Snuggling in the ’soon-to-come’ baby’s crib.

You can’t come to our home, and NOT get a train tour.  Here’s Noah giving Lina the full walk through, trains, helicopters, airplanes, and cars.

Bekah is doctor, taking Lina’s blood pressure…from her leg.

Lina and Liz came bearing gifts…here is a huge puzzle for Noah.

Bekah set out her silly bandz on her calendar.  Hunh…are these early type A tendencies?  We’ll keep an eye out.  Anyway…silly bands.  Don’t you wish YOU were the one that thought of making shapes out of rubber bands and then selling them!  Sheesh…

Totally not related to the kids, Lina, or anything really!  But I picked up a bag of Zapp’s Spicy Cajun Crawtators, and scooped up some chicken salad.  YUM!  It was the perfect blend, salty, spicy, crunchy, and mushy!

These girls have been getting up early for school.  Having gotten used to that, they get up early even when they don’t have school!  But, at 7 and 5…they have become ‘relatively’ self governing.  Emily and I try to sleep in, letting them play and make a TOTAL mess until Noah proclaims he is hungry for breakfast.  Then the morning starts.  Kay’s hair keeps getting shorter!…so short now, that it gets ‘messy’ when she sleeps…ha!

Noah LOVES to sing.  He’s always singing in the car…the single, lone, really low and raspy voice coming from the back seats.  Here he is, worshiping like his sisters.  To be perfectly clear…Noah was NOT dancing and prancing around…just lifting his arms in praise.

Check out the port-a-potties!  I guess after 10 years of doing these events, they know how and what to plan for!

Benny and Timmy woke me up shortly after 6am, to head out and stake out some property in front of the California State Capitol.  The event didn’t start until 9am, but these eager beavers wanted the best seats in the house.  And good seats we had!…under 2 huge trees for some well needed shade!  Benny, just got pricked by some dry pine needles.  Timmy waiting for him to get off the tarps.  It was so funny, within a 50 foot radius, was EHOP (us…Exodus House of Prayer), VHOP (Valencia House of Prayer), RHOP (Reformation House of Prayer), and PIHOP (Pasadena International House of Prayer)…all houses of prayer from Los Angeles!

Lou had us start off with personal repentance, and then moved us into corporate/national repentance.

At some point, during the national repentance portion…the Holy Spirit came in such powerful convicting power.  I have been to several Calls before…but none of them had this kind of a Holy Spirit led time of mourning.  Usually the big prayer topics are Abortion and the Homosexual agenda…but before we even got to those, the issues of Human Trafficking, Modern Day Slavery, and the Sex Trade gripped our hearts.  At one point, Benji from Exodus Cry, went up and talked about Human Trafficking.  He talked about the abolitionist of old, and how they took slave manacles with them, to prove to the world that there was indeed this hidden horror called the Slave Trade.  Instead of manacles, Benji brought the blood stained pants of a little girl that they rescued from the sex trade.  There was already some weeping that was going on…but as Benji shared, and we pleaded for the Blood of Jesus and mercy, something heavier than any kind of human emotion, descended upon us.  Someone said to go ahead and weep…because someone needs to weep between the porch and the alter.  And weep we did.  I don’t really know how to describe it, but for about an hour, there was just weeping and weeping.  Words wouldn’t work.  Thousands of us, just cried and mourned together.  I was reminded of Ezra, and the weeping and repentance that broke out when they read the law.

Then we prayed for LIFE, and the ending of abortion.  Here was a prophetic act of silent prayer, interceding for those fetuses that have no voice.

As powerful as the silent prayer for LIFE was…this was the best image of LIFE there.  You go Judy!  You’ve got a living being growing in you!…amazing!

Exodus parents brought their kids.  Leonard was reading in Joel chapter 2, “Gather all the people—the elders, the children, and even the babies.”  And that was that…bring the kids!  Joe and Kathy brought a couple of tents to pitch.

Lina has become amazingly articulate.  Noah, who is 2 months older than her, talks like a barbarian compared to this high society little girl.  Praying and fasting is really hard, and this was just before dinner.  Having fasted breakfast and lunch, Lina is asking her mom if she could have just one snack, just one little bite of a cracker.  Just one!  Please!

Just kidding!  Come on!…the kids didn’t fast!  Sheesh!  Who do you think we are!  Not sure what Lina is asking for…but not to worry, she was already properly fed.

Naomi, Vivian, and Stephenie…engaged, and doing their best to dodge the sun/heat.

Benny…also engaged, but not doing very well in dodging the sun or the heat!  Here’s the sad truth…we are getting old.  At 35 years old, by this time in the day, EVERY part of my body was aching!  Kids, as in college kids, all around us were going at it with no reserve.  But ouch!…I could barely move!  Thank God for Motrin.

A couple of offerings were taken to help cover the costs.  Armed State Troopers followed the money bins!

Yes!  The sun has set, it’s cooling down, and we’ve just got a couple more hours to go!  The last 1/3 of the day was spent just praying for revival, for God to move again in a powerful and unprecedented way.

And we ended the 12 hours with some great worship and shouts of thanksgiving and joy!  God…you aren’t done with our state and nation!  Move again!  Send revival!

The birthday celebrating actually started last night, with the Young’s and the Yap’s, at Cinzetti’s.  Good friends, good food, kids eat free!  By the looks of our table, I think we all had more dessert than actual food!  There were a couple of scary points during the night, where Emily actually thought she was going into labor!  Not yet, baby!…stay in for a couple more weeks please!

I’m not sure what the kids were all doing…but they were ALL doing it, right down to little Sarah and Noah.

Today was a stormy, rainy, cloudy, day…so I got Emily some sunflowers for her birthday.  I am posting pictures and including these flowers here in this blog, that they may be immortalized, and so that all can see that I do buy flowers for my wife…from time to time.

The girls had school, so Emily, Noah, and I went to get some yummy Japanese Udon for Emily’s birthday lunch.  After, we picked up the girls and headed over to walk around the mall…one of only two that are in the area.  And guess what!?…the American Girl store opened.  Needless to say, the girls were really excited.

Noah on the other hand…was totally bored in 5 minutes.  He started running around pushing Bekah just to annoy her…then came and sat/lay down with me on the couch.

Dinner was at Joe’s Crabshack.  Easily the best meal I’ve had in a LONG time…maybe since last mother’s day, when we ate…Joe’s Crabshack!  Why?…I’ll tell you why.  Ragin Cajun Steampot.  That’s Dungeness Crab, Shrimp, Sausages, Red Potatoes, and Sweet Corn…all bundled into this steam pot, covered in garlic cajun seasoning, and then steamed in their own juices!  Wow.  Everyone’s smiles are a bit funny…I think it probably has to do with me having them all say, “Joe’s Crabshack!” instead of “Cheese!”

Noah and Bekah, sporting their bibs…very excited for the food.

Kay…trying to figure out the word search.

Happy Birthday Emily!  You are such a private person…so I won’t embarrass you with all the things I love, love, love about you.  Suffice to say…you are the best part of my life (besides God!).  Thanks for marrying me!  Happy Birthday!

Poor girl…I think she was really bored.  Kay is always reading, always has her face stuck in a book.  Bekah has started to read a lot…but doesn’t have the attention span to get through a whole book.  The fact that she can read is pretty amazing, because Emily and I spent ZERO time teaching her!  haha…Kay has been coaching her.  Good job Kay!  Kay reads, Noah is always playing with trains and cars.  A lot of time, Bekah finds herself wandering around, looking for things to do.

Carole has been in KC for a few weeks, and came over to spend a night with us.  She took the girls out for a walk on our nature trail…

…which leads to a park…

…and then capped the evening off with a Bible story before bed time.  Let me just say, that by the time she left, our kids were TOTAL fans of Auntie Carole.

The weather has suddenly turned…really nice!  Not the freezing cold of winter.  Not the over saturated pollen air of spring.  Not the melting humidity of summer.  It’s actually been really nice out.  What a welcome change.  So…today being Saturday, we swung by the Oriental Super Market and picked up some fresh made Korean style sushi…Calpico…

…sushi…

…at the park!  The three of them started off playing together.

Then they slowly started going their separate ways.

Noah continued with his random exploration of the same jungle gym.

Bekah struggled to get past the 3rd monkey bar.

Kay left the entire play area and began picking flowers.

Great weather.  So what’s the current drawback?  Bugs.  Tons of them.  Loud ones…chirping and buzzing so loud, sometimes it’s hard to hear myself think!  Biting ones, we all have itchy bites on our arms and legs.  But this takes the cake for grossest bug experience thus far.  I was edging the lawn with my weed wacker…and out emerged this HUGE spider.  I’m talking huge, and disgusting.  Wolf Spiders can get up to 1.5 inches big…that’s their body!  So when we are talking about their legs and everything, they can easily span upwards of 4 inches.  4 inches!  Anyway, edging, and then there is this huge Wolf Spider, grey, trailing this blue sac.  What is that!?  Turns out…they carry their own egg sac!  Eeewww.  I see road kill and dead animals all along the road.  Doesn’t bother me in the least.  But this spider, with this huge sac…had me unglued.  Disgusting.

FYI…this picture isn’t one that I actually took.  I found this off a google image search.  I was too busy…weed wacking the spider!

We are almost done with the baby room.  Having trouble painting one of the walls, driving me crazy.  But with the crib in the room…along with a baby shower, it’s all starting to sink in.  We are having another baby!  Wow.  Three more weeks.  So far, no bedrest…God you ARE GOOD!  Emily has been feeling really uncomfortable carrying this little girl around.  We went to the doctor today, and apparently all the physical signs are pointing to an imminent labor…but one of the tests came back negative, showing that ‘chemically’, her body is not yet ready or going into labor…which is a good thing.  Chemically, she won’t be going into labor for at least another week.  We need to get three more weeks in for this baby to be full term.  Almost there!  Please continue praying for us on this final stretch!

Doesn’t that just sound REALLY good?

Doesn’t that just look…really good?

Now get this.  I know the Bible says to fast in secret, not to make a big deal out of it, to look your best…basically so we don’t fast for the praise of man, but only for our Father in Heaven.  But I need to disclose this, so that we can all feel the full effect of the Campfire Beef!  The Exodus called a 40 day fast in preparation and anticipation for The CALL Sacramento, so I decided to hop along, fasting with them and also for God to breakthrough in our own lives.  Desperate times call for desperate measures!…sheesh are we desperate!

Anyway, what started out as a fast from meats has turned into a fast from solid foods.  Some time last week, we went to Cracker Barrel for dinner, and I saw this on the menu.  Ugh…I had to order a bowl of cream of broccoli cheese (yuck!), but oh so wanted to try this.  I mean…come on!  Beef, potatoes, corn…all roasted and baked in their own juices!?  That’s like my dream meal!

And then a special treat, a gift from heaven.  Some of my parents’ friends called last night, in town, and wanting to meet up.  They were visiting their son, who recently started a residency program at one of the local hospitals.  Ooohhhh…my mind started working.  Well…we should definitely try to catch dinner with them.  We should take them to Cracker Barrel…Cracker Barrel runs are always appreciated.  And…I should probably break my fast for that meal.  I mean, it’s less awkward than ordering soup while everyone feasts on real food, and easier than trying to explain why I’m fasting, etc.  And…it only makes sense that I really go for it, and get the Campfire Beef.  Perfect plan!

ALL day…I’ve been waiting.  Checking the clock.  Anticipating the beef, the juices, the potatoes…

And finally, dinner rolls around, it’s time!  But guess what!  It wasn’t that good!?  It wasn’t bad…it just wasn’t that good.  The company was great, they were the nicest people, brought gifts for the kids, fun conversations.  But all my anticipation, the picture, the description…breaking my fast, alas, too much hope in the Campfire Beef.

Earlier this year, I started a series of posts of things that I felt God, in his sovereignty, had just set before me…bringing them each in perfect timing, with blessings that I could never have asked for or imagined. I never finished!…never got to the fifth one!

And now, months later…it’s only right to finish that little series. The Daniel Academy. What is that?! It’s a school, labeled as family co op education…or something like that. Anyway…The Daniel Academy meets every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. They do the usual Math and English and other subjects by grade level…but then also add in a TON of Bible, prayer, and worship. Tuesday and Thursday the kids don’t have school…and we are supposed to spend time with them going over assignments and helping them with homework.

They also require parents to be involved in volunteering, I call it non-voluntary volunteering…since you HAVE to do it. And at first, it was not something I looked forward to. Teaching kids…that just seems like by FAR the MOST stressful thing anyone can sign up for. My kids drive me crazy!…I can’t imagine dealing with someone else’s kids! But as the school year went on…I really grew quite attached to the class I volunteered in. To be honest, these past 2 days of Kay and Bekah starting TDA, has been really fun for me too!…seeing fun and familiar faces.

Volunteering also forced me to see what they do with the kids in worship and prayer. It’s amazing. There have been so many times, where the teacher will be explaining the morning prayer and worship exercises…and I’ll think in my head, “What!? These are kids…they can’t handle that!” And then right before my eyes, the kids will launch off and do exactly what was expected of them, giving prophetic words, singing in the spirit, praying over different countries, helping one another understand scripture…amazing stuff.

Last year, there was an outpouring of sorts…where the Holy Spirit came and visited powerfully. I remember walking into the auditorium, kids were just strewn about all over the floor, being ministered to by the Spirit of God. Other kids were walking around praying for people, other’s were talking about the angels they were seeing. Can’t wait to see what this next year brings!

On Monday, I went to a parent meeting and just heard a little more of their history and vision. The school is only in its 4th year, but they are already dreaming for the future. They feel called to influence this nation through education…believing the soul and future of any nation is in the minds and hearts of its young people. In fact, they’ve already partnered and started 3 Daniel Academy’s in Zimbabwe. TDA counterparts in Zimbabwe believe that in 20 years, Robert Mugabe (the current dictator who has single handedly sent the entire country into the toilet) will be gone, all of his legislation and legacy will be gone…and in 20 years they will be filling that void, with their leaders, who love and fear God. In 20 years, it will be this next generation that will be stepping into positions of authority and power in our nation…and the dream is to empower our young people to be these leaders. I love those kinds of dreams!

Oh…and last, but not least, the absolute most fun thing about TDA…are the names. The names of the kids. Keep in mind, that most of these families are from IHOP…so what you get is a student body made up of: Jacob, Isaac, Samuel, Daniel, David, Josiah…wait, it gets better…Moses, Nehemiah, Jeremiah, Isaac, Bethany, Abigail…wait, even better!…Elijah, Ezekiel, Malachi (who are all friends by the way), Trinity, Zoe, Zion…and the best ever, Hallelujah! Yup…Hallelujah is the cutest little Kindergarten (now 1st grader) you could ever dream up.

Alright! That ends this little series…better late than never! God…you really do see and provide! May you bless Kay and Rebekah as they attend the Daniel Academy this year. May they grow in you, in intimacy with their Lord and Savior. Open their hearts, to experience more of you. Bless their time with their teachers and their marvelous comrades.

Now an official 2nd Grader…Kay is a pro at these types of events.  She was so excited to see her friends as they came trickling in.

All of that exciting preparation, getting ready for TODAY!…the big day!  We’ve been slowly adjusting the kids’ sleeping schedule, to get them used to waking up super early for school.  Emily stayed up late, getting their lunch ready, getting their clothes picked out and ironed…my alarm rang at 6:40am today, and as Emily and I got up and got ready to get ready…Bekah burst through the door, having found the clothes Emily laid out last night, she was already changed into her school clothes, had her teeth brushed, face washed, she was ready to go!  I have no idea what time she actually woke up!  Here they are, The Daniel Academy, Day 1.

Kay just zipped into her room, hung up her bag, said hi to her friends…not even a real good-bye!  Emily took Bekah to her room…here she is, peeking at us through the door.

Where’s my school?  All this time, this little guy has been following his sisters around, asking where his room was going to be.  In the excitement of his sisters getting ready…folders, notebooks, backpacks, and lunch sacks, Noah insisted on bringing with him one of his train books.  Here he is, just having said good-bye to his sisters, doing a perfect Chinese squat in the hallway.

So what do we do now?…with only one kid at home?  Well…in between looking for a job, watching some cartoons with him, and napping (me, not him)…I tied a couple of his boos on his head and waist.  He REALLY liked this…and for some reason, dressed like this, he said he was Uncle Dennis?!  I have NO idea what his line of reasoning is.  The closest thing I can think of…maybe he saw Dennis in a set of scrubs?…unable to confirm.

OK…there’s a ton of stuff going on in this picture.  First, it’s an empty room.  This used to be Noah’s room, but he’s moving out to what was once the upstairs guest room.  This room, the new baby room, is getting painted a light sage…we are almost done with that, pics coming soon.  Second, Noah is ‘pretend’ getting his hair cut by Bekah.  And third, Bekah…I have no idea what she’s dressed as.  She did it all herself, gone one minute, and came back decked out like this…wings, ribbons, skirt!?

Noah in his new room.  More pics coming soon…but here he is getting settled.  Actually, it took him no time at all to get used to his new room.  Here he is playing alone.  Poor guy is ALWAYS asking me, emily, or one of his sisters to come play with him.  You want come my room?  You want come see my trains?  You want come play for me?  And then he’ll come grab my arm and just start tugging!  On that same token, Noah will sometimes be totally fine playing by himself with his toys.  I love hearing his little sound effects.

I’m not sure which one of his sisters taught him this…but it’s his mad face.  He does this on call.  He doesn’t do it when he’s really mad…but when you ask him for his ‘mad’ face, this is what you’ll get.  Arms, always crossed.

Check this out.  Shaved ICE!  This is a sure bet to help get through the heat and humidity.  We picked up this dinky little ice shaver back in LA, before we moved to KC.  I only JUST took it out!…and it works great!  We have red bean, mochi balls, peanuts (yuck!), grass jelly, lychee, and condensed milk.