{life with} the Cuties: church

Showing posts with label church. Show all posts

Saturday, March 31, 2012

Hunting for eggs

last week i ran past

a church

advertising a community-wide Easter egg hunt

SOooo

when the girls weren't sleeping on Saturday

we decided we needed to

head to the hunt!

there is something so thrilling yet simple

to them

when they're allowed to paint

something on their body!

(they both chose Easter eggs on their left cheeks)

then we decided it was high time for a snack

(carbo-loading for the race for eggs?)

turns out the snack was the perfect

energizing food for

jumpy castles

though Cutie Cakes decided she'd rather sit out the fun

and finish her popcorn

(who can blame her?!)

at least her sister jumped and slid enough for both of them!

right before the egg hunt,

we snuck in some fun bubble blowing

while i tried not to think that dozens of kids

had their sweet little mouths all over the bubble pipes and wands

before my cuties got their mouths all over it...

After a prayer of blessing and thanks,

the girls were divided into age groups

and off we went to our designated locations

it was SO interesting to watch how the girls took off

in their own way

Cutie Cakes grabbed a few eggs

and then discovered

THERE WAS CANDY INSIDE

that sidelined her for the rest of the hunt

while Cutie Face decided it was far better

to grab as many eggs as she could see

and then examine her loot with her sister

Cutie Face often blows me away with her generosity

and she voluntarily shared candy with Cutie Cakes

without any prompting!

i had so much fun hanging with these girls

and can't wait to see them in action again next week!

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Operation Christmas Child

Today we had the extreme privilege of sending a gift to two impoverished girls, somewhere in the 2-4 age range through the incredible ministry of Operation Christmas Child.

I get chills just thinking about those two girls, who they might be, if they'll like our gifts for them, if they'll understand the TRUE gift that we're sharing with them, etc.

Our day started bright and early with a trip to Target (one of Cutie Face's favorites--in her words: "dey have dolls dere. i like dolls. i like dere dolls a LOT").

using her new "holding on" skills

We shopped in the dollar section and in the toy section. Cutie Face had lots of input and seemed to understand that these gifts were just that--not to be kept but to be given away.

We swung by our house, picked up Cutie Cakes (who had been taking a cat nap with J) and walked over to church with our bags of goodies and our two shoe boxes.

The kids had a little chat about what the game plan would be--they were so excited they could hardly sit still!

Cutie Cakes tried her hardest, though, and set an example for her older sister!

After the 2-minute instruction (which i'm sure felt like eternity when the words "cookies", "frosting", and "hot chocolate" were mentioned), the kids ran to the cookie decorating station.

this was Cutie Face's first year ever to decorate cookies

(as 15-months is, in my book, too young to decorate!)

she was very proud of her sprinkles

after everyone earned their sugar rush, they settled in (ha!) for a brief movie about the whys and hows of Operation Christmas Child. It was really neat and very moving to see the impact these shoeboxes of goodies have on each and every child.

Finally it was shoe-packing time! Even Cutie Cakes got in on the action

Cutie Face was very pleased with her packing skills

Even Cutie Cakes was amazed (whoa!)

it was a packing,

stuffing

wrapping,

and extremely joyful

extravaganza!

I pray these boxes are blessings and beacons of light

in an often bleak world for their recipients!

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Baptizing the Cutie Cakester

A year and a half ago, Cutie Face was baptized on Super Bowl Sunday--exactly one week before she hit the 6-month mark.

This year, Cutie Cakes was baptized on her sister's birthday, 2 days after turning 6-months. It was fun to see the similarities/differences at the same age, stage and, more importantly event (BAPTISM!).

While our invitation might seem casual, this day in Cutie Cakes' life is a HUGE deal to us...

As mentioned before, we belong to a PCA church and baptize our kiddos as infants. We do not believe this is a saving sacrament but, rather, an act where a child enters the Covenant Family. Much like circumcision was (is!) used as a sign to set infant (males) apart for God, PCAers (Presbyterian Church of America) view baptism as the New Testament mark of the covenant. Again, feel free to check out this link posted a few months ago when Sweet Pea was baptized--it makes more sense than I do!

The whole gang headed back down to our neck of the woods for this special event...

Cutie Cakes was a little nervous about being in front of so many people so she gnawed on Mimi's hand for a bit.

The older cousins were the sweetest. The held hands in the service and sat quietly while we sang, prayed, and listened to the Word. The best part came after we finished a song--Lil Miss exclaimed, "YAY!" and started clapping. Then Cutie Face said (very loudly), "Lil Miss said 'YAY'!" It was too much.

Cutie Cakes big moment finally came and we stood up in front of the church body as a family. The charge that our pastor gives us as parents is so incredible. I wish I had a video of it so I could remind myself of what my true calling as a mother should be and to draw encouragement from it when the day-to-day begins to wear on me.

You can see my dad in the picture on the right. He is an elder at our parent church (we're a church plant from a larger church in the suburbs) and held the baptism bowl for us. You don't know how neat that is to me that he was able to do that. Thanks Poppy!