Born on February 23 at 2:56pm. He was 6lbs 12oz and 19 inches long. This changes everything.
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In 2011 I significantly increased the frequency of my blogging; I've taken a few days off over the Christmas weekend and am excited to continue sharing my thoughts and improving my writing over the next year. Here are my Top 10 posts of the past year. 10. How Not To Use Facebook
8. Martin Luther's View on Music
7. Mangering
5. 4 Questions To Ask Yourself When Writing a Sermon
2. 4 Ways to Use Google Voice in Youth Ministry
1. How To Use Google Voice To Send Mass Text
Which was your favorite post?
Surprising Jessica with a trip to Disney World has been incredible. It's been fun to go to all the shows and spend time with each other for our last pre-baby vacation. And since I'm sure you want to get a glimpse of the fun we had, here are some photos for you to enjoy.
Several months ago I decided that for our 11/11/11 anniversary, I wanted to surprise Jessica by taking her to Disney world. I began looking into some of the details about costs, resorts, and such to see if it was feasible. Once I decided that it was an actual possibility, I began devising my plan for the surprise. I wanted to make sure that on 11/11/11 she would find out that we are leaving the next day for Disney World.
The Plan
In order to make this plan work, I had to lie. A lot. I convinced Jessica to take a week off of work, which was not difficult since she doesn't enjoy working, so that we could spend a few days in Frankenmuth and also have some time to do work around the house and get the baby's room ready. Once she had the days off, I put my next steps into action as I made reservations for our Disney Resort. Immediately after I booked our reservation for the All Star Movies resort, I used my photoshop skills to fake an invoice for a hotel in Frankenmuth that Jessica was hoping we would stay at. In the midst of this process, I made sure to talk about plans and ideas for our trip to Frankenmuth and our week off, while also at the same time makig sure only a select few knew about the actual plan. I basically planned two vacations; the real one and the fake one.
The Reveal
On our anniversary, Jessica had to work in the morning. I took the morning off and had my sister come over to help me get started with packing. I wanted to get the packing started so there would less to worry about when she realized in less than 24 hours we would be in Orlando. When Jessica got home from work, there was a pile of gifts waiting to be opened in order. First, Harry Potter 7.2 on Blu-ray. Second, a Harry Potter wand and glasses. Third, a Peter Pan book. Fourth, Mickey Ears. And finally, luggage tags for Disney World. She spent most of that afternoon saying, "Is this real?"
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That's how I made Jessica's 11/11/11 wish come true.
I cannot wait for the new worship album/DVD coming from Elevation Worship. The new album will be available November 22nd; I'll be downloading it as soon as I can. And in the meantime, you can download a free song from them.
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11.11.11 was Jessica and my 4th anniversary. Since it was a once-in-a-lifetime date and our last anniversary pre-baby, I decided to surprise her with a trip to Disney World. We are on our way to Orlando for a fun-filled week in the most magical place on earth.
I would love to see a video like this used to show the "then & now" in a church to celebrate the changes throughout their years of ministry.
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Imagine all the fun questions you could ask, just to see how Siri responds?
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One of my favorite worship CDs that I listen to is Elevation Church's album Kingdom Come. Recently they remixed one of my favorite hymns "All Creatures of Our God and King." There are certainly some elements of the arrangement that I'm not a fan of, but it's fun to see the creativity and unique take at a song that has been song by Christians for hundreds of years.
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Austin Kleon is a writer and artist from Texas. He's also writing a book that looks very interesting titled "Steal Like an Artist." If you are looking for some creative inspiration or a simple lesson in the reality that oftentimes less is actually more. Austin has a ton of pictures and art on his blog, which is what really makes his thoughts and ideas so intriguing to browse through.
You may have noticed that over the past week the frequency of my posts has increased. I love writing and sharing my thoughts on this blog, so I recently joined the BlogX challenge from Tentblogger.com. Since I've always enjoyed writing, I thought this challenge would be a great way for me to improve my writing skills by being challenged to produce consistent and quality content for this blog.
1. Writing takes work
Some days I have something to write and other days I really have to work to find something to say. BlogX has challenged me to make it a habit of always writing something even when it's difficult. It'd be easy to just wait for inspiration and only blog then, but by actually doing the hard work of writing every day, the skill of writing becomes easier.
2. Learn your workflow
As I've gone through a whole week of challenges, I've learned that certain days it's easy to do the challenges (Mondays) and other days are incredibly difficult (Wednesdays). This isn't because of the difficult of the challenges, but more about figuring out what my blogging workflow is. BlogX so far has begun to help me figure out a routine to what works best for me
3. Things get easier with other people
Having a group of other people that are also working on the same challenges make this much easier. It certainly takes some personal motivation to do the posts each day, but it's nice getting to read through the improving blogs of the other people a part of the blogging community that are also working on improving their skills.