A Girlfriends Weekend

Baby Hannah's First Craft

Our Little Girls: Hannah, Belle, Grace, Faith, & Sadie

Fun Painting!

Faith "helping" Stephanie see what the future holds with an active baby in the house!

Last weekend the girls and I took a road trip and had LOTS of fun. Jeremy and family & friends were helping to replace our roof. But we were 4 hours away having a great time. We left Friday and spent the night with Stephanie (one of my college roommates). It was the first time we had visited since she had her daughter Hannah. Grace enjoyed seeing baby Hannah and trying to "share" toys with her. On Saturday my college girlfriends all got together. We got to see Kristina, Lindsay, Stephanie, Betty, & Abby. We also had lots of little girls. Even though Lindsay's daughters were not there we still had Belle, Grace, Sadie, Faith, & Hannah! Thats a lot of girls. It was fun catching up & hearing about Abby's upcoming wedding plans. We also did a fun craft with the little girls. Everytime we get together I am overwhelmed at how close we have stayed. We had some serious fun together in college!! One of the things Jill Savage says you have to have to survive in minstry is close friends that don't attend your church. I don't really have any friends in Hannibal that don't attend CRCC. I really value the special friendships I have with these girls. They don't see me as a minister's wife. They see me as "just Jenn" a girl who had some serious bumps along the way to get where she is now. (Can anyone say Tom?) I love you girls!! And I am loving seeing our little girls have fun together now too!

Faith turns 1!

What is this?
Blowing out her candles with a little help from Grace.

I like cake!!

Opening a birthday gift from Grandpa Rick & Grandma Leeanne

Faith tries cow's milk for the 1st time...not sure yet!

On Sunday Faith had her first birthday. I can't believe she is one! Because her Birthday fell on a Sunday we celbrated by having cup cakes before youth group. She took one tiny taste of icing and then dug right in. She really enjoyed her first official taste of cake. Her big sister helped her blow out her candle. Here are some pictures from the big day. At her doctor's visit on Monday she was 29 1/4 in. and weighed 21 lbs. 10 oz. She is also walking now more than crawling. In one week she really took to walking. We are still celebrating with family in the coming weeks, so there will be more cake & presents pictures to come.

Faith,

Mommy & Daddy are SO glad God blessed our family with you! You are such a sweet little girl and we love you very much. You make us laugh & we love watching you explore, bounce, and try things you see Grace do. We pray you will continue to grow and learn more about Jesus.

Love,

Mommy

Big Truck Night

One of my favorite things about living in Missouri is an awesome program they have called, Parents as Teachers. A parent educator comes to visit us once a month and we do activities together that are specifically geared towards what the girls should be learning. They also host special family night events. Our favorite is Big Truck Night. Two weeks ago we attended as a family and had lots of fun. We parked our van and then road a bus to the parking lot where all the trucks were. Grace LOVES busses and thought it was very cool to get to ride on one. When we first arrived she was very timid. (Jeremy and I thought it was ironic because the year before she loved climbing up in the trucks without hesitation!) We walked around for awhile letting her take everything in. Faith rode in the backpack and also loved looking around. After awhile Jeremy had to leave for a meeting at church. He told Grace to make sure she drove a truck to tell him about the next day... Only minutes after he left she bravely climbed in the mail truck, and then many others! It was funny. She kept saying, "Daddy told me to drive a truck!" I was sad Jeremy didn't get to see her enjoying the trucks, but glad his "assignment" motivated her to try them out.

I didn't have to look far to find a correlation between this story and my relationship with my heavenly father. I like to check new things out, look around, hold back even. But sometimes when God asks me to do something I find myself willing to venture outside my comfort zone. Why is that? Because God knows what is best! But sadly unlike Grace sometimes my father asking me to do it isn't always enough motivation. Sometimes I doubt. I cling to the comfortable because I'm just not a risk taker by nature. I settle for thinking I can just be faithful where I'm at. I'm still being faithful right? When I look at my daughter's face in these pictures I know I need to trust God to lead me on an occasional adventure-because that is where joy is. Not in faithfullness in the easy comfortable places, but faithfullness in the uncertain adventure.