Feel Good Friday

I'm starting a new thing. Each week on Friday, I am going to try to post a feel good news story. I hate watching the news right now. It's so dark and depressing. I know there are good things happening in our world. I'm amazed that news outlets and the public in general would rather focus on the negative instead of reporting on the positive. So...I am going to seek out the good news and share it with you. Here's the first installment:

Dan Stroup is an eighth grade teacher at Heritage Christian School in Indianapolis. What makes him unique is that he sends hand written birthday cards to each of his students every year. Not just the students he currently has in class, but every student he's ever had in the 30 years he's been teaching. He sends out approximately 2500 birthday cards a year. Each card is unique - no form letters and each one includes a Bible verse. This year's verse is from James 1:22 Do not merely listen to the word, but do what it says. Mr. Stroup is walking the walk. He says that he spends a portion of every evening writing out the cards. Some nights, he spends just a few minutes, but other nights he spends several hours. He jokes and says that November 4th is his day off - none of his students have birthdays on that day, yet. Many of his students have been profoundly touched by his small acts of kindness. They look forward to getting their card every year and many of them save each one. I would encourage you to read the original article on Mr. Stroup or watch the video below. I certainly didn't do his story justice here. But, the bottom line is that small acts of kindness can go a long way.

Name Game

I took this video this morning as we were filling the car up with gas. Here's the background: I have been trying to get Harper to say her name. Her real name. Not her nickname (Deets). Why does she think her name is Deets you may be wondering. Well, read this. For the past few months, every time we asked her what her name is, she said Deets. But now, I am happy (and relieved) to report that she can say her real name. Granted, the pronunciation (and the spitting) will take some more work (Harper is a tough name for a little kid to say), but she is on the right track. A couple other things I would like to point out... yes, my kid is already a hypochondriac. She has lots of imaginary booboos on her hands and she does like to hold the hand sanitizer in the car. We'll work on that.

Christmas Cards

Christmas, Christmas time is here. Well, not quite. But, I have already started preparing for it. I got an email this morning telling me that our Christmas cards have shipped. I cannot tell you how much fun I had designing our cards this year. I used this site and would highly recommend it. For the layout of the card, I used two pictures that my dear friend Andrea took. She is becoming quite the avid photographer. Check out her new website. And if you live in the Cincinnati area, you should schedule an appointment for Andrea or Kelly to take a family picture that you can use for your Christmas cards this year!

Monday Morning Pigtails

This post is basically for my mom. I realize that you probably don't care about my child's hair, but my mom does. So... I am posting this to show her how cute Harper's little pigtails are. I mean seriously - they are pretty cute. But, it's ok if you don't care.

When The Science Hits The Fan - Baby Words

Harper is adding to her vocabulary every day. It's really fun for me to watch this stage of her development. Just yesterday as we were leaving baby school, I said "see you tomorrow" to her teacher and Harper waved and said "tomorrow"! Well actually she said "morrow", but I knew what she meant - and so did she.

This morning, one of the news stories on my homepage was about a study that demonstrated that newborn babies cry in their native language. Researchers recorded the cries of healthy French and German newborns (3-5 days old) and compared them. They found that the French babies tend to cry with rising melody patterns, slowly increasing in pitch from the beginning to the end. In contrast, the cries of the German babies followed falling melody patterns. These differences are consistent with differences between the French and German languages. This study suggests that babies in the womb are conditioned to the language that they hear most often. It also demonstrates that newborns have more control over their vocal cords than originally thought.

The Power of a Praying Parent

I just started reading a book called The Power of a Praying Parent. My church started up a life group for new moms and this is the first book that we're all reading. I'm only on the first chapter, but it is already speaking to me. As I read it, I'm going to try to post some of the ideas that really hit home for me. So here goes:

• It's never too early or too late to start praying for your kids.
• If we are praying, something is happening whether we can see it or not. James 5:16 says the effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.
• Including Scripture in your prayers is a very powerful thing. It seems like a no-brainer, but I don't do this very often. The author promises to give us lots of good verses to use for many different types of prayers. I'm going to try hard to start doing this.
• The book suggests making an extensive and personalized prayer list for each child. The author said that she made a list for each of her kids at the beginning of the year and saved all of the previous lists so that she could look back on them and see how God faithfully answered her prayers. Great idea. I'm totally going to do this.
• Ask God to show you how to pray for your child. Another great idea. While I think I may know what Harper needs, God definitely does and He wants to tell me.

Like I said, I'm only on the first chapter, but already I have some great things to think about. I would encourage all of you that have kids or are thinking about having kids to get this book. We can read it together. It will be fun!

What Is God?

This movie looks pretty cool.