Missionary Mary Slessor

      I am privileged to read a missionary story every week in Jr. church....let me just say, it has been a challenge to me reading about each missionary!  Tomorrow, I will finish the story about Mary Slessor.  Mary was a young British girl who at a young age determined that she was going to serve the Lord! Although, not only was she determined to serve the Lord, she was determined to serve the Lord anywhere! Mary was a missionary to Africa for 36 years! Mary spent a few years in each village and every time she would go deeper into the jungle: each village was worse than the one before!  Mary did not have fear of what man would do! Her courage came from the Lord!  At one point in Mary's life, she lay sick in bed back home in Scotland: Mary over heard people talking about a tribe in Africa called the Aros - a vicious cannibal tribe.  When Mary heard this, she sat up in bed and said, "Aros, Sure, I'd like to meet them!"
     What an amazing testimony Mary had! All 36 years she spent in Africa, she called for help...not one person came to help (long term).... 
      What is the Lord asking you to do? Is He simply asking you to talk to your neighbour or maybe your co-worker, or someone else in your family?  Mary gave her life!  Can we not give at least a day?

     Pray for your missionaries, give to your missionaries....or are we better than the lost around the world....like the unlearned, the poor, or the cannibals?  WOULD YOU CONSIDER GOING YOURSELF?!?!?!

Matthew's 1st Birthday

April 5/2012

Matthew's 1st Birthday

We had a sports theme party for Matthew! It was very fitting; he LOVES sports!  

Birthday boy shots :)

Joshua wanted to join in on the photo shoot....I couldn't tell him no, I normally have to take his pictures fast while he is smiling or I don't get it ;)

Silly brothers :) 

AAHH! A normal sound to hear from Matthew! 

I found him some little sweat bands for his party :)

Happy Birthday Boy! 



Matthew's 1st Birthday cake! YUMMY!!

such a good boy...he's helping clean up for his party :)

Skyping with Grandpa & Grandma Marks while he opens his gift.

Its a big one....

pausing to give Daddy a hug :)

and.... its Matthew's 1st car!!!!!

He LOVES it!!

Pushing Joshua in his new car :)

Matthew's smash cake! You can't get messy with fondant icing so I made Matthew his own little cake to smash :)

OH! Fire!

Poor cake :( Matthew got scared when we were all singing Happy Birthday (I guess we are worse singers than we thought). So I ended up holding him....while I was holding him, I was doing something with Matthew and all of the sudden I hear, "Oh No!" and the next thing I know is the cake is falling off the plate and onto the floor :( I dropped his cake! Thankfully it landed on the one side and stayed there, so we cut that off and let him try again :)

Hmmm, this is pretty good!

Remember that "AAHH!" Sound I mentioned above...its a good thing if he does it! :) Here it is again!!!

Digging in :)



Yum!

It's good, want some? :)

Joshua is such a good gift opening helper :)

What did I get Joshua? :)

Waiting to play cars

:)

Happy Birthday, Matthew!!!!

Thomas tricycle!

This is the present that we gave Matthew :)



Easter 2012

Happy Easter

Nathan got me these beautiful flowers for Easter :) He is the best hubby ever!!!!

Nathan is also the best Daddy ever - late Saturday night he ran to wal-mart and bought the boys this basketball hoop!! Since we didn't have to buy a lot (thanks to Grandmas and Grandpas providing all the chocolate) Nathan wanted to get the boys something to go along with their huge kinder eggs we got for them.  This basketball hoop is what he came up with; Daddy's love and get to spoil :)

Joshua and Matthew's Easter Baskets

Matthew's basket and football bank...Joshua has declared football to be Matthew's favorite and basketball to be his own favorite.  They both LOVE ALL sports though; sport, cars and music is all they play with!

Joshua's basket and basketball bank.

The boys both got an animal towel in their baskets. Matthew's is a dinosaur.

Joshua opening his basket



Instant mess :)

Joshua is showing Matthew how to draw on his new little doodle pad. 

His first shot.....and its good!!! A true basketball player :)

Yes, Grandpa Marks, it is a great sport :)

Here comes the little Monster, he spotted the fun....





just a little help from Daddy and his first shot is good :)

On the way to church Easter Sunday morning.

All dressed up and ready to go!

My beautiful flowers that Nathan gave to me for Easter!!!!

A GIANT kinder surprise :)

The toys in these eggs are actually pretty neat! Joshua got a Tom & Jerry volleyball game.

Matthew got a little game that you fling the divers and try to get them to land in the lifesaver ring in the water...they love them :)

The mailman delivered a day late, so Matthew got his birthday present from G&G Ravert on Easter Sunday!!! 

Egg Hunt begins!!!!!

the boys both slept extra long on Sunday afternoon, so we waiting for them to sleep before we started the hunt...

the only problem we had...

when they discovered what was in the eggs, they we done 'hunting'... so we ended up just collecting all the eggs we hid :) oh well! ;)

Marshmallow egg, yummy!

Matthew is such a Daddy's boy! As soon as he sees Daddy, all his attention is towards him! It is so cute, when Nathan picks him Matthew is all smiles and he growls like normal and kicks his feet and hugs Daddy soooooo tight! Nathan absolutely LOVES it!! Who wouldn't :)

Joshua is always close by to help when there are presents around :)

When Matthew saw his ducks he said, "Duck Duck!!!" He loves it!! Thank you Grandma and Grandpa Raver!!!!

 



what is it with church platforms....? as soon as the boys get up there, they LOVE it!! So, since I wanted to get some pictures of them, I waited until we got to church....that way I could get some good smiles :)

They were having a blast :)

Happy Easter!

Joshua - 2 (soon to be 3!)

Matthew - 1!!! 

Joshua got this basketball with their new hoop, so it took the place of his other basketball for the day, and got to come to church with him :)

Happy Easter! from us (even though this is late)

...pictures didn't work out as well as I'd like...but it was a long morning :)

there is something about "Big Caleb" that all these kids just LOVE! They were all smiles when they got to get their picture with him :)

 

Us!! :)  Love this man!!!

(I'll save all the mushy stuff for our 5th anniversary post next month!!!)

 

Thanks for waiting for all of these! Now, if you can wait a bit longer (hopefully still today) and I will have Matthew's 1st birthday pictures....so check back later!!!!