Oopsie Daisy Natural Baby: Bountiful Weekend

Today our family celebrated as we dedicated our sweet baby girl, Gracelyn Joy to the Lord at our church. Such an honor and a reward to be parents but knowing that Gracie isn't just our child she is the Lord's and that we made a promise today that we will bring up Gracie to know the Lord, that's just something to celebrate! (Read on...and you'll see a little of the celebrations that took place, stay with me it gets a little lengthy but it's good and of course there are pictures throughout too) but first let me explain some things...

(A little previous family history side note: Ashtyn was baptized in the Lutheran church that I grew up in. When TJ and I got married we became members at Swan Lake, Evangelical Free Church. At Swan Lake they do not practice baptism of infants but have a dedication service instead. The boys were both dedicated (And I'm so so sad to say that I don't have any pictures of any of them. The ones I had were ruined when our basement flooded a few years ago, so this is a partial reason why I do so many blog posts).

Dedication was a new thing to me (new as in 5 years ago new). I was not familiar with it, since I grew up Lutheran and I was accustomed to baptizing babies, but after praying and researching TJ and I both agreed that dedicating our children was the best choice for our family. This poem I stumbled across really sums everything up.

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OUR SWEET GIRL

You are an incredible blessing

An extraordinary gift

Given to us from our Heavenly Father

To experience this life with.

We dedicate our hearts to teaching you God's way

With everything we do

And every word we say.

We know your precious eyes are watching us intently

And your tiny little ears are listening so sharply.

We'll teach you how to love by the way we treat others.

We'll teach you generosity by the way we give.

We'll teach you how to worship God by our obedience to Him.

We'll teach you righteousness by the way we live.

Our prayer is that you grown up strong

and love the Lord your God.

You are our sweet child

And we love you with all of our heart.

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Verses that I cherish...

"She said, "Oh, my lord! As your soul lives, my lord, I am the woman who stood here beside you, praying to the LORD. "For this boy I prayed, and the LORD has given me my petition which I asked of Him. "So I have also dedicated him to the LORD; as long as he lives he is dedicated to the LORD." And he worshiped the LORD there." ...1 Samuel 1:24-28
...Hannah, what an inspiration. She gave her son Samuel over to the Lord and knew that Jesus loved her son more than she ever could.

And here is another verse that just confirms our reason to dedicate our babies instead of baptizing. I believe that they should be baptized when they are old enough to make the choice on their own of accepting Jesus into their hearts.

"And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called Jesus, which was so named of the angel before he was conceived in the womb. And when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were accomplished, they brought him to Jerusalem, to present him to the Lord." - Luke 2:21-22 ...Mary presented Jesus, her first born son to the Lord in Jerusalem. Jesus was not baptized till He was 30 years old, but was presented when he was eight.

I truly believe that children are a heritage from the Lord. That they are a reward from God. Every parent should realize that children are a heritage from the Lord. They are a reward from God...Psalm 127:3 "Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him."

Back to the celebration details ...
Today was a ~~beautiful~~ extremely gorgeous day outside.
It began by the church service at 9am. (Thank you to our family and friends who were there to support us and love on our little Gracie, we are so very thankful for all of you!!)

"...that I may walk before God in the light of life." Psalm 56:13

unfortunate camera problems but thankful to have a few photos!

Our family :)

Auntie Halie and Uncle Matt

Kenzie and Ashtyn, cousins and forever friends

After church we had the big celebration at our house. It was wonderful. There was 23 people at our farm and it was just amazing! As I finished preparing the meal, I looked out my kitchen window to see all the kids out running in the yard playing catch and a few carrying kittens around and the adults were walking around the farm talking and soaking in God's gorgeous day he gave us. That moment just made a special place in my heart.

That meal that I told you I finished preparing... I am so pumped to share with you that I had it all ready to go last night, so when we got home from church I just had to put things in the oven and warm things up. So I feel like I can a little bit brag about this because I will have you know it is the very FIRST time I have ever ever ever been prepared like this. I mean EVER! I am the one that is always late (as most of you know) and scrambling around last minute making a big mess because I wasn't prepared.
So here is how prepared I was.... I finished everything and crawled into my bed last night (Saturday morning at 2:45am.) Yes, I was that prepared. haha. Not sure why I can't ever stay on track and accomplish things at normal time but anyways... this was still awesome to just enjoy our time after church and not feel so rushed.. (It was also an awesome feeling to take a long nap this afternoon) :)
One last thing being prepared thing... THE SMELL.. when I walked into my kitchen when we got home, it was marvelous. Fresh homemade bread in the bread machine, the smell of chicken. the savory smell of squash. yum yum yum.

I am so thankful for God's goodness, his love, the gifts he has given to us that we don't deserve.
This meal we made, most of it came from our farm. Seeing the prepared food all ready to be served just reminded me again for God's unfailing love for us.

On the menu:

Farm grown baked lemon pepper chicken, roasted carmel glazed squash, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet corn, cracker with homemade goat cheese (thank you to Shirley for this deliciousness), fruit salad and last but not least...lemon blueberry cupcakes. YUMMO.

We ate, and enjoyed conversation. Then went back outside to enjoy the day. The entire day was so wonderful.

But all things come to an end... Harvest. 2013.. yes we're right in the heat of it.
TJ was one of the first to leave but we really enjoyed spending our morning with him.
We have also really loved the times that we have gotten to ride in the tractor and see daddy over the last few days. Each one of the kids love it, they could all spend hours and hours with daddy or grandpa in the combine and tractors.
Even, Miss Gracie who got to have her first tractor ride today (at 4.5 months old). She giggled and smiled at daddy and watched everything going on but it wasn't long until that hum and steady bumpy ride from that big rig put her right to sleep. We watched the sun go down and what an incredible view from the tractor.