2012 Year in Review

Well, it's obvious I haven't been keeping up to date around here! After my laptop took a spill off the couch, and because my primary web surfing tools are my phone and iPad, blogging has been nonexistent. I tried the Blog Press App several times and every time I would write a post, it would say it could not be published!! (I actually still have many a post saved in the worthless app) A handful of pointless updates and I stopped trying.

But here I am! And with the update of all updates!
I purchased a Groupon for a Shutterfly photo book a couple months ago and with the expiration looming I jimmy-rigged my laptop to the tv, just like I do any time I ever need to use it, and for about 5 days filled 20 pages with as many photos as I could.

This is the result, our family 'Yearbook'. I love it and want to keep with the tradition each year! It's a great way to be able to use cell phone pics, instagrams, photos we were tagged in on Facebook, and regular old pictures taken with a camera, of course :)

Here is the Strecker Family Year in Review, 2012!

Click here to view this photo book larger

Shutterfly photo books are the new way to preserve your memories. Create your own today.

 

A quiz

According to Colby (2.5 years old), what is going on outside?

A. Clouds

B. Our house is being painted

C. Spider Web

Great. Now how do I get all these spider webs off my house?!?

Resolution

Maybe this is more of a (personal) reminder than a resolution, but who would I be if I started my first post of the year without using the word resolution??

This comes straight out of my notes from a book study I was going through last summer:

July 29, 2011
Notes on Service

The two 'heart-beats' of serving:
1. Learn to really see the needs of people encountered daily and/or respond to the Holy Spirits nudgings.
*Be sensitive to the Spirit's work in our lives.

2. Developing a willingness to take the initiative and ACT.
- overcoming feelings of shyness, inadequacy and laziness.
- actually setting aside time.
- definitely means learning to reach past natural inclinations and serve whether or not we feel like it.

Explanation:
Yes- it is natural to be selfish or self absorbed. Everybody is naturally like that. It is supernatural to see the needs and desires of others and seek their best through your actions.

* Effective and loving service is less a matter of qualifications and more a matter of willingness.

Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: Love each other. (John 15:13-17 NIV)