.bedside.

nina inherited a "big-girl" bed from rebekah walsh last week and it instanly became her kigdom, she loves it very much.

.matrimony.

today we celebrated móni and jw being united in marriage. here are a few pictures (there are more pictures on facebook).

the bride

the bride, again

the bride and her bridesmaids

the groomsmen and the ring bearer

the bride and the groom

mary and nina on sugar high

a very tired bride

.tub.fun...

... or, should i call it art? nah, tub fun it is.

thank you dusty and norbi for the tub crayons :)

.devotion.

below is today's devotional in oswald chambers' my utmost for his highest. it really encouraged me.

look unto me, and be ye saved. isaiah (45:22)

do we expect god to come to us with his blessings and save us? he says - look unto me, and be saved. the great difficulty spiritually is to concentrate on god, and it is his blessings that make it difficult. troubles nearly always make us look to god; his blessings are apt to make us look elsewhere. the teaching of the sermon on the mount is, in effect - narrow all your interests until the attitude of mind and heart and body is concentration on jesus christ. "look unto me."

many of us have a mental conception of what a christian should be, and the lives of the saints become a hindrance to our concentration on god. there is no salvation in this way, it is not simple enough. "look unto me" and - not "you will be saved," but "you are saved." the very thing we look for, we shall find if we will concentrate on him. we get preoccupied and sulky with god, while all the time he is saying - "look up and be saved." the difficulties and trials - the casting about in our minds as to what we shall do this summer, or tomorrow, all vanish when we look to god.

rouse yourself up and look to god. build your hope on him. no matter if there are a hundred and one things that press, resolutely exclude them all and look to him. "look unto me," and salvation is, the moment you look.

.things.

things that made me happy this past week (not in order of importance):

1. i won the weight-gain contest (i. e. the who will gain less over the holidays competition between arpi and me)! this means that i get to choose whatever i want as a reward ... hmm. that will be a tough one :)
   
2. arpi bought a special antenna and hooked it up on the roof, which makes it possible for us to watch two croatian television channels (hrt2 and rtl). we used to watch them while living in pécs (which is very close to the croatian border, so there was no problem with the reception), but as vajta is much further, it is only possible with this special antenna. during the past year-and-a-half, we have really missed hearing the language, and have noticed while at home for the holidays that our knowledge of the language has gotten pretty rusty - which is not a good thing, if we want to stay on top of it as we prepare to move to the balkans in a few years. so, hooray for some language practice!
   
3. the fact that more and more of nina's personality is coming out, it is so fun to watch! she has a sweet, cuddly personality, knows what she wants (this is the hard part), loves music (especially piano-based), loves to eat healthy things like broccoli and oatmeal, etc.
   
4. yesterday's pizza lunch with neil and anna. neil makes extremely good pizza, and we had a sweet time of fellowship over some of his amazing creations. oh, and chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting as dessert. yum!
   
5. the grace god and my husband have shown me every day.