Harvest Festival at Grace

Every year, around the birthday of our church, we have a huge festival to celebrate! The last few years, the weather has been amazing and a Sunday evening outside with our church family was the perfect plan! Lots of games, rides, tattoos, food trucks! Good times!

Mr. Chris

We are so thankful to have some amazing mentors in our boys' lives! Mr. Chris often leads the Kids Worship service at church and the boys LOVE when he's there. He is always good for some quick wit, lots of laughter, and endless joy and encouragement. We are very thankful the Lord is using him to shine such a bright light in their lives! He and Grant clicked about a year and half ago, which kickstarted Grant's enthusiasm for kids ministry. Mr. Chris came to deliver a card for Grant and asked if he could take them for a special treat in a special car! I knew what the plan was, but I kept it a surprise for the boys and their jaws hit the floor when Grant opened up the front door to see Mr. Chris. Not only that, but when they saw they were going to go in a convertible, their smiles went from ear to ear! They had a great time getting ice cream and Grant shared his brilliant ideas for the SBO in years to come! A very special evening for sure!

SBO: Gadgets and Gizmos

After serving at SBO Jr, Grant could not wait for his week at SBO!! Grant loves being involved at church, in any way possible. He knows a lot of the staff and leaders around the church, so its definitely one of his very happy places to be! His favorite part is the pre-show, the time that people are arriving and checking into their groups. They do lots of cool skits and videos, so we always had to make sure we were there by 8:45 so we didn't miss any of it!!

I love that they do worship at the beginning and then go right into the storytelling. This year, they story revolved around this man who was trying to fix these robots because they were broken, just like we are broken. There is only one thing that can fix us and that is Jesus!  Grant had a small part in one day of the storytelling, so that was super fun for him!

 His favorite intern at church was playing one of the robots and loved getting his picture with them one day! Look at that smile on Grant- pure joy!!

If you ask Grant what is favorite memory of SBO would be, he has two. This video being one of them. On the last day, during his favorite song, Rising Up, they gave all the kids this glow sticks and during the most exiting part of the song, the smoke machines blew and hundreds of balloons fell from the ceiling. In Grant's words, "it was EPIC!"

There is one other memory Grant has that he will remember FOREVER...(stay tuned in another post)

SBO Jr: Gadgets and Gizmos

One of our favorite things in the summer is SBO!!!! We look forward to it all year long and we knew this year would not disappoint!! Wyatt was attending SBO Jr. and Grant was volunteering as a song leader and sites helper. I was planning on volunteering as well, but we were hosting swimming lessons at our house during that time, so I felt I needed to be there. But when I dropped the boys off each morning, I got sucked in to the all AMAZING things happening! I loved watching Grant help lead worship and I loved watching Wyatt dance and sing praises!! This years theme was Gadgets and Gizmos, with the memory verse being Psalm 139:14 "I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know this full well." What an amazing truth to learn! It's always a fabulous week of fun and love for Jesus!!!

Grant was a song leader on stage, so that was so neat to see him be a part of the action!

Grant's Christmas Part

A few months before Christmas, Grant was asked to recite some of the scripture for our Christmas Eve service at church. He jumped at the chance because he LOVES being involved at church. He always says he's "famous" around there. Kind of true :-) He loves to have his presence noticed! So a few days before Christmas Eve, we were up at church doing run throughs and it was just so awesome seeing my little guy up there, knowing God was using him to spread his Word. Nothing more awesome than that!

Then on Christmas Eve, he got all dressed up and knew his lines down pat. 

 The big performance! He did so wonderful, I got teary listening to his little voice spread such amazing truth!! His lines were John 1:1-5, 9-13. My favorite part: But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood, nor the will of flesh, nor the will of man, but of God.  Chills!

 And a cute story- this kid had ZERO dress clothes. Like nothing. So a few days before, I took him to Target to get an outfit. While they had less than stellar clothing choices, he fell in love with this pair of shoes, which was so shocking. So we bought the shoes and knew we had to match his outfit to the shoes. When we took our surprise trip to the Mall for a BAB surprise, we swung by Children's Place where he picked out his ENTIRE outfit. We walk into the store and he says to me, "I want to wear a tie. And a belt." I looked at him like he had 5 heads. Who is this kid?!? But gosh darn it, did he make that outfit look good! He's growing up people, growing up!

Grace Harvest Festival

We have found a wonderful church home that has been such a blessing in our lives! To kick off the fall season and to celebrate our church's 20th birthday, they held a Harvest Festival, complete with rides, bouncies, food trucks, and all the fun you can imagine!!!

Happy Birthday Grace Church! 

SBOjr/SBO

Our church has an amazing summer camp called SBO (Summer Break Out). This year, with Grant entering into 2nd grade, he moved on up to the big kid SBO, while Wyatt still attended SBOjr. Since Grant and I were going to be free while Wyatt was at camp, we decided to serve at SBOjr together. Grant was so excited to be a volunteer to help "the little kids" out. He takes his new 2nd grade status pretty seriously ;-)  We had a volunteer meeting in May to help us prepare and know our roles! We were going to be helping in a craft room and taking pictures for the craft project. It felt great having Grant helping alongside me and other adults and really getting in there and helping the little kids with their project! It was so fun getting to share that special time with him! Wyatt loved his camp and had a great week! Sadly, because I was helping, I didn't get a single picture of Wyatt attending camp. I did snap a few pictures at the end of the week dinner though, of him singing and dancing to his songs!

 Grant has kind of made a name for himself down in the kids worship area on church evenings. He loves to participate and his worship pastor asked him to have a role in one of the openings days of SBO. He was asked to play young Jesus. Of course, he was thrilled!! We even had to do a weekend practice, which he thought was super awesome! He even found his name on the banner in the entry!

 To say that their camp is extraordinary is really an understatement. The way they tell the gospel is just moving to anyone who hears it! And to see Grant be a part in it just made my heart so happy!

But the fun and games they do are equally as awesome!! Such an amazing thing to witness and to have my kids be a part of!!!

 Grant is already thinking about being a song leader/actioneer for SBOjr next year and can't wait for his turn at camp again!!! 

Small Group Gift Exchange

Our small group at church is just the best!! 7 young couples, with 18 young kids between us all! Oh, the stories we can tell! It's always a great time when we can get together and just enjoy each others company! I love having this group as a source of encouragement and friendship! They've been with me since halfway through Levi's deployment and have witnessed our reunion as well as our transitions through it all. They've supported us with their prayers, their gift of time, but most importantly their gift of friendship. To go to church and see so many familiar and smiling faces is just a great feeling!

While we typically travel in a huge herd of children, we made it a point to have a little Christmas gathering with just the grown-ups! We had lots and lots and lots of yummy food and did a gift exchange that was so fitting for our group. I mean, who would've thought the Putin coffee cup, selfie stick, and the Magic Mike DVD would get stolen so many times?!? Good stuff going on there!

Other than the gift exchange part, our evening definitely felt a little middle-schoolish, as far as the girls had their thing going on, and the guys were across the room. But that's really what we wanted anyway! Girl talk is the best!! I mean, we thought it was weird the guys wanted nothing to do with these photo props?!? 

We decided we just have too much fun to squeeze into our 1.5 hours of Bible study each week and we need to make it a point to do this more often!! I'm sure our 18 children are ok with that!!

Nativity Play and Cookie Exchange

The moms in our small group thought it would be fun to start the tradition of our Bible study group kiddos putting on a Nativity play each year. "Oh it'll be so cute!" "They can act out the whole story!" Our minds were filled with some picture-perfect event!! Well, we didn't really consider the fact that we have 18 kids between us, and that only 6 of them are 5 or older!! So when we decided on our cast of characters, we determined there had to go a lot of sheep and donkeys! So while it wasn't the picture-perfect event we had played out in our minds, it was adorable!

I wound up hosting, as we were needing an area large enough to accommodate 14 adults and 18 kids. Somehow I thought our basement fit the bill. And while it did, it was crowded! But I'm pretty sure there isn't a room big enough anywhere for us!! It turned out to a sweet show, followed by a cookie exchange with lots of yummies! 

I must admit, after we walked the last guest out of the basement, I didn't go down there for two straight days because I was scared of what I might see! Luckily we blocked off the playroom and only had out our Little People christmas toys, so there wasn't much to get in to!

I think in a few years from now though, we will have an award winning performance!!!

Grant was Joseph, and he was so proud of his role! Here come Mary and Joseph looking for a room at  the inn..

Instead, they found a stable and their baby was born!

 The shepherds came to see him (Adleigh wasn't enjoying her role) and worship...

 A multitude of angels appeared...

 And the three wise men followed the star.

 And they gave him gifts and bowed down to worship.

 and they all sang Silent Night. 

 The End. 

Such an adorable cast. One sheep is not pictured. Thank goodness for our watchful shepherds!

And these two- just had to add this picture! These twin fellas are just a riot! They camped out like this in the boys recliner, chugging on their bottles. One double fisting Little People and one ringing a cowbell nonstop. Talk about an amazing night!!

Star Wars at Church

Our church has a wonderful children's ministry and the boys get so excited to see what fun activity or song or project they will get to do! They actually get sad when we can't make it to church, such a great problem to have!! 

So when we found out the month of December was going to involve a Star Wars theme for children's worship, the boys were ready to bust down the door to see what was going to happen!! The premise of the curriculum was that The Magi were on a quest – following a star to find the child king foretold in prophecy. Along their journey, they encountered both the dark and the light, both good and bad. In the end they met Jesus, the true star of their trip, and light of the world. It was a neat way of making the Christmas Story come alive for these guys!

Upon walking in to church the first week, it was like a Star Wars flood of the coolest decorations you ever could imagine! Lots of "look at this!" and "Oh my gosh, look at that!" and "Wow look over here!" Everywhere we looked, there was something else amazing!! 

Sadly, we only made it to church twice in December because we were out of town the other two weekends, but no doubt they will remember this for a long time to come!!

 The imperial starship pulled by AT-AT walkers!

 There were hundreds of these paper snowflakes! I can't even imagine cutting those out!!

An imperial starship made into a Christmas tree!

Oh it was so fun!!!