Sarah's two big milestones while on vacation...

We are coming to the end of John's 4 month sabbatical, which has been fun-filled and refreshing for our whole family. The first month (July), we stayed home, worked on long-overdue house projects (deep cleaning and organizing) while visiting different churches in the area each Sunday. August 1st, we began the long drive north to Cincinnati to visit our good friends, the Gages, who recently moved there from Texas. After a few wonderful days of visiting with them, we drove east across Ohio and PA before arriving at my mom's house, the place we would call "home" for the next 2 months.

While we were in PA, we travelled to visit family, camp in Rickett's Glen, tour D.C. and visit friends. It was on September 11th (the 10th anniversary of 9/11 and Mary Grace's 3rd birthday), that we lost Sarah's blankie in transit from spending the night at one of our friends' homes in NJ. Sarah has had this pink blankie since birth and it became her security (Linus) blanket about the same time she found her thumb, which was probably around 7 weeks of age.

I remember packing the blankie that morning to make sure we wouldn't leave without it, but Sarah informed me that she snuck it out and forgot to put it back. After many tears, prayers, phone calls back and forth with my NJ friend, who never did find it, we sent Sarah to bed.

Sometime in October while we were on the road either to or from Disney World, Sarah declared, "Mommy, I haven't sucked my thumb since I lost my blankie." I told her I knew and that I was very proud of her. I also said that if Aunt Hien ever found her blankie, she would have to make sure she didn't start sucking her thumb again. It was then that Sarah said something that surprised me. "Mommy, you can tell Aunt Hien to stop looking for it. I don't need my blankie anymore." WOW! What a milestone for my big girl!

Oh, it was also during our weekend in NJ that Sarah's first loose tooth appeared to be loose enough to pull. We were at Jake and Jaya's house for the night, so I implored nurse Jaya to give the tooth a yank. Sarah was very brave at first, but then chickened out. After a couple more weeks of that tooth hanging by a thread, it finally fell out on its own while we were at my mom's salon getting haircuts on September 26th.

So yes, we went to Disney World and had a wonderful week full of memories there, but the big milestones that I'll remember were that Sarah lost her blankie (and quit sucking her thumb as a result) and her first tooth while we were in PA.

Family funnies

On the way to church this morning, Christopher (almost 8) asked, "What does GOR-met mean?"

"Huh? How do you spell it?"

"G-O-U-R-M-E-T."

"OH, you mean 'gourmet'. That means fancy and delicious food."

-pause-

"Then they shouldn't have that word describing the food at Panda Express."

Appalled but laughing, I asked, "You mean you saw that word on a sign for Panda Express?!? That's what I call false advertising!"

Christopher then said, "In his spare time, the owner of Panda Express needs to try the food at 3-6-9 Chinese BBQ."

That's my boy. Start 'em young, I say.

During church today, I had my arm around Sarah (6) as she was leaning into me. As I noticed her reaching for her nose, I quickly grabbed her hands and held them down in her lap to keep her from picking her nose. Since she was unable to grab those boogers herself, she simply turned her head to the side and wiped her nose on my bare arm. Immediately grossed out, I pulled my arm away and began madly wiping it off with a napkin. She thought this was hilarious and couldn't stop giggling. My apologies to those who may have witnessed this exchange of mucus.

Tonight as I was about to read from the Jesus Storybook Bible , I announced the title of our next-up story about Zacchaeus called, "The Man Who Didn't Have Any Friends (none)". Christopher looked up and said, "Well, he wouldn't be able to have facebook if he didn't have any friends."

Sweet and funny sister moments

The following photos demonstrate the nurturer nature of my oldest daughter, Sarah, and the copy cat nature of my youngest, Mary Grace. Mary Grace is heavily into Eric Carle board books (well, any board book, for that matter) and is constantly grabbing a book from her book basket and begging us to read to her...even if I'm in the middle of cooking the meal or if I'm just sitting down to eat. It is at these inconvenient moments that I tell her to take the book to Sarah or Hannah, both of whom take up the responsibility most eagerly. Being the oldest daughter, Sarah has always been a little mommy. Now it is so sweet to see Hannah picking up that role with Mary Grace as well.

Here you will see Sarah reading Eric Carle's Head to Toe, a huge favorite with all of my kids during the toddler years.

When Sarah first laid down on the floor with the book, Mary Grace laid down on her tummy right next to her! Of course, I didn't get to the camera in time for that pose before they started moving.

"I am a cat. I can arch my back. Can you do it?" "I can do it!"

"I am a camel. I can bend my knees. Can you do it?" "I can do it!"

This and that...

Cutest thing - I hadn't heard from Mary Grace in a while (usually not a good sign), so I looked in the backyard and found her like this.

Then of course, Hannah and Sarah wanted me to take their picture.

Mary Grace settled herself in...

Sweetness...

Christopher squinting in the sun.

Hannah and Sarah in a sea of bubbles.

MG covered in suds. (yes, that's tear-free shampoo)

A 6 1/2 year old's thoughts on the aseity of God

Yesterday evening after all the girls had gone to bed, Christopher and I were sitting in the family room having conversations about random things. After a few moments of silence, he blurted out, "Well, we could walk to Nana's house since we know the way. Right?" I said, "Well, you could, but it's 3 miles to Nana's house." Undaunted, Christopher replied, "So? We walked more than 3 miles on that hike in Colorado, right?" I conceded, "Yes, we hiked 3 1/2 miles...but you'll remember that everyone was falling apart on the last mile back to the van. You had blisters on your feet, Sarah kept tripping and scraping her knees, Mary Grace was crying..." Christopher said, "Yeah. It was like a 6-person Cherokee Trail of Tears." Oh, that gave me a good chuckle. Gotta love those homeschooled kids.

I shared this story with Nana this morning which reminded her of a conversation that she had with Christopher in the car the other day. Christopher said out of the blue, "Nana, you know what I have a hard time believing?" Nana: "What's that?" Christopher said, "I just don't understand how God can have no beginning." Nana said, "Yes, that is a very hard thing for us to understand. But He doesn't have an ending either." Christopher quickly said, "Oh, I can believe that He doesn't have an ending. I just don't understand how He doesn't have a beginning. I mean, when did God come to be?" Nana said, "He didn't, He just always was." Christopher said, "When I get to heaven, that's definitely one thing I'm going to ask God about... Do you think that we'll be able to see God?" Nana, "Well, God is a Spirit and doesn't have a body...but Jesus does, and you'll be able to see Jesus." Then Sarah, my 5 year old, interjected, "Christopher, just talk to Jesus. Jesus has a body and He's the same as God."

Love it!

The effects of the Fall...

Tonight I was reading the first 3 stories from The Big Picture Story Bible, by David Helm to Sarah and Hannah. We have recommended this story bible before as a great resource for family worship because it so beautifully connects all the stories of the Bible together as God's one big story of redemption. There are probably too many pictures and not enough words for Christopher at this point (though he still enjoys it), but it is at just the right level for the girls to understand. We have read it to them over and over again and they are getting the themes of redemptive history written on their hearts, which is such a joy to see as a parent.

The first story is titled "The Very Good Beginning", which talks about how God created all thing, created people in His own image and established His good rule over His people. The second story is called, "The Very Sad Day", which talks about when sin entered the world and changed everything. As I was reading about Adam and Eve's choice to believe the lies of Satan and mistrust the goodness of God and how sad they were after sin had entered into their hearts, I noticed that Sarah was wiping tears away from her eyes. I stopped reading and asked her why she was sad and she said, "Because it was such a sad day for Adam and Eve...and could you please turn the page?" It really tugged at my heartstrings to see how deeply affected she was and I was eager to get to the good news on the next page as well, where God promises that He will one day send Someone to crush Satan's head and rescue His people from sin. Sarah closed her eyes and said, "Please God, could you send Jesus to crush Satan's head again?" I assured her that Jesus already crushed the power of Satan when He died on the cross and rose from the dead, and that one day, Jesus will wipe away every tear from our eyes (there's a great picture of this in the last story titled, "The Very Good Ending", which I showed Sarah) and we will never again experience sin, sadness, pain, suffering or death in the new heavens and new earth.

Thank you Lord for breaking through my 4 year old's little heart tonight with the hard truths of the Fall and the deep assurances of the Gospel. And thank you for reminding me of those truths through her eyes. May we both continue to recognize our desperate need of salvation and cling to Jesus our Rescuer.

Sarah asks for the blessing tonight...

Tonight as we all sat down at the dinner table, Sarah declared, "Oh, I wanna pray, I wanna pray!" So we all bowed our heads and she prayed, "Dear Heavenly Fah-der, fank you for da food and fank you that we got to go to Colorado...and if anyone else from Texas wants to go to Colorado, You better drive their car FAST! In Jesus name, Amen." Needless to say, there was much laughter that followed...

Lots of progress this week...

Since we came home from vacation, our weeks have been pretty full (2 weddings, 2 funerals, VBS, swim lessons, a few fun days at the lake with some friends, etc.). I foresaw that this week would be our first 'down' week, so I geared up to potty train Hannah, who had been showing signs of readiness ever since the week prior to our vacation in PA. I thought of potty training her while we were in PA, but there's something to be said for diapers when you're traveling and constantly visiting other people's homes.

Nana volunteered to keep Christopher, Sarah and Mary Grace on Tuesday, the first day of intensive potty training. There were several accidents, lots of carpet/floor cleaner and loads of laundry, but Hannah also had many successes and was even self-iniating by the evening. On day 2, she only had 2 accidents - one in the morning when she started to wet herself, stopped short, ran to the potty and successfully finished the job; and one mishap with #2...always gross. On day 3, her only real accident was not making it to the potty in time to do #2. A funny moment in the evening was hearing her yell, "Oh no!" and then seeing her dart down the hallway toward the bathroom yelling, "I peed on Cinda-rey-yah!" (the corresponding print on her undies). This morning (day 4), she had her first successful poop on the potty! There was much rejoicing in the McCracken household, as you can see in the video below:

I also noticed this week that Mary Grace was able to get herself from her tummy to a sitting position pretty consistently. By Thursday, I thought she was getting so close to crawling and then watched her take a couple 'steps' toward a toy!

Christopher and Sarah began the summer completely forgetting how to swim. I even had to put Sarah back into a life vest and then slowly eased her back into putting her head under water. Christopher picked it back up pretty quickly, and then both were swimming really well by the time we had swim lessons. Yesterday at the pool, I saw Sarah do things I'd never seen her do, like swim out to the middle of the pool by herself and then dive down to the floor to get a ring (or some other sunken object) and swim back to the wall or the steps!

It is so fun to see each of the kids making progress in different areas of his/her development, so we always have to have our cameras and video recorders handy.

Google earth/sky and big bath tub...

If you've been following the blog for a number of years, you may have picked up that Christopher has had a long line of obsessions that began with flicking spring-bound door stoppers and drawer handles as a crawling baby, to bowl-spinning as a toddler, to choirs as a 3-4 year old, to dinosaurs as a 5 year old, and most recently outer space as a 6 year old.  What's interesting about each of these is that it completely consumes his imagination until he has 'mastered' or exhausted it and finds something else that captures his interest.  We really didn't do too much to encourage the first 2 very noisy obsessions, but we did feed his zest for choirs by exposing him to lots of choral music.  We also exhausted the dinosaur bookshelves at our public library on top of buying him several dino encyclopedias.  

We have now moved on to the astronomy bookshelves across the aisle and he is devouring them. Another thing he likes to do during free time is watch YouTube videos about planets, stars, galaxies and the universe.  A friend of ours told us about an application on Google Earth where you can switch to the sky and zoom in on different stars, planets and galaxies.  It is way cool.  I showed it to Christopher the other day and he is hooked.  The above picture shows him checking out one of the galaxies.

Now onto the youngest child: Mary Grace had her first official bath in the big tub.  She displaces too much water in the infant tub, so it was time to make the transition.  As you can see from the above picture, she thoroughly enjoyed it.

As soon as Sarah and Hannah saw her in the tub, they immediately wanted to join her.

Cheese!

The biggest sister with the littlest sister enjoying some fun in the tub.

Christopher and Sarah on the local news...

Back in March, I took the kids along with other homeschool families to the Dallas Heritage Villlage in Old City Park for a field trip.  It just so happened that the local FOX4 news was there the same day video taping a segment for their Lone Star Adventures.  Christopher and Sarah ended up in a couple portions of the video.  Christopher first appears in the lower left corner when a man demonstrates and explains pottery.  Then both Christopher and Sarah appear sitting at a table planting sunflower seeds.  Christopher is wearing a charcoal golf shirt with a white stripe at the top and Sarah is wearing a hot pink t-shirt.  If you click on this link, you can watch it: http://www.myfoxdfw.com/dpp/news/fox_4_features/Lone_Star_Adventures_Heritage

A glimpse of life in March through photos...

Tomorrow is the last day of March but it feels like March just started!

Mary Grace turned 6 months old, started eating cereal and weighed in at 18 lbs. 11 oz. at her 6 mos. check-up.  Hannah weighed 5 1/2 ounces LESS than that at her 12 mos. check-up!  I thought for sure, Mary Grace must be my biggest baby.  But after  sorting through the baby files I found that Sarah weighed over 19 lbs. and Christopher weighed over 20 lbs. at their respective 6 mos. check-ups.

We had a glorious week of Spring Break where we didn't have to be anywhere during the week, so we didn't go anywhere.  It was amazingly relaxing.  Here is Nana with her girls.

Hannah turned 2 on the 27th.  Wouldn't you know she'd have to go and get a black eye just in time for her birthday pictures?  She fell from the bench in our kitchen and hit her upper cheek on something on the way down.  The bruise drained into her eye socket over night giving her this nice little shiner on her fair skin.

Hannah is speaking so much more clearly these days and acting like such a 'big girl'.  She mimics her older sister and wants to do everything herself.  Even though she has officially entered the 'terrible twos', she has retained her very sweet nature, giving hugs and kisses and saying things like, "I wuv you so much" and "Oh, fank you!"

The sisters together at the Chinese restaurant (our favorite spot for birthday celebrations, it seems).  That balloon in the background was the object of much quarreling between the girls and much angst for their mother.  

A sign of the terrible twos: Hannah declared ownership over the balloon, her presents, her food, her water, and anything within reach with these dreaded words, "This is MINE!"  I really don't remember her saying this phrase so repeatedly up until this day.  That box on the table contained a toy sail boat with Jesus and the 12 disciples as figurines.  She even yelled, "This is MY Jee-us...No! That's MY Jee-us!"

She even staked her claim on the whole cake by opening her jaws and putting her tongue on the side of the cake.  "This is most definitely MINE!"

She clearly finished her piece more quickly than I had a chance to finish mine, so she reached over to my plate and said, "This is mine."  I may be a little more than 30 years past the terrible twos, but I asssured her that that piece was MINE.

Afterwards I took the kids to a public playground in Frisco and had a blast.  It was such a pretty evening and we had the whole place to ourselves.  Sarah climbed the highest on everything and, as the oldest girls are want to do, told her brother and sister where to go and what to do next.

Hannah peeks over the wall.

Ever-cautious Christopher.  He never climbs too high or does anything 'too risky'.  This kid is happier reading about or drawing pictures of the solar system (his latest obsession) than he is on a bike.

Happy Mary Grace with her toothless grin and big dimples.

MG is eating cereal like a pro and can't seem to get enough of it.  As you can see, she is starting to sit upright really well.

Saturday afternoon - We came home from a birthday party, got baths and then plopped in front of some cartoons for rest and Hannah just zonked out in the chair next to Sarah.

While we were away...

John and I just got back from a reunion with our cohort in St. Louis.  I'll write about that later if I get time, but I wanted to quickly jot down some of the funny things the kids said while we were away and immediately after we returned.

After we loaded the kids into the van and kissed them good-bye, Nana (John's mom) told me that Hannah was saying, "Bye bye, Mindy" as they were pulling out of our driveway.

One cold morning, Nana firmly told the kids that they had to keep their shoes on if they wanted to play outside.  After a while, Sarah approached Nana and said, "Nana, can I take my shoes off now, 'cuz my foots are bored."  

After Nana and Pop bathed the kids Monday evening, Christopher threw the towel into the bathtub that was still filled with water.  When I learned of this, I said, "Christopher - what in the world did you do that for?  We don't put bath towels in the water!"  He looked at me and earnestly asked, "Then why do we call it a 'bath towel'?"

When we arrived to pick up the kids at Nana and Pop's house, they were all going crazy trying to tell us all of the fun things they did while we were away.  I then said, "Ok, now I want to hear a report from Nana and Pop on how you guys behaved while Mommy and Daddy were away."  As Nana began to gush about how good they were, Christopher interrupted, "Well, there was some disobedience, but NO consequences!"  

The other day while we were driving to the grocery store, Christopher said, "Mommy, that sign says 40 miles per hour...Pop told me to tell you how fast you're supposed to drive."

Yesterday, the kids and I walked to the playground and Nana drove to meet us there.  Sarah was riding her bike and said, "Mommy and Chri-ofer are walking and I'm riding my bike.  But Chri-ofer doesn't like to ride his bike because he's scared...and Hannah and Mary Grace ride in the stroller because they're babies...but Nana can't walk to the playground because she's old."

Last night the kids went to the Explorer Kids program at our church.  After the puppet show, the teacher asked the kids if they knew of anyone they could tell about Jesus.  She then asked if anyone had a sister or grandmother they could tell.  Christopher raised his hand and yelled, "My grandmother is 67 years old!"

Copy cats

One of the funniest, adorable, and sometimes alarming things that you get to witness as a parent is your children copying your behavior and manerisms or repeating what you say.  I thought it was pretty comical that Christopher would begin his answer to almost every question with, "Well..." until I heard Sarah do it on a regular basis.  Then I realized that's how I begin all of my answers to their questions; they simply learned this response from me.  

After a very full morning of homeschooling on Wednesday, I persuaded my wiggly 5-year-old to get through his history timeline and Latin memory work with the promise of a Starburst upon completion.  As soon as he was finished, he triumphantly took his Starburst into the family room to show Nana, who was reading books to Sarah.  Sarah naturally wanted one too, so she came into the kitchen to see where the stash was.  I had her sit down and simply go through her number recognition so that she could earn a treat just like Christopher did.  She took great pride and satisfaction in this.  After she picked out a sucker for herself, she said, "I want to take another one to give to Hannah."  I let her take one to Hannah, who was happily playing in the toyroom. Moments later, I heard Sarah asking Hannah her catechism questions while dangling the tasty sucker behind her back!  "Hannah, who made you?  Who made you, Hannah?"  Ha!  She was making Hannah "earn" her treat as well.  Hilarious.

Sarah's latest funnies...

Phonics Phun:

While I am happy to report that Sarah, now age 4, is able to make the L sound in words like "color" and "yellow", I am also tickled to share what she confidently told us yesterday:

"Mommy, F says ffff ffff fff as in fank you very much!"

Random:

Today during lunch while Sarah was munching on a cookie, she said, "Mommy, I just love to pee in the gwass!"

On omnipresence and incarnation...

Christopher, our 5 year old, has asked me on a few different occasions if God is bigger than Jupiter.  I've told him that God is bigger than the entire universe.  Not able to get his mind around that, he asked, "How can God be bigger than outer space?"  I said, "Well, remember God is everywhere."  "But how can God be everywhere?"  I said, "Well, God is a spirit and is bigger than everything He created and...well, that's just a really hard thing for little people like us to understand, isn't it?"

The other day while the kids and I were driving down the road in the minivan, Christopher asked me, "Mommy, if God is everywhere, does that mean that we are driving over God?" Chuckling at first but then wanting to give him a serious answer, I confidently replied, "No Christopher, remember that God is a spirit and doesn't have a body like men."  I was hopeful this would satisfy him since the answer recalled one of the catechism questions he has memorized. But no.  He then said, "So does that mean we are driving on God's non-body?"

Today as we were driving home from church, our 4-year old, Sarah asked, "Mommy, is Jesus in the van?"  Happy that I could again refer back to already-memorized catechisms I replied, "Yes Sarah!  Remember, God is everywhere and Jesus is God."  Unsatisfied, Sarah demanded, "No, I said is Jesus right here next to me in this van!"

Then after we arrived home, Hannah and Sarah were sitting together on the sofa reading a book and I noticed that Hannah had something in her mouth.  I immediately asked her to spit it out and saw that it was the baby Jesus from their Playmobile nativity set.  I found myself laughing while saying, "No, Hannah - don't put baby Jesus in your mouth!"

On the one hand, it is true that God is a spirit and does not have a body like men.  This is an incredibly abstract concept for us to grasp, let alone to explain to our children.  On the other hand, John 1:14 is also true - "The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us."  This infinite God who created the universe and everything in it, entered our world by taking on human flesh.  This is Christmas - God became a man.  I find that my children better understand and grasp who God is when they hear about Jesus.  In Jesus, "all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell."  (Colossians 1:19)

Sarah's 4th birthday

Our Sarah turned 4 years old today (at 3:36 a.m., to be exact...).  I told her this morning that when people ask how old she is now, she can't say "3" anymore because she's older.  She paused for a second and then said, "But my feet aren't bigger."  I guess she thought she'd undergo a dramatic growth spurt overnight or something.

It is becoming a tradition in our family to celebrate birthdays at our favorite local Chinese restaurant.  After we ate our fill of our favorite dishes (it's funny, the wait staff there can tell us what we're going to order before we do!), we got out the cake and candles for Sarah.  Hannah, as you can see, was very eager to get her hands on that cake.

The days leading up to her birthday, Sarah would tell us that we would sing her Happy Birthday but that she would not.  What's funny is that when people told her "Happy Birthday" today, she would turn around and say to them, "Happy Birthday!"  And when we sang Happy Birthday to her, she sang it to herself several times for fun.

Hannah was victorious in sneaking some chocolate from the cake before the candles were blown out.

Sarah has always been 'famous' in our family for her great cheeks.  We think Mary Grace just might have her beat, however. 

Christopher and Daddy enjoying the cake.  (It's rare to get a picture of Christopher smiling like a normal person these days).

Hannah got more than just a taste of that chocolate cake.

The gift below was one of Nana's finds.  As soon as she opened it and Nana started explaining to Sarah how it worked, Sarah was removing her shoes and socks and climbing into this get-up! She began walking around the restaurant giggling with delight!

An entertaining and memorable event - MG's baptism

"The heart of a man plans his way but the LORD establishes his steps." (Proverbs 16:9)

Before the worship service yesterday, I had these grand visions (or delusions of grandeur) of my 3 older children obediently and angelically standing in front of the congregation as our 4th baby would be baptized.  I even "prepped" them for this event by instructing Christopher to stand close to me and Sarah to hold tightly to Hannah's hand since I had to hold Mary Grace.  Being that John would be doing the baptizing, I was prepared to corral the kids on my own.  At least I thought I was prepared.  Kids have such a knack of going way beyond your expectations...but in a completely different direction!

Now why on earth would I have such ridiculous expectations?  When Christopher was our only child, I remember welling up with all sorts of tender emotions during his baptism.  When Sarah was baptized, I remember wrestling my 19 1/2 month old Christopher just to keep him still and feeling a bit frazzled afterwards rather than misty-eyed.  When Hannah was baptized just last year, I recall both Christopher and Sarah having a grand ol' time hopping down the steps of the stage.  Mary Grace's baptism yesterday proved to be more like the last two and less like the first.    

Here you see John and I straining to listen and respond to our baptismal vows that Patrick was reading to us.  Sarah and Christopher walked up to the front by themselves and left me with Hannah and Mary Grace, so John came to the rescue since I couldn't get Sarah to stay on her task of holding Hannah's hand.  Christopher took it upon himself to grab Hannah's hand and keep her from running away, but he tends to be a little less nurturing and gentle than Sarah would be so Hannah resisted his efforts.  Sarah took great interest in the flower arrangements and all of the cool objects on the communion table.  Hannah kept grabbing the microphone on Daddy's robe and pulling it off.  When we responded "I do" to the baptismal vows, Hannah grabbed Daddy's nose for fun.  Then to top it off, I saw Christopher doing dinosaur charades out of the corner of my eye.  

John put Hannah down, picked up the baptismal bowl and handed it to Patrick.  I handed Mary Grace to John and then quickly scooped up Hannah from climbing on the front row chairs.  As soon as the cold water hit Mary Grace's head, she began to wail and John said, "Well, here Mommy..."  The congregation cracked up because as soon as John started to give Mary Grace back to me, he said, "Nevermind" realizing I already had my hands full with Hannah.  As he began to tell the congregation about Mary Grace, Sarah thought it would be great fun to play hide-and-seek underneath his big black robe.  By this point, the congregation was roaring with laughter and we had lost complete control over the entire situation (not sure we ever had it in the first place).  

John quickly tied up his comments and I soon realized that we didn't have a good exit strategy since John had to go back to the pulpit for the Scripture reading.  I put Hannah down, took a loudly crying Mary Grace back into my arms and began to walk them both down to the nursery wing.  Thankfully Patrick had the presence of mind to walk Christopher and Sarah in the opposite direction to children's church.  Maybe we should have done a "dry run" (no pun intended) beforehand, but then it would have been so much less chaotic and therefore less entertaining.   We captured the whole blessed event on video so that we can remember this 3-ring circus in years to come.

The expression on Christopher's face above suggests that he had been scheming and planning this chaos all along.

Here he is pretending to be an Struthiomimus dinosaur.

Being that Hannah is only 18 months old and has no prior experience standing up in front of the congregation, we did expect the most action from her.  

Sarah LOOKS sweet and innocent...

My mom thoroughly enjoyed being the photographer of the day.  I saw her laughing behind the camera during Sarah's hide-and-seek under John's robe.  As we were packing everyone up to finally leave the sanctuary, we realized that we didn't have any pictures with her in them.  We were too exhausted to round up all of the kids who were running throughout the sanctuary by this time, but we did manage to get a picture of her holding Hannah (above) and Mary Grace (below).

All of this excitement even wore out Mary Grace.  What a day!  

Now that I have had a little time to stand back and reflect, I am truly thankful that God's covenant promises are for believers and their offspring as we seek to raise our children up to know, love and worship the risen Christ.  And even though it made for an eventful day, I also think it is a wonderful privilege that each of our children has been baptized by their Daddy.  

"And I will establish my covenant between Me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you." (Genesis 17:7)