children's pastor conference...

alright, so i said you'd find something new on this blog this morning...hmm...how's afternoon sound to you?

well let me just first say that if you have never been to san diego then you are totally missing out!! if it weren't ridiculously expensive to live there, we would move in a heartbeat. you can't beat the amazing weather and the beautiful beaches.

so here's what went down. five of us (plus anna and emmie) from our church flew out last saturday and landed in beautiful san diego where the weather was a cool 60 something...just right for capris, flip flops and a light jacket. after getting our stuff loaded in the rental van we went over to coronado island to a little restaurant overlooking the bay for lunch. i had a calamari sandwich that was fantastic and i can't wait for ross to go there with me. coronado island is picturesque. people rent suris and ride along the shore line with white sail boats on the water behind them!

after lunch we headed over to the hotel/conference center. the place was nice. we never left there again until time to fly home. though sad because there was no beach time, the conference proved to be a wonderful refreshing time!

i want to share some highlights from the sessions i attended:

• worship is when we give to God. the only part of a church service that God gets anything out of is our worship. when there is a great sermon, He isn't sitting up there going "oh wow that's a great point, hadn't thought of that"- He is God- He thought of everything.
• to teach our children how to worship we must live lives of worship, we must model it for them.
• Psalm 8:2 says, "out of the mouths of babes; You have ordained praise." worship is not something we do...it's who we ought to be. it is what we were created to do.
• infants and toddlers are not too young to understand. when mary, pregnant with jesus, visited elizabeth, pregnant with john, elizabeth's baby lept in her womb. jacob & esau were at odds in the womb. babies can comprehend spiritual things and so when our hearts are worshipping God and we are rocking them or telling them a story they can learn.
• we, as parents, are responsible for the spiritual health and growth of our children. are we who are in leadership in the church equipping families with the tools to help them raise spiritual champions?
• family ministry begins with men's ministry. Psalm 78:1-8
• be intentional in everything in our departments- books, puzzles, toys
• we who are ministering to children can facilitate the laying of spiritual foundations in the children we serve.
• if someone asks "where do you see yourself in 5 years?" our desire should simply be "wherever God wants me".
  

so those are just a few of the encouraging things that God showed me this past week. we heard some great speakers like latika garth, phil vischer (creator and voice of veggie tales) and the guys who stayed through monday night also heard max lucado.

the conference was a great time to refocus on the role i play in our church. what a blessing it was to be there and hear from the Lord.

Lord, i pray that you might reveal Yourself in a fresh way to the families that come into our nursery at catalina. i pray that i would be a worshiper not just a bystander. let the words of my mouth and meditations of my heart be pleasing to You. use me Lord, in the lives of the children and families i see each week.

whirlwind,,,

i am going to be blogging more about the last week or so but here are a few highlights.

i just returned from san diego where i was attending a children's pastors conference. we didn't have time for the sun and sand but what an awesome time of encouragement as well as fresh ideas. i will share more about that later.

i asked you all to be praying for our brother and sister-in-law as they wait for a baby to adopt. praise God, the giver of all good things! last night they met and were chosen by a special birth mom who is having a baby boy in about 8 weeks!! thankfully we finished sewing all the linens for his nursery in the last couple of weeks. (pictures to come)

i am looking forward to sharing more details with you all, so hang in there and check back in the morning.

pictures...

alright so this past week our friend, tonya took some pics of daphne and her best girl friend, ellie. the girls were ADORABLE!! they had a tea party with gloves, boas, tu-tus, pearls, the whole works. it was so fun to watch daphne and ellie be so girlie. ellie is definitely a girlie girl, with cute coordinated outfits and matching bows. daphne on the other hand loves to pull out her bows (mentioned in a previous post) and often times she likes to strip down. all that being said about my girl, she is still girlie in so many ways. she loves to play with her baby dolls and she loves to dress up like a princess- preferably cinderella, who is her favorite. after i get the pics i will post one of the girls.

tonya also took some headshots of me and jennifer for our business's website. tonya is a fantastic photographer. jen looked fantastic in her pics. the best pics of my kids have been done by tonya. but me...i am a hard one to photograph and that was evident when i looked at my 16 proofs. there were only two remotely decent of me. i found myself wondering if i even tried that morning...maybe i forgot i was having my picture made.

all that being said, i realize that my children don't care as much about what i look like as they do about my love for them. when i am dead and gone they will want pictures of me. the pictures i have of my parents and of ross' parents are things i like for them to see. i even have this great photo of my grandparents that is framed and on a shelf in my living room. i treasure photos and when i look at ones from my family i don't care about how the people actually look, i care about their story- their life.

have a great weekend!

long time, no post...

wine tasting party

for the last four or five months ross and i have been tossing around the idea of hosting a wine tasting party for some of our closest friends. after the christmas season ended we started planning and this past weekend was the culmination of all of our ideas. it was fantastic party! nine years of marriage and i had never used my china until this party. we tasted four red wines from different regions, served prime rib and enjoyed friendship.
as i prepared the tables and was cooking the food i found myself stressing about wanting everything to be perfect. i did not want to have that "stressed out" look when our guests arrived so i was praying that God would help me relax and just enjoy the party. then i began to think about our purpose in hosting this party. as i have blogged before, i want to bring fame to God not myself. somehow in the preparations of this party i was trying to bring fame to myself. what great timing for God to change my heart and purpose in our party. as guests arrived i found myself truly enjoying the chance to serve them. i was blessed by the opportunity to sit around the table laughing and talking with our friends. i don't know if our party brought fame to God but i know that my heart was focused on that purpose.

thank you, Lord for the blessing of friendship and the chance to celebrate it.

our table- before and during the party

jennifer & john

allison & alan

nathan & abby

tod & catherine

five months old

anna is five months old today. she is still pretty content to not do any rolling...well unless she is really ticked off in her bed, then she rolls over. i have come to realize that we are so busy that she rarely has the opportunity to just lay around and practice rolling. in due time!she loves playing in her exersaucer. she sat in one for the first time at church on sunday so we pulled ours out and she sat in it tonight. she was having a good ole time before bed.

soon to move

in the coming months we will be relocating to northwest tucson, God willing. because of our role in our church plant we desire to be located in the general vicinity of what will be dove mountain church. our search is on for a home to rent with enough space for all of us. we will keep you posted on where we end up!

well this should get everyone up to speed on our world these days. i am working really hard to slow down and not over commit so i should be back to my normal blogging frequency. have a great week!

new blog coming...

don't give up on me. this has been a crazy two weeks. i will be blogging tonight with new photos! hang in there.

my mat carriers...

do you ever just long for that peaceful moment when you and your dear friend can share a cup of coffee together and talk about every little detail of your lives, good and bad? i sure do. there are only a handful of women in my life that i can do that with and it is so precious that a couple of those friendships began over 5 years ago and some only in the last 2.

today i was blessed by three of those relationships in three different ways.

one of these precious women served me by taking daphne for the morning so i could go up to the church and get some work done. anytime someone offers to care for my children, that act in my mind, is equated to washing my feet. truly, i believe caring for my children is a beautiful picture of serving. (my kids are awesome but they have their moments- some longer than others.) i treasure her.

another dear friend who lives WAY too far away chit chatted on the phone with me for quite some time about her joys and struggles as wife, mom and minister's wife. her words i treasure because she has always spoken Truth into my life. she has loved me and my family even knowing some of our yuckiest yuck. she encourages me, she challenges me, she prays for me. i treasure her.

lastly another sweet friend shared her feelings about our friendship with me. i know we are great friends but it was such a blessing to me to know that i meant as much to her as she does to me. i treasure her.

too often i let "busyness" take over and i forget to stop and use my words to tell my friends how God uses them to encourage me. my friends, both new and old, are amazing women who i laugh with, cry with, work with, pray with.

in matthew there is the story of a man who cannot walk and he has four friends. these guys hear that Jesus is in town and so they want to take their lame buddy to see Him. well since this guy can't walk they pick up the mat he is sitting on and they carry their friend. when they get to the house where Jesus was the place is packed. they were a determined group so they climbed up on the roof, cut a hole in it and then lowered their buddy down to Jesus. Jesus healed the man and told him to take his mat and walk.

there have been days when my mat had to be carried and these women have done that for me. there have been times when i have been able to help carry theirs. that is part of friendship... the good, the bad and the ugly.

thank you for your friendship- i treasure each of you. may our friendship be the blessing to you that it is to me!

we were going to the mattresses...

if you have read ross' blog in the last couple of days you know that daphne has given up on sleep.

well, last night we were ready! we were going to the mattresses on this one. before bed we prayed with her and talked about not getting out of the bed in the middle of the night. let me tell you we were prepared for a battle...much like the one we had been fighting for the last 3 weeks. we were so prepared that my ingenious husband set up the pack-in-play in our closet for anna and then he put up the baby gate in daphne's doorway just high enough that she couldn't crawl under it and she most likely couldn't climb over it.

there is nothing quite like being prepared for a battle and not even having your enemy show up! praise the Lord, she stayed in her bed all night!!!!!!! at 6:45am we heard her sweet voice saying, "mommy, mommy".

ahhh, sleep. it does the mind good!!