thekurths.com

Happy Halloween!

These two videos cracked me up:

Baby Got Book (Warning: this is a parody rap music video. About the Bible.)

John Piper is Bad (May only be funny if you know who John Piper is... a Christian author of the Reformed tradition)

Things I was assaulted with while trying to take a nap on the couch yesterday evening

A cell phone. Placed on top of the couch to keep out of reach of baby. Fell on me.
A small pumpkin. Same deal as the cell phone.
A singing robot dog. Flung into face (while asleep, mind you!) by baby. It was singing "Do Your Ears Hang Low?" at maximum volume (I've learned to sleep through a lot this year).
Magnetic cookies. This is some kind of toy. It does not belong in Daddy's face.

I love being a dad!

A party? Or a testimony?

We are officially parents of a one-year-old. If you'd told me this time last year that this would happen, I'm not sure I would have believed you. Well, intellectually, sure -- I'd have known you were right. But would I have believed you? No way. But nonetheless, a whole year has come and gone right before our very eyes, and we had the big one-year-old party to prove it. Many of you witnessed this event, so you know I'm not making it up. (For anyone who needs further proof, click here.) Our daughter indeed turned ONE.

Huh.

Well the party was great. Kaeta had lots of fun. I don't think she knew why all her friends and family suddenly descended on our household, but she didn't seem to analyze it too much. She just enjoyed toddling in the park, stuffing her face with cake, and playing with her friends. It was unbelievably fun.

And as for me? Well I had fun, too, of course. Like I said, it was a great party. But to me it was so much more. It was a testimony to God's goodness summed up in three words: it didn't rain. A week before the party, Mark Murray and Jim Spencer both agreed on a 30% chance of isolated showers on Sunday (i.e., party day). As a meteorologist, I'll tell you that is what's known as a "CYA forecast" (that's the technical term). As Sunday got closer, however, the chance of rain got higher and higher, until all the weather forecasters in the country finally settled on 80% chance of widespread, all day long rain on Sunday. The technical term for that forecast is, "we won't say it's 100% chance of rain, but if you've got outdoor plans you're pretty much screwed."

All week long we prayed fervently. For those of you who've seen our house, you know how easy it would be to comfortably fit 50 people inside. Not very. The park across the street was plan A. So we prayed -- as I said -- fervently. And it didn't rain.

We drove to church that morning in the rain. For the rest of the day the dark clouds hung overhead, threatening to let loose. I didn't look at the radar once all day, knowing that it would only stress me out. Several of our guests coming from different directions all over town said that they drove through downpours on the way to the party. Later that night I saw on the radar that it was raining pretty much across the ENTIRE STATE OF TEXAS. But you know what? In Pflugerville? Between the hours of 3 and 6 pm? IT DIDN'T RAIN.

I am simply amazed at the lengths that God goes to to bless us sometimes. Often times He blesses us in ways that are different than we'd hoped. Sometimes He blesses us by NOT giving us what we ask for. We give thanks in those times, too. We praise Him because He is God. And He is sovereign. Already He has fulfilled our biggest need -- while we were His enemies, no less -- and THAT is all that really matters.

But then sometimes? Sometimes He is glad to give us exactly what we ask for, and so much more. Though He does like to watch some of us squirm as we watch the weather forecast sometimes.

IT.
DIDN'T.
RAIN.

Oh, and here are the pictures from Kaeta's birthday.

P.S. - Click here or on the Photos link above for new photo albums from August, September, and October, too!

Letter to the Birthday Girl

Dear Kaeta,

Yesterday you turned one year old. I can hardly believe an entire year has gone by since I first held you in my arms, dazzled by my sweet little girl. I could not and sometimes still cannot believe God had given me a little girl. Before you were born I was convinced you were going to be a boy, I think because deep in my heart I truly hoped for a girl, but I was too afraid to admit it to myself or anyone else. Afraid of what? Disappointment, maybe? I knew that wouldn't be possible. But then everything faded away the minute you were born -- all the anxiety, anticipation, doubt, exhaustion, fear... all of it evaporated into the air of that delivery room -- and then came the moment when I saw you for the first time, my breath taken away by how beautiful you were. My little girl.

It seems like I only held you in my arms for a few moments before they came in and said that because you had a low temperature, they were taking you away to the NICU. At first I thought they would bring you right back, but as the hours passed, reality began to impose itself on the tremendous happiness of that day, along with it came the terror that they would never give you back. I began to fear that I would never get to hold you in my arms again without various wires and tubes hooked up to you. Back and forth every 2 to 3 hours, round the clock, so that we could try and feed you, and so that you wouldn't forget who I was... We lived that way for the first week of your life, and for the first time in my life I knew what it felt like for my heart to be outside of my body, held on to and squeezed so tightly by such a tiny little person. Trusting God was so hard that week, and I have this feeling that it may have been some kind of test that I miserably failed. I don't like to think about that week much, just the thought of it makes me shudder even today. I'd rather leave it in my memory as some kind of bad dream, and instead relive the joy that we felt when we finally got to take you home, the longest week of my life later. Yesterday we celebrated the day that I had you. I think next week we'll celebrate the day we got to have you.

As I think back over this past year, it all goes by in such a blur in my mind, much like it did as it was actually happening. And here you are, walking and talking (some might call it "babbling", but to me it sounds more poetic than any Robert Frost work I've heard) and dancing and clapping and laughing... it's been so much fun getting to know you. In fact, I feel so blessed that I even get to know you, and infinitely more so that you are my daughter. It is both humbling and an honor that God has trusted me with you. Your Daddy once said to me that people always talk about how all babies do is take, take, take. "But that's not true, she gives so much!" he said. We see that every day as you toddle up to us and throw your arms around us and give the sweetest hugs and kisses we've ever known. And in the way you smile at us and give the sign for "love" to tell us you love us. And also in the way you do the cute little things that you know make us laugh, and how you're the happiest you've been all day when we're finally all together. Yes, little one, you give back tenfold all that you take. A hundredfold. A millionfold.

Everywhere I take you people are always telling me how cute you are. Yes, I know, you are unbelievably cute, and incredibly charming to boot. People can't help but notice, and it's no surprise to hear it all the time. I would be lying out the wazoo if I didn't admit that I feel a sense of pride whenever people tell me that. Of course I'm proud of who you are, and it's only natural to feel proud that such an amazing little human being came out of my body. As though I can take any credit. Really the credit and the glory belongs only to the Lord. He made you and He has big plans for you. And regardless of how cute you are now, it is what is happening beneath the surface that He is concerned with. For "charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised." (Proverbs 31:30)

And my hope for you is that somehow, someway, despite my obvious shortcomings and miserable wretchedness, the Lord will give me the grace and the strength and the character to be the Mama you need. (Such things can ONLY come from Him.) So that you, little girl, will grow up to be a woman who fears the Lord, who has the "unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit." (1Peter 3:4) For this I pray with all my heart (which is currently sandwiched between you and Tigger as you nap). May God bless you, little girl.

Love,
Mama

Birthdays make her sleepy

This may be her last time in this carseat.

Life tip: Don't stick a baby food jar in the garbage disposal.

Somehow a glass baby food jar made its way into our garbage disposal this week. The way I found out was this: Karianne called me into the kitchen because the disposal was making a funny noise. I carefully inserted my hand to remove the obstruction, then pulled out a bloody stump.

Okay, that's over dramatizing a bit, but I did cut my thumb. The disposal would only make a humming noise. What to do?

First, put it off for a few days. This is how I like to handle the catastrophic failure of major appliances -- maybe it will "fix itself" somehow! Yeah, that works out real well.

Second, google "how to get glass out of a garbage disposal." This was actually helpful, so here's something I found. The bottom of a normal garbage disposal looks like this:

Our reset button was already pushed in, so I tried sticking an allen wrench in the "jam clear" socket in the center. I could rotate this, but with some resistance, so all I had to do was figure out how to get the glass out without slicing my hand up and I knew I could get the thing running again.

It turns out that the only tools you need for this are a butter knife, some barbecue tongs, and a flashlight. First I turned off the breaker that controls the disposal (safety first!). I used the flashlight and butter knife to find the larger chunks of glass and position them near the center, then I carefully reached in with the tongs and pulled them out. This felt exactly like playing the game "Operation!" :-)

With the big chunks removed, I tried the "jam clear" again and it turned smoothly. I tried the disposal, and it's now working fine!

You might be saying to yourself, "who cares? Why are you posting about this?" Well, partly because I'm not that handy, but I wish I was, so I'm feeling proud of myself for being able to fix something. But also because I think it's great when people blog about things they figure out (how to fix things, what's a good software program for problem X, I found a DVD player I like, that kind of thing), and I want to contribute something to that.

But don't worry, cute baby pictures from Kaeta's first birthday party will be forthcoming :-) Thanks for humoring me!

Video: Some New Tricks

Kaeta is walking a LOT now. Here's a video with her walking, clapping, dancing, and then giving me five!

[Download Video, 2.5Mb]

Also, you know how you can cross your arms in an X to mean "love?" Karianne does that and sasy "I love you" to Kaeta, and now when we say "Kaeta, I love you," she does her best approximation:

Sometimes she does it all on her own -- it's really sweet. (Sorry for the UT shirt, Ags... there has to be some compromise in a mixed marriage ;)

How do you spell that sound that Tim Allen makes when he gets a new tool?

A couple of weeks ago, I was literally seconds away from finishing mowing my front lawn when suddenly my lawnmower's engine sort of... um... fell off. Apparently I had bent the crankshaft, which is bad. So the mower had been shaking, but I couldn't tell why, so I just kept going, and eventually the bolts connecting the engine to the frame ripped free. Really, it's hard to imagine a more catastrophic failure.

So, I pushed the mower's pathetic remains (which I'm looking forward to taking apart!) into the garage...and finished mowing the front yard using my weed eater! (There wasn't much left, but that part of the lawn looked like a bad haircut for a while :-)

Last week I got this mower:

It's awesome! It's the Toro Recycler 20017. It's self-propelled and optionally a bagger. It was the #4 Consumer Reports pick, I think.

I've only used it once, but one feature I liked was the speed sensor built into the handle. The mower moves faster depending on how hard you are pushing its handle, and it works perfectly! I think I mowed in about half the time it would normally take me -- the self-propelled feature just worked wonderfully.

Anyway, it's just my first time using it, but so far I'm really happy with the purchase, so I thought I'd share in case anyone else is looking for a mower. It was $400 with a 1-year warranty from Austin Outdoor Power.

That's right, more painting!

When you forget to take a "before" picture, you're stuck with whatever you can find. Here's a picture of some friends of ours:

(that's Paul, Jamie, Stefani, Tiffany, Colin, and Dorkface)

Try to ignore all of the people in that picture, and instead focus on how boring the walls behind them are. Now, compare them to these super awesome walls!

And furthermore, if you were sitting on that futon right now, this is what you'd see:

Now I will let you in on a secret. If you were to take that extension ladder and climb WAY up to the highest corner in our living room...

...you would find a special greeting:

I left that for future painters of this living room -- it's a pun! :-)

Thanks to some painting help from Paul and some baby-watching help from Karianne's parents, we got this all done in just 3 days! It's nice to have a change -- the living room seems much more cozy now. Here's the view from above:

Baby Cam

Blogs only a mother could love:
Other bricks in the wall:

Christian stuff:

Software related:

Amazing Bible Software: