jeneva's first race

Here we are. She's ready to go! Her first race. Webber Park. Labor Day.

Sporting her new birthday New Balance tennis shoes and tanking up on some lemonade and a hot dog before the race.

Look! Her good buddy Jack came to run too and her neighbor friend, Zuri. Hooray!

Listening for directions from the guy at the start.

Hooray! Jeneva finishes strong. Her first half mile race. She finished in 4 minutes and 18 seconds.

mr. bubbles

Jude loves bath time. I believe he learned it from Jeneva.

she's five

"I miss being 4." This was the first thing Jeneva said this morning when she got up.

my sincere drama queen

Tonight as Jeneva was giving me a hug before heading upstairs for the whole bedtime routine with papa she said: "oh mama, you are the preciousest mama I have EVER had...in my WHOLE entire life."

She turns five tomorrow. And I hope I'm the ONLY mama she's ever had in all of her five years!

swimming lessons

camo and a pink dress

It was a fun and bumpy ride. Good thing the speed limit was only 6mph.

when ava comes over...

....the imaginations soar and the girls spend the entire time making up stories. Jude was their active audience and even a prop for a few "plays."

We went for a nature walk. Five minutes from our front door took us over the railroad tracks and to the creek. For the girls, those five minutes took us over the ocean, through the mountains and to the forest where there were all sorts of wild creatures to chase and berries to pick.

At first I thought they were looking at squirrels in the tree or something, but no, they were speculating why there were two airplanes in the sky rather than just one. Ava thought it was because one of the "plane flyers" needed help from the other "plane flyer" (driver's ed maybe?). Jeneva thought it was because one plane had too many people and so they needed to fill up another plane with the people that didn't fit in the first one.

Are all girls like this?

Four year old girls outfitted in "princess" attire, I've found, attracts other little girls who are out for walks, honks and waves from the train conductors, and "oh's and ah's" from the folks sitting outside of the retirement home that we walk past.

wordless wednesday

what do they do in iowa anyway?

This is for those of you who always wonder what we do when we go to Iowa to visit my side of the family and Wisconsin to visit Steve's side. First, I will take you on a little trip to Iowa where we visit my parents. You can get a little glimpse of our life 5 hours south.

My mom and dad. Also known as Gramma and Grampa Stutzman. J & J are their first grandkids. My youngest brother Matt lives with them in the summer, but just moved back to Virginia where he is a senior at Eastern Mennonite University.

Jeneva and Jude are obsessed with all of the cats. I'm not so much. :)

We enjoy cozying up by the fire pit.

Jeneva likes to squawk at grampa's turkeys.

We take a walk down the 'path.' (jeneva calls gravel roads, paths.)

Here's the pond. We don't do much in it yet, but I suspect when Jude gets older, he'll be interested in finding creatures in there.

We enjoy my grandma's gardens. Seriously, my parents could have been landscapers. I certainly did not inherit that gene of theirs! That really is unfortunate.

Did I mention that the kids are obsessed with kitties?

We visit my aunt and uncles dairy farm.

The space. Oh the space to run! Jeneva spends a lot of time just running around. This is the barn that Steve risked his life to make red!

More fun at the firepit!

I wonder what they are discussing?

We also enjoy a visit with Great Gramma Stutzman

and Great Gramma Roth.

Next time we'll take you on a journey to Wisconsin to see Steve's side of the family!

five year old evangelist

Today in the mail we received an update letter from some friends who will be headed to China to work in Tealand (ethnic Tibet). Because they were also Jeneva's Sunday School teachers and dance teacher, she prays for them during our family devotions.

We also received a magazine from the TEAM missions organization of which some college friends of ours are a part of and will soon be going to Central Asia.

So many exciting things to look at! Jeneva always pours over pictures and information of people from different countries and cultures and seems to genuinely have a heart for people who are less privileged than us and who don't know the gospel. I thank God for her spirit and know that it is a gift from Him.

Neither Steve nor I have been world travelers or on many missions trips, but would like to be someday if we are called. It is easy to get engrossed in our own little American culture/lifestyle and forget about the rest of the world. We try and read/pray through Operation World as well as Voice of the Martyr's.

So, after reading some interesting facts about Pakistan, Jeneva told me she wanted to write a letter to people in Pakistan to tell them about God. We came to the computer and I typed what she said. In her exact words:

Dear people in Pakistan,

You have to know God. He is a strong and mighty God and he's the person who created you. You shall love God and you shall love other people. You shall love everybody in the world. God is the greatest. He's the ruler of all nations. He's the one who made the stars and the sky and made YOU. Please listen to what I said. This is very important about God. And you shall listen to this: Love your neighbor as yourself. The Second is like it. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. This is the greatest commandment!

Listen to me cuz I know about God.
Jeneva

God, I pray that you would continue to grow my daughters heart to have a passion for your people and for the nations! Please grow MY heart to be more like hers.

naming children...

I am always interested in what people name their children and their reasons for choosing a particular name.

I really loved the name Jeneva (not Geneva) when I first heard it. When I was teaching 2nd grade, I had a student whose sister's name was Jeneva. Her mom told me that it meant 'Purity.' Very appropriate for our little girl we thought. We also found the meaning 'Juniper Tree.' At first that may seem like a strange meaning, but we embraced the idea of her name meaning a 'tree' or something that has 'roots'. We liked the visual that this meaning evokes and this is the verse that we chose for her. Her middle name is Rae, which is the same as mine.

Jeneva's name gets mispronounced by people who don't know her sometimes: Genevive, Geneva, Jennifer. She's gotten good at saying very firmly: "it's jen-i-VUH". She'll probably always have to pronounce it and spell it for people. She told me yesterday that she likes her name because no one else has it. That is also one of the reasons I love it as well, but of course would be happy if someone else chose it for their little girl too. :)

Choosing our boy's name was more difficult. Steve and I went back and forth with several different names and we never seemed to agree. Even on the morning that I was scheduled to be induced we were on the internet frantically looking at boys names and trying to have a list of options we agreed on. We chose not to find out the gender of either of our children before delivery. We had our girls name picked out. It was going to be Josie. The baby was going to be born on Steve's grandma Josie's birthday. How appropriate if it were a girl. We were uncertain on a middle name though for a girl.

So, about our boy names, we still hadn't chosen one that we agreed on. Jude was at the top of Steve's list. Isaiah and Levi were at the top of mine. Jude was following in 3rd place for me. He was born at 7:30 the evening of November 1. We still didn't have a name for him until the next day in the afternoon. Jude Isaiah. I fell in love with it. I knew he would get a lot of 'Hey Jude' in reference to the Beatles song, but I didn't care. Jude means 'Praise and Thanks.' Isaiah means 'God is Salvation'. You certainly can't go wrong with those meanings! We weren't intentionally choosing Biblical names, those just happened to be the ones that we were drawn to. I also loved the way his name looked on paper. It just flowed well. I'm weird about stuff like that I guess.

Our ideas for boy middle names were: William (Steve's Dad), Harold (my dad....though we didn't really consider this one because, well, Harold?!? Love ya dad:) John (Steve's middle name and my grandpa's name, but sounds strange with Jude) Lambert (Steve's grandpa, Josie's husband....this is a rather odd name too though). We decided to skip the 'family' names and just choose what we liked.

Some people have asked if all of our children's names will begin with a J. Probably not. It wasn't intentional.

Around the same time that Jude was born there was another baby born from our church with the name Judah. Very similar.

This is even more ironic. On Sunday I was working as a Childcare Coordinator at our church in the nurseries. I used to do this every Sunday, but quit a couple of years ago when Steve was gone over a 6 month period for the National Guard. Now I fill in for other staff every once in awhile. So, Sunday I was filling in for Andrea who is on maternity leave. I was helping babies get checked in to Nursery 1 (0-12 months). I noticed a mom whom I had never seen before put her child's name tag on that said 'Jude.' Excitedly, I said, "oh, my son's name is Jude too!" She asked if his middle name was Isaiah? "Yes! How did you know?" She told me that her son's name was Jude Isaiah too and she had seen my son's name on the list of children getting dedicated a few months back and was shocked when she saw the exact same name as her son. Now a name like 'Jennifer Lynn' or 'Stephen John' or something more common like that wouldn't be too shocking, but the combination of 'Jude Isaiah' seemed very ironic!

I was congratulating another woman yesterday who just had her 5th son. They named him Levi. I told her that had been one of our options for boy names. She told me that they had a difficult time deciding between the names Jude and Levi for their son too. There must be a trend to certain names.

One day Jude was in our church nursery with four other boys whose names were Noah, Micah, Jonah, and Abraham. I believe maybe Biblical names are a trend now. Especially in Christian circles, but not necessarily.

Any thoughts?

use the bike path!

We are fortunate in this city to have access to so many bike paths. There are trails everywhere. In fact we are a one car family because my husband quite often will bike himself to work downtown which is only 4 miles. Why is it then that some choose to use the road instead of the freshly paved, well marked, smoother-than-the-road bike path 3 feet away? It especially drives me nuts when there is heavy car traffic. We were driving along St. Anthony Parkway this morning and someone headed towards me was passing a biker and nearly crashed in to me. Yes, that driver should have been more cautious, but why wasn't the biker using the bike path? I understand if there is not a bike path close by, but that was not the case this morning. Is this frustrating to anyone else?

a "giant" lesson of the 10 commandments

Jeneva: Are giants bad?

Me: Giants aren't real. Goliath was real, but there aren't any giants now.

Jeneva: And David struck him down! But, if there were giants around, what bad things would they do?

Me: I'm not sure, what do you think they would do?

Jeneva: Be mean to people, take other peoples things, covet and probably commit adultery.

laughing in church

Tonight we were sitting in church, me, Steve, and Jeneva. Pastor John was preaching and like usual he was using a lot of hand motions. If you've ever heard him preach, you know that he is a very passionate (for lack of a better description, maybe expressive, humorous, intense...) preacher. Tonight was no exception. Whenever people chuckled a little bit, Jeneva would belt out a big laugh too. Of course we knew she wasn't really laughing because she "got it"...she was merely copying the adults as if she was one of us. Yes, it's kind of cute, but at one point, I kind of nudged her. She leaned over to me and whispered (rather loudly) in my ear: "When John Piper shouts, it just makes me want to shout too!" The energy is contagious apparently.

two teeth

valley of vision

Someone asked me yesterday what it feels like to be 30. That seems so vague. How do I feel physically? No different than 29, but I definitely have felt the aging process over the past 10 years. Not dramatically....but I am only 30. Not 90. I think it has kind of made me stop and evaluate. Question. Okay, so what has my life amounted to over the past 30? What have I accomplished. I haven't made a million yet. Don't think I ever will. *wink*. I really could care less about that I guess. What have I done that has made a difference? That kind of discourages me. How have I brought glory and honor to the King of the universe? Isn't that what our "purpose" is here on earth?

In our devotions with Jeneva we are going through the exodus. God is leading his people out of Egypt into Canaan. Just this morning we read about Moses coming down from the mountain after 40 days and his face was glowing because he had been with God. My face is sort of glowing right now because it's oily and shiny and sun burned. I haven't washed it yet this morning. Ha! No, seriously though, do I have the essence of Christ written on my face? Can others see Christ in me? I have felt the weight my sins and failures lately. This is good....BUT, I've not been focusing on the cross, redemption, regeneration, forgiveness....I am saved by his grace even though I act like an Israelite in the wilderness. Time and time again I've been forgiven. I want to move forward with the essence of Christ glowing on my face so to speak.

I've been staying up pretty late at night this summer. Steve took a temporary shift change at his work and is now working the 10:30pm to 6:30am shift. So, he leaves for work around 10. So, that has been my time to be by myself. A lot of times I sit outside, light the citronella, and have a cup of tea--green tea---decaf---from Trader Joe's. It's peaceful. As peaceful as urban life gets anyway. It really is pretty quiet that late at night....despite the occasional fireworks. Hello people, the 4th of July was 2 weeks ago! I've been reading through The Valley of Vision A Collection of Puritan Prayers. I.Love.It. Those puritans certainly pray like I desire to be able to pray and talk to God. It's kind of like cheating because the words are there written down for me to just read. But oh, they are soooo good!

Here is a portion of one I read last night:
"Oh God, I know that I often do thy work without thy power, and sin by my dead, heartless, blind service, my lack of inward light, love, delight, my mind, heart, tongue moving without thy help. I see sin in my heart in seeking the approbation of others; This is my vileness, to make men's opinion my rule, whereas I should see what good I have done and give thee glory, consider what sin I have committed and mourn for that......(if you want to finish it read it for yourself!). The end expresses such hope!

This one was perfect for me right now because as I enter a new decade of my life this is one of my goals. I spend a lot of time "seeking the approbation of others." (I have given up on my "looks." I don't care what others think anymore! Ha! I'm never going to look 18 again, so why try. I do wish I could still run like I did when I was 18. I suppose that would mean I have to actually practice though now.) Anyway, how can I not do that, but desire that more from Christ? Maybe I'll figure it out more fully in this next decade. God help me!

Okay, I better get the kids out of the tub. I like to stick them in there when I actually feel like getting something done!

I'm 30.

How exactly am I supposed to feel?

My dear mother apparently told a lot of people it was my birthday today. I've never received so many birthday greetings in all my 30 years! Well, maybe my first birthday. That tends to be one that everyone recognizes. So, it's been delightful to be greeted by so many friends from back home as well as relatives all over the country! Thank you! I feel loved. A handful of those cards have been musical cards which sound incredible when all played at once. Ha! Steve and Jeneva are the crazy ones in the family. When do the batteries die on those things? Love it.

a "musical" birthday greeting

Our video camera is broken, so unfortunately I can't record this. I would love to post it. Maybe instead you can imagine this.

So, I received a birthday card (early) the other day. It's one of those singing cards where you open it and it greets you with a song. Jeneva has gotten such a kick out of it. I don't think she will ever need an i-pod. Just give her an assortment of musical greeting cards to listen to. Anyway, she's been opening this one constantly for the past two days (thank you Joanne Roetlin). Needless to say, she has the song memorized. So, now, imagine her singing this song all day:

"I think I'll take a moment. Celebrate my age. The ending of an era (she says "errand") the turning of a page. Now it's time to focus in on where I go from here. Lord have mercy on my next thirty years."

She told me that the guy who sings this song must love God because he sings "lord have mercy."

I think we have a budding country fan in our home. She's even got the country twang thing down. Move over Go Fish....Tim McGraw is coming to town!

apparently i have become a coffee snob

I bought Maxwell House coffee. I'm a bit sheepish to admit that. My freezer is typically stocked with various beans from Starbucks, Caribou, and Trader Joes. I would never buy Maxwell House or Folgers at the grocery store, but I was at Costco and according to my brother, everything from Costco is good. Plus, right on the can it says 'good to the last drop.' I passed by the extra large bags of Starbucks beans and headed for the cheap stuff. Or should I say the "church" stuff. I don't know what they serve at church, but I am so glad our church also offers hot tea. So anyway, I caved. Just to save a few bucks this time around. Blahhugh. The really bad thing is that I did buy it at Costco. The can is HUGE. It will take awhile to get through this one. So, if you are a lucky friend who gets to come over for coffee some morning, you might want to bring your own beans. An extra couple glugs of half 'n half might do the trick too. So, all this to say, I believe I have become a coffee snob.

wordless wednesday

...what results when the four year old is in charge of feeding the baby.

legacy bracelets

we updated our website. it's a bit more user friendly. check us out!

a day at the falls

Today I needed to spend some time with Jeneva! She was hanging out with everyone else in her social circle this week EXCEPT for me. I was beginning to miss her. Alas, we headed to the Minnehaha Falls for some splish-splashing-fun and the chance to enjoy God's BEAUTIFUL creation.

I put the pictures of the steps in there to show you where we started out. Yes, at the top. Surely there was a place to take a stroller down. Nope. I completely forgot about that. How are we going to get Jude down? A couple of nice folks offered to help. I declined. Our stroller folds up freakishly small. It's a Combi. It's lighter than a generic umbrella stroller. I folded it up, strapped it on my back and carried my 20# baby down 100 steps. Getting down wasn't too difficult. Going back up was the challenge. My cross country years are long past. And now I believe I need to visit the chiropractor.

It was a good day. I've kind of felt like a tourist in my own town lately. Maybe next week we'll ride the light rail to the Mall of America. :)

land of 10,000 lakes

One of our favorites is Lake Johanna. The public beach side is nice, but we like to go to the other side of it, on the island, by Northwestern. Usually you can have the place to yourself and there are nice grills and picnic tables. And it's just nostalgic. :)

We went there on Saturday with Seong and Heeya and their two boys. Steve got to know them through an ESL class at our church where they practiced English. They are from Korea and are living here while Seong works on his PhD.










Jude loved the water...even ate some sand!




A year ago Jeneva caught her first fish here. This year she caught 6 (with her pink princess pole)! I even a few.




Steve is the master fisherman in our family. I didn't even know how to cast when we got married! I've learned a few things over the years.

















Oops. We forgot Jeneva in the last picture! I'm so bad at getting family pictures.

independence day streaker...

"It's America's Birthday!!!" Yelled the man as he streaked past our car as we were inching through the traffic after the fireworks show in Excelsior. Did I just say 'streaked?' Yes! He was buck. Nothing on. Nada. Zilch. He was running. Good mental picture yet? And there was nothing we could do to spare the innocent eyes of the four year old. She saw it. "That man was naked." She couldn't have said it with less expression. Apparently the fact that it was 11:30 at night and that she had a belly full of gut wrenching holiday food helped with the disinterest. Well, that was exciting and certainly gave us a good laugh. We had a fun night watching the Minnesota Orchestra (which our friend, Matt Wilson, played the french horn in) perform on the shore of Lake Minnetonka followed by a spectacular fireworks presentation. We hooked up with the Wilson's and the Ley's there which indeed was delightful!



She's looking a bit weary, and the fireworks put the boy to sleep!

foody friday~greens

Ironically enough, Jenny has chosen the theme of "greens" for this foody friday....which also happens to be the 4th of July. She wanted to make it clear that she was NOT making a political statement and rebelling against the good old red white and blue~in exchange for 'going green.' Merely a coincidence! :)

One of our favorite frozen vegetables are Greens with Envy that we find at Trader Joes. Saute it in some EVOO and add a bit of salt...mmmm. The kid, the hubby, we all love it.

About 3 weeks ago I made a trip to my favorite Trader Joe's much to my dismay I found out that they no longer carry Greens with Envy!!! I was devastated, but determined. Determined to still have my Greens. Granted, this bag of vegetables is not all that difficult to figure out how to recreate. So, I chose our favorite green vegetables and made it at home. I must say, mmmm, it tastes virtually the same!

Greens with Envy~(tiffany style)

*Frozen Edamame (not to be confused with Lima Beans. These have a much better texture)
*Frozen Asparagus diced (frozen spears from Trader Joes taste like fresh!)
*Fresh Spinach (cook it with the frozen vegetables)
*Frozen Broccoli (heads, not the stemy kind)
*2 or 3 cloves of garlic (we just like garlic and add it to our liking)

Cook all of this in some EVOO and add salt to taste. Of course you can use all fresh veggies if you have it on hand, and then you would just have to cook it prior to cooking the spinach because spinach doesn't take very long to get wilty.

You can find more "greens" recipes at A Latte Talk. Happy Independence Day!

why am i not desiring god right now?

"Raking is easier than digging, but you only get leaves. If you dig you may get diamonds."

This hit me like a ton of bricks about 15 minutes ago. I am weary. I am fighting to have joy in Christ. I'm reading When I Don't Desire God by Piper. I dusted off the book from my shelf because well, I can relate to the title right now.

Read on:

"I have the profound sense that many people who complain of not being able to rejoice in God treat the knowledge of God as something that ought to be easy to get. They are passive. (me) They expect spiritual things to happen to them from out of nowhere. (me again) They don't grasp the pattern of the Bible expressed in Proverbs 2:1-6."

"If you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding; yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God. For the LORD gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding."

"Look at all those aggressive words: "receive . . . treasure up . . . make your ear attentive . . . incline your heart . . . call out . . . raise your voice . . . seek . . . search" --if you do these, then knowledge of God will be yours. Not because you can make it happen. The giving of the knowledge is still in the hands of God: "For the LORD gives wisdom" No, the pursuit of the knowledge of God is not because you can make it happen, but because God freely chooses to bless seeking with finding. The pattern is seen in 2 Timothy 2:7 where Paul says, "Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything." You think. The Lord gives. Our thinking does not replace his giving. And his giving does not replace our thinking."

-John Piper

Can you relate to this at all? I certainly have been doing a lot of "raking" lately. I don't think (study, read, pray, dig) enough and I am passive. Digging is hard work. AND HARD IS GOOD! (I had to throw in a Brad Stine quote there:) Okay, good night. I need to go study!

wordless wednesday

Do you sense some intensity here?