Saturday Stretch, End-of-internship Edition

From the sanctuary of St. John's, Sterling, IL.
‘Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.’ – Revelation 3.20 (NASB)
I want to leave a legacy.
How will they remember me? Did I choose to love?
Did I point to You enough to make a mark on things?
I want to leave an offering.
A child of mercy and grace who blessed your name unapologetically…
- Nicole Nordeman, Legacy
WANTED: Sound Machine
I had so much fun writing this for our local Freecycle group that I couldn’t help but share it with our friends.

American Robin (Earlymornicus Wakeusupalot)
Our 15-month-old has developed the charming habit of waking up singing with the robins at 4:30am every day this week. We think it’s because we’re out of the heating season and aren’t running her humidifier anymore, and without that noise to cover up the sound, she hears their beautiful singing and wants to sing along. We’re all for vocal practice for toddlers, but we’d just prefer it to begin at a more sane and reasonable hour. We tried reasoning with her, but she didn’t quite see our logic.
More on Cloth Diapering
Jennifer was recently asked to give some more details to a friend of a friend who is considering cloth diapers. I thought her response was really comprehensive and would serve as a good update to my initial post on this from March.
We use cloth diapers on our 6 month old and have since she was 1 week old. We do like them a lot. There are a lot of options – everything from traditional cotton prefold diapers with covers to fancy/expensive all-in-one systems. I’ll tell you what we do and what I know about a few other options, but I know some people who use other systems as well, so just let me know what you’re thinking or curious about.
We went fairly simple/old-school mostly due to budget constraints:
Family Photos, May 2009
I’ve decided to stop making my photo uploads Anneliese-centric, because once in a (long, long) while I actually take pictures of not-Anneliese. These photos are highlights from May 2009.
Anneliese, Month Three
As has become my tradition, here is my monthly upload of photos of Anneliese. Of course, I realized in loading my pictures into F-Spot a few days ago that 80% of the pictures I take that aren’t really about Annie per se end up being of her anyway. But I think that’s just a normal part of being a proud dad. Anywho, enjoy the pictures:
Easter 2009
Jennifer, Anneliese, and I visited St. Louis for Easter this year. My grandmother, who is 92, is quite ill, and we wanted to be sure to see her and introduce her to Anneliese.
We traveled down during the day on Good Friday and had dinner with my parents, and then we attended Good Friday services at Good Shepherd, Manchester, MO. They do a wonderful Tenebrae service, and as they extinguish the candles one by one, the lights in the sanctuary dim until it is completely pitch black. At the end of the service, the lit Christ candle was recessed down the isle and out of the sanctuary, there is a terrific BOOM (the strepitus), and then the candle was processed back in. Quite an awe-inspiring night.
Saturday we visited Grandma Carnahan. That was a really moving experience, as even though she can’t see or hear well, and her memory is basically gone, she remembered that there was a baby, and she got to hold Anneliese by the foot. It really meant a lot to me. I had the pleasure of having Hari Santhanam over to talk that afternoon for a while, and we caught up on what we had been doing in the last few years. We attended Easter Vigil at Good Shepherd, and I was invited to come and preach in June – so that’s something to look forward to. After that some of the family gathered back at my parents’ house for make-your-own personal pizzas.
Sunday was Easter, of course, and the service was beautiful. What more can I say? Afterward we spent the day with my parents. Then on Monday, we made the 8+ hour trek home.
How to Get Started with Cloth Diapers

Anneliese wearing a cloth diaper
Jennifer and I decided that we wanted to use cloth diapers for Anneliese, but if you look it up online, there is a huge variety of information. Some of it is contradictory, and all of it is confusing. So after having waded through the morass of hype, spin, misinformation, and genuinely useful stuff, I decided to put together a “how to get started” guide for cloth diapers that would skip the crud and just tell people what to buy. I’m not getting any money from the companies involved.
Our primary concerns were, in order, cost, re-usability, and environmental impact. What we’ve purchased is mostly the bare minimum: we’re home all the time, have easy access to our own laundry facilities, we don’t use daycare, etc. If your circumstances don’t match, you might need to buy more, less, or different stuff than what is listed here. This isn’t necessarily the best, cheapest, or most appropriate list – it’s just the list of stuff we did. I hope it’s helpful. Your Mileage May Vary, Offer Not Valid In Nebraska, etc.
Wrapping up month two for Anneliese
Here are a few more pictures of Anneliese to round out our pictures of her second month. Most are general, but there are a few from our seminary’s Coffeehouse, and one very cute one in honor of St. Patrick’s Day!
A Few Pictures from Anneliese’s Second Month
The last two pictures deserve an explanation. You see, Jennifer needed to feed Anneliese, but the Meyers were over for dinner and she didn’t want to leave our game of Carcassone. So we hooked up my webcam, started the Cheese program on my laptop, and I pointed the camera so that she could see the game on the table and keep playing. It was hack-eriffic!


