Talent Night

All four of us had the opportunity to participate in our church's talent show this past weekend that was held to raise money for a new keyboard for worship. The title of the night was called "Crossroads Has Got Talent." 

Paul was the MC for the night and did a fabulous job providing comic relief and segues between each of the 14 acts of the night. He was funny and had a full arsenal of appropriate and funny jokes. He also participated in the show by singing in a men's barbershop quartet, playing a solo on the crash cymbals, and being part of the bottle band. Here is a little snippet of Paul's men's quartet practicing their song.

I sang "Lollipop" in a women's trio plus two and also was part of the bottle band (sorry, no pictures or video).

The boys sang "Jesus Loves Me" and then jammed out on the instruments on stage (bass guitar by Isaac and drums by Caleb) with a bunch of their friends. Their act was called "Crossroads Future" and was so cute. We were very proud of them for going up front and singing. They actually got third place for their number and were so proud of their mini trophies.

After accepting the trophies 

Showing off their trophies and the sign Isaac made before the show

Easter Fun

Paul came home from his men's group last week with these cute little lamb cupcakes made especially for the boys by Suanne.

Her creativity was so evident not only in the lambs but in the carrying tray she created out of a cereal box for Paul to tote them home.

The boys were very excited to see these in the morning when they woke up and asked if they even got to eat them.

It's Raining and...

...we now know how much rain we are actually getting thanks to Paul's Life Group. Last week a package was left outside our door while I was gone, and this is what we found in the box:

So grown-up...our first rain gauge!

Checking it the first time

We officially have gotten 1.60 inches since we put the rain gauge up on Friday. I am not sure who is more excited to see how much rain is in the gauge--the boys or Paul. 

Visit from the Sheriff

A couple weeks ago our moms' group had a visit from the sheriff. I think the deputy was a little surprised and did not know what to do presentation-wise when he realized how young all the kids were...especially when they just stared at him and did not ask any questions. 

The deputy's badge

The kids got to look at his badge up close and even got to crawl into the backseat of his car.  Even though the kids were quiet, they were pretty excited about seeing the car's lights flash and getting a sticker and pencil from the sheriff's department

Grand Rapids

"It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas..." er, I mean Grand Rapids in January. This was the view we awoke to the third morning that I was in Grand Rapids during the last week of January.

The view from my bedroom

Spending a few days in Grand Rapids for the symposium on worship held on Calvin College's campus was a wonderful time full of great information and discussion on worship as well as many laughs with friends. I am excited to share some of the things we learned with our congregation at Crossroads.

Meeting up with friends was the icing on the donut of this trip. It was fantastic to stay with the Werfs and enjoy their boys. It made my heart glad to get snuggle time with J and to chat and play Cars with O and see how much both of them have grown in this past half year since we saw them.

Really, we were only out for a minute--besides, coats for kids are overrated

I also spent an afternoon catching up and enjoying a meal with a couple of our Dordt College friends--one of my roommates and one of Paul's roommates. I admit that it is surreal to realize that we are 14 years out of college and that we are all grown up with kids. (Michael and Jess's oldest is a sixth grader so it was fun to see our friends discussing screen time and school with a soon-to-be young adult--when did we get so old?!?)

With Jessica

Pastor Mark also attended symposium (he actually was the motivator for getting me to attend with him this year), and we filled our free time with exploring Grand Rapids (Marie Catrib's gets my vote for best sandwich and funky atmosphere) and meeting up with youth from our church who live in GR for college or work. We even got to attend a Calvin basketball game and watch Dan play on the varsity team.

Dinner with VWs, Pastor Mark, Lucas and Heather

Lunch with Dan

On my final night there we had dinner and talked late into the evening with the Schreuders. What a blessing it is to connect with friends and get to see their children!

Nearly midnight picture with Joel and Sarah

Special thanks to my mom and Paul who took over watching the boys and keeping the house running while I enjoyed my time away! (As soon as I can snag Mom's camera, I hope to have some pix of what they did at home while I was away.)

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year, Part V

Both boys were part of the children’s program at our church a couple weeks ago. They sang a couple songs and recited part of a poem with their Junior Trailblazers class. They both did such a great job holding up their letters for the "Merry Christmas" poem and reciting what their letters stood for. We were not sure how Caleb would do being in front of everyone, but the promise of Cold Stone ice cream if he got “no helps” (just like Isaac for his weekly memory verse) spurred him into action. The lights were a little bright, but he tried to smile and be brave the entire time.  Caleb’s part was, “I is for little old me. I’m the one he loves for all eternity” while Isaac’s was, “R is for the reason why our Savior came to earth. You’re the reason angels sang of his birth.”

Then Isaac had his Christmas program at school the following day. It was a joy to be at this program as a parent and watch him sing with his class. I now understand why the kids wave when they are up there; I admit that I was one of those parents who waved at my child when he went up on the bleachers. 

Isaac is on the top row in the center--chin resting on hands

We not only enjoyed the songs that night but have also enjoyed listening to him sing them at home. I am thankful to be part of a school community that teaches Isaac to know and love Jesus as his Savior. 

Church in Action

Last Sunday we got to be part of the “church in action.” We were up for praise team to lead worship. After worship, Paul had an elders meeting to hear a profession of faith.

As soon as he was done with the meeting, Isaac and I helped deliver gifts for our church’s Project Amor. This year our church bought gifts for members of a local Spanish-speaking congregation that has a food bank ministry that our youth group helps serve with monthly. The congregation threw a posada with homemade tamales as a thanks for blessing them with Christmas gifts. It was an honor to deliver gifts and get to see the recipients of our congregation’s love. (And the tamales were a wonderful bonus!)

After tamales but before the gift distribution

I got to spend a little over an hour at home before I headed back to church to help the high school youth group with their Soup-Off! fundraiser. As the dinner was wrapping up, I headed into the sanctuary to make sure my middle school youth group was ready for the Christmas play for the children’s program.

The soup line--not sure what is so funny

Quick pause for a picture with Silva

Overall, it was a busy day but one filled with wonderful things. I was tired at the end of the night, but I would not have missed one of the activities of the day. I am glad to be a member of Crossroads church.

Shake, Rattle & Roll

Our middle school youth group had its biennial 50's Car Hop fundraiser at church a few weeks ago. It is a great night for our church to get together and socialize in a totally different setting and for our youth to serve the members of the congregation. Besides eating and listening to music from the 50's, the night also included trivia, hula hoop and bubblegum blowing contests and dance lessons.

Remember the teaser about Paul shaking his hips?!? Well, here he is--the winner of the men's division of the hula hoop contest.

Morning at the Fire Station

The Moms' Group at our church has been such a blessing and gift to me since having the boys. When Isaac was born and I first started going, we were a group of women who met in each other's homes to grow spiritually and to pray for each other. As we added more children and became too large for some of our homes, we started meeting at church and became an official MOPS group. When our group outgrew the space and childcare help available at church, we went back to being our own organized and run Moms' Group that continues to meet at church. The women in this group have become special friends and support to me, and their kids are some of our boys' best friends.

Normally, we meet at church every other week, but this past week we went on a field trip to a fire station. The firemen were so nice and very good with the kids. They gave each kid a fire hat, let the kids look in the ambulance and fire truck, showed them all their gear, demonstrated all the clothes they have to wear to a fire and even posed with the kids in full uniform, and let them look into their new thermal camera.

Before going, I had warned Isaac that he would probably be asked to help since he would be the oldest one there. When nobody volunteered to be hooked up to the heart monitor in the ambulance, the fireman immediately picked out Isaac to be his assistant. Isaac would have NONE of it and refused to help. (The fireman hooked himself up to it then, and a little later one of Isaac's friends volunteered to try it.) I think Isaac got a little panicked thinking about having to help because within a few minutes he came to me complaining that he was dizzy. At first I was annoyed with his clingy-ness but then realized something was wrong when he started gagging and I saw that his face was completely devoid of color! He got so worked up, he almost fainted. What better place to faint, though, than at a fire station surrounded by firemen trained to save lives?!? One of the fireman gave us a pretty pink dishpan and a bottle of water when he saw that I was holding Isaac's baseball cap under his mouth to catch any possible vomit. We went into the cooler fire station for a minute or two and then came back out. When we came out, he was still pasty white and his lips were grayish, but he recovered quickly and got back into the tour with his friends.

(Bad mom moment confession--one of the first things that went through my mind as I held the dishpan for him was that I was bummed that we would not get to go to the park afterwards to have lunch with everyone. He was completely better by the end so we were able to join everyone at the park for lunch. :-)

Peter Fish Again

***I started writing this post on March 14 and am finally able to post it since we finally connected for dinner.***

Our Peter Fish has been returned to church with all the money the boys earned and contributed to it. We enjoyed reading the daily devotionals and getting ideas of how to add money to the bank (i.e. counting how many types of fruits and vegetables we have in the house and contributing a dime for each type--Wow! I was surprised at how many varieties we had!). One of the daily challenges was to invite a leader or two from the church who helps us think of others. We were then supposed to give them money to put in their bank.

We gave the boys some ideas of people they could invite for dinner. They decided to invite Aunt Nita and Aunt Pat for dinner. (Pat is an elder in our church, and Anita helped us out by watching the boys once a week so we could join a life group together last fall.) We proceeded to invite them to dinner on March 16. The day they were supposed to come, Caleb woke up with a fever so we postponed until the following week. We had to postpone again because we were with family for Paul's grandpa's funeral. We finally had them over for dinner last week--April 28. It was such a gift to have them over and watch the boys interact with them both before and during dinner. (They even came bearing treats and fun things for the boys.)

Proof that we had dinner together

The boys are still talking about it! This is just another reminder of what a blessing a wonderful church family is to us! Also, since he is turning six this week, I thought it would be fun to see a pix of Isaac during our World Hunger Campaign when he was about six months old.

The Peter Fish's Visit

Our church just started its annual World Hunger Campaign. (For those of you in the CRC, this may sound a bit off since the official CRWRC campaign is usually in the fall. Because of our fall Life Group series and how it fit with planning, we decided to recognize World Hunger Day in the spring so it could have its own special focus. That was the worship director making her explanation for why we are doing what we are doing and when!) To kick it off today in worship, an adult invited all the children ages three years old to fifth grade to sit at the front of the church while he shared about the Peter Fish and CRWRC's (Christian Reformed World Relief Committee) work around the world. He encouraged each of us to read our daily devotional that goes with it and fill our Peter Fish which will be collected during worship in three weeks.

Today was the first time that Caleb willingly went up to the front with the other kids. He was not so sure at first but did follow Isaac up there. As we watched our kids look around and copy what the other kids were doing during the talk, we realized how little control we have over their actions when they are out of arms' reach. Fortunately, they both sat pretty well, raised their hands when they were supposed to (though they did not always put them down right away), did not hit the boy next to him (Isaac) who was lying on his shoulder but instead "gently" moved his shoulder out from under the other boy's head, and was one of the first ones to walk into the congregation to help hand out the fish to the adults whose hands were raised. (Caleb was a bit disappointed in this last part since he was not as quick and did not get to hand out any fish.) Impressively, they remembered a lot of what Mr. Steenstra said and were ready to fill their fish.

Speaking of, our boys are just slightly in love (and that is putting it mildly) with their Peter Fish! They fought over who got to hold it on the way home today. They fight over who gets to be the first one to put the money into the fish after reading the devotional for the day. And they are now fighting over doing chores so they can earn a little extra money to put into the bank (a penny per chore--reminds me of my childhood when Mom would pay us a penny for each pickle picked from the garden...). Now I just have to be creative in finding chores that they can actually do without too much of my help. (I mentioned they could help me wash the windows, and Isaac is gung-ho about getting that job done--even thought he should miss his rest time to get the windows done.)

This is day one of a three-week campaign. If we keep going at this rate of enthusiasm, our house will be gleaming! Ah, I love when the Peter Fish comes to visit our home!

I love my job(s)!

Yesterday Paul and I spent the day at a worship workshop with 18 other members of our worship team and people from a few other churches. The day was a wonderful day spent worshiping and learning about worship and what it means to be a worship leader. It was such a treat to be part of such a neat day that not only gave our teams a chance to "jam" with other worship teams but also validated what we are doing at our church which was a great source of encouragement!

I am thankful for the members of my team who were able to spend the day at this conference (a long one for us since we left at 7:30 a.m. and did not return until after 4:00 p.m.). My volunteers are a blessing to me and to our church.

One thing we took away from the day and got to use in our service this a.m. was "be prepared for anything." Our service stretched a bit long so our pastor switched how we took communion which meant we had to adjust a few songs being played including the new doxology we were introducing. The team did a great job pulling it together with very little communication! Our pastor is going through the entire Bible in the next 12 weeks, and today was creation. We watched this video during worship today--a fantastic reminder of how great our Creator is: http://www.andiesisle.com/creation/magnificent.html

A special thanks to Baby Anna and her parents for taking the boys all day and spending hours playing with them. The boys had as good of a time as we had at the conference!

I am so thankful that God has given me the opportunity to be a wife and mom yet still be able to "work" for our church as youth leader and worship director! I love the jobs to which God has called me at this point in my life!

Another Step in our Routine Climbed

I loved our summer and time of relaxing, but I am glad to be getting back into our school year routine. (Paul would probably not agree since his school routine is a bit fuller than mine!)

Today was the first meeting for the moms' group that I attend at our church. We had a potluck brunch and a baby shower celebrating one of our newest additions. What a gift these ladies have been to me since the birth of Isaac! We share our problems with each other, listen and share helpful hints that have worked for us, and laugh together a lot! Oh, and bless the hearts of the childcare workers who allow us an hour and a half of adult time--they are our heroes!!!

The joy for today (besides getting to be with my friends) was that Caleb got to attend the preschool part of the childcare with Isaac. Because he is three, he has advanced out of the nursery. He was so excited when I told him two days ago. In fact he thought he was missing it yesterday when Isaac and Paul left for school without him; he yelled, "Wait for me!" and proceeded to pull on his flip-flops and run after them in his pajamas. (Before getting to church, I did try to prepare him for not getting to be part of it in case they required a fully potty-trained child...something Caleb is not but that we are working on. Sylvia said it would be fine and let him come.) Wow! Did he have a great time! He got to do artwork like Isaac finally and even created his own little salvation caterpillar--all of which he proudly showed me and explained to me afterward. (Notice the very exact and carefully painted dots that he did on his fish! His teacher said he was very careful to get them in just the right spot, and I am guessing his tongue may have been out for part of it. ;-)

It was so nice during the brunch to hear so many little ones crying for and missing mom in the nursery and knowing that it for sure was not my child! Now, to master the potty...