Allegiance

The Lord, he is God and he is good.  

It is he who made us, we are His. 

His love pursues us forever. 

I’ll trust His love and sovereign might

and receive with thankfulness what he gives me today.   

His Word is my guide and my delight.  

His command, my privilege to obey.  

The life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, 

who loved me and gave himself for me. 

The life I now live in this world, I’ll live as a light for the praise of my King,

honoring Him and others with love and humility.  

I will gladly sell all to have more of the joy

of God, my great Treasure, my Wisdom, my Way.  

I give all that I am for His glory,

in my character, relationships, learning, work, play.

His joy is my song.  His Word, my anchor and sword.

I live all by His grace and all for His glory.

I pledge my life to my Savior and Lord!

There's a book about habits that starts off with a story of training soldiers, of drilling them with commands that they need to learn to obey with immediacy and precision.  And it struck me how practice and training and rote memorization also have a part in my work of growing up these treasure kids that I love.   

So...Cheers!  Here's a K family pledge of allegiance that I hope will stain our hearts with His beauty as we mull over the wonder and lavish great goodness of God- that we get to live in His love and walk in His ways.  May the words of this pledge be a spirit-true prayer from our hearts and lives... as we pursue Him together who first loved us.  

A Grand Visit

Can I just say...  A thousand cheers and crazy happy Hoorays! for the incredible grandparents who flew around the world, made it through the day of sacrificing sheep (they happily stayed at home) and the day(s) afterward when we had to step over stinky puddles and piles of things on the road, and who generally thrived even through water outages and blessed us extraordinarily just by bringing their fun and card games and memories to laugh about and crazy love for each of us.  Oh!   We are exceedingly blessed by these grands!!

They brought in a crazy load of gifts... including Marian's 8 yr bday smelly treats 

"Spa Day"...  the girls got smelly lotions and facial scrubs and manicures and pedicures with Grandma.  This was their introduction to a phrase that Grandma taught them well on this trip:  "getting pampered."

He took a bite of a nectarine and then ran to look in the mirror and was scared when he saw blood.  It was just his first loose tooth.  Way to save your first tooth for Yeye and Nina's first day with us, buddy!  I asked him to wiggle his tooth so I could see how loose it was and he just wiggled it right out of his mouth.  We had no notice that he even had a wiggly tooth but then it "dropped" (as we say in Chinese) just like that!  

Looks like Yeye, amidst his myriad of talents, doesn't have the knack for the Chinese squat!

at our favorite park in town

Having the grands with us, let Matt and I get out to visit with neighbors during their time of sacrificing,  without having to drag the kid along.  We have such a great group of neighbors.  (since last year's photos were a bit much for a few friends... I'll keep the lamb sacrifice pics off here this time.)  

It's common for kids to get a spot of lamb's blood on their forehead as part of the celebration. 

Most of them are dressed in all their new clothes that were imported with love....
We had a great time just relaxing together, vacation at home days with family.   So, so special! 

lots of reading aloud...

We didn't do many outings, but we did make it to this "resort" near us...  where we could swim and eat 3 meals for the day for about $8/ per kiddo ($13/adult).  A sweet gift to enjoy with a silly fun grandma!  Doesn't she look fabulous in her scrubs/resort wear? 

this girl is a storyteller.... with full dramatic effects

love these high flying boys

Thank you for coming, for blessing us with the best gift.... Time With You!  We love you Grandma and Grandpa!