meet the faulkners

deacon says happy father’s day!!

i have nothing interesting to say, but my sister just sent me these cute pics from earlier in the week when we were hanging out in houston with her. deacon is starting to be a crack-up.

here we are eating at fuddruckers…he was having fun.

he looks so big here….i also think that he is learning to say cheese when we point a camera at him and i think he is saying cheese here.

whenever he finds a phone, real or pretend or landline or cell, he will put it to his ear and say hi.

he has the uncanny ability to find any dog anywhere. here he found the one dog in my sister’s apartment and kept just sitting down by it and saying bye everytime he walked away.

trying out some yoga…

such a man with the remote.

i seriously don’t know where he learned to play the piano with his rear…

he loved this PINK piano…i may have to go back and buy it!!!

we don’t know why he wanted to lie down in the hulahoop…but he did.

beautiful upside-down baby.

sorry this video is short and poor quality. but it’s all i’ve got. i’ll try and get some more video today!
deacon really likes closure…he is saying bye to me and the wiggles on tv multiple times…he even starts to whine about something then instead says bye.

also, here are some pictures.

deacon was eating dinner and watching the wiggles and at one part all the wiggles are doing a ballet dance and deacon likes to dance with them…

and we had powdered donuts for breakfast!!! rabid baby alert!

ps…i swear that we sometimes turn the tv off.

as we count down the final days here in fort worth we decided to take deacon to a couple of hot spots…and i mean hot in the literal sense…fort worth botanic gardens and the zoo. i say it is time to build the big biodome over the entire city and start air conditioning it!! here are some pics (mostly for clayton b/c he is in florida right now and i know he misses us.)

botanical gardens

he had a sucker…and it was good.

this could take a while to explain…but he thinks these four guys from weezer cd are the wiggles from his videos…if you don’t know who the wiggles are, consider yourself blessed.

elephants

fake alligator

so about our current life situation…i must say that when god moves he doesn’t fiddle around…while i can not officially say anything…here is a hint. but nothing is official…so don’t tell anyone you heard anything here.

has everyone seen the new coke cans for the olympics? they have made different coke cans for many countries. this past case i had was for russia. then on the box i saw this…

i know it is backwards but the little word says ethiopia and that is coca-cola in amharic. is it dorky to get really excited about my new mission to find and own the ethiopian coke cans???? because i am excited!

in sugar land apple store…not paris as the pic suggests…will give update on life tomorrow!!!!

so, i’m bored. and that never leads to anything productive…i decided to look around on google maps….i thought to myself, “self, what was the name of that street that your grandma lived on????” and i knew kind of where it was in houston, so i searched for it and found it…and then i took a walk down memory lane.

b/c google maps has this feature where you can see actual photos from the street level on the map. and you can move up and down the street and turn around and stuff….wow….so here is what i think is my grandma’s house. mind you this is like 20 years later after it has left the family, so no judging us by its appearance. yes, it’s the one buried behind the overgrowth of greenery.

and here is the house i was raised in (for at least ages 2ish to 10ish)…i remember the light pole in the front yard….

and i even found the house my mom lives in now…with a picture of her car in the front driveway…she has only had that particular car for maybe a little over a year? so this pic was recent. i think the google map picture takers should knock on your door and see if you want to stand in your front yard and smile when they take your house’s picture…that would be fun. i of course will not be showing you the picture of my mom’s current residence for security reasons, but trust me, it is weird to see.

of course i tried our house that we live in now and it had no pictures…i guess no one has taken pics of this street yet.

you should check it out…even if you don’t see the picture pop up in the little bubble that pinpoints your address, you can hit satellite and then you can see pics from the air of your address….here is one of our church…

this was also taken at least in the past 2 or 3 years…b/c that playground equipment in the back was bought i think in 2004? when i zoomed way in i can tell who was at work at this particular time based on whose cars are in the parking lot. i told you i was bored!

tomorrow is our last sunday at the above pictured church and i’m starting to get a little sad. and of course way anxious about what happens on monday when we are both jobless! ok lord, anytime you want to sell this house or give us some jobs or something i’m ready!!!!

1 Give a welcome to anyone whose faith is not strong, but do not get into arguments about worship styles.

2 One person may have faith enough to worship through any kind of music; another, less strong, will worship only through one style of music.

3 Those who feel free to worship through edgy rock music are not to condemn those who are unwilling to worship through edgy rock music; nor must the person who does not worship through edgy rock music pass judgement on the one who does-because God has welcomed him.

4 And who are you, to sit in judgement over an electric guitar player? Whether he deserves to be upheld or to fall is for his own band leader to decide; and he shall be upheld, for the Lord has power to uphold him.

5 One person thinks that “How Great Thou Art” is holier than “How Great Is Our God”, and another thinks them all equal. Let each of them be fully convinced in his own mind.

6 The one who sings “How Great Thou Art” sings it in honor of the Lord. So the one who sings “How Great Is Our God”, sings in honor of the Lord, making his thanksgiving to God; and the one who does not, abstains from singing “How Great Is Our God” in honor of the Lord and makes his thanksgiving to God.

7 For none of us sings for himself and none of us worships for himself;

8 while we are singing, we are singing for the Lord, and when we worship, we worship for the Lord: and so, singing or worshiping, we belong to the Lord.

9 It was for this purpose that Christ both died and came to life again: so that he might be Lord of both the singers and the worshipers.

10 Why, then, does one of you make himself judge over his brother, and why does another among you despise his brother? All of us will have to stand in front of the judgement-seat of God:

11 as scripture says: By my own life says the Lord, every knee shall bow before me, every tongue shall give glory to God.

12 It is to God, then, that each of us will have to give an account of himself.

13 Let us each stop passing judgement, therefore, on one another and decide instead that none of us will place styles of music in any brother’s way, or anything that can bring him down.

14 I am sure, and quite convinced in the Lord Jesus, that no music is unusable in itself; it is only if someone classifies any kind of music as unusable, then for him it is unusable.

15 And indeed, if through any kind of music you are causing offence to a brother, then you are no longer being guided by love. You are not to let the music that you use in worship cause the ruin of anyone for whom Christ died.

16 A privilege of yours must not be allowed to give rise to harmful talk;

17 for it is not singing a certain style of music that makes the kingdom of God, but the saving justice, the peace and the joy brought by the Holy Spirit.

18 It is the person who serves Christ in these things that will be approved by God and respected by everyone.

19 So then, let us be always seeking the ways which lead to peace and the ways in which we can support one another in worship.

20 Do not wreck God’s work for the sake of music. Certainly all music is usuable; but all the same, any song can be evil for someone to whom it is an offence to sing.

21 It is best to abstain from singing any song, or dancing any dance, or from any other activity which might cause a brother to fall away, or to be scandalised, or to weaken.

22 Within yourself, before God, hold on to what you already believe. Blessed is the person whose principles do not condemn his practice.

23 But anyone who worships with qualms of conscience is condemned, because this worshiping does not spring from faith-and every action which does not spring from faith is sin.

from the New Jerusalem Bible

Above is the audio from the song I sang on Sunday called All My Tears by Julie Miller. It’s been covered by Emmylou Harris and Jars of Clay. It is a great song, and I’ve wanted to do it in church for a while. This is kinda my swan song since this Sunday is my last at Grace. I think it’s ironic that the first line of this song says “When I go, don’t cry for me….” Ha!

Lyrics…

When I go don’t cry for me
In my fathers arms I’ll be
The wounds this world left on my soul
Will all be healed and I’ll be whole

Sun and moon will be replaced
With the light of Jesus’ face
And I will not be ashamed
For my savior knows my name

It don’t matter where you bury me
I’ll be home and I’ll be free
It don’t matter where I lay
All my tears be washed away

Gold and silver blind the eye
Temporary riches lie
Come and eat from heaven’s store
Come and drink and thirst no more

So weep not for me my friend
When my time below does end
For my life belongs to him
Who will raise the dead again

Tinkie Tunes (ASCAP)
Word Music(ASCAP)

Deacon had his stitches taken out on Tuesday, June 3. He did really well and didn’t cry until about the 5th one. When it was all done, there was a magical 8th stitch. The ER told us they put 7 in his finger, but actually there was one more. Margo kept the stitches for a scrapbook, which seems weird to me.

Deacon was visibly excited the rest of the day at the reality of not having to wear a bandage around his whole middle finger. Just a band-aid. In the car he was raising his hands up in the air and screaming with delight.