Do y’all remember July? Do y’all even remember me? I’m not sure I remember myself at this very moment. July was a whirlwind of births and weddings. October has been a whirlwind of birthdays and celebrations. Jeremiah keeps telling me I’ve got to stop living life this way and learn to take it like a continual ride instead of SPRINT, collapse, SPRINT, col llllaap se. But it’s hard to re-train a lifetimes’ worth of practice.
As I sit here in collapse mode, editing all the pictures and lingering over all the memories, it all seems worth it. I’m not ready to do it all again ;), but I am so glad I did it.
Weekend 1: Mary Aplin turns five and has a gymnastic birthday party. I copied my friend Melissa’s idea to have a Saturday morning party with doughnuts, coffee, chicken biscuits and fruit.
Dapples wanted chocolate covered, sprinkle, Krispy Kreme doughnuts instead of birthday cake (she’s her Momma’s girl!), and our party favors were going to be pumpkins with paint. I felt pretty good about it all… …except for the fact that on the day before the party I only knew of ONE child who was coming. One. That’s what happens when you accidentally plan a birthday party on the Saturday of Fall Break, and everybody but you seems to have a life where they go out of town and things like that. I began to frantically email people we’d invited to see if anybody was actually coming. And I prayed. Specifically for five people. I thought I could make it feel like a party for her with five people, but one was going to be a stretch.
I told Konie to bring her leotard, because she might have to get out there and do some cartwheels 😉 But fortunately, God answered with seven friends, and Mary Aplin didn’t seem to notice the other 15 who couldn’t make it.
Weekend 2: Tommy and Sarah.
Tommy has been Jeremiah’s best friend since high school and Sarah is Kendall’s (my sister) best friend from high school. You might can imagine there was a little bit of Emma Woodhouse action that went on around here–and don’t think that all matchmakers are girls! Fortunately, Tommy and Sarah’s relationship survived and flourished despite all our (Kendall, Jeremiah, and my) love-filled, excited, we-knew-they-were-perfect-for-each-other-before-they-did meddling. They are two dear people to us on many levels and we (along with several other couples!) enjoyed celebrating them as they anticipate their new beginning.
Lindsey and Steven, thank you for bringing all the tables and surprising me by showing up to clean up when we weren’t even home 🙂 I’m sorry for the way I worked you without realizing your entire family had pneumonia AND a stomach virus 🙂
Oh Kendall. I love this picture of you. How can I say thank you for coming down 2 days before the party and doing every little grunt task I could ask of you. From picking sunflowers in your high-heel clogs, to dropping my children off at school, to planting pansies in pumpkins, to swatting flies away from the food while we waited for the guests to arrive, and doing it all with this attitude. I love you sister.
Thank you Tommy, for coming over to tackle the terrifying lantern job, even though it was your own party. And even more for showing back up to take them down.
Thank you Darby, for letting me run 2,435 details by you day in and day out and giving me confidence to make final calls. And for rocking all those table decorations!!!
This is exactly what I was hoping for. These friends, just doing together what they love doing most.
Are they a beautiful couple or what?!
Ashley, Dapples managed to block you in the one shot I got you in. Thank you for all the help with details, for helping Jeremiah with his boards when you had an unimaginable amount of things going on too, for letting me run the same details Darby had to listen to, by you as well, and for bringing Keith over to clean horse stalls on your one morning off–the morning of the party.
Can you see who snuck in on the late night band action?
I don’t know for sure, but I think he may have a love of stringed instruments in his future. He sure does love his Popon!
I just BARELY missed a shot of them whispering nose to nose. But this one is still pretty sweet 🙂
Thank you Kendall and Watson, Darby and Justin, Steven and Lindsey, Jay and Linda, Ashley, Clay and Allyson, Nick and Laurie, Chris and Kara, Brannon and Ann, and George and Amanda for ALL you did to make this night happen!!! You cooked, you set up tables, you cleaned, you funded 🙂 I hope y’all had as much fun as we did. And I hope Tommy and Sarah felt how much we love them.
Weekend 3: Jay Paul’s baby dedication. This one never happened. My baby is still not dedicated and we have not had our family over for lunch after church because Jay Paul has been fighting one sickness after the other for the past month. We’ve flip-flopped back and forth between a cold with a sore throat so bad that he refused to swallow his own spit and a stomach bug that delighted us all from BOTH ends.
Mid-Week: Halloween. I already did a post on our Charlotte’s web family theme, but those pictures were from our church’s fall festival. Here are a few shots I got from the actual night.
Weekend 4: Pace turns 7 and we have a birthday party at the movie theatre. It was the opening night of Disney’s “Wreck it Ralph”. We had pizza and cake before the movie, and I actually thought the movie itself was great. Pace’s friends came and she had a blast and felt very loved. That should be the end of the story. Those are the most important things… …but let me just tell you before you run out and plan your own party at the movies, that I WAAAYYY underestimated the sense of responsibility and need for adult coverage if you plan to take 19 six and seven year-olds to a very crowded movie theatre. Especially if you cram them full of pizza, cake, popcorn, and coke. Ok?! I was just so terrified I was going to lose somebody!!!
So, parties at the movie theatre are a lot of fun, but just don’t listen to the people who work there when they reassure you that you and your husband will be plenty of supervision because there will be an attendant there assigned to help you.
Collapse.
This summer the girls and I read Charlotte’s Web, so when it came time to decide on Halloween costumes they wanted White’s book to be our family theme.
Meet our Charlotte.
And Fern.
Love that little Dace.
And Wilbur. Who was feeling so bad that he missed his own baby dedication this day, and who I woke from a dead sleep just before these pictures. He wouldn’t even grace me with a forward glance.
That’s me–Charlotte’s web. Jeremiah didn’t feel like my head was an important part of this shot for some reason 😉
Charlotte loving Wilbur, and Wilbur–appropriately–still complaining.
We had a Mr. Arable too 🙂
Baybus never did bounce back from being woken up from his nap. Not even when he bumped into a fellow barn-mate.
And just because Little Bo Peep found her sheep and they were so stinkin’ cute I could hardly stand it…
{The are pictures from Labor Day Weekend}
A family friend’s daughter is getting married this weekend, and she called today to ask me for a favor. She said that Jeremiah’s grandfather (Dr. Maddox, his Dad’s Dad who passed away the year after we got married, and was the pastor of First Baptist Church here in Dothan for many years) had been the one to lead her father to Christ, and had become life-long friends of her parents afterwards. She remembered Dr. Maddox praying a prayer at Jeremiah and my wedding, one that she had also heard him pray at her brother’s wedding, and she was wondering if I could get my hands on a copy. She was hoping it could be read at her daughter’s wedding this weekend.
Our wedding ceremony was, and still is, a blur to me, but I most clearly remember being shocked at the gravity of the moment. I was blown away by what a holy, reverent, breath-taking, God-filled, heady, joyous, heart-wrenching…experience the actual ceremony was for us. On our honeymoon, Jeremiah and I kept saying, “It really was…magical…wasn’t it?” It was the single word we could find that could encompass all that we felt during our vows. And while it was all those things, and I felt that I poignantly lived each moment as it happened, afterwards, I could tell you very little of what we said or did.
So tonight, as I sat down with our slightly scratched DVD and listened to Grandfather’s King’s English and resonant baritone, I was so struck by the blessing he spoke over us as we knelt at his feet. What a powerful way to begin life together! I am so thankful that our friend asked me for this small favor. I know I will be forever impacted by having the chance to truly hear these words again:
Oh God of love, thou hast established marriage for the welfare and happiness of mankind.
Bound is the plan for thou did say, ”It is not good for man to be alone. I will make a helpmate for him.” And because thou doest all things well, in holy wedlock our joys can be doubled and our burdens halved.
Bless this groom, whom thou has made a provider of this new home. May his strength be her protection, his character be her boast and her pride, and may he so live that she will find in him the haven for which the heart of a woman truly longs.
Bless this loving bride. Give her tenderness that will make her great. Give her a deep sense of understanding, that inner beauty of soul that never fades, and an eternal youth that is found in holding fast to things that never age.
Teach them that marriage is not living merely for each other; it is two uniting and joining hands to serve Thee.
Give them a great spiritual purpose in life. May they continue to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness knowing all else shall be added unto them.
May they not expect that perfection in each other that belongs alone to Thee. May they minimize each other’s weaknesses, be swift to praise and magnify each others strongpoints and see each other through a lover’s kind and patient eyes.
May they never take each other’s love for granted.
Dear Lord give them enough tears to keep them tender.
Enough of failure to keep their hands clenched tightly in thine.
And enough of success to make them sure they walk with God.
And when life is done and the sun is setting, may they be found then as now, still hand in hand, still thanking God for each other.
May Jeremiah and Abby serve thee happily and faithfully together until at last one shall lead the other into the arms of God. For this we pray, in Jesus name, Amen.