Tuesday, December 22, 2009

All bundled up

It's getting rather cold down here in Charlotte (I know, I know - cold for the South), so we've been making sure Titus is warm in his car seat. Two gifts from our friends are evident here. First notice the matching gloves and hat - man, what a cute kid. This was a gift from my brother's wife's parents, Dale and Brenda Muterspaugh. The 2nd is this deal called a Bundle-Me, a gift from a former coworker of mine, Kellie Hotz and her husband Jeff -- so awesome. It fits in the car seat and now is just in there for good until or it starts getting warmer. Turns out this thing is also good for bundling him up when we need him to sleep in the car seat!


Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Apparently coughing is funny

Katie coughed one day around Titus and discovered that - who knew? - coughing is funny. So we had to get Titus laughing at it. He doesn't as much anymore. He keeps us on our toes, constantly having to test and learn what will make him giggle. It's fun. :)

Graham

Saturday, December 12, 2009

"The Ultimate Parent"

My mom's church (Grace Covenant Church in Huntersville) has an amazing women's ministry called Morning Grace on Tuesday and Thursday mornings... somewhere around 600 women come from week to week. This past semester they offered 16 classes between the two days and they lasted 12 weeks.

I had the privilege of taking my mom's class called "Charting a Course For Your Family's Future." (I figured I better take it and buy the book before it becomes a best seller and costs a lot more :)) For any of you who know my parents, you probably know they are very good at their roles and are terrific parents. So I figured that as I started this journey as a mom, I ought to learn from the best.

The class was broken into 8 sections with an array of principles and hands-on, practical tips for parenting. It is designed to help you develop a strategic plan for your parenting so that you can be purposeful and on a track towards your goals rather than aimlessly approaching parenting as it happens circumstantially from day to day. We developed personal mission statements, created a family purpose statement, set goals and evaluated our health, personalities, giftings, etc. so that we can continue to improve and work as a family team.

Here are a few of the takeaways and ideas that were generated as a result of the course:
1. Pray for the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control) and for submission, servanthood and stewardship to be developed in each child we have (daily ideally).
2. Face my fears - I need to stop focusing so much on hoping certain things don't happen and instead walking through the fear and determining what I will do if ______. As a complementary point, I was also reminded that Titus (as with any other children we have) is not mine -- he is the Lord's so I need to remember my role as caretaker and steward and not as being the one ultimately in control.
3. I would like to institute some form of regular family time that would incorporate learning and praying together (to include discipleship, oral presentations, reading texts, etc.)
4. I hope to teach the importance and joy in giving by incorporating it in everyday life and holiday time periods -- and to do it in a variety of ways to expose the kids to lots of different opportunities and venues.
5. Building teamwork. I'll confess when one of the girls in the class brought this up as a priority, I didn't get it, but over time I've become more and more convinced of the importance of doing this. I want our family to act and feel like a team -- that we would be there for each other -- fighting for each other, helping each other, caring for each other -- and this must be consciously pursued. I'd like to see us do family runs or triathlons (working to improve family times from year to year by helping each other achieve goals) and perhaps start a family business to practice working together and along the way learn various business and financial principles.
6. Grading ourselves each year. This sounds like overkill I'm sure, but Graham and I have decided to rate ourselves individually and as a family at the beginning of each year in all areas of health (emotional, intellectual, physical, spiritual, relational and financial). We've broken this down further into sub-areas and we will pick our weakest 12 areas and spend one month working on each one throughout the year. Admittedly, when we have more children that are older, this may no longer be realistic, but we'd like to do it as long as we can.
7. Starting a Clark Family Day, where we celebrate being a family. We're planning to do this the first Saturday of March and there are several components that will be incorporated each year, but different activities. This came out of our dreaming about a "perfect day" as a family (one of the exercises in the class).

So while I am not the "ultimate parent" (and probably never will be), I do have a better sense of purpose and some plans for intentional parenting that I didn't have before -- so here goes nothing!

For anyone who actually reads this blog and is on the great adventure of parenting (or will be soon), I do highly recommend this class. My mom is now reworking the class to be more of a conference style so that couples can do this together. It helps you set a solid foundation in the Lord and gives lots of practical ways to navigate the calm and stormy waters of life that you and your children will go through over the years. This class was such a blessing to me -- thanks, Mom!

Friday, December 11, 2009

A Boy's Rites of Passage - Installment #1: A Trip to Lowe's

"Which Lowe's," you ask? Titus is insulted by the question! Lowe's home improvement, of course. (Seriously, why did they have to name a grocery store Lowe's as well?!?)

Lowe's home improvement is a man's dream come true. Power tools, hardware, lumber, grilles. The guy who invented Lowe's is a genius. I'd like to have him over for dinner sometime.

Anyway, so Titus took his first trip to Lowe's. Admittedly, Dad was more excited than Titus was, but it just may have been that his growing little brain just could not handle the full glory of it all. In time, my son; in time...

We took the opportunity on this momentous occasion to snap a quick Dad/son photo before we went inside:



After an hour or more of looking around for all kinds of stuff, he emerged unscathed. We should have had a before AND after photo, because you just might have found that Titus sprouted one tiny little hair on his chest.

Way to go, T-man. You make Daddy proud. Next, Daddy will show you how to act like you know what you're doing when trying to fix the sink. :)

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

My Very Own Handyman

I have to admit that when I married Graham, I wasn't choosing him for his handyman skills so now that we have a home, I am pleasantly surprised with this new side of him that I am seeing. He has been quite ambitious and much more capable than I realized. He has done several projects around the home that I would not have expected him to even consider doing himself. Most of these have been "improvement" projects for the home or yard, but last week we had our first significant "fix it" project. Our garbage disposal was leaking and we didn't know why. He diligently called his brother, did some research and took it apart, went to Lowe's (not that this was any hardship for him :)), found the part and reassembled it. I was very impressed with what he did... You can see some pictures from his work below.





And amazingly enough, here is the picture with him after he completed the job (only 3 short hours later - I thought it would certainly be at least a few days...)

Now - the disclaimer here is that I waited so long to get around to posting this that it is now leaking again... but I am completely confident in my husband and know that he will get it to stop leaking again soon :)
I'm so thankful for a hard-working, teachable, determined husband who is a great handyman!

Dressing Up

Graham despises Halloween. I don't like the concept, but I do like costumes (really any chance to dress up and be silly) and I know it can be a lot of fun for kids, so I'm a bit torn on it. Fortunately for Graham, we had some unexpected circumstances that prevented us from going to the Halloween party we had planned on attending. Since I love costumes and we were given four of them for Titus this year, I decided to take the opportunity to dress him up in each of them while Graham was at work and took some pictures... feel free to vote on your favorite would-have-been costume for him :)






4 Months Old

Titus is growing much faster than we'd like to admit - every day is such a joy. I had no idea how much I'd enjoy being a mom. He smiles and laughs so easily and loves to play and be held. He is a true extravert if I ever saw one :)

We had his four month appointment the other day... he grew a couple more inches and is in the 95th percentile for height. He is now only in the 50th percentile for weight though - a tall, thin boy... hmmm, that reminds me of someone ;) He had a great visit and seems to be right on track for everything... despite our doctor's frustration with me about not starting vaccines yet :)

Here are some favorite pictures from the last month:

Daddy and son love playing together...

Graham took a sick day last week to take care of me because I somehow hurt my back to the point of having trouble walking (fortunately, it only lasted a day) - so I took advantage of the care and took some naps with my precious son - here is one of us on the couch (I love these moments).

Titus is always very alert - I thought this was a fitting picture of his most common face. He's always looking around and discovering whatever he can find.

One night he was having a hard time going to sleep and had gotten a bit fussy... in desperation, I looked over and saw this cute stuffed elephant that Nita Youngblood got for him and thought maybe this was a good time to introduce him to it so I put it on his tummy. Unfortunately we didn't have a camera in hand right away so you'll have to take my word for it, but as soon as we put the elephant on his tummy, he looked at it and his tears went away and he immediately started laughing hysterically at it. Now he doesn't like to sleep without it... he loves to hold its trunk up next to his face and cuddle as he falls asleep :)

Thanksgiving in Clifton Forge

Titus had the chance to celebrate his first major holiday with Graham's family in Clifton Forge. We had a great time! Thanksgiving Day we all got together with Erin's (our sister-in-law) family for one huge Thanksgiving meal. Erin did a great job decorating their garage and several people brough dishes for the meal - it was terrific. I was particularly impressed with Erin for doing this since she is in her third trimester!! Here is the beautiful view from their house looking out over the river and the mountains:


We also had the chance to have a smaller family meal at Jerry and Judy's on Friday night - and we can't have a family meal without our text readings... as usual, we had very stimulating conversations as a result.
Here are some pictures of Titus with Aunt Erin and Grandma Judy (three generations):




Monday, December 7, 2009

Where We've Been

Admittedly, I'm a bit of blog binge writer rather than the typical day-to-day or week-to-week writer, but we've also been away because our lives were altered slightly over the last several weeks... the Lord gave us a terrific opportunity to learn some things and so we've been busy with that and I've been catching up a bit on "normal life" since :) I have to say though, I can't wait for the next opportunity He will give us - and I hope it will require more sacrifice than the last so that I can grow deeper in love with Jesus. This experience helped me to peal back a layer (if you think of an onion) to glimpse more into His love and to His transforming power in my life, but now it just leaves me yearning for more. So while a lot of what I'll be posting in the next few days is a bit out of date, I do want to write and post anyways so we have records for later.

First, I want to chronicle some of the big things God has taught me in the last few weeks:
1. His love for us is so far beyond what I could've imagined. Thanks to Karin's and James' recommendation, my family is reading "Crazy Love" by Francis Chan for a family discussion at Christmas. As I read it (and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a good shot in the arm!), I am convinced over and over of how little I really love - at least in the way I've been loved by Jesus and how He calls us to love in response.
2. I am far more judgmental than I'd ever like to admit, but as the Lord reveals this and softens my heart, I just pray like the apostle Paul, that He will carry this work that He has started to completion so that I might live free from judgment and self-deception.
3. I am blessed beyond what I could ever ask or imagine - and I mean that to the nth degree. To have an exceptional husband, a healthy and happy son, incredible siblings, parents and in-laws, a job for Graham that provides for us and even allows me to stay home with Titus, a wonderful home to live in, and the list goes on...
4. I really am spoiled. I know they always say that the last born is the most spoiled and they're right - but I've been spoiled even in my adult life with incredible siblings and spouses who continually amaze me with their deep love for the Lord, each other, their children and others around them. It has been so cool to have a front row seat to see how sacrifically they love and with such ease. They have each been blessed with different gifts, but they each use them in wonderful ways... I stand amazed and challenged to follow in their footsteps and again thankful beyond expression that I was placed in this family and not another. Over the last month or so, I was faced over and over again with how different my life could have been if I had been born to another family that didn't love the Lord and each other, or didn't respect girls, or didn't have the basic needs provided for, or didn't have a safe environment to live in, or any number of other things.

I've thought a lot, felt a lot and learned a lot in the last month, but what I am thankful for above all is that being faced with my selfish, sinful, fearful self has prompted me to run to Jesus and seek His face all the more. I pray that He will continue to reveal Himself and challenge me through the examples of my siblings and parents, through our friends and our church and through special opportunities like the one we had in November.

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