Date Night and Bubble Bath

Just incase you were worried, these date nights and bubble baths are with my buddy Levi.  

See we have a little thing we like to do on Sunday nights after getting done with working at church.  Robby is usually on the road on Sundays, so it's just me and little man.  We get in the car, usually hungry from all the play with other kids, and head to dinner.  Tonight it was McDonalds.  Yuck, I know.  Hey, it was boys choice tonight.  (not going to pretend I didn't eat it)

After playing more and stuffing ourselves, we headed home for a night of more fun in the tub.  Levi loves bubbles of any kind.  The process goes something like this...

-turn on the faucet

-dump in some bubble bath

-watch levi wait patiently for the water to rise

-once the water is at the approved level...

-turn on the jets for supreme bubble making!

So have fun in your tub with your kids!  This way it doesn't matter if you get splashed!  You're wet anyway!

Pajama Day!!

Today Levi and Mommy had Pajama Day!  I am actually still in mine.  Hey, it's the Sabbath right? 

Anyway, while we were relaxing playing a little Wii (which only lasts about 5 minutes with a 2 1/2 year old), I decided to get out the camera.  I love capturing Levi on video.  I don't do it enough. There are so many things in his life, and little moments and words that I have missed.  I don't want to forget anymore of them.  I have pictures, but videos just do something else to the heart.  You get to see these little jewels in action.  

Bare with the editing, I love iMovie, it's just a little tricky.  Hopefully it will get better in time.  It has actually taken me about 2 hours to get it just right.  (I actually accidentally deleted the whole thing once, wasn't very happy about that!) 

Enjoy a little look into our Pajama Day!  Love you all!

It's Gonna Get Loud Around Here!

He wants to catch your ear in order to awaken your voice. When you have your "quiet" time, or as you walk outdoors, or during your commute, may the decibel level rise to joyful noise and cries of need—and may God listen to the sound of your voice!

The above is an exert from a Blog a stumbled upon in searching for someone to help me.  Tonight as I listened to my pastor go through Luke 11:1-13, I was more convicted than I have been.  I really wasn't so sure that was possible.  The Lord's Prayer.  We've all read it, heard it, spoken it.  Have we really applied it?  I haven't. 

I have really been struggling lately with prayer, reading, just the pursuit of Jesus in general.  My greatest desire right now at this moment, and I pray for every moment in my life to come, is to passionately pursue Jesus.  A true relationship with Him.  No more checking the quiet time off my list (which I never get to do anyway).  I am going to pursue Jesus to the fullest and let Him overflow out of me.  Still I get concerned and I doubt myself.

Therein lies the problem.  Myself.  I am in the stinking way!  It's about Him, not me.  As Matt said tonight, I can ask and ask and ask, knock, and knock and knock.  If I am not doing what I need to be doing and actually becoming active in this pursuit, then it will go nowhere.  

I might be the laziest person I know.  So that needs to end.  I spend more time in a day watching tv, answering email, working out, thinking about dinner, playing with Levi, reading everything but the Bible.  But I don't have enough time to pursue Christ.  How am I supposed to enstill the lessons of Christ in Levi when I and not living it at all?  His heart must be breaking.  The world and all my idols are winning!  Do I really want to stand before Christ and say, "sorry I just really needed to see the Olympics, nothing personal!"  It is very personal.  I want it to be personal.  

So that all brought me to this Blog, Between Two Worlds.  You should take a look.  He talks about talking outloud when we pray.  Why do we always feel we need to be silent?  Well I will tell you this, I think this is a marvelous thought.  Actually talking to God.  Getting away in a silent place so that He has my full attention and me raising my voice to Him.  I have never had a problem being loud.  So tonight as I talked with my buddies, I told them I just didn't know where to start.  Well, I think this is it.  I do talk to Him, it's just not a priority.  Or, it wasn't a priority.  He is waiting to hear from me, and He will.  It just might get a little loud around here.   

Worship in the raw

If you don't know who Phil Wickham is then I want to tell you.  He has got to be the most overlooked, amazingly blessed, passionate songwriter of our time.  Bart recently talked about him on his blog, so I thought I would add the link to my blog as well incase any of you don't read the MercyMe blog.  Phil has recorded a night of worship at a church in Portland with just him and a guitar and God's people praising Him.  He is giving it away to everyone in order to Singalong and just worship our Mighty Father.  Don't miss this amazing album.  There's no reason to, it's completely free!  You will be blessed by it!  I promise!  If you aren't, come talk to me.  We need to sort through some things!

Video Fun

Robby came home and had just gotten us a new video camera.  It is this amazing little contraption called a Flip.  It's pretty inexpensive, and just a tiny video camera that records only an hour at a time.  Perfect for us.  It even fits in my pocket.  Just one more thing for me to lose.  So enjoy our little trip to the Rangers game.  Please note who Levi is really rooting for while singing Take Me Out to the Ball Game!

Fireworks and Family

So I have this Family.  It's truly amazing to call them Family!  We are together all the time and actually are still trying to figure out how we can all live together!  Maybe someday.  Until then we just spend time together whenever we can.  Robby, Levi, and I go to the rangers games often, but on a rare and most awesome occasion, we can get a set of twins and 2 two year olds into the car and make it family time with fireworks!  It's great when we can make it happen!  Owen Osteens favorite artist is Elvis.  He LOVES him!  So we went to the rangers game on Fireworks night and watched as they did the most spectacular fireworks display to Elvis songs.  It was so much fun.  So enjoy a small glimpse into our family life.  We were sad Robby couldn't be there, he was busy!  I love you guys more than you know!

3rd Annual Restaurant Week

The Lights are Famous evidently! 
Here we are looking Fabulous!
Kristen, Molly, Tracy, and Julie (who hates Goat Cheese!)
Kyle and Andrea looking awesome!
Our resident Photographer
Meredith, Andrea, and Me!

Well another great year for Restaurant Week.  This year me and the girl went to Craft in Dallas at the W Hotel.  We had a great time and I just love these women.  We don't see enough of each other with our crazy lives!  so to all of you... I love you and I hope to see more of you than just at Restaurant week!  Food Rules!!!!

 

The Most Spectacular Finish!

Ok seriously enough, you need to be watching the Olympics.  You shouldn't be missing it.  Tonight I watched and literally screamed and jumped up and down as the United States men "smashed" the French at their own game!  Here is the quote from the French early on about the Americans..."The Americans?  We are going to smash them!  That's what we came here for!"

I guess Alaine Bernard wasn't ready for the American team to use that for fuel.  Do they not know by now that this only makes us want to beat them even more?  So We started with Phelps, who of course kept us strong at the start, Garrett Weber-Gale and Cullen Jones kept us in it during the middle of the race.  The crucial moment came when Jason Lezak was trailing Alaine Bernard.  Suddenly at the end of the race, and I mean the end, Lezak literally snuck up on Bernard and just barely beat him to the wall.  It was AMAZING!  The shot above is Phelps SCREAMING for his team mates just after seeing the clock.  There was a brief moment when they didn't know who had won.  It was truly spectacular.  (Oh, and how about those muscles?)

This is why we watch the Olympics at the Shaffers.  I was by myself, Levi will watch it again with me in the morning, but I didn't care.  I felt like I was there with everyone else waiting with bated breathe for some sort of swimming miracle, and it happened!  Robby and the guys are on the bus and said they were all screaming and jumping up and down.  When we won they were all hugging and high fiving as though they too had just won!  

So, in short, don't miss anything else.  You are missing history unfold if you aren't watching.  I promise, you won't be disappointed.  It's always so unpredictable!  So buckle down and enjoy the rest!  I guarantee there will be more excitement!

People, it is us who "Smashed" them!

The Olympics

I have been waiting for this for 4 years and it is finally here.  The 2008 Olympics, and I CAN'T STOP WATCHING!!!  If I am not home, I Tivo them.  If I am home, they are always on.  Levi is even now always asking to watch swimming.  I think I am getting him interested in Gymnastics, he was a little hesitant with the Volleyball though.  

I am absolutely amazed at the human body that God created.  The abilities these athletes have.  The machines that they fuel by desire, focus, determination, and (yes Lanny) PASSION!!!  I hope that everyone is watching these Olympics.  I know that it is not healthy for my TV to be on all the time.  Not healthy for me or my son.  But you know what.  I DON'T CARE RIGHT NOW!!!  For these next two weeks we will be diligently supporting our country.  We will be cheering, crying, screaming at the tv as all these athletes are striving for one of the greatest moments in their lives.  We have so much to be thankful for, and one of them is that we wake up every morning and take a breath in order to live our lives to Glorify God.  I just wish I could take my breath everyday as a machine and fuel it with energy instead of thinking about how wonderful that cupcake is going to taste.  Maybe in heaven I will be the athlete I always wanted to be.  For now, I will just watch the ones that have that gift and root for them all the way to the Closing Ceremonies!  Please don't forget what an amazing blessing it is just to be able to watch these events as they unfold around the world.  I get to see it happen even though I am not even there!  It's greatness!  So God Bless America as we shoot to obliterate the competition. It's not about politics right now, its about the whole world coming together to show what they are made of.  And we, as the United States, are made of some amazing athletes!  So GO RED, WHITE, and BLUE!!!!

Peace Out!