Posts Tagged ‘Faith baptist Church’

"Her price is much higher than jewels." Proverbs 31:10

I don't have a whole lot to say this week because I wasn't in the weekly discussion (I rotated in to the nursery to watch all the little ones instead!)

I did read our second chapter and quite enjoyed it! We learned about how to be a sparkling jewel!

Mrs. George discussed

1. Growing in practical skills
   • Homemaking
   • Money management
   • Time management
2. Growing in emotional stability
   • Master your tolerance
   • Master your temper
   • Master your tongue

I've been reading Managers of Their Homes guide from Titus 2 that lined up really well with half of this chapter. I've been putting more thought into time management and scheduling our day. Our bible study says that time is a precious thing God gave us and "He expects it to be redeemed and used for His purposes". I often feel like my days just go by and I haven't really accomplished much. I know I'm raising boys, keeping them fed and safe and entertained, but I don't feel like I've been using my time as wisely as I could have and or for His purposes.

I also enjoyed the part of the chapter about growing in emotional stability. A virtuous woman is strong: mentally, physically and spiritually. I rarely feel strong, but am often reminded by one of the most comforting verses I know that I can do all things through Christ. As mothers and wives, we can't give in, give up or quit! We learned that a strong woman nurture a peaceful heart, knows how to wait, does not strive, and restrains her spirit. Phew! There are a lot of goals to work toward, but I love having it all laid out from the Bible about what it means to be a virtuous and strong woman — maybe someday I'll get there!!

I wish I could have been in the discussion this week to hear what all the other ladies thought about becoming a jewel in God's eyes. I'm looking forward to next Friday's study and to hear what they all have to say about loyalty and being a solid rock!

I have the most amazing friends and sisters in Christ! For every expecting mother, the ladies of the church throw a baby shower. When I heard the planning was in the works for me, I was a little uneasy with the idea. This is my third boy and we've kept everything and don't need anything! It's been less than two years since the last shower they threw me at the church. I just didn't want them to put in effort and money. Usually people would have a "diapers and wipes" shower, but we're still cloth diapering and there are only a handful of soaps and replacement covers that we could use these days. Well, the church ladies had a better idea — a non-baby baby shower where the motherhood is celebrated and the ladies and I were pampered! I loved it!

Chrissy, Shyne & Elicia planned a beautiful evening full of delicious food and fun girliness. There was a masseuse to give head/neck/shoulder, foot/leg or shiatsu massages (I loved my head and shoulders massage!) There was also a manicurist there to give me a spa pedicure and a manicure, which was wonderful! My feet soaked in milk, honey and rose petals as I ate my dinner, then gave me a chocolate scrub and some pretty French tips on my toenails. She also did my fingernails (I picked a bright, summery coral color in spite of all the snow outside!) I got to sit on my own special little throne with a canopy and my friends were always coming up and asking if they could get me anything. I felt like such a princess! All the ladies had stations set up to give each other manicures, they got massages and chocolate facials, and enjoyed fruit and marshmallows dipped in the chocolate fountain!

I received some very generous gifts. I got a bunch of gift certificates for more pampering (yay!) as well lotions, soaps, stress-relief baskets (are they trying to tell me something??), chocolates, and candles. They also all went in on a new swing for baby (Rhino & Heron wore the old one out!!) Mrs. Popwell gave a heart-warming devotion about being a mother of boys. We played some games and a bunch of us won prizes. A few teen girls provided child care in the nursery, so the boys came along too because Matt had to work. They had pizza and played and seemed to have a great time!

I am so thankful for the amazing ladies at our church! They are so thoughtful and generous. I love that even though I'm thousands of miles from my mothers and sisters, that I have a loving family of beautiful women who care about me. The boys adore all the ladies that help out in the nursery and the 2s and 3s classes and I know this next one will too!

Just a quick one with some pictures today!

Our church had a Memorial Day picnic at the park up by Matt's work. I made some patriotic cupcakes (the insides are red, white & blue too). I made the cake and the frosting from scratch, but I don't think I've perfected it yet. My cake is denser than a box mix and my frosting was too stiff. I'll get it one of these days!

I spent most of the day with Heron and taking photos of everyone. I passed him around to some friends and he didn't seem to mind at all. He enjoyed some treats and liked crawling around in the sun. Matt and Rhino played some frisbee and with the balls. I chatted with the ladies a lot, but there was also softball and volleyball, lots of fun things for the kids, and delicious food!

I'm so glad the weather is finally nice and we can get out and do things like this. I love our church picnics and look forward to more throughout the summer!

I’ve enjoyed taking photos of our little family, since I got my first DSLR, a Nikon D40x, a year ago. When I met Danette, who did Rhino’s newborn photos, I was inspired by her talent and thought she had the perfect job. I thought maybe, many years into practicing with my new camera, I’d someday be able to do what she does! I feel I still have a long way to go to reach her skill, but things might be happening sooner than I had expected!

Our church has a small private school, Faith Baptist Academy, and they were in need of school photos. I am known to usually have my camera with me at church events, so the yearbook coordinator and my friend, Elicia, asked if I would take the student portraits. I thought that this would be a great learning experience for me and if it didn’t work out, there are plenty of other photographers on base!

1/320 sec at f / 4.5, 90 mm, ISO 200

We went to Shibusawa Park and they were hoping for some cherry blossom photos. Unfortunately, they were few and far between and pretty tall with no low-hanging branches. I just didn’t see how we would get any blossoms without a very wide shot with tiny heads at the bottom of the frame and probably cars in the background. The best we could do is get a couple in for the group shot. I used my Nikon 18-200mm with my D40x.

1/320 sec at f / 5, 75 mm, ISO 200

I thought everything went pretty well. There were a lot of little gnats out, biting at the girls’ and ladies’ legs. Some people were in a big hurry to get it over with and tend to other matters, so we didn’t walk around the park and take a couple different shots like we had planned. There was no flexibility on the time and we had to do it at 1:30, when the sun casts harsh shadows. I picked the closest open space with a parking area, even though there was a horse stable, road, cars, muddy grass, etc. It turns out that they weren’t very happy with the shots and the dead grass and really were hoping for cherry blossoms. So we’re reshooting next week and hoping for blossoms. I’m not sure they’ll last that long, though!

So even though the client wasn’t as pleased with my first shoot, I still think a lot of them turned out looking pretty good and I am pleased! There are a handful of things I’d like to do differently and I want to improve on my post processing, but I’ll have that opportunity at the reshoot!

On Easter morning we woke up to bake Resurrection Rolls for breakfast. These were such an amazing idea and we will be making it our Easter tradition from now on. What a fun (and delicious!) way to teach about Jesus’ resurrection! Rhino had fun coating the marshmallow and placing it on the dough and, of course, loved chowing down on the empty, cinnamon-y rolls!

We went to church for Sunday School and the morning service at Faith and it was wonderful and uplifting! I stayed late to take photos of almost all the families at church, per Pastor’s request, so he could look upon our photos as he prayed for the church members. We invited Katy and her boys over for lunch afterwards. We had a symbolic Easter meal of rosemary chicken, asparagus, and potatoes. I couldn’t find purple potatoes, so I just roasted up some yummy new potatoes.

Rhino and his buddy Carson hunted for Easter eggs that Matt and Casey had hidden in the yards. Rhino was on such a mission and zipped from egg to egg, really cleaning up. Carson was so adorable and would stop to thoroughly celebrate each egg he found! They had such a good time running around and cracking open the eggs to find all sorts of goodies. They crashed quickly for naptime and Katy and her family went home.

We recuperated a little bit in the afternoon, but really should have napped with the boys. We returned to church for the evening service. The choir and some church members performed an Easter Cantata, which was beautiful and powerful. Matt worked the sound for the performance and had spent the last few weekends practicing with the choir. It was really something!

It was Heron’s first Easter and I wish I had made a bigger deal out of it. I didn’t buy the boys snazzy new clothes or take special photos. I did decorate eggs for each of them and we read the Easter story together. They received Easter baskets from Grammy and gifts from Grandma and Grandpa (lots of chocolate, a truck with dinosaurs, a stacking toy and a rubber duck for Heron, and some cute paints for Rhino. Thanks, Mom & Dad and Mama!!) Next year I want to do baskets for them, too. I didn’t want to have fancy baskets this year because Heron’s not eating sugar yet and Rhino didn’t really need any more with all the candy-filled eggs he collected. I do want to get them little gifts and sweets later, though.

We were a little lazy about having Heron’s baby dedication! I know we had Rhino’s dedication when he was eleven days old, but we just weren’t on the ball with it that early this time. There’s nothing wrong with having it postponed, though. Any time is appropriate to dedicate ourselves to raising our child according to God’s word.

We chose to dedicate our children before the church because it is important to us to publicly ask for wisdom and grace as we carry out the responsibilities God has given to us as parents, as for support from our church, and pray that our children will one day come to trust Christ as their savior. We were presented with a certificate documenting the day as well as a small blue bible for Heron.

Heron is a little picky about who holds him! He is just now warming up to Matt and in the nursery would usually rather sit in the swing than be held by a lady who isn’t Mommy. Occasionally he’s in a good mood and let someone new hold him, but not too often. There are two people in our church who he has never complained for, though! He loves spending time with our friend, Tanya, and our pastor. Pastor says it’s because he’s a “Papa” and Heron can tell. While Pastor Popwell was holding Heron during the dedication, Heron would stare up at him and babble a little baby conversation to him. He’d respond enthusiastically with coos and gahhs whenever Pastor would ask him a silly question (like “your mom and dad should keep working on filling that quiver, shouldn’t they?”!)

It was a sweet moment with Heron and I am so thankful that we have a close church family standing by us with support, advice, and prayers as we try our best to raise our boys. I do pray that one day they too will know the joy that is a relationship with our Lord and an eternity with Him.

The ladies of Faith Baptist Church regularly have a fellowship, with potluck snacks, our pastor’s wife giving some sort of devotion, and lots of chatting. This month’s was a Christmas fellowship, of course, and we were all to bring ornaments to exchange. Mrs. Popwell stood in front of a decorated tree and spoke on ornamentation while we sipped punch and munched sugar cookies. Then she set a wrapped ornament in front of each of us and read to us the story of Jesus’ birth. Each time she said the word left or right (which was quite often!), we were to pass our ornament to the person sitting beside us (right or left, depending on which word was said.) This was fun and got moving pretty quickly, it was a little confusing at times! When the story was over, we unwrapped our ornaments. I got a sweet, little Hachinohe horse (like the horses here.) It’s red and has Misawa and the year painted on it. I love ornaments like this, that will remind of us where we’ve been and what we were doing. I made a felt gingerbread man, which turned out really cute. I wanted to do a snowman also, but just didn’t have the time. I just freehanded the figures onto paper, cut it out and pinned it to the felt as a template. Then when the felt pieces were cut out, I embroidered details on to each side and blanket stitched around the edges. I like it a lot and think I’ll make more (and snowmen, reindeer, etc. in the same fashion) for next year’s Christmas for our own tree!

Matt’s sister, Jen, flew in to visit us for a week and a half! She came in on Friday and we’ve been having a good time, just hanging. I’m so glad she’s able to be here and spend time with the boys!

Today was our church’s Thanksgiving Fellowship. It was initially supposed to be a meal for the singles on base who don’t have a family to celebrate with, but not many singles showed up, so it was just another great church fellowship! It was a long day – we had our Sunday School then morning service, followed by the fellowship meal, then our evening service was moved up to after the meal. The boys handled it well, though! At last year’s church Thanksgiving, Rhino was just starting to eat solids and enjoyed just a little bit of mashed potatoes. I was hoping this year he’d dig in more, but he just wanted a bite of bread and lots of cranberry sauce! The meal was great, as always. I like that we did it the Sunday before Thanksgiving this year rather than on Thanksgiving day. Last year we had two Thanksgiving meals because we had the Armstrongs and the Kisers over for dinner as well as a church fellowship. This was all a little easier! We love our church family and they have been really good to us while we are so far from the rest of our family. I’m thankful to have them another year here and so glad that Jen share in an important part of our life.

Happy early Thanksgiving!!

We have a new family at our church: Jessica, Josh and baby Caden on the way. They’ve been here almost two months and are really great! We had them over for dinner and Balderdash a few weeks ago and had such a good time. I hadn’t heard if anyone was throwing a shower for her and Caden, due in the beginning of December, so I decided to throw her a party.

I’d never thrown a baby shower before and haven’t even been to that many of them. So I called up my friend Katy to see if she would co-host with me. She always makes wonderful cakes for these sort of occasions, so I thought it would be fun to work on one together. For a while I’ve been thinking what fun it would be to decorate cakes, but haven’t really had many occasions to do so. Katy and her boys came over on Thursday and Friday to put together an awesome cake! We made the buttercream frosting and marshmallow fondant from scratch. Caden’s nursery is jungle themed, so I wanted to do a cake to match. We molded all the decorations out of fondant and piped frosting for the grass, name, and vines. I think it turned out beautifully and it tasted really good, too!

I also wanted to try my hand at a diaper cake. I’ve seen these for sale on base and online and I think it’s kind of a cute way to gift diapers to someone. I didn’t want to spend hours rolling and tying each diaper individually, so I laid diapers flat and spiraled them inside different size cake pans, then secured with ribbon. I didn’t have a lot of little goodies to decorate the cake with, but I threw a couple on there to make it pretty. I think looked great and only took me less than 30 minutes to whip up!

I had a great time at the party! We played some games: a blind cotton ball scooping game, a baby items memory game, and a baby name race game. Katy and I had goodies for all the game winners. We also had a great baby-themed devotion by Mrs. Popwell, our pastor’s wife. Everyone brought some finger food, so we ate lots of yummy treats and then had our cake. Then Jessica opened all her gifts. This is their first baby, and shopping for #1 is the most fun. She received lots of cute clothes and gifts!

It was a fun time and I always like hanging out with the church ladies. We had a whole lot of babies due over the summer (I was one of six pregnant ladies at one point) and Jessica is the last of the church pregnant ladies that I know of. I hope there are more soon so we can enjoy more fun showers and sweet little newborns! I just had a turn though, so don’t look at me!

It was nice to have Mama and Ron in our home. They stayed in the Misawa Inn on base at night and we had a good time at home or out and about during the day.

We were able to take them to church with us on Sunday morning, which was wonderful! It happened to be a special visitor’s week too, so yay – we brought visitors!

We did the temple and shrine thing down in Tokyo, but we went to the temple here in Misawa, too. It was closed for renovations when we arrived, so we just toured around the cemetery.

We went to the Towada horse park. It was a nice drive out and we all went down the giant roller slide and pet the horses. Every time we visit with Mama and Ron, we play boardgames, whether at their home or in the hotel room in Santa Barbara. We picked up Pictionary this time and it seems like we must have played 100 games in the few days that they were with us. It was too much fun!

We took them to our favorite restaurants around town. We went to Global Kitchen, the new 100 yen sushi place, udon at Matt’s favorite noodle house, and Viking for yakiniku. I did cook some, too, but not nearly as much as I had planned on cooking.

We went up to Aomori to visit a Buddhist temple and Japan’s largest statue of Buddha, Showa Daibutsu (or as we call it, “the big Buddha.”) (Want to know how to get to Big Buddha in Aomori? Here are some directions!) It was beautiful up there and I loved temple grounds. Stunning! We also relaxed at the beach and had some ramen in a very small, cramped ramen house with absolutely no trace of English anywhere. It was delicious!

Their trip was, of course, too short. They had ten days from leaving Colorado to returning home. I wish they could have spent a month, but it’s just not possible. I know this will be the only time they will be able to visit us in Japan and it is unlikely that we will be back to the states before we move again. We’re hoping to meet up in Hawaii at some point, though I’m not sure if I should count on it. I love being in Japan, but definitely do miss being able to see family even a little regularly. When this tour ends in 2012, we’ll at least be back for a visit! Spending time with Mama and Ron all week was wonderful and I can’t wait to see them again!