7 Quick Takes: greeting Emmett, Brian's playdate, Kendra's tu-tu, screaming goats and more!

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Friday we enjoyed the surprise of spending the day with one of our favorite two-year-olds while her mother went into the hospital a week early to have a baby brother for Lucy. We spent the day gleefully living the pace of a toddler. Playing on the floor, reading books, napping on the couch during a Pixar movie, dancing to the Beatles.

Don't tell anyone else, but Lucy pretty much wrapped Brian around her little finger. Here's proof...

Did you happen to notice that the two reading pictures change from one side of the room to the other? This is because the Lucy decided she'd prefer to sit in a chair and have Brian sit on the stool to read. Oh, she charmed him alright!

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And then, we got to visit Lucy's new brother, Emmett. Total perfection.

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Kendra was (only a little bit) disappointed that baby Emmett came early. She'd been working on a blanket for him and had counted on this last week to complete it.

Since the little guy entered the world over 9 pounds, she's got a ways to go!

To be fair to her, it's not like she hasn't had other important projects to fill her time. Aside from school, work, learning to drive, youth group, Young Life, running, and reading there's the serious business of crafting tu-tu's out of tulle for five-year-old birthday parties.

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So much good blog-writing this week:

Minor Revisions at Conversion Diary: I've failed to mention how much I enjoy the blog of our 7 Quick Takes host, Jennifer Fulwiler. You might enjoy watching -- as I did -- the three episode reality series featuring the Fulwiler family and the story of Jen's conversion from atheism to Christianity. As an extra bonus for me, the Fulwiler's also live in Austin. (In fact parts of episode 2 take place in my very favorite Austin coffeeshop.)

Putting a Price On the Value of Art at BBC News Magazine: my friend Craig linked this article to Facebook this week and the content has been trolling around in my brain ever since. Is the value of art to a particular city/geographic area quantifiable? If so, what dangers or benefits might that produce?

The First Punch at Sober Boots (Heather Kopp): In the past several years I've had the privilege to pray together with many women grieving relational pain. One subject that often comes up is if and how might we tell God our anger toward Him for our sense of being forgotten, overlooked, abandoned? I think Heather Kopp tells it well in this post.

Generative Fragments: Four Collaborative Movements on QU4RTETS at Art House America: I so wish I could have seen this exhibit when it was at Baylor. The post was a nice overview of what I missed. Now to finish reading on Eliot.

Praying Like the Devil at Simcha Fisher on National Catholic Register: Excellent insight into the Scriptural account of Jesus' temptation in the wilderness.

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A few weeks back I showed you the way we decorated our chandelier with old children's book pages for a baby shower. I was excited to figure out what to replace those with after the shower.

I'd envisioned finding a bunch of old flashcards or maps but realized quickly this would be way too expensive because of the number of individual papers I needed to fill all the clips. On a stroll through Uncommon Objects a few weeks back I discovered this incredibly preserved grocer's sales collection notebook from 1903 (!) for less than $15.

1903 Sales Collections notebook I found
at Uncommon Objects

I felt a bit bad for tearing out all the sheets of paper but my friend Krista encouraged me that these types of artifacts need to be seen. What better way than hanging overhead a dinner table, full of stories and suggestions for conversation?

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Blog posts here at This Sacramental Life this week:

Retrieve Lament (Lent 2013, Days 5-9): During Lent I'm sharing almost-daily meditations of Scripture, hymns, and art reflecting this time of tension between dying and birth. Won't you join me?

On having four kids in six years and THEN forming a theology of procreation: An epilogue for the story I shared at Mama:Monk's One Good Phrase series this week.

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I confess that during one of our candlelit Lenten prayertimes this week we could not move forward until we watched this video. Twice. And then we laughed about it the whole rest of the night. Have you seen it?