Holland's Room Reno- Dots!

Holland's room is done!  So here is the surpise for the white walls:  DOTS!

Holland loves the dots and asks to go in her dot room all the time.  This is her big girl bed that also has dots as well as animals and ABC's.  Its like a toddler's all star combo.

This is where the cube and dresser ended up.  More dots!

Here is the orange wall with dots and a little arts and craft project.  Not sure if you can tell whats in the frames... but you can probably guess- its dots. 

This is Holland's reading corner.  She asks for her "corner" a lot too.

 

Holland's Room Reno- Paint Day!

So before I show some pictures of the paint colors I must say 3 things.  First off I have missed having my little wife painting alongside of me.  Spackle, sand, spackle, sand etc. can be kind of lonely by oneself.  Of course, she couldn't help with this project, you know being all pregnant.  Secondly, this will be Holland and eventually Aiden's shared bedroom.  We couldn't just go with pink or purple.  It had to be a neutral and we couldn't just copy the neutral nursery.  It made picking a color quite difficult.  Third, if you have never been to our house you need to understand that Steph and I have quite a reputation for our love for bright colors.  We have 3 different colors of green and 2 different kinds of yellow in our house!  These bright colors draw various reactions.  Some people say they love it (usually people trying to sell us stuff) and some say they hate it (usually people related to us!)  I think my favorite reaction so far was from Stephanie's grandfather.  After he saw our very bright green kitchen he said something like "I'd rather see the inside of a coffin every morning than have to look at your kitchen."  So with that being said the color we picked for Holland's room is...

WHITE!

Oh and bright orange!

Yep, 3 of the walls are white and 1 wall is bright orange.   I happen to love the paint (and the no strips!).There will also be a little surprise coming with the white walls soon, so stay tuned. 

Book Review: Too Busy Not to Pray

Book Review: Too Busy not to Pray by Bill Hybels

I must confess I have no idea where I got this book.  When we moved books out of what will be Holland's closet I found it and decided to give it a try.

Two words can sum up this book: simple and effective.

As for the first: simple.  The book is an easy read with very surface level exposition.  The illustrations are usually based off of family stories or other personal experiences.  The good part about its simplicity will be explained in a minute, but the simplicity did have a couple of drawbacks.  The first is that it was often repetitive.  The second being that it is in no way an exhaustive study on prayer and I would hate for anyone to think that it is.  There are great examples on talking personally with God, but nothing about reverence, about presenting requests to God, but very little about aligning your life with His will. 

Now for the second: effective.  I used to hate books that were simple.  I would only read books that forced me to grow and learn.  I have since learned that there is definitely a place for an easy read book now and then.  There is great value in reminders.  As I read this book I found myself thinking over and over again "this is simple stuff, I know this, I've heard it all before."  Yet, as I sat down to pray I found my prayer life reinvigorated.  I found a lot of my old patterns broken and replaced with a fresh, vibrant conversation with God. 

The whole of the book is an intensely practical guide to prayer and many of the suggestions he makes are doubtless good ones.  However, I think the real value in this book for me is that it made me think about my prayer life.  Concentrated, focused prayers are much better than half-hearted repetitions and formulas. 

Before I leave this review I'd like to share one prayer from a Theologian that Hybels quotes in the book- the prayer was a blessing for their food:

"Father, I love being alive today.  And I love sitting down with brothers in the Hole in the Wall (the restaurant), eating good food and talking about kingdom business.  I know you're at this table, and I'm glad.  I want to tell you in front of these brothers that I love you, and I'll do anything for you that you ask me to do." 

Room Reno Days 2-4

So here's how the room renovation has gone:

Day 2- Sand old spackle, apply new spackle, wait 24 hours

Day 3- Sand Old spackle, apply new spackle, wait 24 hours

Day 4- Sand old spackle

As you can tell, it is quite a process.  I have experimented a bit with how to fill in the strips.  On one of them I did the whole process including drywall tape.  The rest I've tried various shortcuts.  We'll see how it turns out tomorrow when I paint. 

Pray for the Chandlers

We have broken hearts for our good friends the Chandlers.  Their little girl Rebekah has just been diagnosed with Leukemia.  She is 6 weeks younger than Holland and they have grown up together.  We can't imagine what they are going through, so please keep them in your prayers.  You can keep up with how Rebekah is doing here : jchandler.org . 

Holland's Room Renovation Day 1

So I'm off for spring break this week which means its time to tackle redoing Holland's big girl room.  We are doing a couple things different this time around, we'll see how it goes :-)

One of the things we are doing that we've never done before is getting rid of the little wood strips that hide the joints.  Not that the cheap little wood strips aren't wonderful and all, but we are kind of sick of looking at them.  Somebody told us they filled in theirs with joint compound and it worked great, so we are giving it a try!  Anyone else out there who has ever done it?  Holland thought my big bucket of wall spackle was ice cream and got mad she couldn't have some (please daddy!).  Got all the strips out and spackle in, next step is sanding and going over missed spots.

This is the graveyard of wall strips.

Steph has fallen in love with the little cube storage units from Target.  I assembled this one tonight.  55 little finishing nails just for the 5 back panels!  Oh, we thought the bins were 2 packs and they were only 1, so there will be 2 more bins after we go to target again. 

That's all for day 1! 

Godly Confidence

Have you ever noticed that Scripture calls us to be both humble and bold?  At first glance the two seem opposites.  Its easy to confuse humility with timidity and boldness with arrogance.  I know personally I have lacked both humilty and boldness before but I have also experienced them working together from time to time.  When I venture out bravely but know also that I do so in a power far greater than my own.  Those moments are rare, but they feel good. 

I've met some people, though I can only think of a few, who seem to have humilty and boldness down.  They have a kind of godly confidence.  They are the kind of people who instantly set you at ease with their humble spirit but are not afraid to challenge you with their boldness.  They are not afraid to speak up, but don't feel the need to be the loudest voice in the room.* 

I'm not there yet, but I'm working on it. 

*One last note- if you read this paragraph and thought I was talking about you- you probably need to work on the humility part :-)

Signs of the times

I'm only 26 but I have been noticing a few disturbing signs of age lately that I thought I'd share.  Maybe you've seen a few of these in yourself as well.

1.  Books- I read them more.  Which is a good thing.  The sign of aging comes in selection.  If a book has small print it will probably get skipped. 

2.  The clock- I used to be able to see a clock from 3 rooms away.  Now I look at the clock on the microwave and see what looks more like fuzzy neon worms.  I know you are thinking the first two signs mean I need to get my eyes checked- and I will- when I can no longer tell it is a microwave that the clock is on.

3.  My memory- I can't remember anything!  My memory was never very good so this may not be a sign, but I include because its getting very inconvenient.  For one thing I sent my ipod through the washer and dryer in a pants pocket a week ago.

4.  Music Volume- When I was younger I had a sign on my door that read "if its too loud, your too old."  Now, even if I wanted to play the music loud my minivan wouldn't allow it. 

5.   Music taste- The heavy rock gets skipped over most of the time in favor of the mellow stuff.  At least I'm not listening to Dave Matthews Band yet.

6.  Vitamins- I actually take them and they are neither cherry flavored or cartoon shaped.   

and the last sign of age- its 9:26 and time for bed!