“This is the main difference between the Gospel and philosophy. Although the philosophers speak on the subject of morals splendidly and with praiseworthy ability, yet all the embellishment which shines forth in their precepts is nothing more than a beautiful superstructure without a foundation, for by omitting principles, they propound a mutilated doctrine, like a body without a head.” Paul [in Romans 12:1-2] lays down the principle from which all the parts of holiness flow.” John Calvin
Gallery, Saturday, February 27, 2010
The Wonderful World of Colored Sticks
The new Tinker Toys are vibrant, bright, colored, plastic sticks. We had a set of the old wooden style stick and they still sell them; but they are more expensive and harder to get. This Christmas we visited Toys R Us like many parents searching for gifts. I was hoping to find Tinker Toys in stock and it was their last one: praise God! 
The kids love them. The plastic ones take a bit more effort to push together and take apart. Matthew occasionally walks up with stuck Tinker Toys in hand, holding out one end for me to grab. We play a brief tug-of-war to separate them.
The tub of Tinker Toys came with instructions to build airplanes and such. The pictures show the planes that I built for them. They enjoyed zooming around the room. It took me a while to realize that I built an object with sticks protruding in multiple directions, at eye level, perfect for gouging out eyes. I then encouraged them to hold it out in the air at eye level, and pretend to fly the protruding sticks around the house. Thank God, no eyes were harmed in the making of this fantasy.
Matthew built a full-on vehicle complete with seats, engine, working parts and more than I even know. He has quite an imagination, those cartoons have super-injected his ability to imagine things I don't even understand. Half our job as parents is to bring their imagination back to reality and ground them in truth. 
Claire, of course, wanted to touch everything on the vehicle. Matthew, in general, spends a good portion of his time protecting the things he makes. The bigger they are, the more his sister is interested in messing with it. In this case, Jenn and I moderated their vehicle fantasy and assisted them in organizing a peaceful sharing of this fantastical vehicle. Believe me when I say, don't buy toys that make sounds, not only are they annoying, but they cost money to buy batteries. The kids make much better driving sounds anyways.
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Family, Saturday, February 06, 2010
We Are Enjoying 34 New Books
Went to the South San Jose Santa Teresa Library Grand Opening. The library opened with all new books. It was amazing. Literally, every single book in sight was brand new. This evening we looked over at Claire reading one of her books to find her taking stickers out of the book and sticking them to the cover. Normally library books don’t have stickers in them! These were very new and Claire was on it. We let her keep the stickers, but we peeled them off the cover and put them on the train table.
By God’s providence we were there at the same time as Dianne Carlo and kids. Lance and Matthew borrowed the same Firetruck picture book. I found Richard Dawkin’s God Delusion, Mark Driscoll’s Religion saves, and a few very new computer books. Jenn found some cooking books on cupcakes and soups.
There was so many people and the lines were plenty long. The people in line with us had so many books that they were finding surfaces to place their books on as they waited in line. They encouraged everyone around them to do the same: it was funny. We held onto our books because we had settled into a comfortable hold on them, and we knew the line was going to keep moving.
When we first entered the store we ran into another neighborhood mom that Jenn knows. While in line we saw Nate and his son quickly walk buy, we said hi and they were taken back for a second at the size of the line. A few people in front of us was another family that we vaguely recognized but could not remember from where we remembered her; we kept staring and staring, but just couldn’t remember.
What a nice library visit. We thought it would be too busy to bother, but it actually turned out to be a fun time.
Family, Sunday, January 24, 2010
The Simple Faith of a 2 Year Old
At the end of our family worship we ask each of our children to prayer for something. We asked Claire if she would prayer for the children in Haiti. We explained that their houses were crushed and some of them don’t have any mommy or daddy.
Claire said, “I share my daddy; I share my mommy” (She’s only two, so the English is a bit broken).
Jenn and I looked at each other and were moved by her compassionate response. We asked her a second time to confirm that she would really want to share us: she did. What a simple solution, at least form her perspective!
In her prayer she continued to voice her desire to share her daddy with the children of Haiti. I must admit I was a little choked up at that point. We all finished our prayers and Jenn asked, “so, will we be adopting a child from Haiti?”
I said, “Who knows, I guess we’ll see.”
Well, that’s quite a prayer. It’s easy to discount her little prayer as just the naivety of a 2 year old who’s prayer is straight from the heart. She really wasn’t thinking about the difficulty of the thing she was asking. At the same time, the Bible calls Christians to do this very thing.
“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” (Jas 1:27)
Perhaps this is one of the qualities of a child that makes them the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
“Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 18:3-4).
Announcements, Monday, January 18, 2010
And the Ingredients for a Delicious Cake
Here’s the announcement as it was communicated by email from by brother Anthony this morning:
Guess what! Lisa and I are engaged!
We just enjoyed the most amazing ice cream cake that I have ever made
... and the only one! Here’s the list of components, all of which
were homemade:
1. chocolate cake
2. coffee ice cream
3. almond buttercrunch toffee
4. chocolate ice cream
5. hot fudge
6. caramel
7. whipped cream
So I immediately emailed back:
You must be kidding: “we’re engaged, here’s a list of ingredients for a delicious cake”? Can you please elaborate more on the engaged part! Forget the cake!
Was the cake so delicious that Anthony was inspired to marry Lisa? I’ve known cake to be good, perhaps this cake was just blow your mind good that all things, including engagement, pale in comparison. Or maybe the cake helped give Anthony a perspective on life that recognized the importance of enjoying good cake with the person you love.
Stay tuned. Certainly more to come.
Update: Juicy Details
Anthony responded:
Haha. Sorry about that.
It happened at the apartment. I just wrote the proposal on top of the
cake in chocolate and the ring was sticking up inside the ‘o’ of
‘you’. I led Lisa to it with her eyes closed. It was spelled funny
in a way we like to talk to each other for fun and she laughed out
loud when she saw it.
Earlier in the day we went to Giorgio’s since we hadn’t had their
pizza for a while. That’s always as good as we remember. After that
we watched a movie called Visioneers on DVD. It has that guy Zach
Galifianakis from The Hangover in it. It was a pretty good dark
comedy but we didn’t like the ending.
Fortunately my proposal and the cake saved the day. Lisa was very
happy and surprised. We’ll send some pictures soon.
Update: Photos
I’m not expert on marriage proposals, but this is cute, clever and fitting for Anthony and Lisa. They’ve been on a baking trend for a while now. Anthony has a blog that he writes about different baking adventures. There are more photos of the ring, the cake, and Anthony and Lisa in their photo gallery.
Gallery, Sunday, January 03, 2010
Snapshots of Us Around the House
Here’s some photos of the family the Sunday before Christmas. There’s actually a few of me this time.
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