The Youth Group and Middle School and Mamas not ready for you to grow up

 Tonight I had the opportunity to go to Youth at Grace.  We love our church.  I could write thousands of blogs about how awesome it is to be a part of the Grace family.  Tonight I saw a glimpse of the future for my boy.

The past couple of weeks, as I have become tired, and bigger, and bigger, and tired, I have started to look forward to the routine of the school year.  I love summer, don't get me wrong, but I love the routine of knowing exactly what we will do each day during the school year.  The promise of fall, cold weather, soup (i miss soup), and slowing down in general.

I was asked to bring the big camera to grace tonight to update some media for the youth ministry. It was also Noah's first night, it's move up Sunday.

What I didn't expect is to have so much of my experience as a youth in youth group to flood back.  The impact that my youth pastors had on me, the friendships I had and still have from that special time in my life...  Thoughts of how these will be the tough years for Noah as he becomes a man, and these people will walk it with him.  First girlfriends. Youth retreats.  Craziness.

After watching them play, feasting on breakfast for dinner, and act crazy, we hunkered down for a good word from Adrian.  He challenged them to get in to the word.  To memorize Romans 8.  On the way home from church Noah and I promised to memorize it together.

At the end Adrian had each group from each school stand up and people around them laid hands on them and prayed for the start of a new school year.  Blame it on the hormones, but tears came to my eyes as I saw these kids praying for one another to be a light in their school.

You can pray for my boy as he embarks on a new school year.  Middle school.  He's getting so big.  And time just won't slow down.

I am thankful for Adrian and the group of adults that will pour into him in these crucial years.  We are so very blessed.

Let's go to the beach

In July we got to go visit papa and Sandra for a vacation/work trip. It was such a wonderful week, our hosts were so gracious, I hardly had to lift a finger!!!  We spent lots of time at the beach and pool, and got to see some old friends who happened to be in the area vacationing at the same time from Pittsburgh. 

Over the weekend I got to shoot Derek and Nikki's gorgeous beach wedding. It was amazing!

The Siak Six

In May we found out we are expecting another Siak.  It's been a crazy ride getting through the first trimester, and now that we are settling in to the second, we thought we would share the news with our blog!  Because of some extra testing we had done early, we were able to find out whether or not we were having a girl or boy.  We contacted my friend Sarah Jacobs with Soulshine Photography and asked her to come document telling the kids.  (soulshinephotography.net).  Noah just knew he was going to get another brother.  Ella longed for a sister.  I want and still want, healthy.  Our idea was to count down and release the color balloons we weren't having, and hang on to the color we were having.  Luke's face and not even knowing what was going on (yes we told him) cracks me up.  Noah's look of disappointment, while very short lived (he is so happy to have a sister!) is so funny to have documented, and I will never ever forget the look of joy on Ellas face when she realized I was still holding on to the pink balloons.

So far everything is going great and mama and baby are healthy.  We would love your prayers for continued health for this pregnancy, and in late December we will introduce you to the last member of this Siak gang, our sweet baby girl.