Now that the storm has passed and since all my new equipment came in just before the storm, I thought that I should play around and take some pictures. Malachi and Jadon balked when I asked them to dress in their nice clothes. Once they realized that I was going to point my camera at them they complied quickly. Jadon is very comfortable in front of the camera. As long as I have a fast shutter speed, and think fast, I can get some great shots of Jadon. It will be a lot easier when he learns that pose and pause method. Right now he just poses and poses.
Malachi on the other had is like a deer in headlights when he gets infron of the camera. I happen to think that he is one of the cutest kids I have ever seen, and I always have. I believe it is ok for me to hold this opinion since he is my baby! He has a wonderful smile that can light up a room unless you have a camera. We did some smiling exersises and talked about how a real simle looks, but we were still having difficulty. I guess soemtimes you have to give your kids and ego stroking, because it was after I told him that he could be a model if he could just learn to smile like the camera was not there. I fiddled with the camera a while and got these shots. I told you he is cute.
Being Me
Filed under: Uncategorized
Thar be my first hurricane, mitees! Those two silly little tropical storms didn’t count.
Now that I’m a veteran, I’m going to speak on behalf of every hurricane survivor everywhere. “We just pretend it’s tough.”
That’s right… all you silly people living across the rest of the country don’t even realize that these “big huge hurricanes” aren’t really that much of a problem. Flooded house? Pish. Devistated islands? No problem. Vehicles full of water? At least the next time you took I-10 you could use the car-”pool” lane.
The reason we all live in hurricane alley is because we really like getting the extra days off work. Or, for the electricians and plumbers and roofers among us, we really like the overtime!
Besides, it gives us the opportunity to compare our evacuation skills to those of New Orleans. Sadly, this year, they won. Good on’ya Govs.
On a more serious side, there’s a passage of Scripture that holds new meaning to me. I can think of only one sermon I have heard on this passage… but I don’t remember anything about it except that I found coloring O’s, Q’s, and D’s in the bulletin to be much more entertaining. I do, however, distinctly remember that the pastor said it was important.
In Luke chapter 16, Jesus tells a story of a certain shrewd businessman who discovered he was suddenly out of favor with his master for wasting his master’s possessions.
Being shrewd, his priorities made a sudden and dramatic shift. Rather than focus on the efforts of making money for his master (whether he was good at this or not Jesus did not say), he chose instead to make friends (at his master’s personal expense, of course). This way, when the master tossed him out, he suddenly had a whole host of friends who were more than happy to pay his unemployment benefits (18 months or whenever he receives employment with compensation of at least 90% of his previous employment, whichever is shorter).
This story of Jesus’ strikes me in a new light.
Here we sit, chalk full of tons of goodies and wealth. We have an abundance of food, clothing, and even a few cookies Jadon hasn’t discovered yet. while we walked away from Ike with everything, there are thousands upon thousands who lost it all. I’m reminded of an old lady who guilted her son into staying with her on Galveston Island. How fortunate for her he “happened” to have life jackets with him. She lost everything she owned in this whole world, nearly losing her own life and her son’s.
Basicly, God called back from her everything He had given her. As Christians we know that everything we have is God-given and God-owned. At any time, God may require everything He has given us to be forfeited.
This isn’t because God is being mean to us or even necessarying targeting us for “a lesson on living without”. It is simply because the blessings and sorrows rain on both the evil and the good.
Looking at this story of Jesus’, we’re all managers of God’s possessions. Not once in his story does Jesus refer to something the manager owned. Instead, he said that the manager owned nothing.
In time, God will call each of us to give an account of them. The question is, have we been using God’s possessions to the enrichment of others? Or have we horded them to ourselves? While this moral seems so intuitively obvious, I would question each of our actions in carrying it out.
I live in Houston. Several of our cities have been destroyed — our neighbors. These neighbors who last week had homes, tables, computers, sofas, and beds are now destitute. Some of them have fewer remaining possessions than the beggers under the I-10 overpasses.
Now what will the people of God do with their wealth?
I might point out that Jesus concludes his story with his ever-quoted condemnation, “You cannot serve both God and Money.”
Filed under: Malachi
When we were at the hospital while I was being induced with our first son, I asked Josh to write a newsletter for the family, in order to keep him busy. Josh being Josh, he took it literally and wrote a news article in the the paper JL&M Press. The story title: B-day War is over. It was a report on a military surge on Natal Bliss. To this day I can’t help but smile when I read the story. Tonight we pulled out the old boxes and found the article and blew the dust off of it. We read it to a very impatient Malachi who wondered why he had to listen to this weird story until he found out that it was about him. I hope you enjoy this as much as we do.
B-day War is over!
After nine tricky months on the treacherous soil of pregnancy, the Garvin family finally can declare victory. Dr. Linda Widing, obstetrician and battle strategist, told JL&M Press that the war took a serious turn last Tuesday. Garvin forces, under the direction and command of Widing, made a Naval offensive as they broke into the waters of Natal Bliss. Bliss was quickly put to flight as wave after wave of contractions rippled through the Natal landscape.
But the war did not end there. It quickly became a waiting game, a game that seemed to settle into a steady pace until Natal Bliss began becoming anything but blissful. Enemy forces surged into the area, forcing the Garvin forces into a defensive position until Dr. Torres arrived with his Epidural force. On Wednesday, at about 2:30pm Pacific Standard Time, Epidural broke the enemy lines and again reclaimed the field. From that time until about 8:00pm PST that night, the battle was slow and intense with ground being gained by Garvin troops, about a centimeter per hour.
Widing returned again with extra forces and supplies to finish off the battle, but Bliss forces were determined to fight to the death. Surrender was not an option. Widing led the way as Garvin forces fought for a grueling half hour to extract the prisoner taken by Bliss. No matter how hard Garvin forces pushed, though, Bliss refused to allow the prisoner leave. With the survival of the prisoner and Garvin forces being the concern, Widing placed a call to Garvin leadership. Finally, after consulting with Garvin leadership, the order was given to implement a direct strike at the heart of the region.
A surgical operation quickly ensued, with the capitol of Bliss, Utero, being the target. At 11:28pm, with Garvin forces suffering minimal losses, the extraction was complete. Medics immediately tended to the prisoner, a 9 lb 15 oz 22¼ inch male. Widing and Garvin forces remained in battle until early the following day. The ex-prisoner is reported to be agreeable and healthy, although able to provide little information at this time. Garvin public relations officials have said they have identified him as Malachi Eugene, a somewhat elusive figure until this time. It appears now that numerous movements over the face of the heartland of Natal have been due directly to his activity.
Garvin forces, now recovering from the struggle, face sleepless nights with the confused and often erratic behavior of Malachi, public relations officials say.
Filed under: Uncategorized
I planned on doing formal pictures of Cassian once school started. Of course that would be the time that Jadon would choose to take my camera a ruin it. Thankfully I had anticipated that this was a likely possibility and insured that camera the moment it arrived from the store. So what was a photographer to do in the mean time, when she has a baby who is getting older by the second. I mean he looked like a 2 month old when he was born and I was to tired and sore to do a proper newborn picture session. ( PTL I took 5 min one day and got a couple of nice newborn shots.) I felt that I had been deprived of my baby’s photos, because there was no way I was going to pay someone else to take portraits of my baby. Maybe this is why the youngest just gets shown pics of older siblings, and is told “you looked something like that.”
“HOO HOO” Heather to the rescue. My friend let me borrow her camera and this weekend we got some great shots of our boy. My new camera should be arriving shortly and even though it was tough I forgave Jadon. Now we just have to figure out how to keep him from doing it again.
So anyway you are most likely here to look at the photos. So without further adu here they are.
