Welcome to Wiglife!

Greetings Christmas Card visitors! If this is your first time visiting our family website, welcome! We have been at this website location for a year now and update weekly, usually with lots of pictures. We love it if you leave us comments so we know you visited, but if you're more private you can always click on "Becca" under "The WigWho?" to the left and you'll see a link to Becca's e-mail on the top left. The best way to see what we've been up to for the past year is to click on some of the archives listed on the right. Since there's a lot of them, here's some links to a few of our favorites:

More WigPics

Z on the go

All that is one

Our new living room, finally!

Fifth trip this year!

What Halloween might have been...

Please keep in touch, we'd love to know what's been going on in your life! Enjoy this precious time to be with family and celebrate our Savior's birth. Many blessings to you!

Swinging Pendulum

I find it so hard to muster the courage to write in this Spiritual journal I've started that sometimes it takes me a while to update it. This is my twentieth post on this blog and I'm actually surprised I've written that many! Forgive the delay to those (two) of you that read this. I'd like to preface this entry with a brief history of where I've come from. In regards to understanding "freedom in Christ" and being disciplined, I've been on a swinging pendulum. Prior to age 20 (which coincidentally, is when I got married), I was super disciplined in reading my Bible, going to church, and well, rather black and white about everything. I was never living up to my own standards let alone God's and constantly felt as insufficient as I really was. In my twenties I came to a new understanding of this "freedom in Christ", realizing, that there really was nothing I could do to make God love me any more or any less. That's actually something I remember my parents saying, but I didn't get it until I left home. Here's the big swing, I let go of all those chains around my neck making me feel guilty all the time and reveled in my new found freedom. I didn't go crazy doing harmful things, but I'm saying in letting go of these obligations, and telling myself, for instance, that I'll just read my Bible when I'm aching to, surely that won't be more than every other day...

In a nutshell, I swung (is that correct?) so far the other way I didn't read for a year, telling myself "God still loves me!" To make matters worse, we stopped going to church for like six years, "Going to church doesn't save you!" Now, I'm trying to bring back some much needed discipline into my life, which I need in EVERY area (controlling my mouth for one, structuring my day, exercising, memorizing Scripture, writing letters to people, etc.), and I'm trying not to swing too far the other way that I get overwhelmed and quit again! I've never been great at finding balance, it's so much easier to see the extremes.


It's not just with God, though, for me, the swing affected my approach to people too. I was the best brown-nose in school, ask anyone! I feared people as much as I did God's wrath. When I realized my freedom, I stopped caring what others thought. I struggled with respecting authority figures especially and even rationalized not exercising or eating right with thoughts like, "My husband loves me no matter what!" Obviously, by writing about this I see the error in it, but I still struggle on a daily basis with doing my best to do what is right and giving myself grace when I don't. As simple as it sounds...

Yet again, we have a Zerbik entry on obeying God and a Veggie Tale quote. I've written before about God reteaching me obedience: To the Pure all things are Pure, Do what you're told, Freedom vs. Discipline, and the all too popular, "Circumcision." My Veggie Tale quote comes from "Gideon: Tuba Warrior" when the angel appears to Gideon and tells him he's been chosen to lead Israel's army against the excessively hairy Midianites. Gideon doesn't think he can do this and assumes there's been a mistake, surely God wouldn't ask him to do such a thing. The angel said to him, "If you want to hear God say, 'Well done," you'll have to do what He asks." For me, that says it all.

When I started this blog a year ago, I didn't expect to see myself wrestling so much with the simple issue of obedience. I also didn't expect to quote talking vegetables so much. The biggest surprise is what a spiritual battle it is to actually type these entries. I probably have twenty more Zerbik entries in my head in any given week, but you only saw twenty in the past year because I over analyzed whether something was worth sharing or too personal...well, maybe it's good I've shown some restraint.

Our Christmas Greeting

Well, I've finally ordered our Photo Christmas cards. What do you think? Just kidding, this is one that almost but didn't quite make the cut. We had several sittings with my dad before we got one we liked. Speaking of which, if you didn't get a card last year or don't think I have your address (maybe you moved or you're a cyber friend), please e-mail me your snail mail address and I will be sure to get you a Christmas card! I ordered tons!

Pics by Grandpa

Greetings! It's time for more pictures by Grandpa J (aka my Dad). He, my mom and their dog, Freeway, just left yesterday to spend Thanksgiving with his parents in Tennessee. OK, I had two requests for the dog story, so here goes: My folks lived in England for sixteen years and made some friends toward the end of that who also had a dog. They would often dog sit for each other when they'd travel back home or wherever. When they moved to Germany two years ago, they kept in touch, their friends moved to the States. Since my folks still travel quite a bit and their friends still love Freeway so much, Freeway lived with their friends in Maryland for six months this year while my folks did the bulk of their traveling. So, my Dad was just picking him up. Voila! The dog story!

Grandma and Z

I knew he loved to push buttons inside the washing machine door to make the light go on and off, but this is a new one!

Grandpa and Z

Now, this one I took after they left. I decided, if he wants to feed himself so badly, I'm gonna let him! I was spoon feeding all the soft foods, but not anymore. I may have to bathe him more often, but it's worth it if he learns some dexterity and gains some independence.

This is one of Becca's favorite things. Just wanted to share. The tea bags are so fancy I can barely bring myself to use them. The tea leaves inside smell like fancy pipe tobacco and the tea is dreamy! Not in love with the brand's name, but the tea itself, worth a try!

Joy

Well, do you think they like each other? This is Z with my Mom. We've had quite an adventure since she's been here. My Dad just arrived yesterday with their dog, Freeway. Why their dog is here from Germany is a long story, so I'll share if you ask! Anywho, Z had a minor ear infection the week before last and was put on antibiotics. About a week later, we notice lots of congestion in his lungs and took him back to the doc who said he could have croup, but for now it was just a bad chest cold. He said to continue the antibiotics. After a full week of them (and several times of being prescribed them before), he had an allergic reaction to them. So, Saturday morning I was in the ER with him making sure he was going to be OK. His poor little face, arms and legs were swollen and red all over like a rash. It was SO sad! They didn't do anything for him there, but we kept him on Benadryl for two days and the rash finally went away. Thank goodness it wasn't worse!

Right now, my sweetie heart is in Utah with Matt S camping in the middle of the desert! I talked to him yesterday and he was having a blast. No desert varmints he assured me. He'll be home soon, hopefully with awesome pictures to share.

Tonight is Mommy's Night out with my Mommy Group! We're going to Applebees. Looking forward to being with the girls. We're starting a new book called, "For Women Only," by Shaunti Feldhahn. I'll let you know how I like it.

What Halloween might have been...

We had a Harvest party at Mommy Group on Halloween. The kids were supposed to dress up. I got one good picture of Z in this duckie outfit (courtesy of Missy and Andy) before he began screaming to get him out. It was a bit big anyway. Maybe next year. He loves duckies, I was really rooting for this one.
Well, we went to the party sans costume, but my friend, Jolene, brought this hilarious chicken costume for us to try. The orange leggings made him scream so I left them off and tried the coat. You can see from the picture the coat wasn't a hit either. I gave up and we handed out candy with my old neighbor, Betty, that night and enjoyed other people's costumes.
When Z was first born it took us a while to get adjusted to the new lack of sleep schedule, but we got used to it. Occasionally, there would be a night here or there where he'd be teething or sick and we'd get even less sleep than normal. Well, this week took us to a whole 'nother level of sleep deprivation! Z caught Ben's cold and had congestion. It was hard for him to breathe through his nose, especially (it seemed) at 3am! He'd toss and turn struggling with this for a half hour, then be wide awake for say, 2-3 hours! This brought us to what we call "morning". After six nights of this (he was fine during the day except for some boogies and snot), we took him to the doctor. Partly to make sure he'd be OK and wouldn't get an ear infection and partly because we were starting to lose our sanity. I was becoming delirious from lack of sleep half way through the day. Doctor put him on antibiotics again and sent us home. He's been sleeping much better since. Thank the Lord! I neglected to mention that plain old "congestion" meds have been taken off the market so we had to get combination meds and some of them (namely congestion and cough medicine) caused sleeplessness. It took us a few nights to figure this out.

My mom comes tomorrow for two weeks, my dad comes for the last week. I'm looking forward to the extra help! This week about did me in! Ben too!

Birthday Wishes

Hey! Today is my best friend, Chrisie Mayne's birthday! Please go visit her website and see her cute little boy, D, in his hilarious Halloween costume! Leave her a birthday wish if you want! She'd love it! Just click right here! Thanks everybody!!! Happy Birthday Chrisie-poo! Love you!