My Mother's Day

-Let me preface this post by noting the absence of John Michael in most of these pictures!  Today was baby dedication at church and so John Michael was at nursery while we had Matthew's dedication.  My parents came for the weekend but had to leave immediately after baby dedication so they could make it home before midnight!  We took lots of pictures out in the lobby afterwards and it just wouldn't have been good to go interrupt John Michael from nursery to get his pictures taken and then take him back to nursery!

This is technically my 3rd year to celebrate being a Mom!  My first year JM was just a few days old and I don't even really remember it, being in the new mom sleepless fog and all.  Last year was great because we had JM's first birthday with all of our family, both of our moms were up to celebrate and we had John Michael's dedication at church.

This year was even better because we were given the chance to dedicate another precious child to the Lord!  We have joked that we'll just have a baby every year for dedication (a la Duggar style!!) 

Matthew did wonderfully for dedication!  We knew he would because he's so easy going and happy!

Basically, what dedication means it that we are being charged with the responsibility of making sure that we bring up our children in Godly homes with Godly parents who love not only each other, but the Lord.  We want to bring up John Michael and Matthew to love God and each other.  We want them to have a heart for whatever their spiritual gift might be.

We want to instill Godly values and them and teach them right from wrong so that one day instead of turning from God as they grow older, they will yearn to turn towards God and grow closer and closer to their Heavenly Father. After all, we feel that our children are only ours for a short, short span of time and we have to make our time with them count!

Aren't we so colorful in this picture?!

Also, Happy Mother's Day to my mom!  I was so glad she and Dad were able to come up for our busy weekend!  This is the 3rd year in a row she has been able to come up here for Mother's Day!  Happy Mother's Day!  I don't know too many moms who have lived through as much as she has as a mom.  From having her first born son almost die and then having to deal with his gift of cerebral palsy then having her second son seriously sick with a mystery illness for nearly 10 years that almost took his life several times, I don't know who else could have lived through it all!  Thanks for being such a great mom!

Also, Happy Mother's Day to Jordan's mom.  She and Nat drove in today so we celebrated Mother's Day with her tonight over dinner.  I'm thankful she did a great job raising Jordan to be such a wonderful and loving husband and dad.  She could not have done a better job raising him to be my perfect mate!

John Michael read his book while we waited to eat this afternoon!  He is very into his books lately and he enjoys taking them around with him!  He did pretty well waiting for so long!  Matthew had a loooong day so he passed out!

I had a wonderful day celebrating being a mom!  I feel so blessed to have two precious boys while some people have none or yearn so badly to have one.  We are so thankful to God for giving us our boys!  I am so glad the "Mom" is in my job description!