Celebration Sunday

The past three weeks at church has been our Stewardship/Commitment drive.  Our new mission/vision statement centers around three verbs: Connect.  Grow.  Serve.

Today was the culmination of that where we turn in our pledge cards and have some fun!  The usual five services were combined into two this morning, with a meal and activities following each one.

We hit the first service, and headed to the park at around 10:30 for lunch and fun.

The girls did some bouncing.  I appreciated that they had two separate bouncy houses – one for little kids and one for big ol’ rowdy ones.

Here is Natalie with Courtney, one of her friends from school.

The blurry figure in the front is Anna; you can see Joanna in the back, looking outside.

Miss Natalie, taking a little rest.  You can see Gran, Emma, and Lisa outside in the background.

Joanna loved the slide.  This shot is a little immodest, but I just love her flying pigtails!

After some good bouncing, we had fried chicken and fixins’ as well as cookies and lemonade and cotton candy!  When Joanna pointed to the cotton candy and said, “What’s that?”  I felt as though somehow I had deprived her of this.  How could she be 3 1/2 years old and not know what cotton candy is?  I detest the stuff myself, but it’s a staple of childhood and American society and all of that.  Fortunately Gran was there to share some with her.

They also had a trackless TRAIN!!

The girls (especially Joanna) loved it!  The girls and I rode first, while Matt was finishing up his lunch.  I don’t have pics of Natalie because she was on my lap.  Mom and David were also there, and they took some pics of our ride with Mom’s camera.  She said she’d get me those today, so I’ll post a train update later!

Then Daddy rode with the girls in the sunny car.  I was getting pretty hot and tired by this point.  :)

 

I think the train was such a good idea and very fun!  It was a gorgeous day for this celebration, and we really enjoyed it!

I like the look on people’s faces when we have this conversation:

Person: “When are you due?”

Me: “Tomorrow.”

What’s even more fun (but only in conversation) is when I say “yesterday.”  Hopefully Little Man will come before then!  Of course, we’re also happy to wait as long as he needs.  My 40 week appointment is in the morning, so I’ll update after that!