I haven’t really taught Cole how to swing a club. He’s basically taught himself from watching the pro’s on TV.

Four good reasons why I haven’t been blogging as much lately:

I am sure I’ll resume sooner or later. Subscribe to the feed to find out when.

Today, my son and I took a (now annual) trip to Dover, DE to see the NASCAR Nationwide Series race. It was a beautiful day and a great race. Since I had a zoom lens, I took the opportunity to take some pictures that give you a little picture of the diverse group of people who attend these races.

Mullet + Stache = Awesome.

This guy is rocking this classic look with total confidence. Well done my friend, well done…

The Mullet II

Add in the Oakley’s with the flames on the side and you’ve got yourself an awesome combination!

Down Home

You can’t see it but this stylish woman is knitting. I wonder if she’s knitting a #88 on a flame pattern. Oh, and I just love this hat.

Unashamed

Where else can you go where sporting a rockin farmers tan like this is not only be accepted, but in style?

Make Sure They Know Who You Root For!

What better way than shaving your favorite drivers number in the back of your head? Makes total sense doesn’t it?

You know you are a redneck if…

…you look anything like this guy.

Free Samples!!!

Of Red Man?!?! Seriously? I know this isn’t fashion but I just had to share this. It doesn’t get any better than this right here. Where else could you go to get a free sample of snuff?

Who Let These Guys In?!

At least we’re wearing the right clothes with our favorite numbers on them. Too bad we don’t have the right hair styles. Maybe next year. While we may not fit in with the fashion I have to say it doesn’t seem to really matter. NASCAR fans are some of the nicest people on the face of the earth. It’s like one big family. I’m afraid to say, many churches could learn a thing or two about hospitality from these people… just saying…

We have three kids in our house.

Three different personalities.

Three different temperaments.

One of them just sits there and sleeps most of the day.

The other two go back and forth between being best friends and wanting to kill each other.

The friends thing is amazingly cute and fun to watch.

The wanting to kill each other thing makes Melanie and I want to jump out of a window.

Who knows what will happen as the third gets moving, talking and into the mix.

It’ll likely a combination of beautiful friendship and complete insanity.

No matter what, this family is beautiful.

And just when we thought things couldn’t get better…

…We just got a dishwasher.

Talk about living the dream.

Now, if we could just find a way to get more sleep…

For those of you who don’t follow me on Twitter or Facebook you might not have heard that we now have three kids. Elliot James Hiestand was born on Saturday at 12:59pm. As you can tell from the images he’s quite a good looking kid.

Here he is with his two brothers:

My Three Sons

I’ve been processing things like resolutions and goals more than ever this year. I’ve been thinking through a lot of different things but the one I keep coming back to is my need for a more disciplined work week.  It’s not that I am totally undisciplined. I mean, if I were there is no way I could run my own freelance design business and pastor at The Well.   But there is a need for me to have more boundaries and guides so that I can be faithful to my responsibilities. 

I currently love my lifestyle. I am mostly my own boss.  Each day I wake up and can choose what I want to work on (at least, mostly) where I want to work on it.   The “what” means I decide if I’ll be working on design work or church work that day. Depending on the week, some days  I need to focus on design work and others I need to focus on church work. Its up to me to figure out how to spend my time.  

Of course, the “where” is the most fun part.  I can’t imagine my life inside a cubicle (sorry those of you who are currently reading this from your cubicle!).  Each day I wake up and say to myself, “Where do i want to work from today?”  Sometimes its my office in the basement but most times its my office in one of the local Starbucks locations around my area. I also can head up to the cool little town of Doylestown and plop down in the local coffee shop or even spend a couple hours in the coolest cigar shop ever (if i have studying or reading to do since there is no wifi there).  

It’s funny, I woke up one day and was complaining to my wife that I was bored with all my “offices.”  She just looked at me and shook her head.  It’s amazing how spoiled one can get…

While this way of life is great, it requires that I find some more discipline.  It’s all too easy to spend my day doing things that are “work” but are not really the things I should be doing at the moment.  When things get crazy at church, its all too easy to forget about design stuff.  When things get busy with my design work, its all too easy to get the small (but important things) at church fall through the cracks.  In all of this, the tyranny of the urgent usually kills me. Bigger, longer term projects keep getting pushed aside because I am only thinking two to three days in advance.   This obviously isn’t good.  

In all of this, its all too easy to let my two jobs invade my personal life and family time.  Not having a permanent office means that my office is wherever I am.  Which, of course, sometimes means my office is my living room.   Which of course, sometimes make the family a little frustrated!

So, over the next couple weeks Melanie and I will be working through a more disciplined schedule together.  So far I have Monday mornings figured out.  This is the time that I am setting aside for scripture reading, book reading, prayer,  reflection, etc.  This is something I desperately need and want to do but its one of those things that doesn’t seem “urgent.”  Once a month during this time I’ll be meeting up with three other pastors who have become such incredible friends and brothers and I can’t imagine living without. (JR Briggs, Tom Ward and LT).  

I’m working out the rest of the week so that I am able to set aside specific time for sermon study, admin work, design work and meetings.  It might be more annoying for people to schedule time with me since Ill have specific times I am available for meetings but I definitely need boundaries so that I can be faithful to all my responsibilities. 

So, here’s to 2009.  

Oh, and my other major goal is to beat my 5 year old’s record in Wii bowling.  He bowled a 263 a week or so ago…

It’s been a while since I uploaded pictures to our flickr account. I’ve added a bunch. Here is a sample.

Some New Family Photos - Click on the image to view them individually.

Doing some yard work

Tomorrow we are celebrating our son Mason’s 2nd birthday.  (His birthday is on the 30th though).  It’s hard to be believe that he’s that big. It’s been a whirlwind since he came home to be part of our family (he’s adopted btw). He’s such a spunky kid and has a lot of personality. His smile and big eyes melt my heart.

As I was thinking about his birthday, I started looking at some of the blog entries that I wrote when we were down in Guatemala meeting him and bringing him home. If you are new to the blog, you may have missed these. For me, reading them reminds me again just how much of a gift this child has been to our lives.

So, in case you missed them or in case you want to read again here is a quick list of some of the more important posts:

• Dear Mason #1 – My letter to him the night before we met him. I can’t wait to have him read this when he’s older.  I almost started tearing up just reading it again today.
• Dear Mason #2 – My letter to him the day that we met him.
• Dear Mason #3 – The third letter to him.
• Dear Mason #4 – Just a little update of how our week was going.
• When Cole and Mason met
• An adoption sermon – I preached this sermon the week that we got back.  It really captures my heart on the whole experience and how it relates to the God inviting us into His family.

If you want to read all the post from our trip you can read them here. 

Happy birthday kid.  We love you!

I'm an underlining fool.

Today is my day off so I’ve been doing my best to stay off the computer. While Mason has been napping and Cole watching a short video, I’ve been reading a new book that finally came by way of USPS today.

I am the kind of person who has to read with a pencil in my hand (preferably a Pentel Forte .05 mechanical pencil as pictured above). If I don’t have a pencil, I probably just won’t read. Underlining really helps me concentrate, retain and also helps when I go back over the book later remember what I found helpful. I’ll confess it also makes me feel smart.

Today as I was reading, Cole asked me why I was writing lines in my book. I explained to him that I underline the parts of the book that I want to easily find again and remember. So, he jumped off the sofa and went to get his obscure Christmas novel that he randomly picked out last Christmas when we were at Goodwill buying ugly holiday sweaters. (It was kinda funny, the book’s main character is named Cole…coincidence? I think not!). After he got his book, he got a pen and began randomly underlining different parts of the book. (I’ll teach him about the wonderful world of mechanical pencils later)

It was too cute.

I took a picture.

Go and see for yourself.

Most of you who have been reading my blog for a while know that Cole and I play baseball together almost everyday. While we were home in Chicago visiting my parents we actually went out and bought a wiffle ball and bat so we could play a bit in the back yard.

Here’s some footage: