(We read this for part of our morning worship this morning.) 

“If we follow Christ we shall not have a spasmodical experience, and be moved by circumstances and influenced by our surroundings.  We shall not let feelings control us, and indulge in fretting, envying, faultfinding, jealousy, and vanity.”

“When petty trials come upon us, and words are spoken that cut and bruise the soul, speak to yourself and say, ‘I am a child of God, heir with Jesus Christ, a colaborer with heaven, and I cannot afford to easily take offense, to be always thinking of self; for this will produce a distorted character, and is unworthy of my high calling.  My heavenly Father has given me a work to do, and let me do it worthily for His name’s sake.’“

Signs of the Times, July 10, 1893

(I need to paste the second part right next to the GYC phone.)

This morning, Bentley and/or Chance brought us sad tidings…on our back deck.  A little dead mole.  Upon inspection, we discovered that it was already dead when the pet(s) found it.  What a sad reminder of the days ahead! 

Many animals won’t survive the winter for lack of food/warmth as it is.  But what makes things worse is that on November 15th, the children will have a day off of school and many will join their dads to go hunting.  While many think the laws for hunting make it humane (they are only allowed to kill bucks with at least 5 points), the does and fawns become victims as well.  All of the deer will be on the run for their lives.  In desperation, many of them will run across cities and roads and end up as road kill.  As it is, deer pose a threat to drivers and cars.  Imagine what it will be like when the deer are all on the run.  I hate hunting!  And, I believe something is wrong when people get a thrill out of hunting and killing a living creature*.
If you guys are studying the Sabbath School lesson, you’ll know that last week’s lesson focused on how God charged Adam to be the caretakers of all that is in the earth.  (And this would include fish–you can see where I would go if I didn’t hear Imanuel starting to wake up.)  I believe Christians ought to be responsible stewarts of God’s creation, not only because He commanded us to do so, but because we love Him. 
*And if people really want to eat meat, they can go to the store and buy it.



There, I’ll get off my soap-box now.  I just had to get that off my chest…

-JR    

It’s official.  As of yesterday night, Imanuel Alexander has learned to crawl!  Today would put him at 7 months and 20  days.  He sorta got the hang of it yesterday, but today, we could really consider him mobile.  Since the last post on him, he’d get up on all fours quite a bit, but when he wanted to move, he would always end up on his tummy and be squirming around.  The next step was when he discovered the fun of rocking back and forth on all fours.  Then, it was like he would rock back and forth and then lunge onto his stomach to try to reach his destination.   He quickly learned that if his back was against something sturdy like my leg or the couch, he could lunge/scoot even farther.  And all of a sudden, yesterday evening, something just clicked.  He came to the realization that if he moved his arms while lunging off his knees (or foot…you’ll see from the pictures) that he could get to where he wanted to go.  This usually happens to be towards any electronic device (laptop, phone, cords).  I think he gets that from his cousin, Juan.    You can imagine how our prayers are going to modify.

As for updates from the past month: 
1.  Imanuel started eating SOLID finger food – Cheerios.  He still hasn’t gotten the hang of letting go of the cereal when he brings his hand to his mouth. 
2.  We FINALLY bought a “high chair”…we actually just bought a booster seat.  I would usually just feed him while he was sitting on my lap.  Let’s just say that the investment has been WELL worth it. 
3.   IA has grown a new tooth!  Upper right central incisor.  His upper left one is about to cut through…
4.  Speaking of growing, we’ve graduated him to size 4 diapers.  It’s for weights 26-36lbs.  Imanuel is 22lbs but I think his belly and legs are a little on the chunky side.  
5.  We are slowly weaning him away from the bottle and to the cup and/or sippy cup.  He really enjoys the novelty of it.  They say it’s better to do this now rather than when their older and become attached.

Here are some pictures of him crawling and some other ones from this past month.  (I also added some pics from our CA trip to the previous post.)

What Imanuel looks like when he wakes up from a nap.

“Look, I’m doing the splits!”  HAHAHA!  He wasn’t smiling for long.  He put himself in this position and couldn’t get himself out of it!

Right when I took the picture, Bentley got on his hind legs and licked up a Cheerio.  He would do something like that.

Bentley sporting his sweater.  He was shivering uncontrollably so I put it on him.  Can you see the distress in his eyes?  (He hates his sweater.)

The baby is very irritated because he was napping a little too long (pushing 4 hours!) and so I had to go in there to wake him up.  He didn’t appreciate that and started flailing his legs around.  He kept his eyes closed and thumb in mouth the whole time.

We thought this picture was hilarious.  He gives this half-look-of-exhilaration and half-I’m-about-to-bust-out-laughing face quite often.  He’s quite a character.

It is such a JOY to watch our son grow and change!  It’s often so sad, though, because we can never go back in time.  The baby’s earlier stages are over and we just have to trust that what’s ahead will be better than what we’ve already experienced.  In the same way, I feel that as Christians, we need to press on, and continue to grow and develop!  And when we look back, I hope we find ourselves happier now than we have ever been in the past. 

Hey Everyone.  We just got home from  our trip to Ann Arbor, LA, Mo Valley, LA, Ann Arbor.   The trip was long and eventful ending with Imanuel getting sick with fever.  But I think he’ll pull through.  The wedding was really nice.  The place was great.  One person said it was the best site he/she ever been to.  I would agree with him/her.  I actually felt like getting remarried just cuz the place was so nice.  For pics, check out Albert’s site www.umich.edu/~ackim and Ren’s site www.xanga.com/ren503 (he’s got some really nice ones). 
That’s all for now.

~ edit ~

Here are some pics from our trip to California…

The cousins:  JooYoung, my sister, Teddy, Bryan, me, Angie, Gloria, and Justin

Wondering where I am in this pic?  Me too…the Namm siblings, minus me.

We’re in California because yesterday, October 15th, 2006, (which just so happens to be the day that GYC early-bird registration closed), my brother and Aileen got married!  It was a very beautiful wedding held outside on a cliff overlooking the ocean.  The place is called La Venta Inn in Palos Verdes, CA.  Very, very beautiful location and great food.  It was so nice to see old friends.  I also got to see family members from Korea and California so it was really nice spending time with them.  Israel forgot to bring the camera, so it may take a while to post pictures of it, but I’ll try to do that after I get a hold of some.   And, I’m very envious that my bro and Aileen are in Maui this week, especially after hearing that there was a big blizzard up where we live – over 10 inches of snow!

The baby is growing and it’s really cool to see how his motor skills are developing.  He slithers around everywhere-(it’s kinda like he crawls with his tummy still on the ground), and he’s an expert roller.  He’s pretty good at getting up on all fours and “rocking”, but he eventually ends up back on his tummy slithering again.  One thing that is especially annoying now is that the baby is obsessed with putting things in his mouth.  It’s one thing that he shoves his fingers down his throat and gags himself, (and you can’t take his fingers away!), but it’s another thing that he enjoys sucking on our puppy, Bentley.   The other day I caught him sucking on Bentley’s back foot.  The difficult part is that Bentley loves chillin’ next to the baby.  When IA is on the floor playing, Bentley is right there with his toy or bone laying next to him.  I think they will really be best friends…or for Imanuel’s case, his only friend (around his age that is)!  

We’ll be heading back to Detroit area tonight or tomorrow morning (depending on if we want to miss our flight or not) and then back to our winter wonderland on Thursday.  We really hope the snow melts by then…