Minnesota

While in Minnesota last week, we got to watch Jessie in her tennis match against Northwestern. This is a cute picture of her with her doubles partner.

The next day Jessie took us around to see a few of the Minneapolis sites. This is Minnehaha Falls, a beautiful spot. Steph has lived in Minneapolis since 1994--how come she never took us here?

Here's a darling picture of Emily and Bri on the day of Emily's ladybug birthday party. She is quite the little lady.

I had fun sewing Emily's Snow White dress. Now Paisley is Cinderella, Emily is Snow White, Bri will be ?, and Annie's little girl-to-be will be ? We are going to have a little string of princesses!

This is my favorite picture of Emily.

And, this is a cute picture of Bri and Kevin clowning around. We had a great trip and it's always good to see our little girls, as well as our bigger girls and their guys.

When we arrived home, everything was blooming--the crabapple tree, the tulips, the bleeding heart, and the plums. Beautiful and fragrant!

Have a great day!

Embraced by the Father

Are you a faithful fan of “Dancing with the Stars”? Yes? Keep reading. Not so much? Keep reading. Are you curious about what Hagar, Sarah, Esther, Elisha, Gideon, and others have in common with the waltz, the fox trot, and the jitterbug?

Embraced by the Father, Susanne Scheppmann’s latest Bible study, uses a background of dance themes to teach us that God wants us to dance through life in His everlasting arms.

Susanne weaves the stories (some deeply moving, some incredibly hilarious) of her own life of wanting to be embraced by the father with the stories of Bible characters finding God’s grace in the names of God.

Embraced can be appreciated in several layers. You can read the stories of Susanne’s life as a young girl growing up in a seemingly impossible family situation before being rescued and redeemed by an almighty, loving heavenly father. Or, you can study the stories of Bible characters in their journeys with the same gracious father. Or, you can read Embraced to learn the Hebrew names for God and the relevance of those names for us today.

As women, we all seek safety, strength, and security. Embraced by the Father, available at www.NewHopePublishers.com, points all women, regardless of age and circumstance, to the only father who can perfectly provide for those desires. Read and study through Susanne’s recent work and learn to stand on Jesus’ feet as he leads you across the dance floor of his kingdom.

Read Susanne’s blog at www.susannescheppmann.blogspot.com or follow her on Facebook or Twitter.

We're back!

We have had some internet problems the last two weeks, but now we're back. As always, computer glitches can be so frustrating, but there was some good too. It gave me much extra time for other things and caused me to think carefully about the time I do spend on the computer.

Mainly, I regretted not being able to tell you about all the fun Bri and I had during her Spring Break visit with Jessie and to show you some of the pictures of her. Sorry this took so long, Bri, but I'm thankful for the extra time we had since I couldn't "worry" about all the important (!) e-mails I was missing.

Anyone who knows Bri even a little knows that her #1 favorite pasttime is jumping. These first two pictures show her in action. The second one was taken at Lost in Fun and I was pretty excited about how my camera caught her in action. And, one of her #2 pasttimes is making silly faces. The other three pictures show this in action.

We did many things not chronicled here--Mexicali VBS at church, fed the kittens, played in the surprise snow, went to library story time, went to the Lincoln Children's Museum, went to Investigation Station at the State Historical Museum, visited great-grandparents, made waffles, baked cupcakes and cookies, and had a tea party! We were busy, but had great fun. I love it when I have each grandchild all to myself!

Thanks, Bri, for being brave enough to come so far for such a long visit. I hope this will be the beginning of a long annual tradition.

Have a great day, everyone reading this!

Nelson's Complete Book of Bible Maps and Charts

Nelson's Complete Book of Bible Maps and Charts, third edition, is probably the finest book, and certainly the book with the most value for the price, that I've reviewed for Thomas Nelson.

The 470-paged book is a wealth of full-color photographs, maps, and graphics for any student or teacher of the Bible. Organized book by book through the old and new testaments, it has information on authors, dates, themes, literary structures, characters, and events, as well as detailed outlines and informative charts for every aspect of each book. For a map lover like me, the maps alone (I counted 84) are worth the price of the book.

To give you a close up of the book, consider these features: the six-page entry for Ephesians contains a paragraph about the author, two about the date of Paul's writing, three about theme and literary structure, a chart of "Ephesians at a Glance," an outline of the book, a map and discussion of the city of Ephesus, and a comment about Paul's phrase "in Christ," which appears thirty-five times in the book. Acts, a much longer book, has 12 pages, including 7 charts and 9 maps, for its entry.

And, Thomas Nelson keeps on giving with this volume. All the maps and charts are available for free download at their website. This feature is invaluable for teachers and Bible study leaders who want to provide visuals for their students. Thank you, Thomas Nelson, for publishing this fantastic resource, and thanks for my complimentary copy and the opportunity to review for you.

Happy Birthday to Paisley!

On Thursday, Feb. 11, when we set out for Texas, we had no idea that we would drive into snow. This first picture looks like it could be Nebraska or somewhere on our way to Minnesota, but it was our worst stretch of driving in southern Oklahoma! It was snowing good and only the driving lane was clear. Fortunately, we made it safely to Annie's in Longview.Friday morning we woke up to 3-4 inches of snow. David remembered only one other time of snow in Texas and that was when he was in high school. It was exciting to build a snowman with Paisley.

Isn't he cute?

This is my favorite picture of Paisley for the week.

Since we had gone to Texas for Paisley's birthday, we enjoyed partying with her and all her friends. Here she is with the Cinderella cake that Annie made her.

Here she is in her Cinderella dress, holding a tiny Cinderella. We think the big Cinderella is the prettier one!

Last, but not least, here she is with Grandpa on Valentine's Day. Two of my sweethearts! Grandpa celebrated his birthday, too, and David's is today.

Happy Birthday to all our Februarys!

Antonio Meets His Match

Antonio Meets His Match, the latest in Max Lucado’s Hermie & Friends DVD series by Tommy Nelson Publishing, teaches children and adults alike that God commands us to love our neighbors, even when those neighbors are very annoying. A group of kilt-wearing, bagpipe-playing, Scottish red ants move into the garden, and Antonio and Hermie are immediately offended by the newbies’ habits and attitudes. The Scotsmen don’t give an inch, and tempers flare.

After a couple altercations, Antonio and Angus agree to settle the arguments by some traditional Scottish games. Antonio is winning handily until the bagpipe playing—then, not so much. Antonio loses the contest and has to move. Both sides learn a lesson about neighborliness when Billy Croaker takes matters into his hands.

Although the actual story of Antonio Meets His Match was a little slow starting, the outcome was good and the story was true to God’s Word. We are commanded to “love our neighbors,” and not just the ones who are easy to love.

In addition to the actual story, I appreciated the Bonus features of the DVD, especially the sing-along, “How Could Anyone Not Love Me?” because Angus’ Scottish brogue was difficult to understand during the story. The other bonus features are great, as well.

Beautiful Snow

We are in the midst of a truly, old-fashioned Nebraska winter. We have had several days of fog which only adds to the beauty by frosting the trees and turning the landscape into a Winter Wonderland.

You can see the beauty of the pine branch and the blur of the fog and snow behind it.

I thought our little girls might like to see Grandma's slide on the swing set. The snow doesn't look particularly deep here, but you can see everything covered in white.

This picture was taken straight out the car window on my way to Wal-mart on 98th street north of Saltillo. The plow made only a single path through the snow and the snow is piled deep, close on each side. I would have loved to ride on the snow plow as they cut through some of the deep drifts. Even though we've had some warmer days with some melting this week, the snow is still 8-9" deep in our front yard.

These days have reminded me of all the good snow stories I've read. I think first of Laura Ingalls Wilder's The Long Winter, a classic prairie snow story. More recently, I read No Time on My Hands, by Grace Snyder who lived through many a rough winter in the Sandhills from the 1850's to the 1950's. (Just after that book I read The Snowball, a biography of Warren Buffet, but, no, it has nothing to do with Nebraska winters!) And, I noticed another, long-forgotten book on my shelf--Winter Thunder by Mari Sandoz, another Nebraska author. It is the courageous story of a young teacher and 16-year-old bus driver who survived with seven children in a 1949 blizzard when their bus tipped over in the snow and burned. I think it is a fictional account, but based on a story of the author's niece.

And, poetry, too, comes to mind. What about Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," as well as his "Dust of Snow"? "Snow-Bound" by John Greenleaf Whittier, is the poet's simple observations of his family members as they amused themselves while snowed in. Although more about fog than snow, I'm reminded of Sandburg's "The fog comes on little cat feet. It sits looking over harbor and city on silent haunches and then moves on." We have certainly had fog, but it sits looking and does not move on!

Rachel Field in her "Snow in the City," says "Snow is out of fashion, But it still comes down, To whiten all the buildings In our town; . . . And not a million people, Not one of them at all, Can do a thing about the snow But let it fall!" Isn't that the truth?

One last poem for my little girls: "Snowflakes" by Marchette Chute: I once thought that snowflakes were feathers And that they came falling down When the Moon Lady feathered her chickens And shook out her silver gown. And then I began to look closer, And now I know just what they are--I caught one today in my mitten, And there was a baby star."

One of my students this week remarked on the extra bonding time his family had over Christmas vacation. I said, "Yes, some families probably had more bonding than they wanted." But, he replied, "No, we really enjoyed it." I thought that was good coming from a high school boy. I'm proud of him and applaud his family for using the snow to good advantage.

Have a great day!