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Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Modesty Survey

   Quoted from the homepage of The Modesty Survey: "The Modesty Survey is an exciting, anonymous discussion between Christian guys and s who care about modesty. Hundreds of Christian s contributed to the 148-question survey and over 1,600 Christian guys submitted 150,000+ answers, including 25,000 text responses, over a 20-day period in January 2007.".


   The survey has been endorsed by Albert Mohler and Nancy Leigh DeMoss, and I read through most of it myself and found it quite fascinating! There were some questions asked that I never would have thought of on my own! It was so informative for me as a mother to hear from these young men now that we have a son to guard and guide into the future and you can filter the answers by age so it was even beneficial to me as a lady to hear how my "peers" thought on certain subjects, though I will still, of course, always turn to my God and my husband for the final say.



   As a young , I am ashamed to say, I was not exactly a firm role for modesty. By "worldly" standards I did pretty well for the most part, but there were certain things I would do or wear that I never even imagined as being immodest. But praise God that we don't have to be stuck in our thoughtless ways! He enables us to grow and mature in Him as we do in life and to put away childish things (1 Corinthians 13:11). You won't see many pictures of my young teenage years on this blog because the choices I made in hair and makeup make me want to roll my eyes!
   I yearn to raise our girls to delight in modest femininity, not to see how much they can dress like the world before crossing the line but to see how far away from it they can stay without wearing potato sacks and sticking out like a sore thumb (2 Corinthians 6:17) ;).



   We have spent a lot of time studying the Bible and seeking godly council in the area of clothing and a few years ago we made the transition to dresses/skirts for the girls/ladies of the family. We don't see it as a legalism thing, you're going to get to heaven if you have truly accepted Jesus as your Savior no matter what you wear. For us, we see it as the easiest way to keep from being a stumbling block to our brothers in Christ, when worn at the right length with the right blouse, of course, as we strive to live in a way that the Word of God be not blasphemed  (2 Corinthians 6:3&6, 1 Corinthians 8:9, Titus 2:5).

  We still have a long way to go before we have it all figured out. After all, that won't happen until we get to Heaven where we will be able to see everything clearly (1 Corinthians 13:12). Praise be to God for His patience and forbearance with us.  

   Some additional neat links on feminine dress can be found under the Femininity and Modesty heading at Ladies Against Feminism. A few of my favorites are Through the Week In Feminine Dress!, Wearing Dresses Gracefully and Dressing Everyday. Noble Womanhood also has a neat collection of articles on their website labeled under Modesty and Femininity  A couple of other interesting resources are The Language of the Christian's Clothing, a 2-part sermon by S.M Davis, Christian Modesty and the Public Undressing of America by Jeff Pollard, available in either book or CD form, and Raising Maidens of Virtue, a beautiful book for mothers and daughters by Stacy McDonald.



In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; ~1 Timothy 2:9A   
  

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Picture Day

   It takes a very special person to be good at children's photography. Lee used to be a professional children's photographer but he gave up that position for promotions and eventually left the company all together so he could be home more often. So now he really only takes pictures of our children...which can seem like a full time job some days ;).



You want me to hold it down here?


Here Daddy, you can have it...


Oh look! It comes apart!!!


...smells good too.


Ho hum..


Got it!!! :)

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

We Have a Sitter!



   He's still a bit shaky at it, but he sat long enough for me to take a couple (dozen?) pictures, which is a big deal because my battery was going out so it took awhile for the camera to prepare to take the next one.
   Lee spent some time the day after Valentine's Day taking some pictures for me. I'll share some of the girls in another post sometime, here are a couple of Andrew...





   Bethani has heard "Andrew" and "chubby" in the same sentence so often that when I pulled up his pictures she pointed and shouted, "There Shubby! There Shubby!" ;). Bri posted another picture of him on her blog.
   Remember when I posted about him sleeping through the night? Well, that lasted just long enough for me to get used to it...the last couple of weeks there have been nights I couldn't tell if he has really slept or not! His sleeping habits are actually worse now than when he was a few weeks old! I've hit a phase where one day seems to fade into another...Sleep? What's that? It was a total shock, we haven't had a problem with sleep at this age with the last couple of babies. I just remind myself when he wakes up for the umpteenth time...this is precious bonding time...this is precious bonding time...this is precious bonding time... ;). And it truly is, I really don't mind, I'm just in a constant state of tired in this life season.
   We decided to go with white for Andrew's purity rose, you can read more on what I'm talking about here if you missed it. I was afraid of yellowing with age but nothing else was "right", white symbolizes purity. The idea is he will "collect" one every year and on his wedding day he will add one red rose on his own to present them to her, red and white together symbolize unity. Here is a picture sure to melt the heart of my future daughter-in-law (Lord willing there is one, of course)...



My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways. ~Proverbs 23:26

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Over the River...

...and through the woods
to Grandmother's house we go!



Or, Lee's preferred caption...
Beep, Beep, Vroom, Vroooom...



We hadn't seen Lee's grandmother for over
five years, our family has grown a bit in that
time ;). It was a very special reunion with a
very special lady :).



We pray that God will continue to bless us in
giving our girls strong family ties for our good
and His glory :)!

Saturday, February 10, 2007

Yeah...

Bethani loves cream cheese....
Bethani just learned how to open the fridge...
What a mess...

Wednesday, February 7, 2007

Give Me Thine Heart...

   We are raising our children to expect the principles of courtship, as we see portrayed in the Bible,  to be the guide to their future relationships. We discovered the principles of courtship a few years ago and our first problem was, we do not know anyone who lives by them in our community. How, we asked ourselves, were we going to make sure the girls understood the why and how so deeply that when they came of age (they are only 9 years and younger now) they would hold these practices and beliefs as their own? We didn't want to "drag" them through the experience. Of course we talk about it anytime the subject comes up and we know people through long distance relationships who believe as we do but we wanted to come up with something "special". And then Valentine's Day came around. A week before Valentine's Day it all kind of came together for us, Lee bought a tiny box of chocolates and a rose for each (Only Bri and Tori at the time). The night of February 14th he read the story of Issac and Rebecca to them and explained the concept of courtship and that that was going to be a picture of how they would get to the marriage altar (family involvement, no one-on-one dating, etc.) . After he explained these things he asked each to give him their heart, handing them their rose as they answered he prayed with them, then they got chocolate ;). This year will be the third time that we get to share this beautiful tradition with our daughters. Ladies, I can't tell you how special it is to watch this little ceremony between a father and his daughters.



     Tori~ February 14, 2005   

   This will be the first year that we have a boy for Valentine's Day and we have decided that we will be giving Andrew an artificial rose each year and keep each of them for him to give to his future wife on their wedding day as a symbol of his purity and commitment to her. We thought of drying real flowers but I didn't like the idea of Andrew having to give his future helpmate something dead on the first day of their new life together, I thought the symbolism of something that can last practically forever was more fitting.    


   Daddy's are so important in the lives of their children. My children are so blessed to have a daddy who loves them and goes out of his way to teach and guide them. I am so blessed to have a husband who loves, protects and provides for me and who makes it a point to use his time to show his love and concern for us. I love you Honey!!!

My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways. ~Proverbs 23:26


Saturday, February 3, 2007

Guess What I Got For My Anniversary...

   A tooth. Well, not me personally, Andrew did. Yes, at 4 months and 4 days Andrew popped his first tooth, on our anniversary, and we didn't even know he was teething. Looking back the fact that he's been really hard to get to sleep the last few night makes sense now. Lee took us out for Mexican and I was calmly eating my taco salad when I hear Lee exclaim, "The boy has a tooth!!!". And so begins the demise of the toothless baby grin... <sniff, sniff>. On the bright side, those "toothy" grins are awfully cute too ;).