This past sunday our sweet little boy was baptized. At Uptown Church the father's are invited to give a blessing to their child before the congregation. Below is the blessing Tyler gave to our son.
Henry-
You are remarkable! And your mother and I love you a lot! But, no matter how much we love you- inevitably there will be times when we fail you. And as you grow up and experience the many things the world has to offer- none of it, in and of itself, can ultimately satisfy you. So our prayer for you is simply this:
That you would believe in Jesus Christ- And subsequently, that you would be enriched in every way. That everything in your life would be illuminated, and found to be sanctified, by your King and Savior!
And finally, we want you to know (and embrace) the reasons we gave you the name Henry Lewis. First of all, we like the name...we think it sounds good. But even more importantly- you get the name Henry from your great grandfather Nietfeld- he is a man of quiet confidence, humility, generosity, and he loves the God who redeemed him! We pray that these characteristics would be yours as well. You get the name Lewis from one of your daddy's favorite authors- C.S. Lewis. And like Lewis, we pray that you would not only become a man of serious contemplation regarding your faith, but also that you would sincerely experience (even at an early age) what Lewis describes as
the sweet defeat of your rebellious will in surrendering to Jesus as Savior and King!
Here is little sweetness himself! I wish I had a video of the actual baptism because as serious as this sacrament is, there was quite a bit of silliness going on thanks to Maggie. Somehow she had found a rubberband and had it up front with her and was aiming (in "firing" position)it at the congregation and when that dropped she decided to do some dancing in daddy's arms while he was reading the blessing and then her shoe fell off. And before any of that happened Henry spit up all over the front of himself (I guess he was a little nervous). When we finally got through with it all Maggie headed off to the nursery waving bye bye to everyone as she happily left the room with Tyler. It was quite precious now, not so much at the time, but funny memories nonetheless.
Here's Henry receiving his blessing.
We were grateful to our pal Pastor Dave for performing the baptism. Dave and his family are great friends of ours and we were so glad that he could be involved on this special day.
Back at the homestead we enjoyed some brunch with the out of town family members that drove up for the morning service. Here is Henry with his Great Grandma Grinton.
The grandparent shot, they are getting quite good at this one.
Grams and Dog spent a few days with us for the baptism festivities. Maggie always enjoys having a good ole' fashioned tea party with her Grams.
Dog gave Henry his first piggy bank donation. You can see that Henry is quite excited and grateful.
Aunt Roomie stayed with us for a few days too and we had so much fun with her. She got the name roomie because she slept on an air mattress in Maggie's room and we told Maggie that Melodee was going to be her roommate for a little while. And from thence she became "Roomie" although pronounced more like "Woomee" by Maggie. Maggie is also really into making snowmen out of her playdoh. She is holding one up in the picture above.
This is the butterfly pavilion. The butterflies were very active because they had just been fed. They were all aflutter (is that one word?). You can see one if you look closely at this picture, it is on the pink blossom that Maggie is staring at.
Here is the whole group minus the mommies and Henry. And, they are actually sitting and looking at the camera.
Inside these little holes are turtles and in the glass behind the rock is a snake and a mink (not in the same cage however).
Maggie and Bennett enjoyed the play area in their smocks. You can see that Bennetts is really protecting her clothes from getting wet.
And, yet another area to play. We had a really fun time and we were even able to enjoy lunch outside at the picnic tables because the weather was so nice.
Drum roll please....ta da here is Maggie's Easter dress. Yes yes I know Easter is still a ways off, but I took on this sewing project and wasn't sure how long it would take me to make a dress so I started early. I have never sewn a whole dress before and so I am pretty excited about this little number. More pics to come this Easter... stay tuned.
And, whats a posting without pictures of the man in charge while Tyler's out. Here he is checking out his gamecock mobile.
And, here he is enjoying his swing.
