Happy Birthday Janna!

Psalm 25

1Unto thee, O LORD, do I lift up my soul.
²O my God, I trust in thee: let me not be ashamed, let not mine enemies triumph over me.
³Yea, let none that wait on thee be ashamed: let them be ashamed which transgress without cause.
4Shew me thy ways, O LORD; teach me thy paths.
⁵Lead me in thy truth, and teach me: for thou art the God of my salvation; on thee do I wait all the day.
⁶Remember, O LORD, thy tender mercies and thy lovingkindnesses; for they have been ever of old.
⁷Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions: according to thy mercy remember thou me for thy goodness' sake, O LORD.
⁸Good and upright is the LORD: therefore will he teach sinners in the way.
⁹The meek will he guide in judgment: and the meek will he teach his way.
¹⁰All the paths of the LORD are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant and his testimonies.
¹¹For thy name's sake, O LORD, pardon mine iniquity; for it is great.
¹²What man is he that feareth the LORD? him shall he teach in the way that he shall choose.
¹³His soul shall dwell at ease; and his seed shall inherit the earth.
¹⁴The secret of the LORD is with them that fear him; and he will shew them his covenant.
¹⁵Mine eyes are ever toward the LORD; for he shall pluck my feet out of the net.
¹⁶Turn thee unto me, and have mercy upon me; for I am desolate and afflicted.
¹⁷The troubles of my heart are enlarged: O bring thou me out of my distresses.
¹⁸Look upon mine affliction and my pain; and forgive all my sins.
¹⁹Consider mine enemies; for they are many; and they hate me with cruel hatred.
²⁰O keep my soul, and deliver me: let me not be ashamed; for I put my trust in thee.
²¹Let integrity and uprightness preserve me; for I wait on thee.²²Redeem Israel, O God, out of all his troubles.

Thanksgiving 2007

Yesterday was Stuart's first Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is a great American holiday, it's wonderful that as a nation we can give thanks unto God for the abundance He has provided us. As it was Thanksgiving, Stuart spent the afternoon watching the Lions choke away another football game. Some things never change eh?
After the Lions game, we hosted a little get together for friends and family. We spent the better part of the week preparing for it. Above is our world famous roasted brined turkey. It was juicy and delicious, especially with our red wine and turkey stock pan gravy.
I spent most of Wednesday smoking the above turkey. It to was brined, though in a less elaborate brine than the roasted turkey. The brine preserves the juiciness of the turkey and in the case of a smoked turkey it is essential. After its overnight soak in the brine, I smoked it with hickory and cherry wood for a good 6-7 hours.
And here we have the full spread, including our mustard glazed ham, red wine and turkey stock gravy, dressing, homemade green bean casserole (read: nothing came out of a can), herbed mashed potatoes and sauted corn.
And here we have a better view of our perfectly carved turkey. I believe it essential to take the entire breast off the bone before carving it.
For desert Janna made pumpkin mousse, which I absolutely love. Thanks to the Jurries who also brought a couple of dishes, including a desert that I never actually saw. I was told it was quite good.
Today we sort of hung around the house. We actually went to the mall today to gawk at the moronic Christmas shoppers. The world loves its precious Christmas doesn't it? After we got home Stuart and Deirbhile played for quite a while, always a good thing.
We're making good use of all that firewood we bought last month. We had a great fire going earlier this evening. The fire heats up the living room perfectly.
I would like to think I make a pretty good fire.
Deirbhile had decided that she really likes the fire. Here she is sleeping in front of it. You can't see it well but there are some really hot coals at the bottom of the fireplace. I suspect Deirbhile really likes the heat. In any event, we've had quite a week. God has greatly blessed us and our family this year. He has especially blessed us with great leftovers which will be consumed for the next six weeks.

Stuart had the opportunity to attend his first Griffins game last night. He enjoyed watching the game, yes he actually watched what was going. He seems to also enjoy staring at other people. It's a nasty habit but for a six month old we'll put up with it.
The Griffins lost to the Toronto Marlies last night. They looked terrible all night, the Marlies were clearly the better team. The Griffins didn't hustle, never made any plays until the last few minutes of the game when it was out of reach.
The Griffins are great fun and it's one of the few places we can take him to without worrying about his squawking or his protests annoying other people. It's so loud at the game, no one notices a squawking or crying baby. We can't take him to nice restaurants and we don't like to take him to evening church because these things all occur at his bedtime. At bedtime Stuart tends to make a lot of noise and in these other settings it wouldn't be fair to other customers or worshipers for us to have a noisy child there to annoy them. That said, until the third period Stuart didn't cry at all. He made plenty of noise but he didn't cry until the end. I was impressed, I probably shouldn't be though.
Earlier this week I had to go to Ann Arbor. I hate Ann Arbor, not simply because the evil empire is located there. Ann Arbor is a pain to get to, it's a pain to operate in. The only redeeming quality of the whole place is Zingerman's Deli. I got us some lovely things for an antipasto platter. Above is a terrific crusty Italian bread. I have yet to find a decent bakery here in Grand Rapids that sells crusty bread. Everyone makes soft breads, the kind you can squeeze into a ball and throw at your kid sister, as Ina Garten would say.
I got some wonderful salami's and some prosciutto di parma. I have no idea what any of the salami's were, I forgot to take good notes. One had fennel seed, another was spicy and the third was absolutely wonderful, whatever was in it. Anyway, we had a lovely antipasto dinner.
And finally, you can see Stuart was unamused at the Griffins poor play Saturday. We have 9 games left to go with our 10 game season ticket package, I'm sure Stuart will get to see a victory at some point.

Sabbath Lunch

Today we had a lovely Sunday lunch with dear friends of ours. As you can see, we had so many folks over that we had to move the festivities into the living room. We started with an appetizer of sun dried tomato jam, herbed goat cheese and spiced olive oil. For our main course we had a roast pork tenderloin with a port wine and fig sauce, roasted potatoes, wilted spinach salad and for desert baba au rhum.
Finally we were able to have Aaron and Bubbles (Meg to some of you) over for lunch. We've been trying to get this highly in demand couple to lunch for awhile. Three strikes and your out I say, thankfully they were only up to two.
Here we have James munching on what appears to be bread with herbed goat cheese. Loretta showed up for about 30 seconds this day, while Evie stayed the entire time. And of course, what Birn meal wouldn't be complete without our mainstay B?
Whenever the Lanning children are found at the compound so to must our beloved pastor and his wife. Here we see Ray and Linda holding George's replacement, Mr. Stuart.
Stuart likes his new friend Bubbles, he hopes she and Aaron come around often.
Dinner went well, the wine was flowing and our desert went over big. Afterward we congregated in the kitchen/dining room. This gave Ray the opportunity to pick at the leftover pork, much to the chagrin of Linda who put a quick stop to it. Do I dare mention that about 2 minutes later Linda was caught soaking up bits of baba au rhum in the rum sauce and whipped cream?
Evie is quite disturbed at her parents behavior, or is she disturbed by the table conversation?
Bubbles is slowly being indoctrinated in the ways of reformed protestants and our church in particular. We'll be praying for Bubbles on many accounts, we're certainly happy to have her as part of the church and our little group of weirdos. We hope to be invited to a wedding in the near future but I won't play the church hen and push it further. :)
And here we have B soaking it all in as is his custom. Thanks to all who came to our little lunch, it is a great blessing to be in the company of such good friends on the Sabbath. Fellowship was terrific, conversation was grand and I would like to think that lunch was acceptable. God surely is great.

Old Man Stuart's New High-Chair

It was a big day for Stuart today. Janna put together his high-chair and for the first time he got to eat his dinner sitting up.
Tonight's dinner included apples with cherries. I apparently missed the main course, which was grass clippings, I mean, some sort of green vegetable. Stuart likes eating both the green vegetable and his desert but if you try to slip in a second vegetable not only does he know but he isn't pleased. The exception though is sweet potatoes, which apparently works as a desert as far as Stuart is concerned.
This is yet another step in Stuart's slow progression towards civilization. Pretty soon he'll be weened, then he'll be crawling around, then walking and so on. All of these little steps are great blessings and big accomplishments for Stuart. Our goal is to create an independent adult who is faithful to Christ, little things such as crawling or eating dinner in a high-chair are small put ever so important in reaching that goal.
As you can see, Stuart likes his new high-chair. While he's really enjoying his apples and cherries, he's more interested in watching what I'm doing. I guess his old man taking pictures is more interesting than dinner. I should be flattered really but I know that if one of the dogs waltzed into the room I would be cast aside in favor of the furry critters. Such is life I suppose. In any event, the glory of Stuart's baby steps is God's alone. We thank the Lord for putting the stewardship of Stuart on our shoulders. It is our hope and prayer that we will be faithful to God's word and God's word alone in raising him to be an obedient believer.

A Very Birn Weekend

Friday night we took Stuart out to East Lansing for his first MSU hockey game. It was a big night for the Spartans as they raised their 2007 national championship banner to the rafters. Stuart got to visit with a lot of my old friends for the first time. Unfortunately, we don't have any pictures of the event because someone (Janna) forgot to bring the camera.
Saturday we did a little bit of gardening and Stuart got to join us. He is well pleased with all of the work we did, including the planting of well over a hundred bulbs.
Deirbile was also present for our gardening and she was very interested in what we were doing. We can only hope that she and Mr. Seamus don't try digging up our spring flowers.
But what Stuart and Deirbhile were really interested in is visiting with each other. These two have become very good friends, although we suspect that Deirbhile may think that Stuart is her puppy.
Stuart has always liked dogs, we let him visit with Seamus within minutes of arriving home for the first time last May. He especially likes Deirbhile, perhaps because she's a touch calmer than Seamus.
As you can see, Deirbhile was more than happy to lie down next to Stuart and go to sleep. Unlike Seamus who wouldn't dream of lying down when Stuart is there to be licked.
For whatever reason, Deirbhile is more than happy to like down on her back and take a nap. Here we see her doing this with Stuart.
Stuart is quite interested in seeing what his silly puppy is up to. He's always very happy to play with his dogs.
In other news, we bought a cord of firewood last week. This is apparently how much wood is in a cord, we really had no idea what a cord was when we bought it. It looks like we have enough wood to last us this winter and then some. Unfortunately, the weather hasn't cooperated and we haven't been able to build a fire yet. Hopefully we will soon.
Tell me that isn't a happy puppy.

Stuart, What Is Your Profession? Harroh! Harroh! Harroh!

Last Saturday we packed up the family and headed out to East Lansing for the Michigan State-Indiana football game. It was a rare night game in East Lansing and we did some late afternoon tailgating. As you can see Stuart came along.
This was Stuart's second tailgate, his first with his grandparents. As you know, Stuart went to his first tailgate and football game last month. In any event, for this game we made Chili. It wasn't bad but I think it could have been a whole lot spicier than it was. I say nothing.
Stuart was very excited to tailgate on the banks of the Red Cedar but was very disappointed that he couldn't go to the game. State beat down Indiana 52-27, needless to say I was well pleased.
On Sunday Stuart got all dressed up to go to Pribble's OPC Church in Lansing. I enjoyed seeing Pastor Pribble again, it's been a long time since I've seen he and his wife and worshiped at his church. Needless to say, it's no GR ARP. Speaking of the ARP, I understand our church picked a new name. We were exceedingly disappointed that Erskine RP was not a name option to be voted upon. It's sad that our heritage is now lost forever at the hands of the RP takeover.

An Evening At The Compound

Stuart has had an eventful day. This evening he got to play with his dogs. And what little boy wouldn't be excited to play with two lovable Irish Terriers?
As you can see, Janna has gotten down off of her perch to let Stuart play with Seamus and Deirbhile. Seamus seems very interested in licking Stuart's hand and Deirbhile is very interested in what I'm doing.
Sometimes Seamus gets a little to excited around Stuart. Despite the look on his face, he isn't upset at all. He loves Seamus and has been known to get upset if he leaves the room. Seamus unfortunately doesn't understand that he has to be careful with the baby. Thankfully, Deirbhile seems to understand that she can't jump all over him, she's a very motherly little dog.
Aren't they cute when they all behave? As you can see, Stuart is fascinated with what they're doing. And what exactly are they doing? You would think that they're interested in Janna's hand but in reality Seamus is plotting his next move against Janna and Deirbhile is no doubt planning world domination.
And finally we see that Seamus has been successful in his plot against Janna, giving her a big kiss and listening to her scream is great fun for a Seamus. Stuart of course is taking it all in while quiet little Deirbhile continues her plotting. Such is life here at the compound.

Alan Keyes for President

For those of you who haven't noticed, I've eliminated my political blog. I've done this for a number of reasons, not the least of which it was getting boring debating the same morons day after day. With that blog gone, I won't be moving politics over here, at least not much. Janna and I do campaign for certain candidates though and I suppose we will begin our campaign for President here. We are endorsing Alan Keyes for the Republican nomination for President. The election is going to be held on January 15th, so we don't have much time to campaign.

For those of you who don't know, Alan Keyes is a conservative Christian. He's pro-life, pro-family (read: opposes homosexual marriage), favors lower taxes, I would call him a strict constructionist on the Constitution, and he favors fighting and winning the War on Terror. All of these things ought to be in full favor of conservative Christians, reformed or otherwise. Keyes calls him self a declarationist, meaning he looks back to the Declaration of Independence on certain issues, often noting that we are a Christian nation based on the fact that the Declaration of Independence declares that we are endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights.

I know some conservatives are looking to Ron Paul as a Presidential candidate. While he is an interesting character, he isn't a conservative and he is unacceptable to conservatives and Christians. Paul is a libertarian and while I'm sympathetic to libertarian viewpoints, the libertarian position on abortion and homosexual marriage is unacceptable to me and it ought to be unacceptable to Christians. Paul is incredibly weak on both of those issues, not to mention his opposition to the War on Terror is absolutely unacceptable. As Christians, we ought to move away from people like this if only because their views on abortion are questionable if not outright unacceptable.

In any event, let campaign season begin. The Birn's will be out in full force for Alan Keyes, a man we hope and pray will be the next President of our once great and in fact still great Christian nation.