Celebration

Today we celebrated Joel's birthday. I took him out and got his hair cut, and then we had a party from 11:00am to 1:00pm. I think everyone had a good time. Bethany had made a decoration with about 100 chain links of coloured construction paper. We ordered pizza and Karen made an ice cream cake (although I went and ordered a pepperoni pizza instead of a plain cheese pizza and spent about 15 minutes removing pepperoni. However all was not lost; I put all the pepperoni on my pizza!).

I am reading William Dembski's book, "Intelligent Design". It's still early in the book and I don't know what to think, or how he is going to develop some of his initial statements about "signs". He did inspire me to do some interesting thinking of my own about the ressurection though!

Up, down, and all around

Yesterday I saw a job posting at work for a position I was interested in. In an uncertain economy, I am hesitant to take risks, so I wasn’t sure if I should apply for it. Today, the door closed as one of my colleagues has moved into that position. So, a seeming opportunity disappeared. On the other hand, I just found out that another one of my friends was laid-off, so I’m quite sad about that. I think I could be doing more in my job, but at least I have a job.

Karen was feeling a little ill tonight, and Hannah was quite fussy, so I didn’t take Bethany to music tonight and I did order Greek food for supper. It’s like I’m addicted to Greek food.

Today was Federal Budget day in Canada. Our Finance Minister has announced a $5 billion day-care program. Never mind that so many areas of existing spending are starved. Never mind that our federal debt is still over $500 billion. What this country really needs is yet another social program!

I read some more of the Chronicles of Narnia to the children tonight. I’m about half way finished “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader”. Joel wasn’t too fussy about it when I started reading tonight, but at the end of the chapter he really wanted me to read another. However it was bed time.

I purchased a computer game the other day. It’s called “Strategic Command”. It is your typical turn-based hex-board WWII strategy game. The interface is simple and clean and very attractive. Interestingly enough, the game is written in Eiffel, rather than C++ or Java.

Fabulous Friday

I took today as a vacation day, so I could spend some additional time with the children and give Karen a break. I took the 3 children to the Carlingwood Mall in the morning. Hannah was really quite good. The reason why I mention Hannah instead of the older 2 children is that the older two are really no trouble at all. At the mall I bought a copy of "The Hobbit", having misplaced my old copy some years ago. I also got Karen a stainless steel frying pan (a smaller one to match her larger one).

In the afternoon, a friend of ours had the older two over to visit. They played with her children and had a good time. I was able to get a nap and spend some time with Hannah. It was a wonderful kindness for her to give us a break like this. She had in fact volunteered to babysit tonight while Karen and I went out to supper, but we felt Hannah might have a hard time with someone different, since she wakes up so often.

For dessert tonight, Karen made "Tollhouse Chocloate Decadence". It's like a big brownie with 2 cups of President's Choice Chocolate Chips in it. For those who remember the old Sudbury Bible Fellowship Youth Group, it was amazingly like John Johnston's chocolate sludge cake (although fully cooked this time, unlike the guys vs girls bakeoff).

More Nights

Hannah has given us some good nights, but the last 2 have been bad ones. We didn't make it out to church on Sunday since we were pretty much zonked. Being that we didn't go to church, I felt very out of sorts (i.e. out of my routine).

Joel now wants to be called "Joelus Maximus". I guess the totalitarian dictator thing is just a phase, and if I can keep him away from Machiavelli, things will work out.

I finished reading "Prince Caspian" to the children, and have now started the next book in the Chronicles of Narnia. After I finish this series, I think I will read "The Hobbit" to them.

A Localized World Record

After our experience on Friday night with Hannah, I would be remiss if I did not point out that on Sunday night Hannah slept from 7:00pm to 5:00am without waking. This is a record for her. She woke at 5:00am and took a feed. It was a little difficult getting her back to sleep, but she did and slept past 7:00am. This is a lifetime best performance for Hannah.

Saturday Update

It’s a Saturday morning and Karen is making waffles for the children. She’s got raspberries and whipped cream, so it should be an extravaganza. This big production for breakfast is surprising considering the night we had. It took half an hour to get Hannah down to sleep, then she woke up 2 hours later at 9:30 and stayed wake until about 2:45am. We tried rocking her, but every time we put her down she’d wake up. We tried letting her cry it out for an hour, but she never stopped. I took her downstairs for an hour until she was played out, but when I tried to put her down she woke again. Finally she conked out at about 2:45am after having got yet another feed.

We had big plans for today. I was going to work on sermons this morning, and we planned to go to the church Family Fun Day this afternoon. We’ll have to see how it works out.

Joel was telling me about his dream the other day. Apparently he was living in a nice house and was married. I asked who his wife was but he said, “That’s the strange part. I didn’t know her name.” Apparently he and Mrs. Abigail were hatching lizards together. I observed that some women want children, but I guess others want lizards.

Joel was working on a computer game called “X Rex Nex”. He cut out a CD made of paper.

We won't be going to the library today, except to drop off some stuff that's due back.