fall festival

ok, so i’ve been meaning for the longest time to write about the church we’ve been going to the last few months.  we’ve decided to commit ourselves to lighthouse community church for the time the Lord has us living in the south bay.  and i have to say that it’s been a wonderful fit for our family!  the church is small/medium with maybe 250 people.  the head pastor is a master’s seminary graduate with a bent towards expository preaching.  it has an excellent sunday school/nursery program for mikey and allie (with cute names too– mikey’s in the fireflies class and allie is in gloworms) and every week, mikey comes out with a neat craft relating to the bible story they learned in class.  very impressive for a church of its size.  a huge bonus is that there are a LOT of kids and babies just our kids’ ages so there’s lots of opportunities to make friends and plan playdates. 

another huge bonus (and answered prayer request!) is that they do a weekly moms’ group called “lamplighters” with childcare provided for THREE HOURS so the moms can listen to a speaker give a message, eat really good food, and then do an activity or craft together.  one of my favorites was when one of the moms brought a bunch of supplies for all of us to put together activity bags for our kids to do during down times like waiting at the doctor’s office, keeping busy while mommy cooks dinner, long car rides, etc.  we each came away with seven bags neatly put together with activities for the kiddos!  the childcare is awesome too, with lots of activities, a Bible story and craft, and even music time (one of the guys brings a guitar and they all sing praise songs together).  mikey’s learned quite a few songs that way.

so i’ve been so glad to have the chance to get to know other moms there and start planning playdates together.  it was also a pleasant surprise to see a few old friends i knew from bread of life church going there as well.

another thing i really appreciate about the church is its focus on evangelizing and outreach.  the pastor has been going through a series on evangelism on sundays and each of the small groups (we joined one, too!) is going through the book “2 ways to live” and preparing ourselves to be ready to share the gospel whenever the opportunity arises.  each small group is also going to do some community service project in the next couple of months as well.  other outreach opportunities are the church-wide operation christmas child shoeboxes, and last night’s fall festival.

all in all, it’s been really great to plug ourselves into this church and get involved with the various ministries.  such a blessing for us!  i don’t mean to gush, but i’ve just been so thankful to have found a great church that our whole family loves being part of.

so anyway, last night was the church’s fall festival and we all had a grrrreat time.  especially my boy mikey, as the pictures will show.

allie the chicken, and mikey the monkey!  um, sort of a noah’s ark theme this year?

i just want to gobble her up!

there were a lot of people there and between helping out at our small group’s booth and the general craziness of running after a hyped-up monkey and chicken, picture-taking was a tad bit unsuccessful.  but here’s mikey at a couple of the game booths.

mikey’s recently been very good buddies with this little guy, ryan.  he asks to go play with ryan (he says his r’s like l’s, so sometimes i think he’s asking to go play with “lion”!) just about every day.  the boys see each other many times a week at sunday school, lamplighters, and in small group too. emily (ryan’s mom) has become my good friend and we’ve instantly bonded since her husband is a resident physician as well! 

this was the best i could do getting two three-year-old boys to stay still long enough to get a picture together.  it got much too warm for most of the kids to keep their costumes on.

the boys had a blast together,  doing everything from stomping on this rocket thingy…

to going crazy in the bounce house!

our small group did a picture frame booth and the food booth.  mikey couldn’t be bothered with making his own foam frame, so i made one for him.  and one for allie, too!

yes, definitely good times.  and today, we’re in recovery mode.