22 months old - June 16

Say hello to Hula Girl. Back in May this year Aunt Kristen, her friend Veronica and Grammy Gin had the opportunity to go to Hawaii for an all-girl vacation. While they were there they scoured all over for this outfit that would fit Emily so we had to use it for one of her monthly photo ops. She was not too keen about putting it on until Aunt Holly said "if you put this on we can go outside". I'm sure this picture will reappear around the time when Emily gets married.

Things truly do change in one days time. One day Emily speaks one word requests/statements and the next day she's speaks understandable phrases. It is enjoyable to communicate with her at this age.

Emily continues to bring lots of laughter into our household. A while ago she wanted to help wash dishes so I stood her on a kitchen chair and scooted it close to the sink thinking she would just play in the water as she had done in the past. I stepped away while Aunt Kristen was watching her and returned to see Emily actually using a wash cloth to scrub the dish. We also noticed that Emily had one shoe on while washing the dish and of course there was water all over her onesie. Oh, one wonders how long this joy of helping in the kitchen will last. Just a challenge to me to continue making it a fun thing to do as part of our family and teamwork.

I'll post more hula pictures that Holly took once I get those.

Happy being a girl

There are quite a few things that make being a girl a lot of fun. Two of those things are shopping and pampering ourselves. Emily has experienced these two things even at an early age. Her Aunts took her to Kohl's and while they were there she kept taking all the shirts in her hands and saying "Oh cute!" She then kept bumping her head on the very clean glass of the jewelry display as she kept trying to get to the expensive pearls. She started to whine when they took her away from the jewelry display only to quit when they told her they were going to the shoe department next. "Oh shooos!" was her reply. Then the day after shopping, Kristen decided to paint Emily's fingernails and toenails.

Wet n' Wild

So far Emily has enjoyed playing in her pool from the Fannin's twice this Summer. Once with Daddy and once with Aunt Holly.

She loves to play with the boat she got from her Sunday School teacher, Mrs. Hanson, the Sunday they learned about Noah's Ark. She also enjoys sliding into the pool despite the expression on her face in one of the pictures below.

Don't Be So Open-minded

This is a small article by the editor of Tabletalk. I think what he says speaks volumes for what is happening in our churches today. You can also read it here

Coram Deo: Living Before the Face of God
Don't Be So Open-minded
by Burk Parsons

Our enemy’s supreme deception is in his attempt to convince us that he doesn’t exist. Toward that end, he has launched his assault against us with every weapon in his carefully fashioned arsenal. Perhaps his greatest success is in persuading us that being open-minded is a good thing. For it is precisely when we accept the notion that open-mindedness is a Christian virtue that we fall into the same devilish trap by which our first parents were ensnared.

Once our minds are open to open-mindedness, all ideas, no matter how absurd, can come and go as they please — with our sanction. We thus become headless and brainless philosophers who just want to get along. One such philosopher and self-proclaimed theologian has written: “So I believe we have radically to rethink our understanding of the place of Christianity in the global religious picture. And we have to face the fact that it is one path amongst others, and then reform our belief-system to be compatible with this. This is the big new challenge that theologians and church leaders have yet to face. We have to become consciously what are called religious pluralists.” This is the mantra of religious pluralists: Liberate your mind, lose your faith, and feel the love.

Although many professed evangelicals have become precarious evanjellyfish, I would like to think that most have not yet succumbed to the most blatant sort of religious pluralism. Nevertheless, being the narrow-minded biblical fundamentalist that I am, I am decidedly closed-minded to anything that is not biblical, and I concur with John Calvin: “Wherefore all theology, when separated from Christ, is not only vain and confused, but is also mad, deceitful, and spurious; for, though the philosophers sometimes utter excellent sayings, yet they have nothing but what is short-lived, and even mixed up with wicked and erroneous sentiments.” As the closed-minded, Christ-minded faithful we must join arms against the satanic pluralism of our day, whether it is decreed from the Vatican or broadcast from Mecca. We live and breathe for Christ alone and proclaim that there is only one way to God. Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6).