What's Happening

Whew! Things have been busy around here. The 20th was my Birthday! Yay for me, I'm 21 again! Because my b-day was on a Sunday, my darling husband took me out for dinner on Saturday night. On Sunday afternoon he gave me my present - a lounge chair for our deck. It is so nice and comfortable.

Isn't she the perfect model?

The next week - I'm not really sure what all happened! Thursday night we had our Kids' Night Out. Once a month my husband and I babysit for the children at the church to give the parents an opportunity to have a date. The children found some dress-up things and had a great time together. I'm not sure what they're doing in this photo, but they seem to be enjoying themselves.

Saturday we had a garage bake sale at the church. We were able to raise just over $360 for the church. I was able to bake 5 mini pumpkin breads, 30 apple-cinnamon mini muffins, 36 iced sugar cookies, and 38 iced cupcakes. At the end of the sale there were 6 cupcakes and 6 sugar cookies left. In my head I thought, "Yes! I'll use this for Sunday school tomorrow." Then someone came and wanted to buy all the baked goods that were left! Well, I went home and baked some more for Sunday school. I teach the teen girls and the last Sunday of each month I bring in some baking. They all love it. So, Saturday night I made a loaf of pumpkin bread and a loaf of coconut bread. Abby helped with the coconut and we had lots of fun together. I wish I had thought to take a picture.

Sunday was a great day at church. Our attendance has been down, but this Sunday we had 86 people in church. We had one first-time visitor, and 2 others who had visited once before and decided to come back. It was awesome to look over the auditorium and see so many people. You could tell everyone was excited by how they sang. Everyone seemed to just sing-out. It was a great day.

So far this week has been a bit slower. We've been having fun just being at home. Here are some pictures I thought you all (my Mom) would enjoy. :)

On her bike she got from Nana for Christmas.

Can you tell she loves her Daddy?

She's been standing up more and walking around the furniture.

I love my Abby-girl!

Abby's Birthday

Well, I'm back! This poor blog has been so neglected. Lots of things going on that prevented me keeping up - crashed computer, no computer, limited computer usage, travelling overseas, etc. . . . I'm back now and don't know quite where to start, so I'll start with yesterday. Why yesterday? It was Abby's first Birthday. I can't believe she is a year old. The time has just flown by. Maybe some other time I'll catch up on other things that have been happening around here, but for now, the party!

We started the evening with presents! YAY!!! She was so spoiled by all of our friends. The first present she opened was a little doll with a bathtub and rubber ducky. She held on to that duck almost the whole night! The only time I think she put it down was when she was eating her cake!

We had cake and ice cream outside on the porch. Yes, it's still summer here - well, autumn actually, but the weather was perfect for being outside. I decorated with a butterfly theme. That is what her room is decorated in and what her baby shower decorations were, so instead of buying new I reused.

She even had a butterfly cake - sort of. I found a similar cake on-line and copied their idea.

Who looks more excited here? Abby or the crazy parents?

And just for my brothers and sisters . . .

. . . we let her have her own cupcake with lots of icing. Are you happy now?

Here we are with the Birthday girl. All that partying makes you sleepy. Look, she still has the rubber ducky! Thanks to Uncle Levi and Auntie Rachel for the dress!

Here's one Nick took today. I went out to the garden to get some carrots for tea and Abby came along to "help." I went to check on the zucchini plants and when I turned around this is what I saw.

Yum!!! Gotta get your fiber in somehow!

This past year has gone by so fast, but it's been so much fun with at little one. Abby is such a blessing and a joy to have around. We love you, Abby-girl!

Youth Rally, Noisy Neighbours, Sick Baby, etc. . .

Our Youth Rally this year was GREAT! Last year we had 55 people total. This year we had 67 teens and 89 people total. The teens had such an awesome spirit. The Youth Rally began on Friday night with an activity and then on Saturday morning we had two preaching sessions and finished with lunch. On Friday evening before the activity started there were a bunch of teens just hanging around the church waiting for the activity to start. So what did they do? They gathered around the piano and found one of the teen girls that could play the piano and then they started to sing hymns. It was so awesome to walk into the auditorium and see a group of about 30 teens singing hymns! The preacing on Saturday was great and we heard of many good decisions that the teens made. This year we had teens from 9 churches across the North Island that attended. Praise God for a good turn out!

Youth Rally Group Photo

On a completely different note . . . as some of you may know, we recently moved out to the country. We were so excited - no more busy streets and no more noisy neighbours that played loud music (if you can call it that) at all hours of the day and night. Boy were we in for a surprise the other night when our neighbours started being really noisy. Here they are:

Our "noisy neighbours"

I must say, I would rather have their noise then our previous neighbours.

Abby has her first cold. :( She's stopped eating as much and just wants to sleep. Poor baby. On Monday night she rolled all the way over for the first time! For several weeks she's been rolling unto her side, but on Monday night she made it all the way over. I was in the kitchen cooking tea and she was in her room playing on the floor. All of the sudden she started crying and when I went to check on her she had rolled over from her back to her stomach. She hasn't done it again since then, but we keep hoping we'll catch her doing it.

Taken last week before she got sick

On Sunday were are going to get family photo taken. I'm so excited! I've been wanting a professional photo done for quite some time. Abby was given a really cute green shirt in a box of hand-me-downs so I made this skirt for her to wear with it. My husband already has a green tie that matches really well, so we'll all be wearing black, white, and green for our photo. I can't wait!

Abby's "new" outfit

Catch up

So much has happened since I posted last. Where do I start? Where do I finish? How much do I remember?

Our Big Bus Blowout went really well! This is the anniversary of our bus ministry and we celebrate every year and try to get as many people as possible to ride the buses to church that day. We ran two buses this year. "A" bus had 71 riders and "B" bus had 51 riders! Praise God! We even had several parents come along with their children that day. Two of the mothers that came that day got saved!!!!!! I think there were 10 children that got saved that day as well. Praise God!

Those who rode the bus to church for the Big Bus Blowout


Abby is getting so big! We had her 3 month checkup last week. She is now 15 pounds and 25 inches long. She is in the 97th percentile for length, and the 85th percentile for weight. She can almost roll over. She loves to sit propped up on the couch watching everything going on around her. She LOVES her fingers and putting things into her mouth. She doesn't really suck her fingers, she chews on them. Anything she can her hands unto goes straight into her mouth. She is also "talking" more. Most mornings when I go in to get her she is lying in her bed just talking away.

Every month we have what is called "Strength and Beauty." This is an activity for the teen girls. We get together every month to have fun and learn stuff. In June we learned how to knit. I'm still working on my scarf! This month I gave the girls some old pants and told them to be creative and make a bag. They were a bit apprehensive at first, but they got into it and did a really great job. I didn't get a photo of all the bags, but these are a few. The point to this was to make do with what you have and be creative.

A few of the bags the girls made

We even celebrated the 4th of July on Sunday night. We had one of the families in the church over and we had hot dogs and roasted marshmallows in our fireplace to make s'mores. YUM! We had a great time just being together - even though the holiday has no real meaning here. My husband is so awesome at letting me celebrate my American heritage and making those celebrations fun. We even had fireworks! You can only by fireworks here in November so we saved some from then and lit them off on Sunday night. Our friends that came over had a little boy who is 1 1/2. He loved the fireworks!

This Friday and Saturday is our 4th annual Youth Rally. This year we have teens coming from 7 other churches. Please pray for their safety as they travel and for the preaching to get a hold of their hearts. We should have somewhere around 60 teens here for this.

Well, that's all I can remember for now. Thank you all for praying for my sister and her family. I know they appreciate the prayers.

Prayer Request

Please pray for my sister, Kris, her husband, Scott, and their 5 children. A couple of weeks ago they had a fire in their basement and had extensive smoke damage from that fire. The house had just been cleaned and they were finally able to move back. Well, they had another fire today which completely destroyed their home. They have really good insurance, praise the Lord, but they will have lots of decisions to make in the days ahead.

Thank you!