Easter Story

Happy Easter friends!

I hope you have had a wonderful time with friends and family so far this weekend!
It really is a great time to have conversations, laugh and enjoy each others company.
But please don't forget the reason we celebrate Easter.

I saw this video on another blog and I thought it was such a neat way to tell. The Easter story.
So here it is- the Easter story in 4 minutes.

DIY Card Album

I love to keep cards from important occasions such as our wedding and Peyton's birth.  Last night I found a really cute DIY project at Something Turquoise.

Clearly my album isn't as nice as the one they made, but I was able to use stuff I had laying around and some of the gift wraps left over from Peyton's gifts.  

This is how my album turned out:

2 Months

Big steps and things we have learned:
-> Peyton is now smiling her big adorable smiles
-> she has started making lots of noises and is almost laughing
-> She is getting much stronger ad can almost hold up her head
-> she loves laughing and copying people when they make noises with their mouths


Funny sayings and expressions this month:
-> Wes was holding her and she spit up all over him and just smiled
-> she has conversations with us many nights though we have not a clue of what she is saying
-> she has a "poop face" .... It's only a matter of time once we see that

Lesson1.2- God's Design and Purpose for Children

Psalm 145:3-4 (Tell God's Story to the Next Generation)
Great is The Lord, and highly to be praised,
And His greatness is unsearchable.
One generation shall praise Your works to another,
And shall declare Your mighty acts.


Psalm 78:1-8 (Tell the next generation God's deeds so that they will trust Him)


Isaiah 38:19 (Teach God's faithfulness to our children)
"It is the living who give thanks to You, as I do today;
A father tells his sons about Your faithfulness."

God makes it clear over and over again that weare to teach our children about God.
We must remember that we are not only affecting our children's lives, but our grandchildren and their children and the rest of the generations.  We are a part of this chain, if we forget to pass on God's story we may possibly be affecting all the future generations, even if not intentionally.  It is so easy to lose this strong foundation ( check out Judges 3:17 and Judges 2:10 they lost it within one generation).

One important thing to remember is to not just tell our children what to do but why we do it.  

Daddy Love

There is something so special bout seeing Wes interact with our daughter. His eyes light up, and he just looks so happy when he holds her. He truly is a wonderful Dad, I couldn't ask for anyone better to raise a child with and spend the rest f my life with.

Big Yawn

Peyton had her first day in the nursery (with her Grandma M and Aunt Em) the same day they did photos of the nursery children for the annual church slideshow.

Clearly the day pooped her out.

Photo shoot

I got bored one day so I tried to get some good pics of Peyton. I most definitely have first child syndrome as we take photos of her every day.

Lesson 1.1 - God's Design and Purpose For Children

As I have already mentioned these studies are not mine but I have gotten much use from them and hope others will as well.

God has an amazing plan.  He has this thing called family which is such a unique institution.  So what does God have to say about his design for having children?

Genesis 1:27-28 (Filling the Earth)
God created man in his own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.  God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth."


Genesis 9:1,7 (Filling the Earth)
And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth

As for you, be fruitful and multiply;
Populate the earth abundantly and multiply in it."

So clearly, there's something about multiplying and filling the earth that God wants us to know about.   God created this earth for us to enjoy and worship Him in.
As we know though, not everybody is called to have children, and as we see in the New Testament, some people are called to be single and that is an amazing calling.  Some people are unable to have children, but there are some that are parents to children.  Whether a parent or not, it is important we realize the importance of children in our world and help raise not just our own children but those around us- to help them realize that they are loved by the creator of the earth and one day he will call them back Home to spend eternity with Him if they have chosen Him as their personal Saviour.

"Sadly, most of us end up having kids for equally superficial reasons.  Some single young women tell crisis Center counsellor s that they wanted to get pregnant to create someone who would love them.  Some men think it's important to carry on the family name.  Other couples have children because little babies seem so cute.  Still others get lost on a narcissist's binge to create another human being who looks just like the two of them combined.  A few may even think that having a baby will save a lonely marriage.
I have to confess that I felt eager to have kids, in part because I longed to experience a close father-son relationship as well as an intimate father-daughter relationship.  I wanted to be a hero to my kids, as my dad was a hero to me.  I had a sense that these children would validate me as a man.  Yet these motivations, as noble as they sound, are still narcissistic at root, based on an idealized notion of children and a romanticized view of what family life is really like"
Gary Thomas- Sacred Parenting



Job 1:18-22 (Children are the Lord's)
While he was still speaking, another also came and said, "Your sons and you daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, and behold, a great wind came from across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young poor and they died, and I alone have escaped to tell you."

Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head, and he fell to the ground and worshiped.  He said,

"Naked I came from my mother's womb,
And naked I shall return there.
The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. 
Blessed be the name of the Lord."

Through all this Job did not sin nor did he blame God.



Often, we forget who our children belong to.  They are gifts from God- ultimately they belong to God.  We are chosen to help raise them in a Godly home, but they are his to give and take away and Job knew that as this passage shows.

2 Corinthians 12:14-15 (Stewardship of our Parenting)
Here for this third time I am ready to come to you, and I will not be a burden to youl for I do not seek what is yours, but you; for children are not responsible to save up for their parents, but parents for their childre.  I will most gladly spend and be expended for your soulds.  If I love you more, am I to be loved less?

Even as a new parent myself, I am realizing the point of this verse very quickly.  Parenting is not about posession- it's about sacrifice.  We sacrifice for our children all the time.  I find I am unable to do many of the things I did before, but it's all worth it with hopes that our daughter will grow up and become a lovely servant-hearted child of God. 

The Gossip Prayer

You know the one I'm talking about.  It may go something like this:
"God I want to lift up Suzy to you today.  You know she is in financial trouble due to her gambling addiction that has been getting worse and worse.  God I pray that her husband stays with her as I have heard he is debating getting a divorce as he cannot handle dealing with the debt and her addiction at the same time as their son who has gotten his girlfriend pregnant..."

Need I go on?  Clearly this was not God's meaning when he said to confess our sins to one another and pray for one another (James 5:16)

We have all heard it and perhaps caught ourselves doing it now and again.   But where do we draw the line between bringing forth a prayer request and turning it around from a time of prayer into a time of town gossip?

• God wants us to pray for one another but that doesn't mean you must explain the entire situation to him.  He knows the situation better than we know ourselves and more often than not the explanation isn't in your conversation with God but rather so the others around you hear  about it.   You can still pray for somebody without knowing the details.
• Ask yourself if the person you are praying for heard you praying for them if they would be thankful for the prayer or upset that their whole life story is shared with everybody around them.
• Though prayer times with others is a wonderful thing, sometimes various prays can be done in your own prayer time so that you do not fall into this temptation
• Remembering that we tell others that gossiping is a sin, be very cautious that you do not fall into this as you never know who may be listening to your prays at church, and you do not want to be a stumbling block for others.

On a lighter note, here's a comedian talking about this subject

Baby Shower!

A few weeks ago, Peyton had a baby shower.
She was very lucky to have a great turn out and it was a lot of fun thanks to everybody who put their hard work into it!
From trying to dress the dolls as quickly as possible, to making play dough babies to writing little middle of the night encouragement letters on the diapers for me, it was a great afternoon!