Here's a few pics from the last several weeks. Grammy and Poppaw visited with us as well as Gay and Brian. Emily had a blast particpating in the 'Little Warrior' cheerleader program where she got to learn a few cheers and then cheer along with the varsity cheer leaders at one of the home games. Josh enjoyed getting to particpate in his story book parade at his school as a cowboy too. Emily also experienced a huge milestone as she lost her first tooth as you can see in the picture down below. Lastly, the kids had a big time trick or treating in our neighborhood as they dressed up as leopard girl and a rock star.

A few recent pics from Wimberley from a few weeks ago...

His Terms, His Timetable

As I was spending time with God this morning I was wrestling with the following thought: we follow God on His terms and on His timetable and not ours. It's His yoke and not ours that He allows us to take upon ourselves. We are invited to submit to His plan and His way. So many times when we look at our lives it is filled with a frenzy of 'Christian' activity but the end result is that we are completely frazzled and weary and have little or no true fruit to show for it. Our job is to sit and hear God's voice and to simply say 'Yes, Lord' and follow Him. He has His plan and His will and He is working all over the world right now and He breaks into our world and invites us to join Him. It will involve altering my plans and my dreams and my to do list if I want to be a part of what He is doing.

If your boss comes in on a Monday afternoon and says, 'I need you to do this for me.' You dont' say 'Hey, I'd love to but I already have my afternoon planned out, sorry.' No, if you want to keep your job you say, 'yes, sir I'll get right on that.' His request trumps whatever plans you had made because he's the boss and you're not. It should be the same way with God. In Numbers 13-14 Israel rebelled against God at Kadesh-Barnea and refused to believe that God would hand over the Canaanites to them and give them the promised land. So God judged them for 40 years of wandering in the wilderness. Right after the judgment was given they decided they had changed their minds and went up against the Canaanites anyway. Well, they were of course completely defeated because they went in their own strength and God was not with them. They had missed their window of opportunity to obey God. God speaks and we have a window of time to follow Him that will pass us by. Everyday we need to be ready like Isaiah with a 'Here am I Lord, send me' attitude to follow Him on His terms and on His timetable not ours.

The kids enjoyed a great view from Derric French's shoulders as we ran into Stephanie and Derric at the Christian Academy football game on Friday night. Joshua acted like he was on a date with one of his classmates as they sat together and 'watched the game', she laughed at all his corny jokes, he (dad) bought her some cookies that they split (famous amos), and then she played hard to get as she ran all around the bleachers and he chased her. Yeah, I think he's got it bad. Emily also got quite a workout as she played the international kids game of 'tag' all over the playground and got lots of hangtime in with her buddy, Connor.

We had some good times this weekend. The Zombie hunt was quite the hit as we hit the Mall for a little shopping excursion. Whitney's mission was to find some new clothes for work. My mission was to thoroughly distract and occupy the kids to free up Whitney to successfully complete her mission. So, we're strolling through the department store and I notice that the sonic kids meal toys my kids had just received had been turned into ray guns and were being fired at objects all over the store and the kids were shooting the 'zombies' aka manicans all over the store. So this evolved into a very elaborate game where they were shooting the white ones, green ones, silver ones, black ones, brown ones, the 'cupcake' head ones, the ring heads, the headless zombies, the kid zombies, etc. Then every time we would pass a picture of a person modeling some clothes one of the kids would ask the picture for a 'clue' on our zombie hunt and they would give us the next clue. Eventually it turned into the quest for the zombie with the golden head (which we are still yet to find). Other features were the mirrors all over the store were the ray gun refueling stations and various colors gave you extra super powers like flying, karate abilities (which Emily demonstrated on one of the clothing racks to Mom's dismay), blending or camouflaging, invisiblity and hot lava-proof shoes. The game did get so out of hand that Mommy scolded all of us (including Dad).
The Zombie Hunters!




A Typical Headless Zombie

















Today we caught a lizard and put it in the kids bug catcher. Emily attempted to feed it a snail but the lizard seemed uninterested. After we finally let it out Emily discovered one of life's little lessons: never try and catch a lizard by the tail. Well she attempted to grab the little guy by the tail and sure enough that tail popped right off. She then was so mesmorized by this that she made me create a display for the tail (a white plastic cup with a little sign 'lizard tail' that was taped on with masking tape). We then enjoyed some time on the back porch as Emily and Joshua each explained a typical day at their school while we looked at a campus map that Emily had made. We then made some popcorn and cinnamon popcorn and watched a movie together.

Some random pictures of the kids!

We had a great trip to Georgia a couple of weeks ago. Here's a few pics from our trip.




Whitney's cousin Danyelle and her husband Mike! It was a beautiful wedding and we were so excited to get to be there to celebrate with them!

Daddy and Joshua hanging out before the wedding.

Emily, cousin Allison and Joshua at the reception. Grammy buys Emily and Allison matching outfits so they are often seen together as twins.

Here is Joshua with his plastic girlfriend. They haven't seen each other in almost a year. The picture below was when they first met in August of 2009.

Here is Emily with her plastic boyfriend. Maybe we should make a yearly tradition of this. It could be a new way of seeing how much they have grown each year!

Emily Quote: 'something in my heart says I want to be a magician but my brain says I need to be a vet. I think I will do what my brain says.'

Coming soon!!

Brian's reports and pictures from his mission trip to Haiti!!

It's been an active summer and wanted to capture a few moments real quick. This past Sunday and Monday we had a chance to go and meet our new nephew, Cole Miles Dunn. He's pretty awesome and it was really special to see my Brother Brad and Sister-in-law Katrina as new proud parents. Here's a few pics of other activities we've been a part of lately:

Emily has been enjoying being a part of 'jump' at the church (a 2-day a week program for kids who's parents work at the church). Here she's pictured with her jump friends as they had a chance to help collect donations for the food pantry, weigh the items, look for expiration dates, store the items on the shelves and see people prayed for.

No Joshua, you cannot marry your sister!

This is a picture of 'their world'. 'Their world' consists of pulling the couch back from the wall and then draping the curtains over the couch to creat a secret world. They then decorated it with pillows and blankets and hung out in there for a while.

This is the drawing that my daughter made me instructing me on the precise way I needed to make a mickey mouse chocolate chip pancake. She takes her pancakes very seriously and wanted to make sure I didn't mess it up. She has also told me before when I've made hamburgers that I need to go get a job at a restaurant so I can learn how to make a burger.

Our neighbors Tommye and David just had their second baby, Brady, who was born recently. They were pumped that Mrs. Tommye let them hold the baby and Emily was especially enamored when baby Brady started holding her finger. She is totally a little Mommy.
Another activity we have enjoyed recently is going out to Moorshead Blueberry Farm. You basically show up and they give you these white buckets and you go pick blueberries like crazy. We have been out there two times now and have picked about 12 pounds worth (1.50/lb). Although the last time I was out there I almost cried as after about an hour of picking and my bucket being about 2/3 full I pressed in close to get a bunch of berries off of a branch and then next thing I knew my whole bucket tipped over and all my berries fell to the ground. I sat there trying not to cry for a bit and then in desperation I cried out to my son, "Joshua, will you please help Daddy pick up his blueberries!" Joshua looked at me with merciful eyes and simply said, "No Daddy I won't help you." Wow, thanks alot man...Oh well, it saved me some money I guess.