Kyle's Random

P.S.  – This is my 300th blog post.  Hurray!

It seems that our nation has this one figured out pretty well already, but just in case you’ve missed it, here are nine ways to ruin your kids:

1. Always expect the worst from your kids.  You’ll eventually find out you’re right.
2. Give them everything they want.  If you’re consistent with this, you’ll trick your children into thinking that the stuff of this world can buy their happiness.
3. Don’t discipline your kids.  I’m not just talking about spanking here; I’m talking about time out, grounding, and all other forms of discipline.
4. Be very cautious about praising your children.  You don’t want them to become proud or feel special about themselves.  Slowly erode their confidence.
5. Show your kids through your words and actions that they are an inconvenience to your life.  Dwell on the ways that your life would be different – even better – without them.
6. Use guilt and shame to motivate your children to do what you want them to do.
7. If you have more than one child, let the kids treat each other with rudeness and disrespect.
8. Place the responsibility of socializing your kids on either a) the school system, or b) television.  Don’t consider this a personal responsibility.
9. Place the responsibility of their spiritual development on either a) the church, or b) let them figure this out on their own.  If you’re going to wreck your kids, it’s critical that you not take responsibility here.

Just in case you missed the related posts:

• 6 Ways to Wreck Your Spiritual Life
• 9 Ways to Wreck Your Job

The cold days have kept us indoors, but that hasn’t stopped us from having fun times together.  The photo above is from a party my daughter put together a few weeks ago.

I’m was seated at the bottom left (the backwards cap got me in a little trouble).  Good times were had by all.

Oh, I love my kids!  I love how they are growing and learning, and I love that I get to help direct their lives to Jesus and living for Him without reservations.

One thing that I’ve discovered is that it’s a little bit hard to come by resources that are really great for helping my kids learn about the Bible.  Either the stories tend to be poorly written, miss the point, or have lame illustrations.  Fortunately, Keri has a collection of books that she and her siblings grew up reading, and they’re fantastic.  I don’t personally know about newer editions, but these 1966 Arch Books are my favorite.  I read one with the kids every night.

Anybody else have kid resources that you’d recommend for teaching about Jesus and the Bible?

Yesterday we had a great day in the snow with the kids. We built a seriously big snowman (almost as tall as me), and we had a great snowball fight.

Yesterday I woke up feeling pretty terrible, and I spent most of the day shivering while wrapped up in a fleece blanket.  But before that, we managed to take a visit to see some newborn lambs at the farm where Keri’s sister works.

Just for the record, baby lambs are even more cute than you might think.

I would have never guessed that having kids would be so entertaining.  :)

My wife is an amazing photographer, and I love this picture that she took of me holding my son while we waited for a train.

It’s a little bit difficult to tell from the photo, but at my request, my daughter took the time out of her playing at Chick-fil-A to wipe her brother’s nose.

What did people ever do without camera phones to capture these moments?

Thanks, Keri, for the great pic!  As much as I love being a dad, being your husband is even better.