Jack's Last Day - KIA "Gymtastics"

Yesertday was Jack's final day in his Kids in Action "Gymtastics" Class before summer starts. All the parents were invited to attend and participate (a little scary). Jack did a great job in his class, and he even managed to help one of the other little boys in his rotation group. Jack's favorite skills are the rings, working on the balance beam, and tumbling. He does a really good forward roll now, and he was rolling all over the place at KIA. This is a picture of Jack doing his favorite "Spider Man" move:

He has also perfected his climbing skills - this was one of the only places where I could get him to be still enough for a photo:

At the end of the class, we all joined our little gymnasts in doing the Kids in Action Dance. Jack has been practicing this dance at home for a couple of weeks now, and I'll have to get him to perform for the video camera so we can post some video of the dance. However, I will spare you the pain of watching Mommy attempt the dance with Jack! After the dance was over, Jack's name was called for one final forward roll before he received his certificate and his medal:

He is very proud of his #1 medal - Yeah Jack!

Big-Time "God Thing" Moment

Last night was a terrific night of celebration and new beginnings. Michael and I attended the Ordination & Commissioning Service lead by Bishop Janice Riggle Huie during the Texas Annual Conference held at The Woodlands UMC (Thank you AUNT ERIN for babysitting!). Many people from KUMC attended to witness and celebrate the Commissioning of our associate pastor, Patrick Evans. I can only imagine that the service was particularly special for Patrick, because he and his family attended The Woodlands UMC before he started his journey into ministry. I basically cried my way through the whole service. Thank you, pregnancy hormones!

At the end of the service, Bishop Huie did something that our senior pastor Rev. Joe Fort said was a new thing that he had not seen done before. It has been a long time since Michael and I attended one of these services, so we will go with Joe on that one. Anyway, at the end of the service, Bishop Huie asked for all those who had recently been called into ministry to come to the altar to receive prayer for their calling and for their future ministry in the Church. Michael left our perch at the top of the balcony and went down to the altar, where he was met by our previous pastor from Memorial Drive UMC, Rev. Chuck Simmons, as well as our current pastors at Kingwood UMC. I am not sure that ANYONE knew that Bishop Huie was going to add this element to the service, and it was very powerful for Michael and me.

Here is a picture of Michael at the altar rail that was snapped by one of the Conference photographers. I almost cried again when I saw this on the Conference website because I wasn't able to get a good picture last night:

Thankfully, there were several other pastors there to take people's information and make sure that everyone at the altar was aware of the upcoming Candidacy Conference in August. Before last night, we had no idea that Michael needed to complete his Candidacy Application by TOMORROW in order to participate in the conference this August. Joe went immediately into action, and he was amazing - he helped us negotiate our way through the huge crowd to find our District Superintendent, Jack Shelton. Rev. Shelton was very gracious, and he just asked that Michael send him an email to confirm Michael's belief that he had received a calling and expressing his interest in the Candidacy program. Rev. Shelton even agreed to work with his assistant to ensure that Michael's application could be sent in without the necessary signatures.

So, the God Thing: If we hadn't gone to the service last night, and Bishop Huie hadn't closed the service in the way that she did, and if all those people had not been there to help Michael at the altar and after the service, Michael never would have found out about this deadline, and he would have tacked on about one year's worth of delay in the Candidacy process, because the Candidacy Conference is only held once each year when a new Candidacy class is formed. As soon as we got home, Michael sent his email to Rev. Shelton, and while he was doing that, we received today's Upper Room Email Devotional, which contained a reflection on I Samuel 3: 1-10 - the very same passage that Michael came across during his Walk to Emmaus that helped Michael hear and comprehend his calling. I do not believe that any of this is just a coincidence. I believe that God is continuing to confirm the path he has set for Michael, and we will continue to watch and listen for other messages from Him indicating what we should do next.

Please continue to keep Michael in your prayers. I will post more about his calling and his status in the process when we know what happens with his Candidacy Application. If you would like to read more about last night's service, you can follow the link below. And by the way, if you haven't heard Bishop Huie speak, please find time to do so when you can. Her message last night was inspiring and challenging, and she is very gifted in proclaiming God's word.

http://www.txcumc.org/news_detail.asp?PKValue=632

Here a Hanger, There a Hanger, Everywhere a Hanger!

These pictures are really out of focus, so please excuse the bad photography. It is hard to capture Abby in motion with my camera phone, but I wanted to share with you some of our Memorial Day weekend. While Jack was with Meemaw and Gramps at the Casino in Lake Charles, Michael and I stayed home with Abby and continued to work in our room to clean out 6 years worth of accumulation from our closets - YIKES! As we reclaimed hangers, Abby had a lot of fun "helping" her Daddy get them organized to go back in a box:She also enjoyed the bag full of hotel shampoos, soaps, etc. that will go to the Seafarers' Center in Beaumont. I am not that worried about Abby having to go without her toys while we have the house on the market - she removed bottles from the bag, shook them up to see whether each bottle made a noise, put them in another bag, and then repeated the process over and over again. We still have a little bit left to do in our room, but we also made some big headway in Jack's room while he was away. Thanks to Meemaw and Gramps, the removal and reorganization of toys over the weekend was a non-event, and Jack was pretty happy with the end result. He even got to help Michael take down the train table after he got back home - Jack thought Michael's drill was "amazing."

We then spent the afternoon of Memorial Day with friends, and enjoyed some time in the pool with Abby and Jack. I will update this post later with some other pictures from the weekend, including some of Michael and Abby at Brooke's graduation party, where Abby was fascinated with the grass...I just realized that most of the pictures of our children on this blog feature them in nothing more than their underwear or diaper. Hmmm. It just became really important to put up some more pictures of clothed children, so that we can actually remember that Jack and Abby did have clothing, and that they wore it, on occasion.

Getting Ready to Move

Now that we have decided to put our house on the market, we finally painted our master bedroom and bath. Those of you who were fortunate enough to visit our Master in the past know that for over two years I have struggled to find the right shade of blue or gray for the room. As a result, we lived with several large squares of different paint colors on the walls for a VERY long time. Not the best look for showing the house to prospective buyers! We never found the right color, so we have chosen a very marketable shade from Sherwin Williams - Bungalow Beige. It actually has turned out very nicely, but the fumes are really too much for me to bear right now. Yuck!

While our bedroom is deconstructed, we are going to start the process of staging our house for the real estate market. I have discovered that this means packing up at least 50% of what is currently in our house and storing it away while our house is on the market. This includes the vast majority of the children's toys, which we will store at Grandaddy's house to allow Jack and Abby "visitation" time with their favorite play things. I need to just embrace this process and welcome the opportunity to de-clutter our lives, but frankly, I am feeling totally overwhelmed by the prospects of getting our house ready to show and keeping it that way. Oh well, new carpeting is next on the list, and that should generate lots of great pictures as we move every piece of furntiture in our house! Hooray!

For those of you who may be wondering why we would EVER choose to list our house in the current market, here is the brief explanation: We are preparing to make some major life changes as Michael follows his calling into the ministry. We are not sure right now where his calling will lead our family, or even where he will attend Seminary. So, our short term goal is to move into a smaller house that will allow us the freedom to exponentially increase our savings while also positioning us to to sell and move quickly a second time when it is time for Michael to attend school full time.

After your husband announces that he has been called into ministry, you hear all sorts of stories. Some good, some great, some funny, and some sad, but all relating to things that happened along the way that either confirmed or undermined someone's confidence in their calling. I have had several people share with me stories of families they knew who started doing exactly what Michael and I are doing now: exploring schools, selling homes, rethinking careers, etc. Certainly, there have been some key things to indicate to both of us that Michael's confidence in his calling is well-placed, and that this is the path God has set out for us to follow. So, I am overly anxious about selling the house, because I keep hearing these stories from other folks about people who put their house on the market and sold in 2 days, or 1 week as they prepared to go to seminary, almost as another sign from God that this was His plan. If that happens for us, GREAT! But if not, and our house lingers on the market for months like so many others in our neighborhood right now, I know it will inject some doubt into our current thinking. Please pray for us, and me in particular, that I will continue to seek God's will for Michael and our family, and that I will get some discipline to enable me to take things as they come, especially regarding the whole house thing. This is a very exciting time for our family, and I just need to focus on taking it one step at a time. For those who know me well, you know that is a very hard thing for me to do!

Confessions of a Bad Blogger

I just got back from an annual trip to Washington DC for an industry conference, and I really missed Jack and Abby while I was gone. I have to say, this is probably the first trip I have been on in years (since Jack was a baby) that I actually got homesick. I asked Michael to send me photos of the kids while I was away, and I have included two of the pictures he sent to cheer me up. The picture of Abby really shocked me, because her face looks so much less baby-ish than the face I carry in my heart when I leave home.

I meant to post a few things while I was out of town, but the hotel's wireless and ethernet networks were basically non-functional in my room, and I left my air card in the office. Silly me! So, I am trying to get caught up today. While this blog is for all of our family and friends, I am also using it to document some of the things Michael and I will want to remember. Lucky for Michael, Abby has been sick a lot more than usual lately, so he has been staying at home with her while I have been out of town. Our timing always seems to work out that way - I leave town, and one of the kids gets sick. Michael always takes it very well when this happens, and he keeps me updated on how Abby or Jack is doing by email. Here are some excerpts from recent emails that Michael has sent while he has spent time at home with Abby:

I almost just cried. I was sitting on the floor talking to Julie (at the office) and watching Abby play, and she started looking a little sleepy while she was playing with the box of blocks. She plopped down, crawled over to me, pulled herself up on my shirt and put her head on my shoulder. It was the sweetest thing I think I’ve ever seen in my whole life!

Abby is extra snuggly when she is sick...this is not so bad.

I wanted to include these little remembrances in our blog, because one day, it may not be so easy to remember what a sweet little girl Abby was at 1. Also, I am so blessed to have a husband like Michael who is a full partner in all of our parenting responsibilities. He never complains about staying at home with the kids if I need to go into the office, and since I started travelling, I know he has logged way more sick kid time than I have. Here's to Michael - Super Dad!

Jack in the Box Puppet Show

As promised, here is the video of the Jack in the Box Puppet Show, starring Jack. This clip is missing Abby, who had to go to bed before taping. I will put up another video of Abby watching her brother and giggling as soon asI can get them "performing" together.

Jack the Gymnast

Here is Jack, the one and only, showing off his newest talent - the Forward Roll (with jump). If you find his underwear attire a little disturbing, you have our most sincere apologies. He seems to be entering the "it's fun to be naked" phase. More to come on that one...