Virginia’s Blog

I know that I haven’t yet posted anything very thoughtful on this blog….but occassionally I have a moment to think…ha ha.

This weekend (when Stan, Shannon, and Ginna went downtown with Ginna and afforded me some solitude…), I pulled out an old favorite, Addicted to Mediocrity by Franky Schaeffer. Recently, I’ve been contemplating how different my worship of God is than it was as a single woman. I sometimes feel much like a machine…there is much that is routine and but not necessarily predictable. My worship is often associated with finding relevance and meaning in the mundane and in serving, and relying on God to help me do this rather than trying to justify to myself the meaningfulness of the details of raising children (like how much poop can I really clean up!!!!)

So I am once again inspired by Franky Schaeffer to look for beauty and creativity in simple things, and to teach my children to enjoy beauty as well.

“The arts, cultural endeavors, enjoyment of the beauty of both God’s creation and of man’s creativity- these creative gifts have in our day been relegated to the bottom drawer of Christian consciousness, despised outright as unspiritual or unchristian. This deficiency has been the cause of many unnecessary guilt feelings and much bitter fruit, taking us out of touch with the world God has made, with the culture in which we live, and making us ineffectual in that culture.

The best of the traditional view of the church, supported by biblical teaching, has been (thankfully) that the arts, creativity, enjoyment of our own creativity, the creativity of those around us- in short, all the beauty that God has put into this life- comes as a direct good and gracious gift from our Heavenly Father above. Thus the arts, the enjoyment of them, all these expressions of man’s creativity and ability to communicate, need no justification- they need no spiritual justification, and they need no utilitarian justification. They are what they are.”

Ginna and Jamey in their new “stroller bus” (as we call twin strollers).

I’m including some ballet photos. Here’s a plie!

 They also play with parachutes in ballet class.

Here’s my monkey. One day she will learn what the bar is for!

Airplane arms and kicks

Stan enjoys making sushi and fried rice these days, thanks to our friend, Juliana, who taught him. Stan’s friend, Shannon, is here for a visit this weekend.

Ginna and Stan at Gehry’s Disney Concert Hall.

Here’s a shot of the concert hall. Stan and I went to an LA Philharmonic concert here in December.

My college roommate, Rachel, visited us this past week. She and I went to Joe’s in Venice for brunch on Saturday (YUM!) while Stan and the kids played together. They took some photos of themselves.

Ginna was very amused by Rachel’s accessories….purses, shoes, and jewelry. I guess having me as a mom who wears one pair of earrings and shoes for comfort rather than style…and who has what Stan calls a “purse cemetery” to hold the bags that have been replaced by the diaper bag….one would expect Ginna to find these accessories entertaining. I told Stan today that I think my kids actually are my accessories in a sense….I still wear Jamey at church, for instance, so no one really notices what I wear!

 Here’s a photo of my pre-crawler…he’s getting close!

Jamey is enjoying his newfound ability to sit up!

Here’s Ginna at her ballet class. She really likes the music and loves to announce when a new song starts!

Jamey has reached 21 pounds!

Wing sent Ginna some George slippers. She LOVES them!

I went to take the trash out today and returned to the back door to find the deadbolt locked….by Ginna. Unfortunately, she was not able to unlock the lock that she had just locked. I spent 15 minutes coaching her on how to unlock it before remembering that she is more adept at unlocking the front door. I asked her to go unlock that one and was able to get back inside. !!!