Baptism Service

I just love Baptism services at our church. After the morning service today 2 people gave their testimonies and got baptized, its just so awesome to hear how God calls different people into His kingdom.

Singing

Listening to Taz's testimony

Richard's Baptism

And Taz's. Sorry these photos aren't great but I had Noah on my hip saying "Taz go under da water mommy?"

Before Evening Service Clint goes to prayer meeting at 5:45, so I go outside on the playground at church and play with the kids for 45 minutes before the evening service at 6:30. I love this time with them, they really have so much fun with each other.

Noah climbing up the ladder to the slide

Autumn soon got the hang of what to do and would climb up to the top with no fear. Noah would never do this at this age, she's quite the brave one...

She'd climb all the way to the top and try and slide down head first if I didn't stop her :)

That night we played "train slide" which Noah loves, where Autumn sits ahead of me and he grabs on and sits behind me and we go down like a train down the slide. I had to pry him away go to church that night, he kept asking for more train slides!

We moved the cry room out of the church to seat more people, so now we've got video feed of the service in a classroom which I watch with my kiddos. It's actually great and I can pay attention way more for some reason, and where the cry room used to be in the service is already filled with people (crazy!) There have been alot of returning visitors to our church lately, which is so exciting because we as a church have been praying for revival in Hillcrest for the last 6 months or so, and the Lord is starting to answer! We can't wait for our new church building in a few years time!

Driveway

My kids love to hang out in our driveway. I don't what it is with kids and driveways, but we often wait for Clint to come home in the afternoon on the driveway. We have our snacks, and play with Spurg and the kids just have SO SO MUCH FUN. I can't describe how fun it is for them.

Reading books

The only shot of them both looking my way :)

Silly smile on his bike

I love this look she's giving him. Later on he bumped his head on something and she came and patted him on the back and gave him a hug and a real kiss, smacked her lips and everything. She really loves him alot.

Eating their snack

Playing what we call "chase you hug you" which is basically tag.

Making sure I'm still there

Laughing at her brother riding up and down

Noah plays this game where he'll hold on to Spurg's tail and try not to let go

Playing fetch

Yay daddy came home!

These boots are made for walking

Before we had kids Clint and I had a conversation in an airport while we were watching a bunch of toddlers play, and we started talking about what the difference was between babies and kids. Like when does a baby officially stop being a baby and become a kid? We concluded it was when they needed to wear proper shoes. Well today I had to buy Autumn her first pair because she started walking more than her "two steps here, two steps there" between objects. It's so fun to see her step around now, so to celebrate I got her her first pair of shoes. So I guess according to our definition, she's no longer a baby!

For the grandparents, or anyone interested, a video of her twinkle toes walking...

Conversations with Noah

I love being a stay at home mom. How could I leave my kiddos with someone else to raise them all day? This was a recent conversation with Noah that brought tears to my eyes. Its so fun watching him slowly understand the greatness of the gospel.

We've been talking alot about heaven lately....and he asks the first question almost every day this week.

Noah: "Noah go to heaven, with angels and Jesus, hold mommies hand? Go in the car?"

Me: "Noah how do we get to heaven? We can't go in a car!"

Noah: "Jesus helps us go to heaven"

Me: "That's right, only with Jesus help can we go to heaven."

Noah: Looking very sad...."Noah not go to the cross. Noah's hands and feet not sore?"

Me: "No, Jesus went to the cross so we don't have to go! If you believe in Jesus and love him and obey him he went to the cross for you so you don't have to."

Noah: Sadder. "Mommy go to the cross? Daddy go? Sore hands and feet? Holes in the hands?"

Me: "No, we don't have to because Jesus did it for us! He loved us so much even though he did nothing wrong that he went to the cross instead of us to forgive us!"

Noah: "God is love."

Me: "Do you want to pray?"
Noah: "Mommy pray."

So, it was just a little moment, but it was so encouraging to me that he thought about heaven, and then Jesus helping us, and he connected it with the cross. I love that I don't have to miss these moments with my kids!

Pix Fix

In case you needed one...

Swimming today at my friends pool:

Noah doing pushups with daddy

We are taking Noah to swimming lessons, he loves to swim, but is just learning how to kick and put his face under the water

Autumn at the beach, she was not afraid at all to crawl straight towards the water

In her "Pooh" towel :)

Noah starting a sand castle with Ashel

Playing with her pooh book

Daddy reading Noah his bedtime story in bed

I love this pic, even though its a bit blurry. Autumn is hugging her baby just after her bath. She'll often give me babies to "kiss" and she'll hand them to me and make kissing sounds, telling me I must kiss them, I love it so much!

Hillcrest Baptist

So I haven't blogged about our church in a while, and I think its because I totally forget to take pictures, and then just don't blog about it. But some exciting things have been going on in the life of our church! Our church on Sun mornings has been max capacity for the last month or so, AND a property down the road from us has offered to swap their land (which is less valuable) with our land (which is way more valuable) and build us a bigger church (500 seater), new preschool, and church offices/kitchen etc. for no cost! Our land is way more valuable cause it has an entrance off the main road and is the center of Hillcrest, and the difference in price will build us a brand new church! This is so so great cause HBC at the moment has no more room for parking, the roof is leaking, the kitchen is too small, and well, we are at max capacity. They are actually going to tear down the cry room (yikes for me and all the moms) to make more seating room in the church. So in about 2-3 years time, we will be sitting in a brand new church building, very exciting.

And here are some photos of the two ministries I'm involved in at HBC. Cornerstone Young Adults meets in our house, and Clint's been teaching through Biblical masculinity and femininity the last month or so, which has been SO well received and lead to lots of cool discussions about what the Bible has to say about being manly and feminine :)

Cornerstone's faces have changed alot over the last few years, so its fun to get to know some new people that the Lord has brought in our home every week.Then with the church growing there's been a need for a Mom's and Tots group which we started last year. We are going through the book "Don't Let Me Count to Three" by Ginger Plowman which talks about how to Biblically reproove your children. Its been such a joy to get to know the moms, and Noah's loved playing with the kids. This last one we did a craft as well for the kids, and Tarryn read about Daniel and the lions to them.

Each kid made a lion face to go along with learning how Daniel prayed even though the "Bad king" told everyone to stop praying!

I tried to get a photo of Noah in his lion face but he kept saying "its so so itchy mommy, no tank you" so......one kid didn't like the craft! But I got a shot of Morgan, this little girl's mommy was recently diagnosed with tyroid cancer, and after several months of treatment and prayer is now completely cured! So we are so thankful to the Lord for sparing her!

Stellah Faith

Our music leader/youth intern at our church Charl and his wife Nina had a baby girl 6 weeks ago, Stellah Faith. I had fun doing a mini photo shoot of her when she turned 6 weeks old! She didn't flash me any smiles, but she's still quite the cutie. We are so thankful for Charl and Nina in our church, and for all the ministry they do amoung the youth, and with sound, and on the worship team! And without further ado....baby Stellah.