Another School Photo

Another school photo came home, and oh my!  These pictures just seem to show a girl much older than she really is.  Or maybe it's true that she's really growing up on us.  This is a nice picture - they did a great job with this one.  Of course, much of this is due to the fact that Madison has been very photogenic and a natural beauty.

This picture seems to suggest something brighter on the way, and indeed today is the last day of winter.  Despite this, the temperatures are lower than average this whole week, another reminder that winter was acting like a real jerk this year.

Daddy has been working on a new devotional, while Madison is getting into her new quarter, the fourth quarter and its new classes.  No more health class (yay!), now Madison has art class officially. She's been in art club on Fridays, but is officially in art class and already getting to work on drawing in her pad.  She's doing a fantastic job.  I can't wait to share some of her new material she's doing.  This teacher is really getting her to increase her talent with the pencil.

Tonight we had taekwondo, which is fun as always.  Daddy is getting a little more comfortable watching Madison do some of that sparring, which is something they're doing more of lately.  They're also using the bahng mahg ee sticks, swiping at the large cushions with various lunging blows.  That's my kind of weapon, a stick.  Younger kids practice with lightsabers, and there's why you can see the reason everyone loves this weapon.  You can just imagine people practicing with these and making lightsaber noises.  Or, at least that's what I would do.

So we've been working towards Easter at the office, and working on the new series with the new devotional - with lots of writing there.  The weather is cold outside, but it is technically still winter.  One last day it is.  This was the last day of winter, so tomorrow everything is automatically going to clear up and get warmer, right?  Not so fast.  No, the only guarantee is pollen and allergies.  I'm beginning to see why fall is the best of the seasons for some folks.  You get the similar weather, but it's not so brutal on the pollen.

Ba-Ba got us some baseball tickets for when we're down in Florida.  We're actually going to see the Daytona Tortugas again, and possibly their opening game.  Madison really wants to go back and see a baseball game, and she wants to see the Gwinnett Stripers again as well.  We were all having conversations today about how much fun seeing a minor league ball game is.

We watched a few episodes of the Freemakers tonight, but things are moving along there and we'll soon have to watch something else.  We're wrapping up this story line for season two, and it's been fun to watch.  The three of us take our places and get watching, if only for a little bit.  It's not the longest time we have each weeknight, due to early mornings.  But we do get to snuggle under the blankets while it's cooler and watch some of these new episodes.

Afterwards there was much rejoicing as we continued bedtime stories with Peter Pan and his friends. Also, the book of Romans.  We're reading from that, now that our devotional has run its course.  It only makes sense to read from Romans this series, which has just about everything in it you need, which is one reason we thought it would be fun to do a series about.

I can tell you the day I thought up this series, "Romans."  It was way over ten years ago - we were at the bookstore in Valdosta, exit five along I-75.  It had all kinds of books with Bible lessons and so forth, and I saw one for 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians (we picked those books up, actually).  There wasn't a book on Romans, but the idea was to do an entire series where we just stuck with one book of the Bible exclusively, which was a little more challenging when you worked with devotional material and eight or nine messages.  Of course, the gospels you can do that with.  Also the book of Genesis.  But we liked the idea of doing that for "Romans," because we thought we could have fun with the Roman look with gladiators and togas and so on.  So we put it all together, and Daddy spent a good deal of time with research on that one, just like usual with these series.  The end result has been so good, we've returned to do this series three times, I think.  This one has been the best, mainly because Madison is involved of course.  But there's a huge, talented cast, and it's been so easy and fun.  Best of all, the Biblical lessons have been very strong this series - it's an exclusive study of the book of Romans, but all for kids.

After reading for a bit, there were prayers and zerberts.  It's been a nice day, although a cooler one.  Hopefully things will warm up soon.  Until then, we're getting under those covers, which are still hard to get out from under each morning.  But the sun will be up tomorrow.  Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow there'll be sun!