Cayson's First Birthday

Happy Birthday to my baby boy! I can't believe it...this year has gone by so quickly. Today is his actual birthday, but we had his party Saturday. It was a lot of fun. He didn't want to eat his cake at first. We had to put his hand in it to get him to eat it. It was like he was afraid to get his hands dirty. But after that, he really dug in!

Today, we didn't do much, just hung out around the house and played. Shaun had to work. We did take our boy to get his first haircut, however. You can see the before in his birthday picture. I thought I was done with the emotional stuff after he turned 11 months, but the minute we walked out the door of the salon, I burst into tears. He looks so much like a little boy now. I miss that long, shaggy hair already! But, he does look cute. Especially in the red pumas shoes we bought him today! Here's the after picture.

Our camara has bitten the dust, so you'll have to bear with us for a little while, until we can get a new one. I'm using my cell phone camara for now, or depending on relatives. We are hoping to get his 1 year old pictures taken sometime this week.

I'm back

Well, it's been a while since my last post. A lot has happened since. First of all, the reason for my brief leave of absence from the blogging world: we moved! We found a house in Barling to move into. It's only about 5 minutes from the church and about 5 minutes from Fort Smith. We were living in a 2 story town house. It was pretty nice, but we had no privacy and Cayson's room was on the 2nd floor. We didn't like that. This house has a nice fenced in backyard and is all one story. And Cayson's room is right next to ours. Anyway, because we moved, it took almost 2 weeks to get our cable installed. And we got the phone, internet, and cable bundle so that meant 2 weeks without internet. Now, to fill you in on other things that have happened. Cayson now has 4 teeth! And he's walking!!! It's so exciting. He isn't walking all the time yet, but he'll walk back and forth between me and Shaun. And he's learning so much! He can say ball and he knows what it is. I think he said "thank you" today. I've been working with him on it. He's really eating a lot of table food now too. Still nursing, though. I'm dreading the end of that. It's such a wonderful bond between us. I'm just thankful he isn't biting me with those new teeth! My parents are visiting us this week. Today we took them to Mt. Magazine. It was so pretty, but very hot! I think we're going to Branson on Monday. And my brother moves into his dorm at OBU next Saturday. I think we're going to try and go help. And Cayson's birthday party is the next Saturday after that! Yep, my baby is turning 1 in less than a month. Where did the time go???

We're Moving!

Again! But, this time, we're not moving to another church (my husband is in the ministry, if you don't know), just to another house. We found a house in Barling, which is closer to Fort Smith. We're still going to be renting, but it's a one story house with a back yard. Right now, we live in a 2 story town house with no yard. And no privacy. We are super excited...except we have to move this weekend and we have VBS all week! And we haven't packed up one thing! So pray for us this week as we have VBS and move! Once we get settled, I may post some pics.

Our group picture at camp. See my little camper?

Cayson update

Oh my gosh, I have some big news about Cayson! Well, it's big to us, anyway. It happened while were at camp, but I didn't want to just lump it in with the camp stuff, so I said I'd make a separate post about it. And I forgot! I have no idea how, but anyways...Cayson has cut his first 2 teeth! This is big, since he's been teething since he was 2 months old. On Thursday night of camp, I had him outside during worship time (he was being loud during the improv stuff). We were sitting up against the building and he was chewing on my chin. He does this all the time, except this time it was sharp! I looked and sure enough, there was a tooth! Then Friday night, he was up several times with his teeth hurting. Saturday morning I checked on his new tooth to see if it had come in any more and there was another one, just barely peeking out!

Authentic Faith Days 3-5

Day 3 (Thursday)
Thursday started out pretty much the same, breakfast, quiet time, small group, and worship. During this morning's worship Dr. Himaya talked about prayer. He gave the kids the ACTS model to help them. (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication)

Lunch was grilled chicken sandwiches. It was pretty good. Cayson loved the chicken. At Rec time, we really went all out with our color. We painted faces, arms, legs, hair, and Shaun even painted his goatee! Plus we had all of our pink shirts on. The games we played were the human pretzel (everyone huddles together and grabs someone's hand. Then they have to untwist everyone without letting go), a bubble gum relay, and ultimate frisbee. Our teens didn't do as well with this. They'd never done a human pretzel before and struggled a little with it. Turns out, somehow we ended up with 2 circles! I was very proud of them, though, they never gave up.

During free time, there was a 3 on 3 basketball tournament. Our guys entered it and made it to the semi-finals. Apparently they did really well. They were beaten by Isaac Improv, the camp comedy guys, who went on to play Pottersfield, the band, in the finals.

Dinner was tacos, which were pretty good.

I didn't get to stay in worship time because Cayson was getting pretty tired. But I do know that Dr. Himaya preached on Rahab, the prostitute that helped the Israeli spies. He had the sermon on CD so we bought it and I listened to it on the way home. The gist was that God can save anyone, regardless of their past, and that He uses unlikely people to do His work. Rahab ended up being Jesus' great-great-great-great-great-etc. Grandmother. And one of our girls, Logan, got saved! The change in her and the 2 guys, who were twin brothers, is amazing!

Day 4 (Friday)
Same thing, breakfast, quiet time, small group, worship. Dr. Himaya gave the students a detailed definition of a quiet time, which is a period of time you consistantly set aside to be alone with God, usually in the morning, to talk with Him, and to listen to Him as you prepare to be used by Him that day. He also gave them a plan:
1. Begin with prayer.
2. Read the Bible.
3. Write down your insightw, application, and final prayer.
4. Be realistic.

Lunch was BBQ brisket sandwiches! Very good! LOL.
During rec we played Kickball, Knock 'em, and Nuke 'em. Kickball was standard, except each time your team came in to kick, the rules for kicking, running, etc, changed a little. First time was normal. 2nd time, kick backwards. 3rd time run backwards. 4th time you had to skip to base. We won! Knock 'em used 2 exercise balls and a hug basketball goal. Basically everyone lined up. The 1st person shot the ball. If they missed, they had to get it in the basket before the person behind them could. If the person behind them beat them, they were out. And Nuke 'em was dodgeball, except on a volleyball court.
During free time our kids (and Shaun) played in an ultimate frisbee tournament. We won the first game, but lost the 2nd. Mainly because we had to play 2 games back-to-back and the other team hadn't played yet.
During worship, one of the staffers kept Cayson for me. It was such an awesome message. Probably the most relevant and applicable "camp message" I've ever heard. The text was Matthew 4:1-11 where Jesus was tempted in the wilderness. The gist was we often use prayer as a fix-all, when sometimes we need to go straight to the Word. Dr. Himaya challenged us to find some "It is writtens" in the Bible for us to use when we are tempted. He called it fighting the battle before you run the race.
During the invitation, Dr. Himaya challenged the guys that are willing to stand up and be warriors in their student ministry to come forward. He had them pray in a concert of prayer, committing themselves to it. Then he had the girls pray over the guys. What an amazing picture this was! Then he had the girls admit that they were beautiful, since that is an area that the devil loves to attack. And he had the guys pray over them. It was so amazing and awesome.

Day 5 (Saturday)
Today we loaded up the vans and went down to the lake to watch the kids being baptized. Shaun got to baptize Logan. The twins wanted to wait until Sunday to be baptized, so their mom could be there. It was so awesome seeing teen after teen publically admit they'd committed their life to Christ.
After the baptisms, we went home. Plus, we had a wedding to get to! Our children's coordinator/ministry assistant at the church was getting married!
This camp was life-changing for so many of our kids. The change is awesome. I just pray it lasts. I know how mountaintop camp experiences are. But Shaun and I are starting One on One with God with several of the kids and I had already started a girls Bible study.

Pray for us as we continue to get in our kids' lives and encourage them in their walk with God!

Authentic Faith 2007

Day 1
We arrived at Camp Walk on Water (WOW) at about 2 pm on Tuesday. To the kids' surprise, we were attacked by a group of college kids dressed as twinkies, hula girls or guys, and just general craziness. We found our dorm and unpacked. By the way, this was the type of dorm where all 50something bunk beds are in 1 room. And there's about 5 showers and toilets. We shared a dorm with Fianna Hills Baptist Church and First Baptist in Van Buren. I started out in the dorms with the girls, so that meant Cayson was in there too! He loved being in there with all those girls!

The kids had to take a swim test and then it was off to dinner. It was actually pretty good. Lasagna! After that we had small group time, and then worship. Our worship band was Pottersfield, we had an improv comedy group named Isaac Improv, and our speaker was Dr. Alex Himaya from The Church at Battle Creek in Tulsa. Tuesday night Dr Himaya gave his testimony, which is awesome. I didn't get to stay at worship because Cayson was getting pretty loud. I had him asleep in the dorm, but when all the girls came in, he woke up. I spent Tuesday night worrying that he would wake up crying and wake up the girls.

Day 2
One of the youth ministers figured out a way for me to stay in the lodge with Cayson...which is more like a hotel room. Needless to say, I was much more comfortable the rest of the week!

Breakfast was decent. I ended up just eating cereal, which I learned later was off-brand. However, I decided I liked the off-brand Frosted Flakes better than Kellogg's!

Next, we were off to the worship center to watch a NOOMA video, created by Rob Bell, pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church. This video was to help them with their quiet time. In their camp books, there were questions about the video and after they watched the video they spread out all over camp to do their quiet time.

During morning worship time, Dr. Himaya taught them how to do a quiet time. This particular morning, he told them how he does his quiet time. He uses a system called ENSPEC. Which means:

• Example for me to follow.


• New thought about God, Jesus, or the Holy Spirit.


• Sin for me to confess.


• Promise for me to claim.


• Error for me to avoid.


• Command for me to obey.

Lunch was hot dogs. Cayson ate a whole one, without the bread!

At 1:30 was Rec. Each church was given a color. We were the pink team. We were competing against the other churches in the areas of team spirit, encouragement, and servanthood. Our rec games for the day were dodgeball, broom ball (like hockey, but with a kickball and brooms), and flicker ball (like ultimate frisbee, but with a football and in the endzone there was a target with a hole in it that you had to put the football through.) We swept all our games for the day!

Free time was 3-6 pm. During free time, campers could swim in the lake, which had some amazing "toys", or climb the rock wall, do the zip line, etc. Check out the website to see all the neat stuff.

Dinner was fried chicken, I believe. Cayson ate all Shaun's green beans.

We had small group time before worship. Each church divided their kids into groups of ten for this (and rec as well). For us, we brough 12 so we were a small group anyway. During this time, Shaun talked to the kids out of Jeremiah.

In worship, Dr. Himaya preached on the cross. For several years, he's been studying medical books, history, etc to found out the medical side of Jesus' death. This was such an awesome message. It is really a blog post in itself. This is the night we had 2 of our kids come to know Christ.

After worship we had church time to talk about the message, etc. Then we had fireworks over the lake. (This was on July 4.)

Ok, I realize this has gotten to be a long post so I'll break them up. Stay tuned for accounts of day 3, 4, and 5!

I'm Home!

Yay! Home from camp at last! Thank you so much for your prayers this week...they were felt. I'm too tired to talk about it too much, but I'm going to try and put together a day-by-day summary of everything we did. However I will tell you some awesome news...

...3 of our kids accepted Christ this week! Shaun also performed his very first baptism. We baptized one of the kids in the lake at camp and the other two were baptized today by Shaun as well.

This was such an awesome week! Praise God for everything he did in the lives of the kids of the River Valley!

Gone for a few days

Well, I'm leaving for student camp tomorrow, so I will more than likely be absent from the blogging world for a few days. We'll be back on Saturday. Please pray for our kids this week. This promises to be an awesome time with our teenagers. Most of them have never gone to camp before, so this will be a completely new experience. Well, I must get back to packing. Be looking forward to some crazy pictures when we get back!

Cayson at Day Camp

Cayson and I in our Day Camp shirts. His was a little too big...it looked like a dress!

"I'm so tired, Mommy!"

On the slip-n-slide at day camp...

Wondering what in the world mommy has done to me!

10 months

My baby is 10 months old today. He's growing up so fast! (sniff, sniff) Seriously, the time has flown by. He's been such a blessing already. Although, he's a little hard-headed, like his daddy! Before I know it, he'll be a year old and walking around. As I'm typing this, he's standing next to the couch trying to pull the laptop screen down, so I better wrap it up! So happy 10th month birthday, Cayson!

Just for Jeff (and other Mac lovers)

Ok Jeff, I think we're one step closer to owning a Mac. Today Shaun and I were talking on Google Talk and I was trying to send him a file. However, it wouldn't let me for some reason. Shaun really needed the file because it was his church newsletter from June and he's getting ready to start the one for July. He finally got irritated and said, "Mac, here I come!" I figured he was just joking, but he later admitted that he had been thinking about switching. This is very hard for Shaun because he actually builds PCs all the time. So we'll see...

Cayson's Cinnamon Toast *crunch*

I finally have a new funny Cayson story. This happened Saturday, I believe.

On the weekends, well Friday and Saturday anyway, we like to lay in bed later than normal. Sometimes this is tricky because Cayson likes to get up. But sometimes, if we're lucky, our routine for a normal-stay-at-home Friday or Saturday goes like this: Cayson will wake up at about 5:30 or 6:00 am and Shaun will get him and bring him to our bed so I can nurse him. Then, most of the time, he will go back to sleep...allowing us to cuddle with him and go back to sleep. Then at about 9 or 10 we'll all get up.

This Saturday happened to be one of those "good" days. So at about 10 we got up and I made some toast and Shaun made cinnamon toast for himself. He was about to eat it when someone knocked on the door. It was a Morman missionary. So Shaun was out there for a little bit. When he came back in, he grabbed his plate off the coffee table...and noticed that one slice was gone! Normally if this happens it's our dog who is the guilty party. But not this morning. It was Cayson!!! He ate the whole slice...and loved it! I laughed so hard!

Amnesya

Yes, that is spelled correctly. For the past 2 days Amnesya has been my obsession. Supposedy, it's a super hard riddle that no one has completely solved. I have no idea how many levels there are...I'm up to level 37. You have to use a combination of photo editing software, audio editing software, Google, and more to solve the different levels. It is so addicting! And incredibly hard. I dare you to try it out!

Day Camp '07 is OVER!

I love kids. I love camp. I love when it's over! Whew! What an exhausting week, or half a week, anyway. It was fun, but I'm glad it's over! I think we had a pretty successful first year of kids' day camp. There were definitely things that could be improved, but it was a learning experience. For me, even. Like I said before, I was the judge. What was I thinking? That was the hardest thing I've ever done in regards to working with kids. I had categories in which to give the 2 teams points, but it is so hard to stay objective. We would award the spirit stick to the team who had the most points at the end of the day and after 3 days the team with the most total points got takeout pizza while the losing team got frozen pizza (that was cooked). Well, the way the points worked out the yellow team only won the spirit stick one out of 3 days, but they had the most overall points. That first day they just did a lot better. And I think the kids had a hard time understanding why that happened. I think next year we are going to have day camp all week, so it will be easier to pick a clear winner. This year, the blue team got a slow start, but they were getting there. If they had had another 2 days they might have won. However, they yellow team was more consistent. And they had the qualities I was looking for the most: servanthood, encouragement, and team spirit.

It was fun being the judge until I had to announce the winner. I hated seeing the faces on the blue team. They were so upset. Although I think they got the better end of the deal. The takeout pizza came from the Pizza Parlour...which is the most awful pizza I've ever had. It's cheese and sauce on cardboard, basically. But the locals seem to love it.

Now we're on to the next exhausting venture: Youth camp! We're going to Camp WOW (walk on water) in Stuart, OK. Several of the youth groups in the Fort Smith/Lavaca area have gone in together to create our camp: Authentic Faith. We'll have over 600 kids from this area there! And we are also doing the color/team thing. Our church is the Pink team. Yeah, and the guys actually wanted that! It's going to be a blast. Please pray for our group! Most of our kids have never gone to youth camp before. And pray for me...I'll have Cayson with me! HA. This should be interesting!

Re-form-a-tion 2007

I promise, this is the last post tonight.

We are starting Children's day camp at our church tomorrow. I get to be the judge. If you've ever been to Super Summer (it's a baptist youth camp) you'll get this. We'll have 2 teams, the yellow and the blue. They have to decorate for their color and wear as much of their color as possible. We'll have games, worship time, and swimming. And I get to judge the teams. Oh, my job is going to be so much fun. Especially since there is a category for "showing appreciation to the judge". More importantly, there are categories for servanthood, enthusiasm, games, encouragement, etc. It should be a lot of fun and hopefully a lifechanging experience for some kids! Be in prayer for us this week! And pray that I can be objective!

By the way, be sure and scroll down and check out the wedding pics!

More wedding

The groom and best man

Kelly, Anna's best friend and Shaun and Kevin's sis, and Ever, the flower girl

Reciting their vows

The kiss!

I have a new Sis (in-law)

Things went off without a hitch (mostly, anyway) at the Martin-Lloyd wedding this weekend. And now I have a new sister-in-law and Cayson has a new aunt.

Kevin and Anna Martin
Kevin, Keith, and Shaun Martin

Shaun and Kevin's dad actually performed the ceremony.

The cake
The groom's cake
Shaun acting silly, of course!

Happy Father's Day, Sweetheart!

I am so blessed to have 2 great men in my life...my wonderful husband and my sweet son! Shaun, you have blessed me and Cayson in so many ways. You are such a great dad. I love you!