It's been a while.

Yes, it has been a while. I've been too busy living life to write about it. But here are some pictures from the past few months. During this time:

We celebrated a cousin's first birthday!

A different cousin visited from California:

 Haley and Asher started a band:

Asher continued to grow cuter,

 Asher learned to crawl:

He met his great-aunt Kelly for the first time:

 He made lots of messes:

 He continued to cute-ify:

There were some cute sleep moments such as this:

The cuteness factor continued to increase:

Asher began pulling up on things:

And then joined the "Undersea Adventures" gang:

 He questioned the meaning of life:

 He began to stand unsupported!

And then he learned to stand up on his own:

 He has now begun pushing toys around (AKA walking while supported):

He joined the football team:

 He got some new clothes:

 And learned to play peek-a-boo!

Today, he and I chilled outside in the glorious fall weather.

This is basically what Asher's days consist of:

He is learning to stand on his own, gaining balance slowly but surely, and trying so hard to walk. He now has 3.5 teeth (two on the bottom, one on top with one breaking through). He occasionally says "Mom-mom-mom-mom" but still hasn't quite caught the hang of "Da-da-da-da".

Brandon and I are smack dab in the middle of our second-to-last semester at Campbellsville, and oh-so-ready to be finished with school!

The blog is just not at the top of the priority list right now, but I do hope to be able to update it more frequently.

Until next time! (Whenever that may be...)

One Car Family

Brandon and I have only one* vehicle, that we share. My dad bought it for me after high school: it was my bribe to get a full-ride scholarship :). 

*Brandon actually has a truck, but it is broken and hasn't been running for about a year.

It is a great little car, and we are so blessed to have it. Most days, though, I am carless. Brandon drives the car to work early in the morning, and Asher and I are stuck at home. 

Now, I'm not complaining. I know that having one car alone is a "want", not a "need". I love being at home with Asher, love that God has blessed us so much that I don't have to work outside the home and send him to daycare. It's just that sometimes, it gets lonely. And sometimes, I feel like I'm not being a good servant of Christ. 

I feel like if I had the luxury of another vehicle, I could be serving more. I could be volunteering at the crisis pregnancy center, or at God's Food Pantry. I could be visiting lonely people in the church, or just visiting my family and unsaved friends. I could be doing more for the Kingdom. 

But when I think about it, is that really true? First of all, if I had my dream car (minivan!:), how do I know that it wouldn't just sit empty in the driveway all day? I would probably still end up at home, not doing any of those wonderful Kingdom things. That's what I do anyways when I drop Brandon off at work, and have the car to myself all day. I have dreams of productive shopping trips and activities, but I end up getting carried away with something at home and basically wasting my "day of luxury" with the car. 

More importantly, why am I not doing those things already? I may not have a motorized vehicle to transport me from my home to the other side of town, but I have a stroller that I can push down the road. 

I have neighbors who need to be reached with the Gospel right here in my neighborhood, 300 feet from my door. I can be volunteering my time to help a friend down the road, or I can sit and listen to the grandma at the other end of my driveway talk about her family. I can even walk downtown and encounter others there, do ministry there. 

Maybe this whole dream of a luxurious second vehicle is, in my situation, a covetous desire disguised in sincere motives (if they're even sincere at all).

For now, we have no need of a second vehicle. One is plenty. Sure, it would be nice to have the luxury of being able to go wherever I want, whenever I want. But even if we were to come upon the money to buy a second vehicle, it could definitely be put to better use: increasing our generosity, paying bills. I had been planning on creating a subaccount in our savings for a new-to-us second vehicle, but I think I'm going to scratch that idea for a while. 

God has blessed us so much by giving us all that we need. Selfishly, I have coveted what others have, what I don't even need. I pray that I will find the secret of contentment, in times of plenty and in need, to be Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:12-13). He truly has supplied all of my needs according to His riches in glory. To our God be glory forever and ever! Amen.

What do you think? Do you consider something in your life to be a necessity when really it is a luxury?

Being a Mom is hard.

Can I get an Amen!?

And I've only been one for 6 and a half months.

Being a mom is a lot harder than I thought it would be. It requires that I put myself - along with all my desires and wants and even needs - aside in order to care for someone else.  If it were up to me, I would probably sit on the couch browsing the web 80% of the time - and gorging myself on brownies and cookies and SO MANY SWEETS for the other 20% of the time.

As a parent, but especially as a mother, you can't be focused on yourself. If you put yourself first, not only will your ears bleed from a tiny person screaming at you until his needs are met, but you'll also have a hard time establishing trust with the little guy. He won't trust you because he doesn't know if he can depend on you to get him what he needs in a timely manner and take care of him.

For instance, many times I have had to eat dinner an hour or even two hours after I would have liked to, because Asher needs to be fed first, and then he is tired and fighting sleep, and then once I put him down and start to walk away, he wakes up and cries for me some more. I have had to leave gatherings much earlier than I wanted to because Asher was tired. When hosting company at my own home, I have had to excuse myself to go and take care of the baby.

It is so frustrating at times, and I think that is because motherhood - especially the putting others first part - is the very opposite of what my selfish flesh desires. I want to do what I want to do, when I want to do it. But motherhood is putting myself aside for a time. It is being loving and gentle when I feel like screaming and exploding.

I think this sacrifice of self is a big reason for the backlash against motherhood. The abortion culture fights against motherhood, against parenthood, against children because people are selfish and want to live their own lives and not have to be responsible for someone else.

However, doesn't anything that is good and worthy require sacrifices? The Olympics are going on now. Don't you think that those professional athletes worked relentlessly, making many sacrifices of time, money, relationships, etc? I am sure that countless times, many of those athletes had to leave a gathering of friends early because they had to be well rested for their training at 5am, or had to cancel a date because an opportunity came up to compete against a higher-ranked athlete and they needed the experience.

Was it difficult for them to make those sacrifices? No doubt. But they made them, and why? Because they considered their goal worth the cost of the sacrifices.

As a mom, I consider my goal - raising my son (and future children) in a way that leads him to love and serve God - worthy of the cost, and any sacrifices required. It's not easy. I don't always love every minute of it. But every minute of it is worth it.

Asher is not the source of purpose and meaning in my life: following God is. Loving and caring for Asher and raising him and all of his future brothers and sisters for God's glory is an outpouring of my love for God. That also is difficult for this selfish heart of mine, but that also is worth it.

Colossians 3:23-24 "Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ."

Linked to Women Living Well Wednesday and Works For Me Wednesday

We survived VBS!

We had a great week of Vacation Bible School.

We kicked it off with Super Soaker Saturday:

Which was full of fun water games, water balloons, a water slide, and even a firetruck hose. 

It was so funny to see the kids dumping water on each other.

VBS started on Sunday night. It was a blast. We had 50 children enrolled, and 39 workers, and there was an average of 66 people there every night. That's awesome for a small church like us! 

Our hope and our goal is to reach those in our community: it's not about numbers, but about souls. We want to share God's love with those in our neighborhood and community, and one way we do that is through VBS, our largest outreach of the year. 

The fun and games are cool, but the goal during VBS (and all of life) is to connect everything to Christ. We don't want Christianity to only be thought of at church for these kids - and ourselves - but we are trying to create a Christian worldview through which all of life can be seen and interpreted. 

Sabrina taking a break from Recreation to focus on Christ with the kids.

Some kids form ABC with their bodies - Admit, Believe, Confess

 I taught the preschool class, and they were so cute! And fun!

Wednesday night of VBS, we changed the schedule up a bit and gathered everyone together for OMC - Organized Mass Chaos. This is a game put together by CentriKid Camps, and there's no good description of it. It is simply mass chaos - with a tiny bit of "organized" thrown in. 

Asher and I refrained from the chaos, and instead chose to help get everything ready for ice cream for the kids. He liked just "hanging out". 

Brandon really loved being in charge of the bull horn.

I consider VBS a success, as the Word was taught and seeds of faith were surely planted and watered!

Giving Grace

I've realized that I'm often a hypocrite when it comes to giving grace to others.

When other peoples' kids act out, (I shamefully admit) I internally criticize the parents' discipline of their kids - "They must not discipline their kids enough" or "She only told him 'no'? I would've given him a stern talking-to if I were his mother."

But when Asher throws a fit, I immediately make an excuse for him - "He's teething, his poor gums must hurt so bad..." or "He's so tired... If he had had a better nap, he'd be fine now."

When kids in the youth group don't budget their money well and run out of money before a trip is over, I stubbornly refuse to help (this has only ever happened with my little sister-in-law). "You only have $3 for this steakhouse dinner? Well, you can get a cheap side dish and an ice water, then." - Thankfully, Brandon's a bit more gracious than I am and will "help a sister out".

But I forget about how when I was a youth on a mission trip and ran out of money early, my youth pastor let me borrow money until we could get home.

When others sin against me, I remember it. But when I sin against others, I insist they should "Forgive and forget! For 'Love keeps no record of wrongs' -1 Corinthians 13."

Oh, how much work the Lord still has left to do in me. He has forgiven me so great a debt, and I should forgive others, especially since their sins against me are nothing compared to my sins against my perfect heavenly Father.

Oh Lord, work in my heart.

Possibly the most boring post so far..

Maybe you're wondering what the Todds have been up to lately. 

Probably not...

More likely, you saw this link on facebook and had nothing better to do, so you figured, "Why not?"

Well, you're not in for much, really. 

I have discovered Instagram. I like the way it makes photos look... vintage, I guess. 

I have been staying inside most of the time, these days. This crazy heat is no fun. Poor Woody hasn't gotten much attention because I am not willing to step foot outside unless it is to get into the Air Conditioned car to travel to a different Air Conditioned location. But I have made sure he has plenty of food and water, and he always has lots of shade outside. 

We went out and played with him for a while last night, and we all enjoyed that.

I've been reading, some. My latest read is Adopted for Life by Russell Moore. I've really become obsessed with adoption in the past week or so, and I hope this lasts and can somehow be translated into action: specifically, adoption promotion. 

At church, we're gearing up for Vacation Bible School. I'm quite excited about it, but also nervous. We're kicking off the week with Super Soaker Saturday, where kids can come and play water games for a couple hours. We're also hoping to have a fire truck come and let the kids play in the water from the hose, and also just check out the fire truck. 

Look out world...

These kids are vicious.

Everyone's welcome to come to Super Soaker Saturday on July 7th from 1 to 3pm. VBS starts the day after, on Sunday July 8th. It's from 6pm to 8:30pm, and lasts through Thursday.

Youth Group fun

Taylor and I made rainbow cupcakes for our...

Cupcake walk! Instead of a traditional "Cake walk" where there are numbers on the ground, and whoever is on the number called out wins, we taped Scripture references to the ground and when the music stopped, we would read one of the verses and reveal which reference it was. It was fun!

There's Brandon, teaching the Word faithfully.

The guys reading along

...

Tonight, we had a Family Fun Night, which involved a Watermelon Seed-Spitting Contest 

I don't know if Tanner (white shirt) or his mom Angela (pink) won.

Then we had a water fight.

I was merciless. 

The younger ones even got to participate at their own level.

Now the remaining youth are outside, playing Sardines (kind of a reverse hide-and-seek). Those who are waiting play another game.

There's always something fun happening with the youth group!