In God's Defense!!!

About a month ago I posted a little story about a conversation I had with Asher. Asher was asking if there was more than one God. He was confused about who Jesus was if there was only one God. I explained to him that there was only one God and that Jesus was God as a person. Now I know that is not the best detailed answer, but Asher is only three. I think that it very closely answers the question for someone at that age. Tonight I discovered that someone had posted a comment. I do not know this person and on first instinct, I was just going to ignore the comment. Then I got to thinking...God has called me to be His defender, not that He needs a defender, just that He wants me to share my faith and stand up for what I believe in. To be a true shining light for the One I love, and honor, and trust, and believe 100%, wholeheartedly in, I feel I need to respond. I am not one to take confrontation very well, especially when it is with someone behind a computer screen who I do not know and probably never will know. As I tried to decide what action to take, I realized that even though I don't know them and I kind of feel like it is a waste of time to give their comment any response at all, they took the time to post such a long response that was so filled with lies and deceit that I had to set the record straight. After all, they came to my blog...MY BLOG. How did they find me? Why did they find me? Why in the world would they read my blog? So I decided it was not just my place to respond, but it is my duty. This is my blog and I will not have lies win over the truth.

You may have to go back and read the post and his original comment, but this is a small quote from it.

Adam Pastor wrote,
"Dear Hope, GOD did not make himself into a person for a little while;
rather GOD gave His Son, His human Son,
Jesus of Nazareth.
[John 3.16]
And the ONE GOD, the Father,
dwelt in His Son, the man Christ Jesus.
[John 14.10-11, 2 Cor 5.19]"

I first want to ask you to take into account John 1:1-5 :
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
He was with God in the beginning.Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood."

It clearly states that the Word was with God and the Word was God. And who is the Word? Jesus!

Now, Genesis 1:26 :
"Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."

Who is Us? God and Jesus! Who is Our? God and Jesus!

This is just two examples out of the entire Bible full of proof. Jesus is God. Jesus is 100% God. God didn't just create Jesus to serve a purpose. He was not just a man. I went to Adam Pastor's blog and read some of his posts. I do not encourage you to do that, because I do not want to give him that credit. I noticed a common theme in the few posts that I read. He keeps going back to the fact that Jesus died so He couldn't have been God because God is clearly eternal and could not die. He also weighs heavily on the point that Jesus did not have to be God to pay for our sins because in the Old Testament sheep and calves and goats paid the price of sin and they were clearly not more worthy than people. He believes Jesus did not have to be any more worthy than any other man to pay the price of sin for the whole world. I think he missed the part where Jesus rose again. Hallelujah!!! He is not dead now. He is alive for all eternity. As for the animals that were once used for sacrifice, it states in Hebrews 10:10 "And by that will, we have been made holy through the of the body of Christ once for all." Did you catch that last part? "Once and for all"!!! Hallelujah!!! The animal sacrifices weren't enough and that is why the sacrifices had to be done repeatedly. Jesus paid the price for all eternity. Never to have to be done again.

If anyone reading this post has any questions, please ask. I know this is not the best response someone could give, but I hope it lets all of you know without a doubt that Adam Pastor is incorrect. My prayer is that he will one day see the Truth. It scares me to know that he was bold enough to post all of that on my blog and he doesn't even know me and yet I was almost not bold enough to stand up for myself on my own blog. I am so thankful that God pricked my heart and I did let my light shine. Please take a few moment to pray for Adam and anyone else who he may attempt to lead in the wrong direction.

Adam may never visit my blog again. I don't know for sure what brought him here. Possibly he did a google search for "Jesus is God" which was the title of my post. Again, I don't know what brought him here, and I am sure nothing I have said will change his mind, but maybe it made God proud to know that I love Him enough to not let it go undefended. What more could I ask for than that.

Going Back to Work

Well, it is official. I am employed. I will be working at the Valleydale Mother's Day Out program starting in September. I am very excited, extremely over whelmed, a little nervous, and a tiny bit sad. I am so happy for Asher and excited to see how much he grows and learns. I am over whelmed at the amount of information I have to grasp in the next couple weeks. I am nervous about this whole lesson plan thing. I have never done this before, and we really don't have any "teaching" help. There is a lady who taught last year that has offered to give me her lesson plans from last year though.

I am just a tiny bit sad that I will not be able to stay at home with Ian like I did for Asher. He will be really close and I will be able to check in on him a couple times throughout the day though. I know it will all be okay. I am sure he will enjoy getting to be around all the other babies. Asher is very excited. He loves to learn and is looking forward to making new friends. I have to decorate my room and do all that fun stuff in the next week. Keep me in your prayers. Life is about to change in the Crocker house!

My latest cakes!

I thought I would post a couple of my latest cakes. Cake decorating has become my newest hobby! I love it. It is so relaxing and so much fun to see the reaction people have with them. I can't wait to take some classes so I will really know what I am doing. We tried to plan out a group class a few months back, but we couldn't seem to work around everyone's schedule, so I am going to try to take them on my own. I am hoping to sell a few cakes to make back the money I have spent on materials and tools before I invest any more though. Hope you guys enjoy them!

This cake was made for Kit Stockton for her husband's birthday. Brad is a big Tennessee fan and they have a kitty named Gizmo. This is what I came up with when she asked me to combine the two. I did a wood grain floor and tried to make it appear to be a Tennessee blanket with a kitty on top. I was really proud of how it turned out.



This is a cake I made just for fun. I had wanted to play around and practice and had originally planned for Nathan to take it to work with him so it could get eaten. After seeing my design, he decided it was just a little too girlie to take with him, so I took it to my MDO teachers meeting. Everyone really seemed to like it.



I watched a video on youtube for details on how to make this bow. I think it turned out okay for my first go!



I have a cake to make for this Saturday. It is to be a Star Trek themed cake. I still have no clue as to what I am going to do. I will post a picture as soon as it is made.

Ian's Birthday Party

Sorry it has been so long since my last post. Ian is now one!!! Check out pictures from his birthday party. We went with the monster theme because we call him "Our Little Monster". It turned out really cute.

I made foam monsters to put on the columns.

I made the cake. My first attempt at fondant. It was really fun and fueled my new hobby.


Ian was such a sweetie with his smash cake. He had seen me making the cake and I had let him "sample" the dots, so he knew exactly what he wanted.



Ian checking out his huge table of gifts. We have the best friends in the world!



His birthday banner!



The cake, chocolate covered marshmallows, and the watermelon monster!


The watermelon monster!






Ian spending a little time with Mrs. Kristen!



The cake!



Monsters!







The monster on top of the cake. He was just so darn cute!



All of our wonderful party guests! You guys are the best!

I just found the cutest little tool in the entire world. I have to have one of these. I have entered their contest and have my fingers crossed. Now you guys know I could do all kinds of things with this machine. You will have to check it out and maybe enter yourselves, but then you would be my competition....maybe you should just check it out!

http://momadvice.com/blog/2010/08/special-giveaway-silhouette-craft-cutter-300-value/comment-page-4#comment-20498

Aren't these the cutest faces in the whole entire world?

My sweet little Ian is turning one!

Busy Week

Well we have a busy week ahead of us. Our friend, Charlie, came into town last night. We went to eat at our favorite place, Jubilee Joes! (Oh, and I checked out that consignment store right next to it and found the cutest yellow purse for only $16.00. They have some really cute stuff. I will have to make another trip.) He spent the night last night. Now I have to wash sheets and get ready for Nathan's parents who are coming into town tonight. His dad will leave in the morning, but his mom will be with me all week! My mom and sister-n-law will come into town next Saturday before the party.

I will be in full blown party planning mode all week. I have to work Tuesday and Thursday morning and Wednesday night, but at all other times I will working on the party! There is trail mix to mix, rice crispy treats to make, a huge cake to bake and decorate and a watermelon to carve. Ian is having his pictures taken on Wednesday, and I still haven't figured out what he is going to wear on the big day! And somewhere in there I have to keep Mrs. Jan entertained so that maybe she will come back some time. I am so nervous and stressed already.

On a higher note, Ian is WALKING! It is official. He is a walking boy. He still prefers to crawl because it is faster, but he can walk across the room. I am so happy for him but a part of a mommy's heart breaks when her baby takes his first step. I think it is the same part of the heart that tells her she needs another baby....(no not yet, I promise).

Sugar Ants!

Take this scene in for just a moment. Asher is sitting at our high-top table in the kitchen eating a bowl of cereal as we are discussing the days events to come. He turns around to see me at the sink and accidentally knocks the entire bowl of cereal off of the table with his elbow. Now if this were a normal table it might not have been as bad, but this is a high-top table so the bowl bounced a couple times throwing milk and cereal everywhere. When I say everywhere I mean everywhere. It was all the way up the walls, on the cabinets, on all four chairs and even on the underside of the table. I cleaned the mess up quit thoroughly immediately and was thinking the entire affair was over.

The very next day Asher was eating a bowl of apple sauce and the same exact thing happened. Once again I cleaned the kitchen as best I could. Then yesterday I found it! A trail of sugar ants going from the back door all the way through the kitchen. Mind you, I am a little bit of a clean freak and the thought of anything in my house causing any kind of bugs (even if they are harmless sugar ants) to come in sends a chill up my back. I killed all the ants in view and cleaned the floor as best I could.

This mornig....THEY WERE BACK!!! Dum, dum, dummmmm! So I hauled everything out of the kitchen, even taking everything out of the pantry and mopped...twice! If those darn ants come back I think I might just go a little crazy! Why is it that such a small creature can cause so much stress and cause me to expel so much energy on a clean up mission?

That "Mom"!!!

I joke a lot with my friends and coworkers at church about being "that mom". You know, the crazy, over protective, no body wants to keep your kid because they are afraid you might lose it if they do something wrong kind of mom. Well I work at the summer camp at church and we always end up with that one kid who always has a runny nose, never has enough diapers, never has a change of clothes, and always seems to be ill. We complain about those poor children who really have no control over any of the above mentioned things. We try to keep them at arms length and really hope that their moms come get them before they need another nose wipe. Well today I took my babies and dropped them off just like I would any other day. Ian is in my class, and within about 15 minutes I was thinking "oh no...I am 'that mom'". His nose was running all the way down his chin and when he sneezed it was like a slim bomb went off. He was just yucky! I consoled myself with the thought, "at least he is in here with me and no one else has to deal with it". Then with only about 40 minutes left before we could escape and go home with no harm done, Asher's teacher comes to tell me that Asher is in the bathroom crying for me. Poor little guy. He was miserable. He had wiped his nose so many times that it was bright red. The teacher gave me "that look". You know, the one that says..."why in the world did you bring your kid here today knowing he was sick and expose all of the other poor innocent children to his sickness spreading germs that are leaking out of his nose at this very moment". Well I did what any responsible mother would do. I brought him to my class to tend to him myself. You know, the class with all the babies....the babies who have not yet had enough life experience to build up immunities to this kind of thing. Well all I can say is...Thursday just might be a slow day for me. Not really! I made sure he didn't touch anything and he stayed away from the babies, but I was just wondering what in the world his teacher was thinking. I mean, he had already been around those children for 3 1/2 hours. I don't think a few more minutes could really do that much more harm. But I guess she wanted to be sure we shared the germs with everyone.... (the lesson today was on sharing)!

The whole point of this story...today I ended other being the other "mom". The one who sends her sick kid to church to be around all the other kids and give them his sickness. That mom is the worst kind and I took that role on full force today.

I guess I need to go now. My poor sick children need me.

Monster Bash

Well, the birthday party planning is in full swing. If you haven't known me long enough to experience a birthday party with us, you may not know exactly what that means. Just ask Nathan, he could give you the low down. I love to craft, and decorate, and make cakes, and have friends over, so I usually spend a month working on the party plans. Nathan is a graphic designer, so I always put him to work on the invitation. By now most of you will have received your invitation, but if you have not, rest assured that you are invited! I have been working on some of the decorations I thought I would share with you. It has been so much fun! Now, don't get me wrong, I know this is not the best party stuff out there, but I like to use mostly hand made stuff and really enjoy the process. Asher has named all of the Monster Guests and has already claimed them as his own after they serve their purpose.

"Jesus is God?"

Okay Kristen, I am doing it. I don't really know why anyone would want to read about my day, but I know that I enjoy my life, so maybe you guys will get some good laughs along the way. This morning I got out of bed at 6:00 am to the sound of Ian crying in his crib.....I am just kidding. I know you don't want to hear about that kind of stuff. So.....how about this...today while I was fixing Asher's lunch he asked me "How many gods are there?". I quickly put down the spoon in hand and went over too him. I explained that there is only one God. Asher, "Then how can He live my heart and your heart and Baby Ian's heart?" I then went on to explain that God can be every where all at the same time because he is not just a simple human like us. Asher, "Then who is the man with the gray beard?" I knew he must be referring to Jesus so I explained as best I could to a three year old that God wanted to be just like us and live on Earth for just a little while so he made himself into a person for a little while. Asher, "So....there is only one God and Jesus is God?".

I am so amazed at his precious little mind. I have mentioned to my bible study ladies that one of my biggest desires is to finish college and get a degree, but there could not possibly be a better job in all the world than being here with my little boy!

I hope this can come as an encouragement to all of you, as it was for me. I was reminded that his mind is just waiting to be filled and I want to be sure it is filled with the best stuff possible. I am so blessed to be able to have these conversations with him and see him begin to grasp with "childlike faith" what even adults have a hard time taking in.

Hello

Well...I did it. I started my blog. I am not sure I have much to say that will be interesting, but with a little prompting from my friends I am here. I have a five month old sitting in my lap trying his best to reach the keyboard and a three year old calling my name as I type. This should be interesting!!!! Well...talk to you soon!