Soundtrack

Small Group 2011

I'm reading Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren.  Can't believe I've never read it, but I haven't.  I'm actually really enjoying it.  Today's reading was 'Experiencing Life Together'.  Here are some of the bullet points that I underlined:

• Every Christian needs to be involved in a small group within their church, whether it is a home fellowship group, a Sunday school class, or a Bible study.
• If you think of your church as a ship, the small groups are the lifeboats attached to it.
• What is the difference between real and fake fellowship?  In real fellowship people experience:
  
  •  Authenticity (Why take the risk of being authentic?  Because it is the only way to grow spiritually and be emotionally healthy.)
  • Mutuality
  • Sympathy (Self-pity dries up sympathy for others.)
  • Mercy (You will never be asked to forgive someone else more than God has already forgiven you.  Forgiveness is letting go of the past.  Trust has to do with future behavior)

"Share each other's troubles and problems, and in this way obey the law of Christ."  Galatians 6:2 (NLT)

Mark and I got married 8.24.02.  We officially joined/became members of our church in September and attended our first GroupLink at the end of October 2002.  We have been in a small group ever since.  We are currently in our fifth small group (fourth to lead).  We have met every week in someone's home since that October (besides taking June and July off in the summers and a 8 month break we took from leading between our fourth and fifth group (which is when we took advantage of the time off to become 2-to-1 PreMarital Mentors for the church).  I actually can't imagine life without our small groups.  There are many friends we would not have without having been in small group (I think most of my blog readers have heard of the Greiners?  Yep - our first small group leaders!), there are many areas we have grown in that would not have happened without being in small group, there are conversations Mark and I have had or situations where we have had to completely rely on God's provision and/or answers that we wouldn't have ever encountered without being in small group.  We have walked through heartache (divorce, miscarriages, infertility, job loss, and more) where we have had the pleasure of being the body of Christ to support and uplift those people during those times.  We have also witnessed some amazing answers to prayer (salvation of a spouse, a surprise (and FAST) child adoption, pregnancies, healing, and much, much more).

Doing life with others is a must.  And not just occasional get togethers with friends, but actual fellowship with other followers of Christ.  If you remain in isolation making your faith private instead of personal (there is a difference!) and detach yourself from the body by not going to church or being a part of a small group you are allowing yourself to become defenseless and powerless against the enemy's tactics.  I will even dare to say personal Bible reading is not enough - God didn't intend it to be. 

"For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst."  Matthew 18:20 (NASB)

He created us to be in His family.  He created us to fellowship with each other.  If you aren't participating as an active member of His family, why aren't you?  What's holding you back?  Do you know what you are missing out on?  Or, another way of asking that question, what are you afraid of missing out on by becoming an active part of God's family?  What is so urgent that it is displacing God in your life? 

Isn't it interesting that back 2000+ years ago when the church was just starting, the only Christians that did not attend church or were not a part of a small group fellowship were those under church discipline who had been removed from the fellowship due to gross public sin?

So, I guess that's a lot of me speaking from my soap box.  Sorry, I'll get off now.  But I would be amiss if I didn't at least say this last thing.  If you live in the area and don't feel like you have a church that you can find this type of fellowship we would love for you to join us at Browns Bridge Community Church.  Consider this your open invitation to visit with us whenever you want!  (And if you are looking to get into a small group we are having our next GroupLink the evening of August 27th.  You can read more about it here:  GroupLink).

 

We recently had a small group social at a local park.  It was lots of fun!!

Here are the gals...(top to bottom, left to right:  Abbey, Allyson, Brooke, Julie, Amy, me, and Catherine)

Here are the guys...(top to bottom, left to right:  Doug, Robbie, Eric, Mark, Brooks, Mike, and Brett).

And the kids (the only one missing is 3 month old Mason who was home with his grandmother)...Preston, Madelyn, Hamilton, Vivian, and Josh ...(all of them had been running around on the playground for awhile as is represented by all those pink cheeks)

And the families :)

(Jansen, Kent, Hartley, Clifford, Caesar, Youngblood, and Lorence Families.  Me and Catherine are due 3 weeks a part.)

We LOVE doing life with these families and are thrilled that we still have another year in group with them!!

The Most Exciting Post I Will EVER Write!!

Watch this video to see what happened in our home yesterday!!  An answer to a 5 year prayer!!

 

Thank you to our parents for joining us in this celebration and praying for our boys.

Thank you Mark for being a great parent partner.  It is thrilling that we can now see the fruit of our labor and the answer to our prayers.

Thank you Browns Bridge WaumbaLand for backing up what we do at home on Sundays and making church something my son wants to go to to learn more about his Savior.

Thank you Jesus for what I know will be great things you will do in his heart and his life.  Without you we have no purpose and I'm joyous the son you loaned to me has found his purpose in you!

 

Matthew 19:14

Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”

Sports Class

So this is way past due, but I think some of these pictures are too cute not to share.  Back in May Hamilton took a Sports class that included soccer and TBall. 

Here he is pumping his wheel rods to get enough power to kick the ball far.  (Yes, my child still thinks he is a train half of the time...who am I kidding?...most of the time).

On his way to make a goal against Coach Carlos.  If you look real close you'll see he has his tongue out.

Big Shot! 
Making a run...

Team pow-wow.

So those were the first 4 weeks - all soccer.  The last 4 weeks were TBall.

Batter up!

Swing, batter batter, SWING!

Running the bases...his favorite thing to do.  And yes those would be his wheel-rods and that would be him 'choo-chooing' on his way to third.  Oh, how I love him!!

You'll be seeing many more of these TBall type shots since we are registering for our first TBall team on Monday.  It won't start until September, but I'm so excited to see my sweet boys out on the field together :)

Stay tuned for a few more updates coming...

Texas Trip

If there is one thing my parents are it is INTENTIONAL!  Each and every time we visit them in Texas they have pre-planned and thought out a lot of fun things for us to do as a family.  (It's one of the reasons I have to be intentional with when and who I'm going to see while I'm there because a lot of my time is already 'booked').  This trip was no different!!

A huge church around the corner from my parents called Prestonwood Baptist Church was having their VBS the week we were in town.  Hamilton had a blast!! It was a Dinosaur/Creation theme (yes I realize the odd pairing) and had all sorts of fun things each day for him to do.  Monday was a petting zoo, Tuesday was a...get this...safari train ride!!, Wednesday was a jumpy house, and Thursday and Friday were singing/worship time in the big auditorium.  He talked about the snacks, the stories he was taught, the crafts, the dinosaurs, the whole thing - it was spectacular and may just become a summer tradition!

Here is me and Hamilton in front of the Triceratops...

Looks like we are in a museum, doesn't it?  I'm telling ya - it was over the top!!  Had Jurassic Park music playing in the back ground.  Here he is roaring like a T-Rex.

 
We went over to Aunt Renna's house to swim with the cousins (actually my cousins children - so I guess that makes them Hamilton's second-cousins?).  Kristina (7), Tyler (6), Jack and Hamilton (4).

So I didn't know you could even buy these like this, but mom and dad found ladybugs!! We had a fun evening letting them crawl all over our hands, letting them go into the plants, and watching some of them fly. 

Mom even bought Hamilton a bug catcher that had a magnifying glass on it.  This picture cracks me up - Bubba and lil' Bubba :)

I got to see a couple friends while I was in town and their children.  I didn't take any pictures with Evie (and Pippa) and Elaine (and Cana), but we all went out for a great Tex-Mex dinner.  We also had Jenny (and Ryder) over for a fun day of swimming.  I did get one pic of the boys together.

My parents also had planned a fun afternoon at Sandy Lake Amusement Park.  Of course the day we chose it was 102 degrees outside so we took a lot of water breaks.  It was great fun - almost like a fair, but all to ourselves.  It was EMPTY.  The guy running the rides just followed us to whichever ride we wanted to go to next.  That's why Hamilton is the only kid in all the pictures.  Hamilton had a blast!  (And of course the hit of the day was the train ride!)

I don't know how I didn't know about this place - but it was such fun!!  I grew up with Penny Whistle Park (for all you 1970-80s Dallas residents) and so sad that it is closed.  But this was almost exactly like it besides that it was outside.  Great time and highly recommend!!

Mark flew in later in the week and Hamilton stayed with mom and dad while we took advantage of a small 'babymoon'.  We stayed at the Gaylord Texan in Grapevine, TX.  It was a very nice venue and wonderful weekend.  Katie and Justin met up with us for dinner one evening.  They also had just opened a brand new pool area with a lazy river & water slide which we spent most of the day.  It was a great weekend and much needed time away together just the two of us.

Sunday was Father's Day.  It was great to be with Dad and Mark - don't know if that's every happened, but it was fun to be with the two greatest dads I know on Father's Day.

We celebrated a few other things while we were in town in addition to Father's Day.  My mom's birthday and Katie's birthday.  For Father's Day I found these shirts from a Virginia Beach Harbor named Bubba's...too cute!  (And no I wasn't at Virginia Beach - I saw a guy wearing a shirt at Lowe's and went online to order).

Hamilton with his Crazy Aunt KT!

And with his un-crazy-very-normal Emmy...

So that's a lot of pictures and not a lot of words - but it sums up our trip to Texas.  We won't be back in the great bluebonnet state until Christmas (which is actually quite sad to me), but I can't fly after August 1 and Luke is due end of September.  It really was a great trip!  It was extremely hot (as I mentioned 102 and it remained that way most of the trip).  But in a way it's made the current heat of the summer almost feel cool when I have the sauna I experienced that week to compare it to.

Thank you Bubba and Emmy for a wonderful, fun, memory-making, and most of all intentional trip.  Texas is ALWAYS full of fun because of your efforts.  We love you!!

The Zoo & 4th of July

The Atlanta Zoo recently started a new promotion where they gave each public library branch in the state 1 copy of a Zoo Atlanta DVD.  You check it out and when you return it you get a FREE family 4 pass to the zoo.  The fine print is that you must return it in 3 days, there is a waiting list currently over 300, and you have to use the free pass within 7 days of returning the DVD.  The last part of that fine print is the part I didn't know.  So I've been on the waiting list since March and my name finally came up.  I checked it out, returned it, and got my free pass thinking it would be something fun we could do later in the summer or fall...or not.  So we headed to the zoo on Tuesday and invited Mimi to come along.

Hamilton was excited because the last time I took him to the zoo it was just the two of us and we bypassed the reptile area.  Mimi was there this time so he got to go inside :)  Do you think he has the same love/hate relationship with reptiles as his mama?

The lion was out of his den this time - so cool!!

If you remember last time I made the mistake of waiting until the end of our visit for the train ride.  This time I wasn't going to make the same mistake so we went straight to the train...except it was BROKEN DOWN!!  Can you believe?!?!  Talk about crushing a little boy's heart!  You know his response?  "It's ok Mommy, we can go look at the animals and come back after the engineer fixes the engine".  I'm sorry, what?  How am I more disappointed than you?  I'm telling ya - this boy is a sweetie.  Thank goodness he doesn't handle disappointment like his Mommy!  We did come back at the end of our trip and the train was indeed fixed so we got to go on a ride!!

That weekend we headed to the lake for 4th of July holiday.  I actually didn't take that many pictures except on the night of the 3rd when we went to see fireworks.  Once again my sweet child amazed me.  We had researched some fireworks in the area and found a show in Pendleton, SC.  It was PERFECT because it had two real trains on display then a whole model-train set-up along with jumpy houses, face-painting, snacks, etc.  So we head to Pendleton and ride up to the park around 7:30 (it opened at 6:00, but fireworks weren't until 9:30 thus us arriving late).  It.  Was.  Completely.  Empty.  The event had been the night before!  Can you believe - again I'm telling my sweet son we won't be able to see the trains!  His response?  "That's okay - I've already seen a real train before.  Will you take me to see a real train again sometime?"  Are. You. Kidding. Me.  I'm on the verge of tears thinking no fireworks, no trains, etc. etc. and my child is cool to go onto the next thing.  So what happened?  My knight in shining armor remembered that Clemson was having fireworks on Sunday night (after all his research) so we headed to Clemson and caught their firework show.  (They also had 4 or 5 different jumpy houses that Hamilton had a blast on).  So it all worked out...

Sitting on Daddy's lap to watch the firework show (which was very well done for such a small little town).  He made Mark keep his hands over his ears so it wouldn't be so loud. 

Hope you had a great holiday weekend with your loved ones celebrating this amazing country we live in and the freedom it represents!!

Check out the pregnancy album for my latest picture.  Also, stay tuned for more posts coming soon - I'm trying to get caught up with our Texas trip pics as well as other updates.