Happy Birthday Raleigh!!

We have a 3 year old amongst us!!!  Princess has officially turned 3!!  She was soooo excited to have her special day.  Per her request, she wanted to invite only family, Kennedy and her high school girls (which she somehow thinks they are the same age. Ha!).  We had a Tinkerbell party at the house that was VERY low key.  Let's start at the beginning...

Raleigh's choice for her special birthday breakfast??? A Hot Donald's hash brown!!! We continued the tradition of singing Happy Birthday at every meal...so fun.

 Ra and her best buddy Kennedy

 Opening presents...it's a Tinkerbell!!

 More present fun...

 A rule of thumb when buying a present for Ra...if it sparkles...GET IT!!

 Her big present from her grandparents and parents!!!

Ra and K giving it a "test drive"...they might have run it into the fence or a car...

 Birthday girl and her beautiful cake!!

 Singing Happy Birthday

 Making lots of wishes!!

 Raleigh and Pop reading one of her new books.

 I seriously forgot to take any pictures of the decorations...this is all we got. Oops!! I guess we were having too much fun! 

Here are Ra's owl cupcakes that we made for her class...her class theme was owls...hence the NEED for owl cupcakes!!

Freedom- Rap Battle

During Freedom there are tons of fun things going on constantly. One video series set that they did was Rap Battles. It was crazy to see the kids react and get so excited (plus any time you take something from You Tube or Facebook and make fun of it...instant success). This was the third video and had Pastor Mel in it. We love Pastor Mel, we also love how awkward he is. HA!!

Freedom- Spoken Word

Here is one of the kind of videos that was included in Freedom. It is called a Spoken Word video. Pretty amazing to sit and listen to, plus we kinda like the guy in it a little bit.

Freedom Weekend Video

Here is the video from Freedom Weekend....it shows a little bit of the craziness and amazing things that happened.  It is kinda long.....but kinda AWESOME!!

Freedom 2012

This year for Freedom, the theme was Marked.  It was crazy incredible.  Every year it seems as though so many impossible things arise, yet God does so much more than we could ever ask or imagine.  As we have added sidekicks to our family (Raleigh and Thaddaeus) my role has changed a little bit.  Instead of hanging out with kids all weekend, it has turned into helping take care of the big kids (Clint and his staff).  At the end of the weekend, we had over 600 kids and 56 decisions.  It was amazing to watch Clint baptize 43 kids on Sunday whose lives will never be the same!!

The wall outside the sanctuary....it looked awesome!!!

Some of the set design inside the worship center.

Some of the crew setting up....view of the stage.

JWood and the kids.

 Our sweet family on Sunday morning after freedom....the only one who doesn't look tired is Thad!!

He gives and takes away

You hear the saying, "He gives and takes away,"  a lot as a Christian.  I think it is really hard to understand the true meaning of that statement when we look at the sovereignty of God.  We have really tried to focus on the end part of that statement, "my heart will choose to say, Lord blessed be your name."  I get that we will not always understand God's will, but we are learning how we respond to His will is what seems to be the hardest sometimes.  It is still a little surreal to think that Gran Gran is gone.  Only six weeks after Christmas, things dramatically changed.  I am so thankful for him and the legacy that he left with my husband and our family.  I am thankful that Gran Gran immersed Clint with hymns as a young boy, that still hold a special place in his heart so much that he sings them over our kids.  I am thankful that Gran Gran not only taught Clint about the Lord, but also did the fun things like teaching him how to ride a horse, watching wrestling on t.v (even though it was totally not allowed by his parents), and showing Clint how to, "punch it," aka drive real fast in his sports car.   There is one thing I loved about Gran Gran...his ability to love hard.  He not often spoke of the love he had for you, but showed it.  Once he allowed you in his heart, you were there surrounded with unconditional love. You were then his to nurture, guide, and provide for.  That I will never forget.  There are so many memories we have for him and we could go on for days. Thank you Lord for giving us Gran Gran, our heart's are choosing to bless you because even though he isn't with us anymore, He is with you, which is a blessing.