| Baptism |
Some random details about Eva and Elijah's baptism party.
On Sunday November 12th Eva and Elijah were baptized. Lance and I planned the service which took place in the afternoon at CLBI (the Bible school Lance works at). Our friends Matt and Claire led the service. Matt is a pastor in Sherwood Park (45min from Camrose). Friends were also involved in scripture reading (Jena & Melanie) and music (Pete).
A passage that was important to us in making the decision to have them baptized is Mark 10:13-16:
People were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. 14When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. 15I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it." 16And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them.
Matt shared from this passage, and mom embroidered parts of it on their gowns.
This passage is one of my favorite passages about Jesus. He's pretty clear here about the way he views children. We are like the parents in the story, bringing our children to Jesus to have him bless them. Jesus welcomes children. He took those little ones in his arms and blessed them. We trust that through their baptism he blessed Eva and Elijah too.
We think baptism is full of mystery and that no one really knows how God works through it, or what he does in it. One thing thing I love about infant baptism is that it does not rely on knowledge and understanding, there were no right answers that Eva and Elijah needed to give in order to be baptized. It is a picture of grace. Free. They did nothing to be worthy, to deserve it. Funny how I think that it is any different with me, that somehow because of my understanding and my cognitive faith, because of my behaviour and my doing good things for God, that I have earned grace...hmmm.
side note: I was baptized when I was 5 or 6 and grew up in a Mennonite church - no infant baptism - I embrace both infant and adult/believers baptism - many good things about both. I'm guessing that most of my readers are my Mennonite youth group girlfriends -- though who knows how many lurkers are reading this blog. anyways, if you have questions feel free to ask.
Many friends and family were there -- and many others wished they could be. We had the chairs arranged in a half circle - we wanted a relaxed friendly feel. Matt gave a children's message (very important to me). Lance's parents threw a party afterwards at the house. Very lovely relaxed and warm, lots of candles, good company, delicious food - an expression of love for us and the kids.
Mom sewed the gowns. I called her Sunday night to ask if she'd be able to do it. It was either her or me -- you didn't know that I sew? Well I don't, I'm just overly confident and figure it can't be that hard -- and we're all glad it was her not me. She took her sewing machine on her getaway to Harrsion. Sorry dad! She had the gowns in the mail on Wednesday. They are absolutely beautiful, more lovely than Lance and I could have imagined. They are an unbleached linen. Keepsakes that's for sure.
Sponsors/Godparents:
We see sponsors as people who will have special relationships with our kids. People who will take initiative in the spiritual growth of eva and elijah, pray for them and love them in creative ways.
For Eva: Nathan (who prefers the title "god-daddy") and Melanie, and Phil and Ingrid
For Elijah: Pete and Jenna, and Erik Rust (the son of the president of our school)
Here are some photos.
The hem of Eva's gown.
The hem of Elijah's gown. |
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| sick |
the kids and i are sick again. colds, please pray for us.
lance's ankle is healing but he is still quite crippled.
more later.
ao |
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| Soap and Saving Money |
I've been meaning to blog this money saving tip for quite some time. I'm quite pleased with myself and feel like I've "beat the system" with this idea.
I have a foaming soap dispenser that we bought from Tupperware - it cost a lot and now they've stopped making them. Anyways, I've been happy with how it works - you put in about an inch of soap, and 4 inches of water so you get way more mileage out of your soap. Saves money.
When I was visiting some friends in the states a couple years ago they had special kids foaming soap. I realized that if I bought some soap like that I could reuse the dispenser, filling it myself.
So that's it. If you want to save money on soap go out and buy yourself a foaming soap dispenser - probably costs $4 and comes filled with soap. When the original soap is gone just add maybe a half inch of soap and add water till about an inch and a half from the top, shake it up and use. The soap you add can me liquid hand soap or dish soap.
In other news - the kids and I went for a winter walk today. We haven't been on a walk in weeks - the weather has been yucky and we hadn't got our new stroller up and running. We were given a Chariot stroller/bike trailer as a hand me down from some friends. What a gift. Today was the first time I've used it - wow. It is so easy to push and handles rough patches of snow/ice really well. It is way more weather proof than our other stroller so I feel better about the kids staying warm. Today it was warm (it's funny when 0 degrees celcius is warm!) so I didn't worry about them being cold. They fell asleep almost instantly, but I had an absolutley lovely time being outside. Ahhh.
And why didn't Lance come along on this lovely family outing you ask? Yesterday at basketball he hurt his ankle pretty bad. It's not broken, but the doctor thinks he may have torn some ligaments. What is a wife supposed to do when her husband is writhing on the ground moaning? Well run outside to get some snow to ice the ankle of course. Lance's dad had been watching basketball so he took Lance to the hospital and Auntie Jane came home with me to help with the babies.
Please pray for speedy healing for Lance. He's not is too much pain so that's good. He's been as helpful as a one legged man can be. He lays on the futon - with his foot up - entertains babies and does diaper changes. He's also getting to play a lot of NHL 07 on Xbox so he is enjoying that.
Well the kids are sleeping right now and I should take this opportunity to shower. I've read that new moms should make time to pamper themselves by getting manicures or nice haircuts - I was talking to another new mom friend of mine and she agreed that just getting to have a shower is a treat.
Hope you are well.
Aimee
ps. A big congratulations to Kortney and Jordon, many blessings on your new life together! |
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| Links |
Hi guys,
wanted to let you know that I've added two links.
One to Stephen Hubbard's photo blog - he posts a photo each day, take a look.
Also added a link to the McMahon family blog -- this is the family I told you about with the tiny twins born early. You can read updates on their twins on this site -- please keep praying for these girls (Faith and Mikaila) they are both fighting infections and struggling to develop their lungs. According to the doctors on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the best) their lungs are at about a 3.
I've also updated the links to Engler's and Kristal's blogs.
Finally I have removed Leah's nonexsistant blog (which, by the way, was very interesting to read) from the list. |
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| Joy |
I have been experiencing many moments of joy lately. Here are some of the things that have brought me joy:
SNOW (for two weeks now)
Shoveling snow - who would've thought - but it's outside, and excercise and alone!
Eva laughing like crazy playing peekaboo with Auntie Jane
Rudy Wiebe's memoir - Of this Earth (his story is very similar to my Grandpa Klassen's - growing up on the Canadian prairie in a Russian Mennonite family - I absolutely love getting to sit down and jump back into the story. Extremely well written, Wiebe is and incredible wordsmith)
Elijah's HUGE smiles
Two new shirts purchased with a gift certificate from zellers (i can't believe how much i'm enjoying my new shirts - they are exactly what i was looking for - soft, longsleeve, a few buttons (called a henley i think), also i love getting a good deal and they were two for 20, and i didn't pay a cent because of the gift certificate)
Carolyn Arends Christmas Cd -- particularly the joyful invitation song, "come and see":
Come and See
Christmas 2003
Carolyn Arends
Have you heard, have you heard
All the rumors are true
Spread the word, spread the word
This is such good news
The dream is not a dream anymore
Nothing is the same as before
Come and see, come and see
He is laying in the straw
He’s a new baby boy
Who’s the hope of us all
Come and hear, come and hear
It’s a sound both sweet and strange
It’s the great love of God
In the cry of a babe
It’s the great love of God
In the cry of a babe
See the star, see the star
It will light our way
Hear the song, hear the song
Hurry to the place
‘Cause if his mama says that it’s alright
We can see the face of God tonight
Come and see, come and see …
Seeing is believing, yeah
Believing is seeing, yeah
Come and see, come and see …
Seeing is believing, yeah
Believing is seeing, yeah
hear a clip here: http://www.signpostmusic.com/arends/irrational.htm
back to the list:
spending lazy sundays with lance's family -enjoying delicious food and warm company
getting to spend an over an hour just me, wandering around downtown and enjoying a steamed milk at one of our 2 coffeeshops (that's right, camrose has only 2 coffeeshops - well three if you count the starbucks recently added to Safeway)
the kids' fuzzy hair - Eva's is spikey and Elijah's is a little longer and very fuzzy
seeing deer in our neighborhood (one day i saw 5 in a park near our house, another day i pushed the stroller off the path to follow one just so i could see it longer)
planning Eva and Elijah's baptism with Lance (they are being baptized on Sunday, if you are in the Camrose area you are very welcome to come. It will be at CLBI at 3pm, this Sunday)
Melanie is coming to the baptism - I am hugely excited about this! (Nathan and Melanie are Godparents for Eva!)
Date night tonight!
Kids who are getting better at napping! Hooray. I have more energy too so that means during one of their naps I nap, and during another nap I'll actually do something else - it's been a long time since I have even thought of doing housework, it feels good to contribute even a little in this way.
Sugar free treats - I have recently baked blueberry muffins and peach raspberry cobbler -- delicious if I do say so myself. I can't remember the last time I baked something - 10 months ago, maybe more?
Well that's all for now. I'll end with a couple photos for your viewing pleasure.
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| Faith and Mikaila |
are two very tiny twin girls who were born on monday at 25 weeks gestation. Faith weighed 1.5 pounds at birth and
mikaila weighed 1.75 pounds. They are currently in the neonatal intensive care unit at bc children's hospital. lance went to bible school with their dad graham. please pray for these little girls and their family (mom- karyn, brother isaiah). a long and rollercoaster of a journey is ahead of them (months of the girls being in the hospital). pray particularly for faith's lungs. pray also that they would be protected from infection. karyn is healing from a c-section and has the standard fluctuating postpartum hormones on top of the shock and trauma of meeting these little ones so soon. she is also pumping milk for the girls so please pray that that goes well too. pray that graham would be able to support and lead his family and that he would have excellent support from those around him.
thank you.
God can do more, immeasurably more, than we could ask or imagine.
as we heard about these twins we were made deeply grateful for the gift of our healthy practically full-term twins.
aimee |
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posted by Aimee at 
