Day of Firsts

I always take the day off of work for the first day of school and this year was not only fun but full of firsts:

1. Cooper's first day of kindergarten. He did great! He has Ms. Bradley this year and sits at a round table with four other children. We could tell that he was nervous going in and sitting down, but he settled in nicely and started coloring and sorting his crayons and markers. He is an expressive little boy and that's his best way of coping. We checked him again after we dropped Collin off (see #2) and he was doing great. At the end of the day, he really had fun in school and was off to a great start. Of course, the trip to Chuck E Cheese after his 11:30 dismissal from school was a big celebration and a great way to cap it all off.

2. Collin's first day of the 2nd grade. Collin is so laid back and easy going and school is now the norm so he did great. We are really excited about his teacher, Mr. Johnson. We have heard that he is a wonderful man of God and an excellent teacher. He does seem to focus on positive reinforcement and we really think that Collin will thrive under his teaching style. Collin is sitting by his best friend Bryce so that may or may not last but they were both pumped.

3. Caris' first tea party with just Dad. With the boys in school, I decided to spend some time one-on-one with my girl. She wanted to have a tea party with her new set that she got for her birthday (she just turned 2). This may have been my first tea party ever, definitely the only one I remember. She did a great job of setting the table, pouring, stirring, and serving. I had to help her realize that the sugar and cream containers weren't just big tea cups. She enjoyed it so much that we decided to make some real tea for her to try so we whipped some up with the real dishes.

4. Chris' first time for Chuck E Cheese and Burger Box on the same day. Collin got out of school at 3:00 and he wanted only Dad to pick him up. The first day of school we always do something special and he wanted our ole standby of Burger Box. After pizza at Chuck E Cheese, all I had was a chocolate shake. Burger Box is like Whataburger but better! They have Blue Bell ice cream and they make awesome shakes. I was so full, I don't think I had much dinner.

Personal Finance

I realized that I spend a lot of time blogging about our family but not much on my other interests. One thing that I really love is personal finance. I like to read Kiplinger's magazine and the Motley Fool on the Web.

I saw a great article from the Motley Fool on emergency planning. Rather than just sticking with the standard rules of thumb for emergency cash like 3-6 months living expenses, this was a very thought provoking article. I will definitely use these concepts when evaluating our emergency cash situation once we get our debt paid off (except for our mortgage).

Speaking of debt, that leads me to let you know about the system that we have adopted -- Dave Ramsey's plan (with a few tweaks). I think that Dave has a great system that is founded on truth and quality concepts. His basic steps are:
1. Get a $1,000 emergency fund.
2. Pay off debt (except for the mortgage) using a debt snowball. Once you pay the smallest one off, take that same payment amount and use it against the next one.
3. Go back and fully fund the emergency.
4. Retirement savings.
5. College savings (for the kids).
6. Payoff the house.
7. Invest and give.
Do 1, 2, and 3 one at a time. Do 4, 5, and 6 at the same time. Then hit #7. Obviously, the devils in the details but I can't give away all of his information.

Leadership in Ministry

One very interesting newsletter that I receive on a periodic basis is The Pastor's Coach from Injoy (John Maxwell's organization) written by Dan Reiland. The latest editions offered some very good insight into assessing leadership specifically from a ministry perspective. There are two editions of the newsletter that address this topic so here are links to Part 1 and Part 2.

Church goals

This is very interesting reading on the goals that we set as a church and how we evaluate our progress and success. It is from the Leadership Journal blog of Christianity Today which I try to follow regularly (but not always often).

The 3 Bs -- bodies, bucks, and bricks -- have always been questionable as to whether they are really a quality measurement of a church's success. Thank you to Jim Collins for encouraging us to look beyond our standard measuring sticks and be creative and innovative in how we judge success.

The best things in life are worth working for. This blog post doesn't give you all of the answers but encourages you to think outside the box and develop answers that are specific to your church body. In my opinion, that's the way it should be. In church life, we often try to pull best practices off of the shelf of business experience and try to force them to work in our churches. At times, this results in using a big hammer to make a square peg fit into a round hole and what we are left with is splinters! It's not fast and easy to take the time to think through our church strategy, goals, reason for existence, key competencies, etc. but we are called to excellence and excellence is not always easy.

The Killer App not so killer anymore

E-mail still has the most usage of any activity utilizing the Internet (according to Pew Internet & American Life Project). E-mail was regarded as the "killer app" of it's time but I think that is changing. Instant Messaging (or IM) is gaining ground quickly and I believe that it will cause us to reconsider how we use e-mail in the future and change our primary methods of communication.

I started using IM with my brother-in-law in Arkansas a few years ago but really started using it at work last year. We contracted with a consulting firm in New York and I wanted to watch our long-distance budget dollars. I found out that they used IM frequently so we determined to use it instead of phone calls when appropriate. It saved our company hundreds of dollars. One concern that I had was the documentation that e-mail provides, but historical logs still allow for documentation using IM. Here are some benefits for IM:
* saved budget dollars (see above)
* easy conversation -- quick, to the point, much more interactive that e-mail
* know immediately if someone is online or away from their desk, very productive
* keep in contact -- it doesn't take any time to send or receive an IM, so it's easy to check in throughout the day without wasting time
* portable accounts -- doesn't matter if your ISP or e-mail address changes

I use IM at work within our organization quite a bit. I work with a lot of people who are on different floors of our building and IM is very productive to ask a quick question, get a status update on a project, etc.

One great thing about it is that IM is free! The main companies that provide IM are AOL (AOL Instant Messenger or AIM), ICQ, MSN, Yahoo! Messenger, and IRC. I use a tool called Trillian that can connect to any of these main IM companies' platforms. Some of my friends and coworkers prefer AIM and some MSN but with Trillian, I can connect to them all through one interface.

Kids and stress

We are starting to see signs at our house that the kids are getting stressed about school (especially Cooper who will start Kindergarten). I did a little research at lunch to ensure that I'm doing my part as a Dad to help them deal with their stress and thought that I would document my findings here for everyone's benefit.

Here's a list of ideas for us as parents:

• Pray with them and share scripture.
• Reinforce their worth, their effectiveness, that we love them regardless, and their ability to take action.
• Help you child talk through it (what do they feel, why do they feel that way, what can they do about it, etc.). Don't be accusing or try to fix it (that's a reminder for me!) just listen and let them work through it.
• Encourage vigorous physical activity.
• Spend special one-on-one time.
• Give gentle physical touch/support (back rubs, hugs, etc.).
• Tell supportive stories or role play situations.
• Shift perspective (how do you think the other kids are feeling, what about the teacher, how do you think Daddy felt when I went through that type of situation).
• Help them anticipate and plan for a stressful situation. Help them think through the worst case scenario and then understand that it won't likely be that bad.
• Model coping successfully with stress.

Links to just a few pieces of additional information:
KidsHealth.org article
BabyArt.org article
Iowa State University Extension PDF

No more babies in my house!

Today is Caris' 2nd birthday -- happy birthday baby girl!

"Baby girl" is what I have called her for almost all of her young life but it doesn't really apply anymore. It's hard to believe that she is 2 years old. However, she's doing great with potty training and not in diapers anymore. She's so independent, talking better every day, smart, loving, just a ball of joy! There's not much about her anymore that even resembles a baby.

What a blessing to parent a girl after two boys. It's made me a much more well rounded dad that's for sure. Raising girls and boys are so different and we're only at the beginning. By the way, our boys love their sister to death! When Caris first came home they were such good brothers, but honestly we thought that it would wear off as she got older and started playing with their toys, cutting into their one-on-one time, and generally being the youngest. We couldn't have been more wrong! Those boys dote on her, love on her, get things for her, and generally treat her like the princess that she is. Caris truly is a treasure to our home and we are blessed that today she turned 2.

Half Birthdays

When my wife and I were first married, we took time to think through what we wanted to do as a new family. I brought some traditions from when I grew up and so did my wife, but as we started "our family" we wanted some things that were unique to us.

One idea that we have implemented with our kids is celebrating Half Birthdays. One of our goals as a family is to make each person feel special. Kids often use half years anyway for their age since they generally want to feel older. So, on each child's half birthday they get to invite over a friend for dinner and we bake a cake and have a special evening together. There are no presents allowed but we do silly things like cut the cake in half, only light half the candles, and sing only the first half of the birthday song (Hap birth t y, hap birth t y, . . . ).

I mention this because today is Collin's 7 1/2 birthday! My oldest son wanted chicken and dumplings for dinner and to invite his best friend Bryce over. We had a lot of fun and it was a special time for Collin.

What my kids have taught me . . . (part 3)

* The arms of Father is the safest place to be. We have a two-story house and the kid's bedrooms are all upstairs. When the kids were younger and scared by thunder or wind during a storm, not even their blankets or each other would suffice to keep them calm. When I go upstairs and hold them or just lay in their bed for a few minutes, guess what? They go right back to sleep! When we face the stormy seasons of life, we may need more than our spouse, our savings account, our friends, our intelligence. We need to run to the arms of the Father and enable Him to be our comfort, provider, and sustainer. Psalm 31:2 "Turn your ear to me, come quickly to my rescue; be my rock of refuge, a strong fortress to save me." (Need a Bible study topic? Search just the Psalms for "fortress," "deliverer," "rock," "stronghold," "refuge," etc. and read in awe the promises your God has for you.)

* There is no greater sorrow than lack of fellowship. Traveling is hard when I have to leave my family, I ache after only a day or two. Just being around the kids, they will look up and smile at me. I remember when Cooper was a baby, I was feeding him one day and I left the room for just a minute to get him more food. When I came back around the corner, he had a worried look on his face and looked about to cry but when he say me and realized that I was coming back he looked at me and broke out in a big smile. Prayer and Bible study is God's fellowship with us. When I don't spend time in personal worship, prayer, and Bible study, I can tell the difference in my attitudes and actions. What's worse is that I know it grieves the heart of God when I don't spend time with Him.

* God knows everything before we do. My wife is nothing if not organized and she is a devoted scrapbooker. One of her best ideas was when she took a monthly calendar scrapbook page and put it on our refrigerator. On the calendar, she writes down the key events in our lives and she has a different color pen for each of the kids with their activities and their hilarious sayings. One thing written on the calendar right now is a reminder of when my daughter Caris (almost 2 years old) said "oo ah-ck Daee" (You rock Daddy). This was a great reminder to me of how God filled out the calendar of our lives before we were even born. He planned it all out ahead of time and knows the funny things that we will do and say even before it happens. He also knows the hurts that we have and how He will work it out in the end. Psalm 139:16b "All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."

Return to Part 1
Return to Part 2

July Scattershooting

Not much time to post, so here are the highlights:
* World Cup: I am so glad that Italy beat those Frenchmen! Collin even got into watching it with me.
* Church Budget: I'm on our church's Finance Committee and after a very interesting process (and a lot of work by our staff) we've almost got the draft budget worked out.
* Potty Training: Started yesterday with Caris -- she's so ready and doing great so far. Enough said on that topic.
* New Web Site: We rolled out a new Web site at work recently. Lots of good lessons learned and set up well for another related site in a few months. I'll share the URL next week most likely. I continue to be amazed at how strategic Web work should be to do it right.
* Speaking Engagement: I was asked to speak at a Church Leadership Conference. I'm honored and will post more about that later.