Baptisms!

Yesterday was a glorious day indeed. Our kids had been asking about being baptized. We had considered it about a year ago, but after talking with them, I just didn't feel like they truly "got" it, that this was a milestone in their Christian walks, an outward profession of their personal decision.

But a few weeks ago, our pastor announced that we'd be having a baptism service - and to make it even more special, it was going to be held on our one year anniversary of being a "real" church (officially recognized by our denomination, upgraded from a church plant).

We went through the class last Sunday, and the kids both asked our pastor more questions than anyone else (something he even commented on again yesterday).  And while I was certainly excited to have our kids take this step, I was super excited that my dear friend AND her daughter (A's bestie) also were baptized.  They've been attending our church for a couple months now, and her parents even joined us for service yesterday.  Squeal!!  So cool to see the good news of Jesus spreading...

We do not have a church building, and we meet for services in a middle school.  Oddly enough they do not have a baptismal, so we do it outside.  In a horse trough.  Following in Jesus' example, Texas style ;)  And yet another little tidbit: notice the shell necklace? Every single person ever baptized at our church was worn that. OK, just had to add these other shots from our semi-official church photographer. The first is when we were before the church (being introduced, explaining the significance, etc. Hubby was behind me on the steps), then additional water shots, family with the pastor, and kids talking to our pastor's wife. Seriously, I can't stop smiling when I look at these!

Our really fabulous family weekend

Saturday night was our town's annual "Praise on the Hill." This is a free event, and had heard nothing but good things about it, but every year there was some sort of scheduling conflict for us. Last year, Matthew West was the featured performer, but I was in San Antonio for the Women of Faith conference. Anyway, this year the Newsboys were the headliners. The last time I saw them in concert was 20 years ago - they'd just released the album Not Ashamed, and I was super close to the stage, dancing around in a very mild version of a mosh pit. And now I'm taking my kids - hilarious! Anyway, the temps were still pretty warm on Saturday, so we didn't go until about 7 PM. We caught part of a performance from Hearts of Saints (quite good) and Rapture Ruckus (not my thing). I definitely had a total "old lady" moment during that performance, as all I could think was, "Wow, they're really loud and I can't understand a single word!" Hubby - the sound geek - did point out that the sound was *really* bad during that performance, which didn't exactly help... Anyhoo, Newsboys finally took the stage and the kids were excited to be able to sing along with some songs (having a good, local Christian radio station rocks!) Michael Tait made a comment about love being a verb (inside joke for old school DC Talk fans, which meant I subjected our children to some vintage videos later, courtesy of YouTube). Our daughter had a ball dancing around, too, in case you can't tell from the picture ;)

Sunday morning: church. I had the preschool class for first service - our lesson: passover. THAT's a fun lesson to teach 2 and 3 year olds! I don't know how much they actually "got" but I will say that it made communion during 2nd service even sweeter for me as I was reflecting on how Jesus became our lamb... After church on Sunday, we headed down to South Padre Island for sandcastle days. Again, something we'd been wanting to check out for the past several years. As we were cruising down Padre Boulevard, I had to laugh at the irony of the Irish Pub offering a Mexican Plate. Seriously, life in south TX is downright hilarious at times. We'd had a cold front blow in the night before, and it was only 71 at the beach. Bliss!! Tons of cool sand sculptures, a few photo ops at Pirate's Landing, and then dinner at a little hole in the wall Mexican restaurant. Our daughter wanted nachos - holy pile of food, batman! Let's just say we brought quite a bit home... Perfect ending to a busy but relaxing weekend!

Friday Funny: Highway Sing-A-Long

Comedian TJ Smith brought a smile to people’s faces while they were stuck in traffic on the 405 highway in Los Angeles by rolling his windows down, cranking up the 1968 pop song “Build Me Up, Buttercup” by The Foundations on his car radio, and enthusiastically lip-syncing along to it. TJ received an abundance of positive reactions from people passing by during his performance. The video was filmed by TJ’s friend Kathy Sue.

(I can't help but think about the reaction this would get on I-95 in the Philly area... there'd be a lot more single finger salutes.)

Friday Funny - Riding in the Car with Kids

 Sunday Morning Look of Love :)

Some September Photos

 What we've been up to:

• dove hunting!  This was D's first official hunting experience (last year he just got to play fetch).  Sadly they only got one day of hunting in so far (too much rain), but that did nothing to diminish the smile of pride
• kids each had a friend over last Friday... they were begging to go outside and play in the rain, so I gave the OK as long as there was no lightning.  About five minutes later there was an insanely loud clap of thunder (even though we didn't see a flash) and there was a collective scream and dash into the house moment, which then led to huge puddles on the kitchen floor ;)  Of course everyone was now cold, so they requested hot cocoa... silly kids!  They sipped cocoa while playing monopoly.  I *love* that the four kiddos played all night long without any TV, video games, etc.
• The next morning, we made pretzels!  First time we'd tried this.  The process was fun, but need to find a better recipe.
• A was curled up on the couch reading a Clementine book, giggling at a friend's antics.  Clearly she & I share the "book gene." On a random side note: her tested reading level is very high, which makes it tough to find current "fun" books for her to read; we've come up with the guideline that weekday reading needs to be in her level, and weekends are for fun (as long as she's getting enough AR points during the week).  The Little House series is on her short list, and we'll also be pulling my Trixie Belden books out of the attic soon!
• We celebrated a friend's 35th birthday at Chuck-E-Cheese this past weekend.  You know how fun it is to inform your children that they're coming along for one of Mommy& Daddy's friends?!  Yes, we had a ball
• No specific photo, but we've been getting pounded with bands of showers from Hurricane Ingrid.  It made landfall about 100 miles south, but we've still been under flash flood warnings.We had one small leak in our bedroom (this is what happens when the wind is blowing hard enough to make it rain sideways) but thankfully had no other issues.

Paralyzed Perfectionist.

Confession time: I am a mess.

Specifically in relation to my weight and the current state of our home.

Some examples of my internal dialogue for your reading pleasure:
"Man, that bookcase looks awful - there are things piled up in front of it, and the kids shoved some of the books on there backwards, because I can't even read the title on the spine.  I really wish our bookcases were pretty.  But the shelf itself isn't cute, and I don't think I could ever arrange all the stuff to make them look like the ones I see in magazines and on Pinterest.  Sigh."

"I can't believe I just ate that muffin!  I was supposed to go home and have oatmeal.  Sheesh, why do I have no self control?! I clearly have blown the entire day - might as well just finish running all my errands and grab drive-through for lunch."

I have this idea of how things should be in my head, and it seems unattainable, so I basically just throw my hands up. Oh, and whine.  Yes, I *do* get that this is incredibly stupid.  I can work through all the logic, but for some reason I still am having a difficult time actually DOING. It's a ridiculous cocktail of being overwhelmed, guilt that it's gotten to this point, and years of bad habits.  I tend to THINK about things entirely too much rather than just getting to work.  I even hard a hard time sleeping this weekend as I was thinking about the personality types that my husband and I are, and how it affects our family dynamic (FYI: I'm the only introvert in our family.)

This approach is not doing me - or my family - any favors.

I've read countless books and articles about organizing, de-cluttering, and house cleaning schedules as well as diet and exercise plans.  They've added to the aforementioned bookshelf issue ;)

In all seriousness, though, it truly is a struggle for me, and I've been praying about this a lot.  The past two weeks, our pastor has been speaking on "The Plow." Allowing ourselves to be broken and pruned.  The hardness we've developed prevents God from filling us with His Goodness.  No, it's not easy, but very necessary as part of the sanctification process.

I am baby stepping.

As far as the body thing goes, I am working my way through Trim Healthy Mama* and leaning toward adapting many of the principles shared.  I'm only on page 60 and feeling pretty overwhelmed, but I keep telling myself to just do one thing at a time.  And I will mess up - the key is to just.keep.going.  We attended a birthday party yesterday at a pizza place - I had two bites of a slice along with a giant salad.  The Italian buttercream cake was unveiled, and I wanted to do a faceplant in it (while my brain was telling me not to participate in the sugarfest whatsoever) but I chose to have two forkfuls and move on. Baby. Steps.

On the home front, I am setting SMALL goals.  Instead of looking at the entire bookshelf, attack one shelf.  I actually cleaned out my cookbooks last week (and even made $10 selling a few on the yard sale site). Go me!

Do the best you can, with what you have and with what you know NOW.  Repeat.

Image from The Nester, whose mantra is "It doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful." ❤ (and yes, I know that the name should be spelled Schuller, and yes, his theology is screwy, but this quote is spot on).

*I had mentioned this last week, and I promise I really will do a more in-depth post on it soon.

Socializing

Our daughter received a party invitation (for this evening) at school today scrawled on a purple post-it note.  I called the phone number listed, and discovered Mom does not speak Spanish.  Phone was handed off through a couple people - not sure whether I spoke with Dad or an older brother but he said he's an international chef and he invited our whole family over for dinner this evening (I declined as graciously as I could, explaining that I already had food cooking).  I am letting A go after for about an hour, though.  She really likes this girl and apparently there were 2 other girls who also received the purple post-it.  I continue to be baffled by social interactions in the Valley. Update: It was Dad I spoke to; he's much easier to understand in person than on the phone. He's a chef at our local Japanese steakhouse, and he went to culinary school in Minnesota.  Daughter had a ball and is looking forward to seeing her friend again!

On a more mundane note, I met with my "coffee ladies" this morning - we started out as a book study with about 7 members last fall, and now have a core of 4 that have done a couple books with a sort of emphasis on healthy living.  We took a break over the summer, and this was our 2nd coffee chat since school started back up.  Oh, how I'd missed them!  I happen to be the youngest, and it is such a blessing to chat with those a bit further down their life's path and glean a bit of their wisdom (when my stubbornness allows ;)  We are going to be working out way through the book Trim Healthy Mama, which is kind of a diet plan (glycemic index, carb management, "real" food), but that's a whole 'nother post and and of itself.