More Micah Moments

Here is another picture of Micah in the "got milk?" onesie. Today Joy told me that his hands and feet are no longer blue and the bruising is fading on his forehead. These are pictures from yesterday.

I love this picture. Quil is looking at Mommy for permission to touch, while Daddy is looking at baby!

Quil loves his little brother. He loves to hold him and kiss him.

Quil looks so big and grown up compared to 7 # Micah! We are very thankful to God for both of our grandsons!

Some good news, for a "change". Pun intended!

I apologize for the poor quality: these are cell phone pictures, but they are all we have so far! We received this picture late last night! It is our new grandson, Micah Rowen Albertson, who was born 1/26/09 at 10:55pm CST. He weighed 7 # and measured 19 3/4 inches long. He insisted on coming out forehead first, so got pretty bruised on the forehead. This picture was taken when he was a few minutes old!

This picture was taken this morning, when Auntie Brenda was holding him. He looks very sweet and peaceful. I love his onesie!

This is when Quil got introduced to his new brother and playmate this morning. Quil had spent most of the time since Sunday dinner with Uncle Tim and Aunt Brenda, or with Great-grandpa and ma Scoles. I'm sure he was glad to see his mommy and daddy again. I hope he will quickly learn to love his precious brother.

Here Micah is all dressed up in clothes. Because his daddy drank coffee, he was born naked! So we are glad to see he has some clothes now!

We will be adding more pictures when we get more!
We are thanking the Lord for Micah's safe arrival, for His help to Joy, and the blessing of new life!

I'm really confused - By Rowen

Two days ago our country got a new president, Mr. Obama. All of the mainstream news media that I have heard has been championing his every liberal word, and seemed to be thrilled with the sharp turn to the left that he is taking our country. This does not surprise me.

Meanwhile, all of my Christian friends and family members on email, facebook, and blogs seem to be aghast, appalled, horrified, and even shocked at his actions and words. Even large socially conservative organizations like Focus on the Family, American Family Association, etc. seem to be hoping to turn President Obama into a social conservative, by urging their constituents to harass the highest government offices with email and phone calls complaining about what the country just signed up for.

I don’t understand people, I guess. I mean this man won the election after spending two years vigorously campaigning with a very liberal agenda. Compared to the others running for president, he minced no words about where he stood on the issues of our day. No one that watched the debates, read or heard news reports about his perspectives and opinions should be surprised about who he really is. He won the Democratic nomination by being more liberal than his opponents, even more than Hillary Clinton. He won the (apparently fair) General Election by being more liberal than John McCain. The majority of Americans wanted the liberal policies of this man; it is simply the truth about it, whether you like it or not…

I personally don’t like Barack Obama’s attitudes, perspective, policies, or actions this week. But I am not surprised, and so you won’t hear me decrying his every move as we observe the unfolding of the inevitable. Charles Dickens once said “You make your bed and you must lie on it”. What we should be more concerned with is why he got elected, and why the House and Senate are controlled by social liberals. That is all about us, the American voters that put them all there.

So, as a Christian, how should I pray for President Obama, as my Bible says that I should? I have ideas, but I wonder what you think, and so I beg you to comment and share your thoughts.

Do you think that my family will actually allow our President's picture on our blog?

Comments received so far:
Will yours be next?

Comment #1:

I too am not the least bit amazed. Like you say, for any thinking person who paid attention, Obama told us what he values all along. His voting record (what little he did vote on) obviously did not support the values we hold.
I pray for his salvation as for every other soul. I pray God will help true Christians rise and take a stand instead of jumping on the band wagon of "nobody contradict me and I'll contradict nobody else. We'll all get along and accept each other right where we are," all in the name of tolerance and non-judgmental living. With this mindset, there is no truth and evil will prevail. We will all sadly suffer. God have mercy on our nation is another prayer I pray a lot these days.

Comment #2:

When I began to pray for our president I was deeply convicted that my heart was not praying for him correctly; this is what God has given me so far, and I really wanted to share it with all of you. Thanks for reading.

Most important things to pray for:

• God would turn His heart toward Righteousness and not solely toward Justice; that ending or DRASTICALLY lowering the holocaust of abortion would become a consuming issue of this administration. With God all things are possible.
• That God would give him a spirit of wisdom and revelation.
• That above all his family and he would be blessed, and safe, and that he would truly encounter the Lord Jesus and the power of His love and mercy.
• For Barak, Michelle, Sasha & Malia to be protected and God provide for them during this time and bless them and keep them and Thank God for them.

Here are some Bible references: (click to read)

• 1 Timothy 2 (Nero was the king when Paul wrote these words.)
• Titus 3
• Daniel 2:20-22
• Daniel 4:17

Comment #3:

We as Christians should pray for the President. President Obama needs the Salvation of the Lord. As Nebuchadnezzar needed God, so does this man. May God bring the mighty down and humble them, so that they may see Christ high and lifted up. "Lord open the eyes of the blind that they may see and glorify God in every law and policy that passes." We can take comfort in knowing that God controls the affairs of man, and He can turn evil into good.

Comment #4:

You are absolutely right. We get what we pay for, and in this case we paid for Obama with our votes, and we got him. Even if we don't like his policies, he won by an overwhelming majority. I also agree that he is more consistent than many Republicans are. We have not been deceived. He said he is going to do certain things as President, and now he is carrying them out. As far as praying for him, I think we need to pray that God will use him as God wills. Remember the heart of the king is in the Lord's hand. Looking at Biblical history, often the Lord used unrighteous leader to carry out His purposes. However often the Lord's agenda is not ours, so we fight in our own strength. Sometimes the Lord lets things fall apart, so He can start working.

Prayer needed for a friend from the past

Recently I, Janet, have been working on finding highschool classmates for the purpose of our 30th high school reunion in July 2009. It has been so rewarding to me to get back in contact with people I haven't seen or heard of for 20-30 years! Through these contacts, I learned today about one of our classmates, John Esther, an anesthesiologist in Springfield, MO, who is battling cancer. The Lord has helped miraculously and given him recovery after 2 brain tumors were removed. Now he is receiving chemotherapy. The family wants continued prayer for the chemo to be effective on any bad cells and for good cells to be protected from the chemo. Our family has had its share of cancer journeys and still going through one with our dear brother-in-law, Ron Profitt, so I know the value of prayer in these times. I thought maybe some of our readers would like to go to the blog about John and help pray for this family.

http://estherhelpline.blogspot.com/

Mike's Remote Control Truck

On Friday, January 9, Mike Durkee came and spent the weekend with us. He brought his new toy to share. It is a Traxxas E-Maxx remote control four wheel drive truck!

He very generously allowed all of our kids to navigate it in our local parks. Here the kids are posing for a picture, while the truck is tiny in the distance on the sidewalk.

Everybody thought it was a lot of fun to drive that truck! In this particular video, Jeffrey is navigating the truck!

Homeschool Group Ice Skating

On Thursday, January 8, our local homeschool group and the larger area homeschool group went indoor ice skating at the Ice Haus in Greeley. There were a lot of kids and moms having a great time skating. Here are Emily, her cousin, Hadassah, and Hadassah's friend.

Emily enjoys ice skating very much and is pretty good at it!

Here is a video clip of Jason skating.

Saturday's Activities (By Beth)

After spending the morning cleaning house and reading blogs... :) we were privileged to tour the McCarty-Fickel home in Berthoud, CO with several other members of the Johnstown Historical Society .

We got the "insiders" tour.. everything down to seeing the storage, going on the enclosed porch, having the player piano and record player demonstrated to us, etc. Well anyway, we thoroughly enjoyed the tour and the interesting history of the house and the families who lived there.

Brief, brief history of the house: The Dr. McCarty family had the house built in 1916 and after both he and his wife passed away their daughter (Dr. Helen) lived in it with her husband (Dr. Fickel, a dentist) and family until her recent death. He is still living and donated the house to the Berthoud Historical Society.

You can read more about the McCarty-Fickel home by enlarging this brochure clipping.



After the tour and before supper we stopped by our neighbor, Rachel's house to sing "Happy Birthday" to her (her 92nd). We enjoyed visiting with her and took this picture of Mother and her.

Emily and Jason Play Nicely Together (by Beth)

Several times this week we have really enjoyed the music of the piano (played by Jason) and a recorder (played by Emily) together.

Switching songs suddenly, giggling uncontrollably, ("Only Emily," Jason insists, though I caught him laughing in 3 out of 4 pictures I took!), and "patiently" working to fit each other's musical timing were all a part of this concert while Mother and others prepared supper in the kitchen.

"What note are we starting on?"; "You play the introductory, and I'll join in at the start."; "Start over, I messed up!" [Okay, I have to admit.. I only heard the first of these three "quotes" and made up the other two based on previous experiences.]

Christmas Day at the Johnstown Albertsons

Christmas 2008 at our house was different than any other in recent memory. This is the first Christmas with our two oldest sons married and living out of state. Both of them and their precious families were here for Thanksgiving this year, at which time we exchanged gifts like most people do at Christmas. Randy, Joy and their son Quil went to South Dakota to be with Joy's family for Christmas. Brenda and Tim went to New Jersey to be with Brenda's family for Christmas week.

So we were 'all alone', with just the six of us current Johnstown Albertsons. We wish that we could have spent some time with each of you, but I suppose you were all busy with your own family activities... Maybe next year!

I (Rowen) am off of work from Dec. 25 - Jan. 1, so we have plenty of time to just be family. We have a minimal agenda each day, only that we please the Lord with our attitudes, actions, activities, and words, and that we try to be a blessing to one another.

On Christmas Day, Janet decided that each one of us should choose and prepare a dish for dinner. Some had help, but were primarily responsible for that particular food. It was kind of fun.

I (Rowen) got to carve the pre-sliced ham ;-))

Janet helped Jason with his salad project.

Jeffrey made yummy green beans, but here he was making salad dressing.

Beth made our favorite potato casserole, in which she used frozen french-fries rather than the hash-browns that the recipe calls for. That turned out really good!

Jason chopped up several different things for the fresh lettuce salad

Emily made brownies

Here is Janet rinsing stuff out along the way...

Ready to eat!

This is how they looked:

After we ate and cleaned it up, we all went on a 2+ mile walk in the 40'F, sun-shiny day.

Christmas Carol Sing with a String Quintet

Last night we were privileged to participate in a seasonal event that was a blessing to our family.

Our friends, Mathew, Nicole, Phoebe, and Ethan Hinkle hosted a Christmas Carol Sing with a String Quintet in their home. There were 17 of us, one of which was a baby. The string ensemble was: 2 first violins, 1 second violin, 1 viola, and 1 cello. The rest of us sang as they played. The Host and Hostess wore their Victorian costumes, which was special.

Thanks, Hinkles, for making our Christmas Holidays extra special!

Host of the event, Mathew Hinkle


A pastor and his wife from Arvada, CO


Part of the string quintet...


Part of the string quintet...


First Violinists Melissa and Alice taking a break...


Janet was thrilled to get to babysit Ethan while his mommy played her cello.


Hostess Nicole helping Phoebe with a snack...


Examples of our singing with the String Quintet

Old Friends

This year I have gotten back in touch with several old friends from my high school graduating class of 1979 through Facebook. Christi Wells is one of these friends. She lives in Texas and has traveled to Colorado several times lately. This past week, we were determined to get together, as it may have been the last of her business trips to Colorado. The weather was atrociously cold and snowy this week, but Rowen was willing to drive me to south Denver so I would not have to "brave" the winter driving. Tuesday evening, we met at the Hilton Garden Inn lobby in Englewood and talked for 2 1/2 hours straight!

It was such a delightful evening, getting reacquainted after all of these years. I was so glad to hear of Christi's journey and how God is real in her life!

Rowen scanned our senior pictures from the yearbook and added them to the picture below. We really haven't changed THAT much. I think anyone could tell we were us! However, I agreed with Christi when she said, "I don't miss anything about high school but my body!" But thinking it over, I would have to add that I do miss the friends that are so far flung now. It is such a blessing to be getting back in touch with some of them. Maybe we can be better friends now than we had the capability of being back then!

Four more pictures from Thanksgiving

Beth wanted a picture of Randy and Quil in front of the stitchery she made for Randy: "A Careful Man I Want to Be, (a little fellow follows me)". Quil is even dressed to match the little boy in the stitchery.

Quil will grow up with this stitchery, like Randy did. I made one just like it, (except I put a beard on the dad), for Rowen's birthday January of 1987.

A couple of days Lincoln came and was babysat while Quil was here. He is from February to June older than Quil.

They seemed to like each other.

December happenings, so far

Kara's mother gave me an Amish friendship bread starter and Kara happened to be here the day I made it all into bread. She likes to help by pouring things in.

Another day, Kara, her sister, Alia, and some other friends, Sam and Lily, were here being babysat. Beth was reading a Woof book to Kara, Sam, and Alia.

On December 6, Emily and I babysat our neighbor's granddaughters, Reece and Riley. We took them with us to the Johnstown museum, The Parish House, for cookies and tea at the Christmas Open House. Here they are swinging on the porch swing with Emily.

Reece is trying to decide which cookie she wants! It was a hard decision!

Linda Young is serving the tea and cider.

Here are some of the miniature Christmas trees that were decorating the Parish House and were being raffled off that day. Many people had decorated them for the occasion. The ornaments on the 3rd tree from the right were all made out of paper and it was called The Recession Tree. It got the most votes.

Here are some of the trees in the living room. People put their names in the bags beside the ones they liked the best. Then if their name was drawn out, they got that tree. We didn't buy any chances, but we enjoyed looking at the trees.


This past Saturday, we went to Parker, CO to Alan and Betty Durkee's house for their Annual Christmas Party. The following are pictures from that.

In the foreground is Michael Durkee and Emily. In the back is Alan and Betty Durkee and me, having a yummy snack!

Almost everywhere we saw was decorated for Christmas. It was beautiful.

This is Beth feeding Kirk Barnett his bottle.

I was trying to get another burp out of Kirk! He is a sweetie!

This is Kirk's mother, Cara, daddy, Ben, and brother, Luke Barnett. I don't know if it was Luke's first time for candy canes, but he sure loved them!

Betty Durkee, laughing, during the Bible Outburst Game we were playing. She, Teresa Jeffries, Beth, Rowen, and I were the winning team.


This is part of the opposing team. Cleta Jeffries was keeping score. Ben Barnett, his brother-in-law, Doug Jeffries, and Michael, along with Jeffrey and Jason, who are not pictured, tried their best, but lost by a few points. Lorin Jeffries was watching and lending support to the guys' team.

Rowen having a cup of coffee. The tapestry above him was part of Betty's Christmas this year. It is a Thomas Kincade piece which lights up with tiny pinpricks of light. Beautiful!

Some of those Albertson kids snacking! The cookies, covered pretzels, and fudge was on that counter! Michael tried to keep an eye on them, but they still ate too much! :)

We had a great time and enjoyed the fellowship!