Full-on weekend

Gosh, we like to pack it all in when we can! On Friday we drove up to Nottingham to visit Dave, Rhiannon (& bump) and Sam. Due to multimap's diabolical directions it took us about an hour longer than planned to get there but everyone perked up as soon as we'd each had a giant hug from Dave. Since Sam was unwell when his Mummy and Daddy came for a visit in the summer he got to meet Elodie for the first time, and he's clearly going to be a great big brother. Their new place is lovely, and the local indian takeaway is very yummy! Sadly, we didn't manage to kick-start labour (Rhiannon was due on Thursday) but it means we'll have an excuse to go and see them again as soon as possible once the baby's born.
Yesterday Mark and I had the first of a series of leadership training days in Oxford. It was great, really encouraging and helpful, just a bit of a rush to get the kids ready and dropped off with Nana-Lorraine, and us there in the right frame of mind, for 9am! At the moment I measure these sorts of things on whether I can stay awake, and yesterday I didn't struggle to keep my eyes open at all so it must have been just what we needed. It was lovely to chill with Mark's family for a bit, and have a scrummy lunch all together. Then it was off to Mum and Dad's to beg shoes and a pashmina for Mim's wedding next week. Unfortunately, I don't have feet as dainty as my Mum's...

This afternoon, we're finally having Elodie's dedication service- can't wait to get her good and prayed over!

'My' Theology

I was browsing through Sarah's archives and I came across this quiz that she'd done. Here are my results. I found some of it surprising!


You scored as Emergent/Postmodern. You are Emergent/Postmodern in your theology. You feel alienated from older forms of church, you don't think they connect to modern culture very well. No one knows the whole truth about God, and we have much to learn from each other, and so learning takes place in dialogue. Evangelism should take place in relationships rather than through crusades and altar-calls. People are interested in spirituality and want to ask questions, so the church should help them to do this.

Emergent/Postmodern 75%
Neo orthodox 71%
Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 71%
Charismatic/Pentecostal 64%
Fundamentalist 61%
Reformed Evangelical 43%
Modern Liberal 39%
Classical Liberal 29%
Roman Catholic 14%

What's your theological worldview?

Is she good?

I detest this question. With Caleb it never bothered me because I could give the appropriate response, and sing his praises. Since having Elodie, I've realised that it's a remarkably unfair thing to say. When I said that I didn't believe that any baby was 'bad' my f-i-law said I had a pretty dodgy concept of original sin but I think he didn't get what I was trying to communicate.
What people really mean when they ask this question is does she feed well, is she quiet, is she happy and does she sleep through. Well, Elodie has been a lot harder to get to know/figure out than Caleb was, she's not as compliant, she's more restless and she doesn't feed (or digest!) well so far. The thing is, she cries a lot because she's often got uncomfortable innards, she doesn't sleep too well because often she doesn't feel well, she is hit, bitten and screamed at, forcibly woken (day and night) - all this and she has to compete for our attention which Caleb never had to, obviously. So if she's sicky, she doesn't sleep through and she cries a lot she's not being 'bad' she's being a baby! My daughter may not be easy to look after, but she's easy to love, and as she grows up I hope I can always communicate to her the same attitude that God has towards me: he tells me I'm righteous even though I sin. So, Elodie, you will undoubtedly choose to do the odd bad thing in your life but you will always be my 'good' girl.

Controversy!

Wow, things are really getting emotional on our other blog and many of us, haven't even seen the movie being commented on! But it's a subject matter that is both universal and complex, and undeniably EMOTIONAL. Also, hard to talk about without using terms like 'pro-choice' and 'pro-life' which everyone has minutely different interpretations of, that can make for major disagreements, heartache, clumsy moralising, and 'it's not my decision to make, therefore I won't stand for anything' (or worse 'permit everything') type avoiding of a moral question. If you're not feeling emotionally vulnerable, and you're not aggressive then join in! Did I really just say that?

We love...

...our new car! Thanks Steve & Sarah!

Freckles

I'm not going to embarass the specific person I'm thinking of, but I know that some people who have freckles don't like them, so when I saw this post I thought there would be people who might enjoy reading it.

What a day I'm about to have...

Our son is quite amazing. Suffering from a horrible cold and cough right now, just to clarify, before I moan. I went to bed at 11:15ish, slept for an hour and a half before he woke up and came in. Put him back in bed, as we always do, came back to bed. Five mins later, there he was again. Put him back again, but this time he starts kicking off about something, and it takes me the next four hours, a mattress move and more discomfort than I'd like to describe to get him back to sleep. I thought I'd better turn his alarm clock off, so he can sleep past 7:00 if he can. He slept for 40 minutes before crying and coming to find me again. AARRGGHHH!!

And guess what, after sleeping for just an hour and a half myself, I have a full day's teaching ahead of me. It had just better not be too windy, that's all I can say.

I'm a Schroeder

What do you reckon?

Just to explain

I wasn't a fan or anything, they just made me laugh!

I'll huff I'll puff I'll blow you away!

Does anyone else remember B*Witched as these crazy, jumping & dancing Irish girls who had clearly been pumped full of sugar just prior to any performance of any of their songs? Sorry, it's totally random, but 'C'est la vie' just came up on my internet radio, and I felt I had to share my remembered amusement with the world. Takes me back to the final year at Uni. Good times.

The best weekend in ages

Hi all, me here, who hasn't blogged for ages because work has been eating my life away and it seems to have just slowed down somewhat. So we had a LOVELY weekend.

On Saturday we relaxed, lazed about a bit, Heidi made some biscuits, I planned my lessons and we all went swimming late afternoon just in time for the kids to be tired for bed. Then today we went to Cote (haven't been for ages, good just to catch up and see people), and then took the kids to my parents' house so they could babysit while we went out for Heidi's birthday. Yes, it was nearly a month ago, but we had tickets for the RSC doing 'Completely Hollywood' (abridged) in Oxford. Yes, that's the Reduced Shakespeare Company, whom neither of us had seen before, and hope we can see again very soon. It was fantastic! A non-stop frenetic trip through the cliches, genres, famous lines, camera shots, special effects and language of 100+ years of movies as visualised by three highly professional comedians. Totally recommended - here are the tour details, we advise you to get to a show if you can.

Exploding python

I get the latest news from the National Geographic on my homepage, and fascinating as it was to see the first-ever pictures of a live giant squid, I didn't feel the need to share it with everyone. This however you had GOT to see!

Any ideas?

Help me! Caleb needs a white shirt and black trousers for his Auntie's wedding and I'm really struggling to find either in the right size. He has longer than average legs but is very slim and quite small for a 2 year old, so buying any bigger is hopeless, and 18-24 months might not be too small. I've tried Debenhams, Next, Tescos, Mothercare.com... any suggestions?

Our car has exhaust issues...

...thankfully we have RAC membership (one of the best things we spend our money on!) but more importantly we have a very lovely, and willing, brother-in-law who came to our rescue for the second time this year. No hesitation, just jumped in his car, filled it with our shopping and our kids and took us home. We took a scenic route and had a nice chat. Unbelievably, the RAC arrived not long after Robin did and were able to do a temporary fix, so we ended up all getting home at about the same time in the end! God is gracious and our children were too sleepy to complain- Elodie ended up over an hour late for a feed and didn't complain at all, and Caleb was just thrilled to see Uncle Robin. Mercifully we had not bought any frozen stuff either- a real miracle!
Bizarrely, I feel quite relaxed and like we had a lovely day. Fab!