A book blog update!

Hey all!
There are 8 women reading the book, Heaven at Home!! Yeah! The women are located from Egypt, to Kansas, to Missouri, to NC and finally Louisana (did I miss anyone?)~!
I am so excited to hear their thoughts on the book. Keep those thoughts coming girlfriends!

I know that we have heard from Krista about a few things that she liked and that challenged her...here are a few things I underlined in my copy of the book. These are Ginger Plowman's words, not mine. :)

Delighting in who you are
The woman sets the ambiance of the home.
The fregrance of her joyful presence is a tantalizing aroma that scents the home more sweetly than a fresh-cut bouquet of magnolias.
She depends on Christ to enable her.
She is nothing without the atoning grace of God.
True beauty radiates from a woman who gracefully walks the path designed uniquely for her.

Being a beautiful Bride of Christ
It's not about us; it's about God.
(when busy...have Bibles placed throughout your home/car/purse so as you go about your day...) A little snacking can prevent starvation as you wait for an opportunities to feast (on God's word).

Being a great wife
Disorder and chaos wears a man down.
It does take a willing women to keep her priorities in order.
Prepare for your husbands arrival!
Allow him time to rest his mind and body before you approach him with heavy topics.
Little things mean a lot...a little effort can go a long way. (favorite food, lighted candle, note in lunch)
Study your husband, what does he notice and make positive comments about...what does he complain about...ask him what would make his home life more fulfilling.
As loving wives, by God's grace, we can prepare a "refuge" at home.

Being a great mom

It is my calling, my priority, my struggle, and my goal. I will rise to the occasion and accept the task at hand. I will love, nurture and train my children in the way that God has called me to do.

It's molding character, building confidence, nuturing, training, guiding. There is no calling as consuming, challenging, and rewarding. And there is no calling as worthy of our efforts as the high calling of motherhood.
Talking about Jesus should be a natural part of everyday conversation with your children.
Let them witness how the hope of the gospel motivates you to cling to Christ.
...point them to the giver of joy.
...point them to the redemption and hope of Jesus.
Find out what warms the heart of your child and makes home special for him. Then offer those as a gesture of love.
Listen intently to their hopes, fears, dreams, and concerns.

Cultivating Unity in Marriage
As we strive to be unified through an unselfish effort to meet the needs and desires of one another, we are transformed into His likeness.
Unity is acquired through viewing ourselves and others through the lens of the gospel.
Christ has called wives to serve their husbands no matter how unworthy they may be.
Date your mate! Don't let the sizzle fizzle...don't let money keep you from dating-(even walking hand in hand can sizzle...)

In conclusion...I have copied a lot from the book. Anything in ( ) is added by me, or at least reworded by me. This book really is a great challenge to love being a woman, wife and mommy. Hope you enjoyed, I have!

It's a beautiful fall day here in NC...don't you just love the anticipation of the holidays!
Love to all!

A day on the wood cabin farm...

Welcome to the wood cabin farm...home of the Mckenzies! Who happen to be some of our favorite people. These friends have been around our lives for the last 10 years! That is amazing to me! Justin first meet Tracy at KSU when we were freshmen. And the first time I meet Beth she was pregnant with their first boy, Micah! Wow, time flies! :0)
Yesterday, Justin, Katie and I helped to start the process of adding stone to the base of their home and porch. The stone was so heavy (at least to my wimpy arms!). We had a blast trying to fit each piece like a puzzle. In the first picture you can see the stucco that we started on, the second picture there is some finished in the corner, the third picture-a picture of the Mckenzie boys in the farm dump truck, and the last picture is the little boys in the truck while it was unloading the stone. All the little boys were a great help and we (the Himes) were so glad to help work! Check back next week to see a picture of some of the finished product. The entire plan of stone work will take a few months!

And the photos below...well they speak for themselves...Tracy and Justin, Beth and I, Crocket the dog, and oh the sweet potato grilled fries!!! These were introduced to me by Beth. They are DELICIOUS! They are sliced uncooked sweet potatoes, brushed with maple syrup and then grilled until soft. Oh my, they are worth all the time! If you do try to make some...pick out short fat potatoes- since they are the easier to cut into slices, slice them pretty thin or they will be to chewy, and then grill until soft. To decide if they are soft...eat one! I hope you enjoy this healthy addition to my ever changing menu! :)


And last Katie did a great job...she slept most of the time, since it was her longest nap time, but when she was up she was entertained by all the hammering and boys antics!


McKenzies, We love you guys! Love, the Himes

5 months old and enjoying every minute!

Yep, Katie Grace is 5 months old!~ We can't believe how much time has flown by! Wasn't it just yesterday that she was 8 lbs?? Now she is almost 19 lbs!!! The good thing about her getting bigger is my muscles are getting bigger too! :)
(...Can you see how blurry her feet are? She is rubbing them together as fast as she can-She loves to give herself a foot massage!)

The album below are other photos that I took of her last week. I put her in a pumpkin costume, (doesn't every little kid get to be a pumpkin this time of year?) and tried to capture her cuteness. Well, lets just say that it wasn't her favorite thing to have on and it was also right before a nap! But she almost looks like a character off Lord of the Rings, kid version of course! :)

Happy Birthday Katie!
We love you!
Love, your mommy and daddy

Pumpkin Patch

Dear Mimi and Nana...

I love you! Love, Katie Grace
PS my shirt says, "Grandma magnet"

I should have listened...

Justin has been telling me that Katie will spit up on me one of these days while I am flying her in the air like an airplane. Stubborn as I am I just kept doing it to show him wrong. Well, my pride caught up with me a few mornings ago. Justin just happened to have the camera right beside him and caught it forever in a picture. Yes, it was disgusting! It was all down Katie, my sweatshirt, my hair, wood floor and carpet...Maybe I should have listened to Justin! But if I had listened he wouldn't have been able to have a big laugh! :)

Christmas came early for...her two front teeth.

Well, Katie is 4 1/2 months old and has her two bottom teeth!! These are the best pictures that we could take that might show them off. The first photo definately took both of us trying to capture her mouth open. You might have to click on the pictures to enlarge them to see her teeth. She got her first tooth a week before the second one!...And yes I got bite on the shoulder a few days ago. She turned around while I was holding her and took out her hunger on my shoulder. :)

Her smile is changing a bit now...see the last photo. And her hair yes, it is a bit red in the sunlight. I had red hair for a little while while I was a baby. My dad also did for some time. :) It will probably end up on the blond side, but for now it is constantly growing and changing.

Our pink convict has teeth...............................ahhhhhh.................................. :)

Put it on the top like this...

Justin and I have been going through our things, seeing what we could sell in order to clean out our house. We have things that we have had since college and just need to get them out of storage!! Like this futon that I bought in 01' recovered it, used it at our house and then used it for 4 years for my "reading pad" in my 5th grade classroom. And Justin talked me out of keeping it until Katie might need it for her college dorm room!

Here is the story...
So I listed this full size futon on craigslist (which I love!). Within 30 minutes I had a few phone calls to buy it. (All in all we had 6 calls/emails to buy it...amazing!) And 1 hour later these two computer tech guys show up in a honda civic. We chatted for a minute and I found out they worked on computers and they said their jobs were, "be problem solvers of computers".

Do you see the potential problem they might have? Trying to get a full size bed in a honda civic? :) They tried and tried to get into the car, even tried to take it apart. But as you can see from the pictures they finally settled on taking it home by bungy strapping it to the top of their car! It was SO funny! I hope it didn't slid down the back and onto the back windshield. :) They did have to go on hwy 401, they couldn't just take the back roads they said...It was so comical. I guess they solved the problem of needing a bed to sleep on and also of getting it back to their house. And yes, I snapped these photos from the upstairs guest room inbetween the blinds and over Justin's shoulder through the garage. I was being a secret comedy photography...just like my friend Robin who is a P.I. :)

She is growing up!

Here are some of the latest photos of Katie. We both can't believe that 4 1/2 months have gone by already. She is growing like a weed (since that is all that is growing in NC right now) and is full of life! She weighs 17 lbs, is 26 inches long (she is over two feet tall!) and in everything including her head size is in the 90th plus percentile of babies. You can tell from these photos also that she loves to stand up and can almost sit up on her own. :) She changes everyday!
These were from the past Sunday before church. I think this dress is SO cute and the shoes make her look so grown up! Thanks Jae it fit perfectly!

And on a side note...note the dead grass behind Katie in the first picture. Raleigh is almost 20 inches behind, so we are in a sever drought!!! Normally NC doesn't have this issues, places like Kansas or Texas do. Even Justin the landscaper has decided to let the grass go; he can't even water it enough to keep it alive. We are praying for rain for our entire state. They said that by January if we don't get rain, Raleigh's water supply at Falls Lake will dry up. Isn't that incredible? But we know that God is big enough to fill it up whenever he chooses to. They did say that we have a rain chance on Thursday and Friday...that sounds great!

Dear Grandpa Hime, Papa and Grandpa Stein

This is for you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love you Katie Grace!

Our 4 leg friend

Yes, you are seeing correctly, this is the deer (her baby was just past her in the picture) that was out our front door a few days ago. It is amazing that since we back up to a park the deer frequently make their way into our yard, eating the plants and this time of the year the "squirrel nuts" Squirrel nuts are what my niece, cutely called acorns. :)

sugar and fiber....

Did you know that by preteen age, most kids have consumed 49lbs of sugar each year?
Also most don't eat more then a bit of fiber??
SCARRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A nutrition moment by Gi and girl talk

So a good friend, Katie M, from Kansas, told me to check out www.girltalk.blogs.com
which I am sure that many of you are familiar with, in order to see their posts about "food talk". Below I have copied and pasted the first four of them into my blog. Make sure you read through day 4...I thought this was great "food for thought" as I continue to search for healthy foods for my family. Hope you enjoy this!

October 02, 2007

FoodTalk with Kotter and Trimark, Day 1

To kick off our foodtalk series, we are pleased to welcome David Kotter and Dr. Jeffrey Trimark, authors of the forthcoming book, Eat and Be Content. First, let me introduce them to you:

David Kotter has served as a pastor at CrossWay Community Church since it was planted eight years ago in Kenosha. Recently, God has called David to serve as the Executive Director of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.

Dr. Jeff Trimark is the President of the Medical Staff of the United Hospital System in Kenosha, Wisconsin. For five years Jeff has served as an elder on the leadership team of CrossWay Community Church.

Together, Jeff and David have developed and taught the workshop “Eat and Be Content” over the last three years. (Download this extended bio to learn more about their background and qualifications.)

Thank you both for being our guests here at girltalk and thank you for being willing to share with our readers the combined insight God has given you about eating to the glory of God.

Because you are a pastor and a medical doctor respectively, your book offers a unique perspective. There is humble, caring, and straight-shooting counsel that is rooted in God’s Word. But you also provide sensible advice for healthy eating that is based on sound medical research. We know our readers will greatly benefit from your book--which is due out by the end of 2008.

To begin with, David Kotter, can you give us a short summary of what your book is about, and also what it is not?

Thank you, Nicole. We are glad to have this opportunity to speak with the girltalk readers. First of all, let me clarify that Eat and Be Content is not a diet book. This book is not about the stomach, but the human heart -- not the cardiac muscle, but the biblical seat of the mind, will and emotions. It is not about losing weight in a Christian way, but about understanding eating as a moral act and learning to eat for the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31). The ultimate goal is not to be trim and attractive but to be content with the good gift of food, grow in sanctification, and increasingly hunger for God Himself. The purpose of Eat and Be Content is to enable Christians to turn from sinful to godly eating through the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

David, the genesis of this book began, as you say, “with a gripping headline from a local paper.” Tell us about it:

Yes, I picked up the morning newspaper one day and the headlines stated that the rates of obesity in the country were at unhealthy and unprecedented levels. But that was not all; a chart showed that the state where I lived was above the national average. Specifically the chart revealed my county was above the state average. Slowly my brain assimilated the information: I was living in one of the heaviest communities of one of the heaviest states ever in the history of man.

My own bathroom scale mechanically declared the rest of the story: I was heavier than I had ever been in my life. Heavier than I wanted to be. Both the national and personal realities vaguely bothered me in the back of my mind, but never enough to make any significant changes. I tried to ignore these annoying thoughts. Even if I had wanted to make a change, I didn’t really know what to do. I ate and exercised just about the same as everyone else I knew. Yet every year I gained weight, and apparently from the newspaper, so did just about everyone else.

Soon after that, you had breakfast with your good friend, and medical doctor, Jeff Trimark. What happened at that breakfast?

As I settled in to talk, I ordered “the usual”: eggs, bacon, toast and hash browns. But God had something unusual in mind for us: Jeff asked to substitute Canadian bacon for the regular bacon in his breakfast. I don’t normally analyze what people order, but this was different and for some reason it stuck in my brain. To me, bacon was bacon, sausage was sausage, and I always ordered what looked good and was affordable. In fact, bigger was often better, by my reckoning.

When the steaming food, arrived I asked about the substitution. Jeff answered that Canadian bacon tasted just as good to him, but had several fewer grams of saturated fat per slice. I glanced down and realized that I really had no idea what was on my plate. It was affordable (it was a daily special), and it would taste good (I had eaten that breakfast many times before), but in four decades of life I had never stopped to seriously consider the nutritional content of anything that I ate.

Over the next several months, under Dr. Trimark’s patient tutelage, I realized how many foolish choices I had been making at mealtimes, and that it was no surprise that I was heavier than ever. I also learned that I did not need to hire a professional dietician, carry a little scale around to weigh out meager portions of food, or track the latest medical research trumpeted in headlines and echoed in advertisements. Just a few simple “rules of thumb” based on well-established medical research could guide a typical guy like me through a typical day. I was actually enjoying eating more.

That’s a great place to stop…tomorrow we’ll pick up with more of our interview with David Kotter and Dr. Jeffrey Trimark.

Posted by Nicole Whitacre on October 02, 2007 at 01:58 PM in Food & Recipes | Permalink

FoodTalk With Kotter and Trimark, Day 2

Today we continue our interview with David Kotter and Dr. Jeff Trimark about their upcoming book, Eat and Be Content.

David, as you learned healthy eating habits from Dr. Trimark you also prepared a sermon on this topic, and you were somewhat surprised at what you discovered, correct?

Yes, that’s true. Preparing that sermon over the next several weeks showed me a whole new spiritual side to eating. I learned for the first time that Proverbs discussed food in many verses, and that these were consistent with the rest of the Bible’s considerable material on eating. Although I hadn’t noticed before, God seemed to care a lot about what and how I ate.

Not only did I learn a lot in preparation, the sermon struck a chord with many people in the congregation. The response showed that I was not the only one who was interested in what God had to say about eating. I also discovered people who felt condemned and dominated by sin in this area of their life. Many people seemed to struggle because they did not understand the spiritual implications of eating.

It was clear that the Bible didn’t provide a menu for every day, or restrict people to only foods mentioned in the Bible for health. Nor was there a requirement for believers to be a certain size, shape or weight. But the Bible did speak to the heart of the issue. The focus was not on food but on the act of eating. Eating for ungodly reasons, such as reducing anxiety or masking feelings of guilt, is really a form of idolatry in the heart. I learned that overeating was a moral problem. Believers were exhorted to eat for the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31). Only through the gospel can believers hope to eat this way. Only the gospel empowers believers to overcome these sins and gain discerning wisdom. All other diet plans and good intentions by themselves were bound to fail.

FoodTalk With Kotter and Trimark, Day 3

Welcome back for day three of our interview with David Kotter and Dr. Jeff Trimark…

Dr. Trimark, while over-eating is primarily a spiritual problem and thus has a biblical solution, what are the physical causes behind excess weight gain?

In its simplest sense, obesity can be understood as a thermodynamic problem. Food contains energy, and all the energy that is eaten is either burned by metabolic functions like exercise or is stored in fat cells in anticipation of future use. (A third option, discarding energy with laxatives or vomiting is clearly not part of a healthy solution.) Simple thermodynamics explains that as people exercise less and eat more, more energy is stored. Despite marketing claims to the contrary, we are sad to report that medical science has yet to discover any revolutionary herb, dietary supplement, miracle food, ancient remedy, pharmaceutical drug, or mechanical device that can change this simple principle of thermodynamics. In a direct way, obesity is caused by overeating and under-exercising.

Nevertheless, something unprecedented has happened in the past few decades to cause a broad change in eating and exercise. What is this? Why are we experiencing an "epidemic" of obesity all around the world for the first time in history?

The simple economics of supply and demand speak to these changes. Relentless advances in agricultural technology have greatly reduced the real cost of food and its energy content. For example, a 3 lb. frying chicken cost two hours of wages for the average laborer in 1920, but only 12 minutes of labor in 1970. This represents a 90% reduction in real prices, even though inflation has increased both nominal wages and prices over time. (While the number you see on the price tag, the nominal price, increases every year, wages have increased much faster over time. Even though it's still hard to make ends meet because of the cost of food, it is dramatically easier than a hundred years ago because the real cost of food is lower.)

As the real price of food decreases, economists agree that more food and energy will be consumed. For example, supersizing a fast food meal costs only slightly more, but also can increase the caloric energy by as much as one third. As a result of trends like this, the U.S. Census Bureau reports that the poorest 20% of the people now have the highest rates of obesity. Instead of subsisting on the edge of starvation, for the first time in history the poorest people are among the heaviest.

Technological advances have also decreased the need for physical exertion to obtain food. At the turn of the last century, more than 80% of the workforce was employed in agriculture. For the vast majority, obtaining daily bread was a lot of work. They expended a lot of energy plowing, planting, weeding, harvesting, transporting, grinding, kneading, baking, and finally slicing their bread. The energy in bread was generally equal to the effort of obtaining it, and therefore little was ever stored as fat. In contrast, it is not uncommon today for a restaurant to supply all the bread you can eat along with a meal. The bread is not served alone; butter, jam or honey can double or triple the energy at no extra charge.

The human body carefully stockpiles all of this extra energy for the future. The stockpiled energy remains in fat cells and weighs heavily both on the bathroom scale and the national statistics.

Thank you, Dr. Trimark for this helpful explanation. Please join us tomorrow for the conclusion of week one of our interview.

FoodTalk With Kotter and Trimark, Day 4

Now for the conclusion of week one…

While you believe it is important for people to understand the relationship between food and energy, you both take care to stress that there is a deeper problem here than simple thermodynamics…

Quite true. At its heart, overeating is not an issue of thermodynamics or economics but is primarily the result of a spiritual problem. Food is a gift from God to be enjoyed, but only with His purposes in mind. Paul exhorted believers, “So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all for the glory of God.” The Bible is a guide for eating to God’s glory and by design this is intended for our well-being. We are not restricted to specific foods only found in the book of Genesis or the clean animals of Leviticus. Rather, the Bible addresses the fundamental problem of sin in the human heart and its effect on how we eat.

Eat and Be Content will argue that obesity is primarily a symptom of the spiritual problem of discontentment, and therefore governmental, sociological, or economic solutions in isolation will necessarily fall short. Contentment results from either having all that is desired or not desiring all that could be obtained. Since food is required to survive, hungering and eating to contentment is part of the necessary rhythm of life. In the past, the primary challenge for most people was to obtain enough food to avoid famine and possibly even to satisfy hunger. Eating to excess was reserved for kings and the wealthy who could afford all the food they desired. Since then, dramatic improvements in agricultural technology have made an enticing variety of foods widely available. Rather than gnawing hunger, most people today face the spiritual problem of abundant food and unbounded desires. God’s original design is for people to enjoy and be sustained by food. The challenge is to understand how to limit desire in a way that is consistent with God’s good design. Like the apostle Paul, we must learn to eat and be content (Philippians 4:11, 12).

And the good news is that we can learn to eat and be content…

Yes, while people will never be content with the gift of food apart from the gospel, the simple truth that the death of Jesus Christ has broken the dominion of sin and accomplished reconciliation with a holy God for all those who believe. The power of the gospel brings salvation to believers, transforms desires through sanctification, and empowers obedience to the will of God even in the area of eating. Thus the only long-term solution to eating problems consists not of simply dieting and taking more exercise, but in repentance, fleeing temptation, relying on the power of the Holy Spirit for self-control, praying for wisdom, searching the scriptures for direction, and caring more for God’s glory than our own satisfaction in eating. Only by hungering for God Himself will we ever be able to eat and be content (1 Timothy 6:8).

Thank you David and Jeff for your helpful perspective on both the problem of overeating and it’s ultimate solution in the power of the gospel. We look forward to continuing this interview next week.

If you are interested in continuing to read this, check out their blog. I will be reading it and will post if anything else strikes a chord with me.
Love, Gi

A brilliant mom!

Wow! Perhaps the most amazing thing is that she sang the whole song from memory...that's a mom for you!

Happy 4 month birthday!

If ever in Black Mountain NC...stop here!

According to Justin this is "heaven on earth".... He hopes this will be in heaven :) This is the best cup of coffee on this side of the Mississippi River (well maybe that is a bit to much, but....) This coffee shop in Black Mountain serves Larry's beans and makes a mean cup of Joe. It is about 3 minutes off of I-40 this side of Ashville and worth your time to stop. Try it for yourself sometime soon!