I just thought everyone would like to know…I got by blood drawn and i didn’t even cry. Woo hoo! Now my 2 year old doesn’t have anything on me!

Well, you’d think an ice storm is an ice storm….but our ice storm was NOTHING compared to the ice storm that Fayetteville, AR got. Steph’s sister Lindsey and Patrick lost power the night before last and ended up staying last night in a hotel because the house got below 50.

So, although I played hooky from work because the roads were terribly slick this morning, we’ll still count our blessings that it wasn’t worse. It’s not every year in Texas that you get the opportunity to take pictures of mesquite and locust trees coated with ice. Makes for a pretty picture. Thus, pictures.

**Ayan’s birthday party is saturday…we are doing a cowboy birthday party in the old barn. I think it’s going to be alot of fun and alot of his friends are coming! If you feel so inclined, drop on by on Saturday at 11:00!

How crazy is it that a year ago, we came home with a sweet little boy from the other side of the world and brought him home to a new family here in the Midwest. God is good and has been displaying himself and his love for us through this entire story. Thank God for adoption, both Ayan’s and the adoption of His sons and daughters.

You can see the whole set here…

We begin our weekly Lost get togethers with our friends the Neals and the Weirs. Thank goodness for dvr. Can I get a shout out from any lost fan blog readers?

What what!

Ayan is sick. He is healing really well and never even acted like he knew he had surgery. But….he started a really bad cough on Friday an by Sunday Steph has to take him to an urgent care clinic. The diagnosed him with bronchitis and put him on on strong antibiotics. We are doing his breathing treatments right now. Poor guy, he is such a trooper.

No lie…
The horse lady that has the horses on the back of our land called around and found a circus to come pick up the miniature horse. Even better….it’s a midget circus!!!!! How perfect!

Awesome huh?

This crazy cool bentley coupe that was in the parking lot of our uppety Kroger grocery store in Rockwall. I’m lettin the guy borrow it.

So last week a miniature horse showed up INSIDE the horse fence with the other horses. Steph thinks he wandered in there but I think he was dumped. This horse is mean and feisty. Susan, the horse lady, put notes on all our neighbors doors and no one has claimed him. So……we may have a new pet. The joys of living on a farm.

Between Two Worlds: Want to See Some Real Cold?.

Now THAT’s cold.

Yes, I made this!  One try, one Razorback pancake.  Brian Weir had the pleasure of consuming this little gem.  I wanted to sell it on eBay, but Brian wanted it too bad. 

I finally figured out how to mobile blog on my iphone…which means I can now share my wealth of funny things I see when I’m out and about….like this!

What is this stuff?

More to come….

My entire life I have struggled with my weight.  I was overweight up until 9th grade and then I lost about 40 pounds and got to a normal size…then by graduating high school I weighed over 300.  By 2001, I weighed over 400 pounds and I was physically incapable of doing normal things.  Climbing stairs was almost impossible.  So, I began the Atkins diet.  My motives for losing weight were pretty much why any 21 year would want to:  find a girl, be more active, do things outdoors.  I was on Atkins for 18 months solid, working out 5 days a week, and lost about 180 pounds to get down to 230 pounds and a pant size 36.  The picture below (although blurry) shows me just after I met Steph in ‘03 at my lowest weight (I’m in the middle).  

Fast forward to now…having gained back up to 350, lost to 290, gained back to 373 now.  So, now we have a new year ahead of us.  But, New Year’s Resolutions are not my reason this time.  

My pastor, Ben McGraw, preached a sermon on the violent work of mortifying/slaying sin in our lives.  My entire life I have viewed the urge/passion to eat as the sin, which is incredibly defeating.  If we feel we have wronged God every time the urge/passion to sin is present, then we would be sinning UNCEASINGLY.  Romans 7:13-25 says this:

¹³Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. ¹⁴For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh,^(S) sold under sin. ¹⁵For I do not understand my own actions. For^(T) I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. ¹⁶Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with^(U) the law, that it is good. ¹⁷So now^(V) it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. ¹⁸For I know that nothing good dwells^(W) in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. ^19(X) For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. ²⁰Now if I do what I do not want,^(Y) it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

    ²¹So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. ²²For^(Z) I delight in the law of God,^(AA) in my inner being, ²³but I see in my members^(AB) another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. ²⁴Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from^(AC) this body of death? ²⁵Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

Passion ALWAYS lies close at hand.  The war rages ALL the time!  It’s the expression of that passion that is sin, not the existence of it.  God designed us so that his daily, hourly, minutely victory against the sin nature points to him.  So that every man that has the exact same passions can see that the Spirit is putting to DEATH the EXPRESSION of those passions.  What a freeing truth.  

So, my motivation?  The same as it should be in every area of my life:  To glorify Christ through His work in me!  My means: the Word, the Spirit, eating to glorify God (crazy thought huh?).  

Will the passion ever go away?  No!  For it lies “close at hand”.  Is Christ’s power in us sufficient?  ABSOLUTELY!  For He was tempted in EVERY way we were…and he lived sinlessly.  His passions were not sin…his absence of expression of those passions made him sinless.

Praise God!

Please pray for Steph and I as we journey through these rich, HUGE, new truths in the Word.  

All that said…here’s a kind of “starting point picture”  -  I was alarmed when I saw this.  

And a quick update.  I’m 2 weeks into the “diet” (I’m starting on Atkins) and I’ve lost 15 pounds.

Thanks Aunt Lindsey for the awesome new Cars tent.  This boy LOVES his Cars tent.

We made the decision to go ahead and have Ayan circumcised once we got him home.  They don’t do it in Kazakhstan until about 8 or 9 years old and it’s a big celebration with little or no anesthesia.  So…we feel like we spared Ayan from a life-traumatizing event.  Ayan has been a big trooper through the whole deal.  It’s now the day after and he is playing like nothing ever happened with no pain medicine.  Thank you, Lord!

One of the funniest moments was when Ayan got the goofy juice.  He turned into spaghetti man and started drooling and talking about things that weren’t there.  Steph said “I think the goofy juice is as much for the parents as the kids.”  I agree.

On the way to the O/R

Aaaaah….goofy juice.  He couldn’t even sit up. 

Not happy after surgery.  The meds made him feel strange.

The big payoff…an uninterrupted viewing of Cars.

Nuff said…