Baby Creeping Out of my Sight

I set John on his play mat while I cooked dinner today so I could watch him from the kitchen. I set him down on his back with his head at 9:00 (from the perspective of the picture-taker in the below photo). Each time I'd glance over at him, he had crept, crawled, and dragged his body a little farther. By the time I took this photo, he'd gotten onto his stomach, rotated 180 degrees, and made his way over to the couch.

Unfortunately, I do not have any photos of our great, short hike up Sawnee Mountain this morning. The view from the peak was lovely!

What's Cookin'? Tonight I cooked sweet and sour pork (for Chris) and a tomato-based black bean dish (for me), each served over rice. (Yes, Sarah, tonight I cooked two separate dinners.) It was useful cooking because it resulted in two more servings of pork and two more of beans, all of which I froze for later. In the midst of cooking the pork, I realized I had forgotten to buy sweet and sour sauce, so I dashed to the computer, found a recipe, and made it from scratch (wow, does it contain a lot of sugar!). Now I have two more servings of the sauce too, which I also froze. Some weeks I cook often, while other weeks we live off of frozen, homemade food, which is great!

At the Cinema! Chris and I finally watched The Nativity Story and found it to be utterly beautiful. The scenery alone brings the Bible to life. I know that some Christians (especially Protestants) have found at least two theological criticisms to make, but I think the director's choices are well within artistic license without undermining Christianity. There have been some excellent Christian reviews of this film, including one by our priests' order (The Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter) in their British publication Videre Petrum.

We also recently watched The Children of Heaven, a delightful and poignant movie about two children in Iran who must share a pair of shoes in order to attend school. Nothing distastefully political taints the movie; it focuses purely on this microcosm of life in the East. While revealing many differences between life in Iran and life in America, the movie also shows that children live in similar emotional landscapes everywhere.