The Holidays Are Upon Us

Last Sunday, our Sunday school class, Crossroads, kicked off the season with a holiday-themed service project. We all got together and put together shoeboxes full of gifts for Operation Christmas Child. It was a great time of fun, fellowship, and listening to my fabulous Christmas CD collection. (Although, it would have been better if I had my new Funky Funky Christmas CD by NKOTB at the time, but I only had the cassette until Wednesday.) We were able to fill 12 boxes for children of all different ages. It was a blessing to know we were doing even just a bit to serve the Lord this Christmas.

Thanksgiving was a lot of fun this year. Matt and I had a nice quiet day with just the two of us, the Macy's Parade (did anyone else love the Special Needs Color Guard?), and the Dallas Cowboys. I made a delicious spread of just the foods that we like to eat at Thanksgiving and could handle as leftovers. I don't like any of the canned or boxed stuff, so I got to make it all from scratch. Since Matt usually cooks for us, it was nice to make an entire meal for him from scratch (that probably sounds so lame to my homemaking friends, oh well). We had Cornish game hens, mashed potatoes with chives and cheese, cranberry-orange relish, and apple pie. We went to our friends, Paul and Robin's, place for dessert on Thursday evening, so I got my pumpkin pie fix then.

Overall, it was a wonderful Thanksgiving and I feel very blessed to have been able to experience it. I am so very thankful for my wonderful husband who does so much for me and for our family (yes, 2 people DOES a family make!!). God has been so gracious to us!!!!!

Movember - Week Three

That's me in week three of Movember. Here are links to the previous posts: One and Two.

So I realized that in my other posts I did not give a good definition of autism or, better yet, Alida pointed out that I didn't! So here it goes: Autism is a spectrum of neurobiological disorders, ranging from mild to severe, that usually lasts throughout a person's lifetime. There are three
primary inicators used to diagnose autism: 1) Improper or repetitive use of objects, 2) inappopriate or disinterest in social interaction, and 3) delayed and disrupted communicative skills. For one to be diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder he or shee needs to exhibit two out of three of these characteristics. For some people their case might be mild meaning that they will be able to function somewhat successfully in the world. For others, however, their case may be severe meaing that they will need extensive assistance in daily living. For more information check out the Autism Speaks website by clicking HERE.

Movember - Week Two

Here I am, in all my manly glory! It's week two of Movember and my facial hair is coming back in nicely. In a previous post I talked about how I was growing my facial hair during the month of November to raise awareness about autism, so this week I thought I would share some more facts with you. More children will be diagnosed with autism this year than cancer, diabetes, and AIDS combined. Despite this, autism research is drastically underfunded while the costs of autism spectrum disorders (over $35 billion dollars a year) are constantly increasing. You may be thinking, "Whoa! That's too big a problem for me!," and you're right! But together we can educate one another about autism, encourage our representatives to increase autism research funding, and pray for those suffering from this range of disorders (both those directly affected by autism and those who care for them). For more information, check out this fact sheet at the Autism Speaks website.

Lauren Came to Town!!

Our friend, Lauren, came to visit us this week. Well, actually, she didn't come specifically to visit us--she happened to have a conference in LA, so we got to benefit from her coming to present at the conference. She got to stay in our midget apartment (although I don't think she believed how small it was until she actually saw it)! We've known Lauren and her fabulous husband Brian from our undergraduate college days, so it was a nice blessing to get to spend time with her. We got to show her around LA on Saturday. We went into Hollywood, saw the Walk of Fame, Mann's Chinese Theatre, the Kodak Theatre, the Hollywood sign, Beverly Hills, and we ended at the Santa Monica beach for sunset. It was a perfect day--beautiful weather and a nice smog-free sky! We were super blessed to have her come. Here are some pics of our fun day:

Lauren and I at the Beverly Hills sign

Wading out into the ocean

Matt and I on the beach at sunset

Devotional: Jeremiah 1.4-19

Jeremiah 1.6-8:

"Ah, Sovereign Lord," I said, "I do not know how to speak; I am only a child."

But the Lord said to me..."Do not be afraid...I am with you and will rescue you," declares the Lord.

In the last devotional we talked about how we are called to be God's prophets - God's spokespeople - wherever we find ourselves. In the verses for this devotional we read about Jeremiah's call as a prophet. God tells Jeremiah that he has called him to be his prophet and that he did so before Jeremiah was even formed in the womb. Naturally enough, Jeremiah is a bit thrown off by this. Not only is God saying that he will be a prophet, but now Jeremiah has the weight of God's eternal design on his shoulders too.

So Jeremiah whines, "But I'm just a child." God, in his infinite wisdom, knows just what to say. In essence God simply says, "Sure, you may be a child. But that doesn't matter. I'm with you. Hold my hand. Just trust me and I'll walk you through this, no matter how hard it might be."

It is my guess that God is calling each of us to speak up for him in our worlds but we are scared. We all have our own reasons: fear of sharing our faith, don't want to sound stupid, don't want to ruffle feathers, not really that confident in our faith, whatever. God knows and he will walk with us through whatever obstacles we face. And we will face obstacles. The cross is foolishness and weakness to the world (1 Cor 1.22-25). But no matter what, the Lord whispers to each of us in our innermost beings, "I am with you and will rescue you."

Thanks be to the Lord!

Movember - Week One

I was piddling around on the interwebs the other day and discovered something amazing -- Movember! The word "Movember" is a combination of "moustache" and "November" and the concept of "Movember" is that a man shaves on October 31st and lets his facial hair grow for the entire month of November in order to raise awareness for a cause.

So my cause this Movember is going to be autism awareness. Today 1 in 150 children are diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders, so it is highly likely that you know someone with one of these disorders or someone who has a child that does. Even though I could go on and on about autism (thanks to my beautiful wife teaching me so much about it!), I'll spare you that. Instead I'd like to challenge you to get involved with the noble cause. You can do so by going to the Austism Speaks website or the Autism Society of America website. Then click on "Get Involved" and see if any of those options are appealing to you.




So here is me before October 31st:

And here is me just after midnight on November 1st:

Happy (Belated) Halloween

So, I meant to post this yesterday, but I came down with a case of the nasty cold and I stayed in bed most of the day. We had a lovely Halloween. We made some Halloween blondies (the opposite of brownies), dressed up Sunnie in her costume, and attended the Crossroads (our Sunday school class) Halloween party at our friend Hai's house. I love Halloween, so it was an overall great day for me...especially since I don't work on Fridays and I had the opportunity to just enjoy the day, chill, and clean in my Halloween costume. Here are some pics commemmorating the fabulous day....

All the Speech-Language Pathologists in my office dressed up as animals for work on Thursday. Clearly, I was a lion!!!

The Barnes family on Halloween:

Humphrey the Jack-o-lantern

Alida and Matt as crayons

Sunnie as a bee

Sunnie's never been thrilled about her bumblebee costume!

So, I'm not expressing any political views here, but our friends Joe and Ginger carved Sarah Palin into their pumpkin!!