National Homeschool Basketball Tournament

Here are a few fun pictures from our weekend in Springfield, Missouri for Mark's basketball tournament. OKC Storm won the championship game in double overtime. Go Storm!

Come Behold the Wondrous Mystery

I did a double take at church recently after singing an unfamiliar hymn. Expecting to see the date the lyrics were written as at least as far back as the 1800s, and maybe 1700s, I was shocked that it was written in 2013. And another surprise, it was a modern hymn written by someone other than the Gettys! I don't know much about the new-to-me songwriter Matt Papa, except that he's at a church in North Carolina. This is a great modern hymn for the church. I've found much encouragement in this tracing of Christ's incarnation, perfect life, sacrificial death, and victorious resurrection.

Come Behold the Wondrous Mystery (click link to hear on YouTube)
-Matt Papa, Matt Boswell, Michael Bleeker

Come behold the wondrous mystery
In the dawning of the King
He the theme of heavens praises
Robed in frail humanity
In our longing, in our darkness
Now the light of life has come
Look to Christ, who condescended
Took on flesh to ransom us

Come behold the wondrous mystery
He the perfect Son of Man
In His living, in His suffering
Never trace nor stain of sin
See the true and better Adam
Come to save the hell-bound man
Christ the great and sure fulfillment
Of the law; in Him we stand

Come behold the wondrous mystery
Christ the Lord upon the tree
In the stead of ruined sinners
Hangs the Lamb in victory
See the price of our redemption
See the Father’s plan unfold
Bringing many sons to glory
Grace unmeasured, love untold

Come behold the wondrous mystery
Slain by death the God of life
But no grave could e’er restrain Him
Praise the Lord; He is alive!
What a foretaste of deliverance
How unwavering our hope
Christ in power resurrected
As we will be when he comes

Last Summer's Project

Last summer Jon & I created this train board for Bram's 2nd birthday present. We followed this Young House Love tutorial almost exactly. (http://www.younghouselove.com/2012/09/all-abord-the-train-board/) my favorite part was deciding with Jon precisely what we envisioned for the painted background. We both decided we wanted a river, a lake, a bridge going over the river, & a forest. Jon noticed one of our wood planks was sloped all along one side because of the way it had been cut originally. That plank would be one of the outside ones and we wouldn't be able to screw the tracks there because it was so uneven. Jon's solution was to make that part of the plank a sandy beach leading out to an ocean. We also decided somewhere along the line to leave a clearing in the forest, in case any matchbox minivans needed to stop there for a camping site down the road. This planning part was fun because we got to try and think like a kid again. 

Bram seems to be enjoying this more the past week or so. He's almost all but ignored it since August when we gave it to him, and honestly our fun gift has spent more time stowed away under our couch in the guest room than being used for its purpose. He seems to be more into  his Legos or his construction vehicles and accessories. But whether he plays or not, all tiny visitors and friends we've had over love playing with it. I'm sure it will get plenty of use over time. I definitely don't regret spending the time putting it together, and I had a lot of fun working on it seeing as it was Jon & I's first team project to execute.

Jean rescue mission

My favorite pair of Bram's jeans got a hole in the right knee last week. After a little online sleuthing, I found and tried a tutorial for patching jeans in a way that keeps the "distressed" look and also keeps the patch on the inside so overall the look is more subtle. Most importantly, the tutorial looked easy enough for a beginner seamstress and could be done with no special equipment (other than a basic starter seeing machine). I cut the patch out of a pair of my old jeans, and so I just had to acquire some blue thread before trying to patch them this way. It was really simple and I love the idea of getting more use out of these jeans and not having to throw them out just yet. Also I hear boys can be rather hard on their jeans so I'm happy to learn a new skill that will be useful again and again. Here is the link to the tutorial and a few pics of the finished product. http://lazyhomesteader.com/2013/01/10/thrifty-thursday-patching-kids-jeans/

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