Archive for the ‘Church’ Category

Mother’s Day (by Ramona)

Sunday, May 9th, 2010

We didn’t celebrate Mother’s Day too much because we were pretty tired from a busy couple of days.  Nat, however, did get me a present – a picture frame with all the boys’ (include Nat’s) handprints.  It was a sweet gift, and we’ll have to find a picture of all the points to put in the frame.

Other than that, we just had a regular day.  We did have a baby dedication today for all the babies born in the past year at our church.  Each family had a chance to say something about their child, and an elder would pray blessings over that child.  Nat explained why we picked the name Jonas Aiden.  Jonas is a version of Jonah, which means dove in Hebrew.  We love the imagery of the Holy Spirit descending on Jesus like a dove when He was baptized as it is written in Matthew.  We found that Jonas was also Lithuanian for John, which means God is gracious.  Ironically, Sean also is a version of John; John in Irish.  Aiden means fiery, and Nat picked that over Austin because Jonas was more “fiery” in the womb than Sean.  Our prayer for Jonas was that he would be gentle and meek like a dove, but also passionate and on fire for the Lord.

Sean did give me a not so pleasant gift of disobedience today.  I’m not sure what got into Sean today.  We were definitely ready for bedtime today since we had a hard time relaxing  with a crazy Sean.  Hopefully, he’ll settle down tomorrow.  :P

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Easter (by Ramona)

Monday, April 5th, 2010

We hadn’t been thinking too much about Easter until late last week because our lives have been so busy with Nat traveling.  We decided that it would be nice for each of the boys to get a basket and for Sean to have an Easter egg hunt at home.  We also decided that we should read the Easter story with the boys so that they can understand what Easter is all about.

This year we watched The Miracle Maker, a movie about Jesus’ life and ministry.  We started watching on Saturday night.  When Sean saw Jesus, he would point to the screen and say “Jesus”.  Sean got tired of watching on Saturday, so we finished the movie on Sunday morning.

Sunday morning, when Sean woke up, we let him open the things in his Easter basket.  He didn’t get any candy, but he got bubbles, a card, sidewalk chalk, a duck stuffed animal, and a Clifford the Big Red Dog DVD.  After opening up his basket, we started his Easter egg hunt.  We had hid the eggs the night before*. We led Sean around the living room and kitchen to help find the eggs.  He caught on to the idea of finding the eggs.  :)   We had to give him some hints, but he got a lot of the eggs by himself.  When he collected all the eggs, he sat down and opened them.  The smaller eggs had fruit snacks, and the bigger eggs had Matchbox cars (courtesy of grandma and grandpa).

We all got dressed for Easter and took some pictures.  Then, we headed to church for Easter breakfast.  We thought breakfast started at 9:30, but it really started at 9AM.  Fortunately, there was plenty of food for us to eat.  Nat graciously volunteered to take Jonas home after breakfast for his nap while I stayed for service.

After service, I headed home with Sean and we waited for Jonas to wake up.  After he woke up, we headed to the F’s for Easter dinner.  The F’s have had us over for Easter dinner since before Sean was born.  The F’s invited some other friends from church for dinner.  We had a great time of enjoying great food and company.  :)   The children had a great time running around.

After dinner, we headed home to put the boys down for a nap (or rest time for Sean).  We fed Sean dinner (Nat and I were still pretty food), and headed over to see the S family.  Then we headed home, put the boys to bed and relaxed the rest of the evening.  It was a good day.

* Nat said the rule was that they had to be visible.

April 4, 2010

Time

Activity

Notes

2:40AM

Wake up

Cried, quiet (we dozed), went back to sleep at 4:20

5:40AM

Feed

8:15AM

Wake up

10:30AM

Put down

Talked

10:40AM

Sleep

12:25AM

Wake up

3:00PM

Put down

Fussed a little (went to fried’s for easter dinner)

3:10PM

Sleep

4:30PM

Wake up

7:00PM

Bedtime

Put down at 7, fussed a little

7:15PM

sleep

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Full House (by Ramona)

Monday, October 19th, 2009

Last night, we decided to have our small group from church over for some pizza.  We weren’t officially haven’t our small group because the leaders went to Chicago to see family for the weekend.  We thought it might be a smaller crowd because we thought the families would like time to do their own thing. Well, it turned out all of our small group came over, except for 3 people; even the leaders came because they got back into town early.  All in all, we had 15 adults and 11 children.  It was pretty packed in our house, but it was great to have so many people over again! :)

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He is Risen (by Ramona)!

Sunday, April 12th, 2009

Whew, Nat and I are pooped after a very busy but fun Easter.  We both didn’t sleep very well last night, so it made us even more tired for today!  We woke up later than we wanted, and as soon as we were up, we were busy busy busy!  I got up to make a breakfast casserole for our church’s Easter breakfast, and Nat took care of Sean by feeding him breakfast.  Then in a span of 45 minutes, we both showered, ironed clothes, and got ready for church.  We had a great time a breakfast at church.  To add to the excitement of Easter, the fire alarm went off at church right after breakfast.  Service started about 15 minutes later, but it didn’t seem to damper anyone’s spirits.

After service, we went home and fed Sean lunch.  We rested a little bit before we headed over to Mr. and Mrs. F’s for Easter dinner.  Mr. and Mrs. F and their family host a lot of young singles for Easter dinner (well, really late lunch), and it never disappoints.  Let me see if I can remember what she cooked–ham, lamb, rolls, salad, peas, carrots, sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes, asparagus.  For dessert, she made strawberry pie (two of them), a black forrest cake, and a meyer lemon cheesecake.  Let me say, everyone was stuffed!  It was a great time for us to hangout with our friends and see the F family since we haven’t seen them for quite some time.  Sean did a fabulous job at taking a nap at their house.  Usually, he’s not a big fan of his Pack N’ Play, so he cries for some time when we put him down.  We were pleasantly surprised that he went down and fell asleep right away and stayed asleep for a couple of hours.  He woke up just in time for dessert (well, he didn’t get dessert, but he got to play and have a granola bar).  :)

Afterwards, we headed back home to rest a little bit.  We packed up some games and Sean’s gears and headed out to Mr. and Mrs. S’s house to hangout.  :)   Mr. and Mrs. S were at the F’s for Easter dinner, so we were all stuffed.  We talked for a little bit, and started playing a board game.  We did eventually get around to a “light” dinner of pizza and pasta salad.  Nat and I took turns playing while the other watched Sean.  He did pretty well at the S’s, but he got cranky towards the end of our game b/c it was bedtime.

Now, we’re home, Sean’s in bed, and I am ready just to veg out for the rest of the night before bed!

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Family Update (by Ramona)

Thursday, August 28th, 2008

Wow, it’s been awhile since I’ve posted anything with sustenance. :)   I think I don’t usually post because we really have nothing going on, but this week has been very busy! :)

I sort of volunteered myself (and Nat) to be the coordinators for the college ministry at our church.  I had a few college students over for dinner at the end of last semester, and I realized that I have a heart to get the students more plugged into the church.  I really wanted them to see what a church family looked like and hopefully give them a desire to be more integrated with the church.  With that in mind, our church kicked off the school year (which started on Monday) with a few events for the college students.  On Sunday, it was our university’s “Quad Day” which is a day where all the student organizations set up booths on the main quad to hand out information.  We had a lot of people walk by that weren’t interested, but there were a few takers.  Hopefully, we got some students interested!  On Tuesday, we had free pizza and some professors from our church talk about how Christians can thrive on campus with their faith.  We had it on the Quad, and unfortunately, I didn’t realize that there was going to be a band.  There were a few people that walked by our area and saw free pizza and just helped themselves to the food without talking to us.  I have to admit, I was a little peeved with them that they just took our food without talking to us.  But, we are called to show the love of Christ, and I was able to hold my tongue.  :P   There were a few people that stopped by and talked with us, so that was encouraging.  On Wednesday, our church met up in the Union to have lunch with some students.  Only one new student showed up (one of the guys that stopped by at pizza), but Nat said they had a good time (I wasn’t there b/c I was babysitting).

With all the activities for our college ministry, we’ve had a busy week! :)   We also had dinner with some friends on Monday night.  I couldn’t believe Erin cooked fried chicken, green beans, and made salad for 4 families!  I think there were 23 people there, granted there were 2 babies, but still, that’s 21 people!  She did a great job! :)   Today, I’m having lunch with a friend, and this weekend we’re planning to have dinner with someone.  We haven’t decided who yet. :)

On top of all of that, Nat is working really hard to get his paper done.  It’s due this Friday, and he’s been working a lot on it.  Each day, he’s been so tired and worn out writing and analyzing the data.  Poor guy.  I hope that he can get it done by tomorrow! :)

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Picture Update (by Ramona)

Monday, June 9th, 2008

We’ve added some pictures online.  :)

Here are some pictures from Nat’s trip to New Orleans.

Here are some pictures from June of Sean.  The last few are of Sean’s new haircut (my friend cut it for me, and I must say it looks better than his bowl cut from before!).

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New Orleans (by Ramona)

Monday, May 12th, 2008

Next week, Nat is leaving with our church to go on a missions trip to New Orleans. They are going for about a week to help clean up some of the remaining aftermath from Katrina. Nat is getting really excited to go on this missions trip; the last one he went to was in 2003 when he went to Morocco.

Sean and I will definitely miss Nat! We hope he has a safe trip down there and a great time with people from our church, the community he’s helping, and the church he’s working with down there! :)

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