Friday Favorites, vol. iv

This week I'm loving...

1.  this acoustic cover of A Million Dreams from The Greatest Showman

It's good morning music.

2. YouTube videos

This is a funny one for me because when YouTube first came on the scene I was vehemently against wasting my time watching people be stupid on the internet, but now it's the home of so many really smart and creative people helping me explain particle accelerators to my kids...and to me!  This week I started using it to supplement history, too.  We were reading about the first kings of England this week, and we all liked this one.

3.  re-reading Flavia de Luce books

I got behind reading new books in this series, so I started re-reading ones I've already previously read to have the stories fresh in my mind.  They're so good I accidentally read three in three days this past week.  If you like cozy British mysteries and precocious young female protagonists, these are for you.  Alan Bradley is master of a good simile.

4.  going to bed earlier

Part of why I could read three books in three days was I abandoned my before bed TV habit for a before bed reading habit and consequently fell asleep earlier.  I like watching TV, but I also like being a happier human the next day.  What to do...

5.  getting to spend my days learning history and science

I was just watching yet another YouTube video about the phases of matter with the kids (we've gotten into a routine of reading about a topic, then searching for a video that goes along with it), and it hit me, "I get to spend my days learning about history and science.  This is amazing."  I love history.  My brain doesn't compute science as well; I can't comprehend so much of what I read about the invisible world of electrons.  But I'm amazed at the people who can comprehend it and the God who created it all.  And I'm really grateful I get to learn even just a little bit more about these things.

“What intrigued me more than anything was 

finding out the way in which everything, 

all of creation—all of it!—was held together 

by invisible chemical bonds, and I found a strange, 

inexplicable comfort  in knowing that somewhere, 

even though we couldn’t see it in our own world, 

there was real stability.”

- The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, Alan Bradley - 

5 Black + White Pictures

I wrote in my last post that it was my last chance to share pictures of Paris in the snow, but I have just five more from Tuileries.  Last month Ella and I bundled up and braved the cold to see Paris in the snow one more time.  The park was closed off from pedestrians so there was a beautiful, undisturbed blanket of white.

There are always a lot of giant crows in this park, and this week we noticed a few with clips around their feet, so that made us wonder if they were kept specifically or at least kept track of there.  I thought in the mist of a snowy day that these crows looked rather creepy perched in the bare trees.

Let's hope that's the last of the snow pictures because spring is squarely here, and Easter is just a week away!  I highly recommend listening to Andrew Peterson's Resurrection Letters:  Prologue this week and go ahead and pre-order Resurrection Letters to start your Easter Sunday.  I don't think you'll regret it.

Life with Ella

One of Ella's front teeth has been loose for ages.  On Monday it finally got to the point where she could twirl it around from side to side.  It was hanging by a...I don't know what, and it was bound to fall out any moment.  She had a great fear of swallowing it.

I could pull it up pretty high.  Monday night she had pizza for supper, and afterwards we heard a startled cry from the living room.  "Did I swallow my tooth?!?!"  "Is it missing?" KJ asked.  Thankfully, the missing tooth was found on her plate.  She thought she just had a particularly hard piece of crust.  I took the cutest picture of her with missing tooth, but she's refusing to let me post it.  Eventually her toothless smile will have to be seen, though, right?

Cutie.

In other Ella news, we had our first piano lesson in a long while.  For some reason lessons were a hard thing to work into our school rotation, but we had a chance during James' nap yesterday and jumped on it.  I even started a lesson book for her where I wrote down what she should practice each day, so hopefully we will keep it up.

 Oops.  I spy an upside-down missing tooth.

Christmas is coming.

When the kids and I took a little road-trip to join KJ preaching revival a few weeks ago, I pulled out Andrew Peterson's Behold the Lamb CD for the drive.  I know I'm not the only one who enjoys listening to that in preparation for Christmas.  I love the tracing out of God's story of redemption and how true words set to music help you see with your mind's eye and feel how truly amazing and wonderful this story we're a part of is.

I've had different favorites through the years since KJ's brother, Kameron, first introduced us to the album.  (It was on a particularly memorable drive back to Louisville in the dark of night that involved a snow plow.)  Of course my eyes become watery thinking about Mary being pregnant, giving birth in the stable in the cold.  With all the talk of abortion in the news, I realized afresh how much God's choosing to form His Son in the womb of a woman gives dignity and honor to women, pregnancy, and mothering.

But this year I find my eyes watering over Joseph, the shadowy sub-character in the plot and his quiet faithfulness to the unexpected events of a miraculous conception, acting as a mid-wife, living in exile in Egypt to protect this boy, Jesus.  He believed God's word to him, and when I was in college it hit me one day reading Matthew:  Did Joseph choose to keep Mary a virgin in order that the prophecy might be fulfilled that the virgin would give birth to Immanuel?  I guess I assumed that he married her before they traveled to Bethlehem together, and I don't know this, but it seemed like he made that choice in order to honor God's Word. 

Joseph's story reminds me that you don't have to be the main character to play an important role.  Supporting roles need to be fulfilled with faithfulness and courage, and God is glorified in that.

Music for Your Car

If you've ever wanted a CD of Scripture songs for your kids that wouldn't drive you crazy listening to it in the car, I have a quick recommendation for you.  Check out Seeds Family Worship.  Someone gave us Seeds of Courage, and Ella got Seeds of Purpose for Christmas.  All the songs are a couple of verses of straight Scripture, and God's life-filled Word is the perfect antidote to whatever anxiety a mother of young children might be feeling.  Not to mention that my just learning to talk 2-year-old is now singing phrases of Scripture.  They're his favorite songs.

A few weeks ago I was leaving church after James ran head-long into the side of a door, and I was wondering if he might have a concussion and how I could tell and what I should do, and was I really going to survive this boy?  But James always demands his "song" now, and the words I hear booming out of the car speakers are, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God."  And it was repeated a few times, and it was the perfect antidote to my fears and anxiety.  Thank you God for James.  Please let him be okay.  Please keep him safe.  Please help me to take care of him rightly.  And then..."the peace of God, which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."  

Last night was the first time we opened Ella's new CD.  We went to McDonald's before church to let the kids eat and play, and as we were leaving, KJ took the kids out, and I was cleaning off the table.  I grabbed the top of KJ's cup of water, not knowing he had left the top slightly off.  It was full of water, and when I grabbed it around the top it buckled and water spilled everywhere, including on the knee of the little boy eating dinner beside us.  I felt so bad for getting him wet, and of course there was nothing I could do about it at that point.  After alerting an employee to the mess we headed to the car where the music came back on where we'd left off:  "Each day has enough trouble of its own, each day has enough trouble of it's own.  So do not worry, do not worry..."  Well, then.  KJ and I just laughed.  Each day does indeed have enough trouble of its own.  I'm glad Jesus commands us the freedom of not worrying.