40 seconds till season 6!! JACK BAUER FOR PRESIDENT 2008!

i'm a half breed pastor i guess

so i gave a talk at my church a few weeks ago for a youth sunday. it went awesome! couldn't have gone better really. i spoke on where teenagers are at today and i pretty much spoke all the info from chap clark's book, Hurt. amazing book and i gave full credit to where i got the information. i have been getting compliments still three weeks to a month out. that has never happened before. i was talking to someone outside of my church about me being a youth pastor, and she said something that was unknowingly rude. she said, "we had our youth pastor come and speak at our main service, and he was really good, i couldn't believe it." it was as if she was saying youth pastors are not really full pastors, they are just half breeds or something of that line, and she was suprised that he actually possessed some talent. and then i started to look back on some of the conversations i have had about me being a youth pastor and i was hearing that stuff all the time. like, "so are you going to be a real pastor one day?" and "you? your a pastor? oooohhhh, your a youth pastor, okay it makes sense now." at my church, i am considered "one of the pastors" and i like that. so that is now what i tell people. "i am one of the pastors at shiloh."

my old cat

thought this was hilarious. i think that's my old cat kasha. what a dirty cat.

i'm buff

hey, so i actually worked out yesterday, and i am up again to do it right now, but i am hesitating. i have an ab roller and i did it for 5 minutes yesterday, and now i'm so comfy in a blanket by the heater. alright, i'll do it. 5 minutes can't hurt...well actually it does.

Sr High Retreat! February 2-4

I am so geeked for our Sr High retreat coming in february. it should be absolutely amazing. i have never heard craig gross speak, but i hear it is good stuff. i also went onto red umbrella's web page, and it blew me away! they are sooooo good. it was amazingly good, like buy their cd good. i can't wait. what exactly is "high speed" tubing anyways?

Jr High Retreat! March 9-11

I am so excited for our jr high winter retreat at springhill camps. we have david dean as a speaker, and i hear he is hilarious. and caleb rowden is the worship band. i listended to them on the web, and they sound real good to. there is so much to do at springhill. we went in the fall, and it was absolutely amazing. i hear that it is only a taste of the winter retreat though, so i am geeked!

we found our dream home!!

hey we found our dream home. its right on the river and its cute and its got character and its got a backyard, and some dirty investor bought it before we even had a chance to bid on it. it was only on the market for about 12 hours! i thought we had a chance because we were looking at it early. but we were too late. so we're still lookin for our house.

season 6 of 24 countdown!!!

2 months 2 days 20 hours 8 minutes and 44 seconds till season 6 of 24. I watched the trailer http://www.24trailer.com/ it looks so amazing!!! david palmers brother is the president. i never liked him. i hope kim doesn't come back at all, she is just plain annoying, getting kidnapped all the time, slowing jack down, making him choose between country and family all the time. dirty kim.

psycho dog

so isaac was sitting on the couch talking with his nana on the phone, and i had a sneeze fit, like i do sometimes. well, one of my sneezes was really loud and the dog freaked out and ran like crazy. isaac thought this was just the funniest thing on the planet and started cracking up and said, "psycho dog! he he!" where does he learn this stuff?

who would have thought?

so today i had a new experimental breakfast that became my new favorite. my favorite used to be hot sauce on scrambled eggs and toast, now eggs has a new partner, avacado. yes it sounds weird, but sliced avacado eaten with scrambled eggs is the best thing ever. try it. or just be scared to. chicken.

isaac and figureskating

isaac turned on figure skating and started to watch it. he was laughing at it and saying "sissy! he he!" isaac gets it. men shouldn't be wearing clothes that tight. it's just wrong.

11th richest nation in the world

i found a statistic from www.invisiblechildren.com that was alarming. if american teenagers were their own country they would be the 11th richest nation in the world. then i found another startling quote on www.cpyu.org. walt meuler was interviewing on stage with a marketer, and their written purpose statement that they are trying to attain was "find a spot of weakness and lust in every man woman and child, and exploit it to make them want to buy your product." that one kinda made my stomach churn. what selfishness. how sad. no wonder our society is the way that it is.

apple picking

he found a good one. every year we go apple picking with my family. we get on a tractor and go pick apples, then we come back and buy doughnuts and cider. this year the doughnuts and cider went up in price. for a doxen doughnuts fresh was $7, and for a gallon of cider $7. wow. but its worth it cause its good.

papa n goats

two things isaac loves so much, his papa and goats. he was having a blast at the apple orchard feeding the goats with his papa.

sharing

isaac is learning about sharing. here he is teaching me how to share as well.

looks like a cape

my shirt is so big on him, it looks like a cape

the cutest kid pt 2

he really is so cute. here he is trying on my shirt

the cutest kid in the universe

so cute

hey, i think it works again!

well, this is a picture of isaac trying on my boots. he's real cute when he says in a high voice, "Nice boots!" he also loves to try on my button up shirt and tear it off like superman. i'm not sure where he learned that one.

broken

my blog doesn't work right now it's broken.