Year 2, Day 84: Hope

Hope is the word of the day!  After feeling very filled after Friday and Saturday's conference, we went to church this morning and the sermon was on baptism.  Pretty straight forward for us since we've known what we believe about baptism, which means immersion, for many, many years.  But, it was an incredible service and God moved powerfully because 27 people were baptized over the 4 services!  Only a few of them were planned.  Then a family friend who is preaching at another local church, brought his wife's family over to the church this afternoon to baptize his father in law and 8 other people in her family!  Wow!  Incredible!  And of course, I tend to reflect on who is or isn't immersed in our family and who am I praying for and who am I sharing Christ with and how.  It's not something I do well at all.  But, the morning was very hope filled with that many people joining the body of Christ!

After dinner and a short nap at "Ice Cream's" house (aka grandparents), we joined 18 other families who were dedicating their young ones and promising that they would do their best to raise their children in a God filled home and share the gospel with their children, leading them to Christ.  For some reason, a lot of the kids were chatty and it was a little hard to hear our wonderful nursery, preschool and children's ministers speak.  But that's ok.  It was similar to what we heard when we did this little ceremony with the other kids.  It is NOT an infant baptism, but a PARENT'S PROMISE.  It was previously called Rosebud Sunday as well.  Anyway, because of the short nap, Abishai would NOT sit still during it.  It was nuts!  But we made it through!

We spent the evening preparing for the week by cleaning up, doing laundry, and Jared took two the of the kids to Aldi's to get food for his lunches this week.  I actually feel like on top of things for the moment.  I'll have to spend some more time on the taxes this week, but thankfully, we don't have anything going on (yet).  I'm hoping it will be warm this week so we can get some outdoor time in.  And if I'm feeling up to it, I might do a little garage clean up, and put away my sweaters, and such.  We will move eventually, we just don't know where yet.  I can start preparing now.  Back to co op tomorrow!

Wahoo!  I did it! I lined up all the cars AND the horse (that Grandma Howell bought for the kids long ago).

Ok, now I'll dance about it!

I sit! I sit! And I'll sit between this person or that person or on this person, or let's go over the pew to the grandparents behind, and back again.  Back and forth for an hour!

One of the pictures I gave to the moderators.  I choose this one because of his smile and his love of cars.

Cute face(s).

Don't talk to me.  You don't see me.  I'm hiding from you.

Family!

I'm just going to bury my head in Justin's armpit, just because I can.

Prayer time.

Cupcakes that match our shirt!  Awesome!  He didn't eat much of it though.

Perfect treats for a young child's event.  Goldfish and cupcakes, Capri Sun drinks as well.

We had to wait for Daddy to help with the other baptisms, so we brought out YouTube on my phone for some entertainment.  He wasn't happy when I had to take it back in order to leave.  He also didn't want Babee Benaiah to leave with Grandma.  Benaiah was going to watch the college basketball game at their house.

Mrs. Magic happened again today!  We were desperately searching for the middle object, which I just bought yesterday.  It's a fidget spinner and we search high and low in Justin's room for it.  But it got flung onto a blanket and was hard to see on it. I found Justin's DS on the TV stand behind the TV and I found Jared's leatherman tool in between the couch cushions AFTER Jared had looked for it there.  Yup, Mommy Magic!

Keturah wanted to write a cursive letter "i" so Daddy helped her!

We received this special jar of marbles at the baby dedication today.  The 19 small marbles represent the 19 years you have with your kids.  How many of those do you have left?  The big marbles represent the big milestones like baby dedication, baptism, puberty, driving, graduating, etc.  They also have these extra large jars sitting out in the children's wing with different amounts of marbles in them, each marble representing a week in a child's life.  The jar with the most marbles of course was the one labeled "infant."  One of the middle jars was half full repsrenting middle school.  And so on until the last jar which was empty.  We have maybe 175 weeks left with Benaiah.  It's a very sobering fact.  When you think of those child rearing years, and you realize just how little time you have with them, you tend to be more intential.  It's one reason we homeschool, which is that we can spend all the time we can with our children.  And this is one reason I miss having Benaiah at home and that I'd rather him come back to homeschooling.  But the jury is out on that decision for another couple of months.

Promising to God and our church family we will raise Abishai in a Christian home, and share the Gospel with him and his siblings. 

Certificate of Dedication.  Woot! Woot!