Baby Dedication

Yesterday we had both of our girls dedicated at our church. This was a very important thing to Chris and me because, while it doesn't mean salvation for our girls, we are declaring that we want to raise our girls in our faith, and we asked for the help from our congregation to support us in that goal. Whether or not they choose to follow the Lord is up to them later, but our prayer is that someday when they understand what that means, they will choose our Lord.  We love our church and are so thankful for the community of believers that we have and their dedication to serving Christ.

 My parents had wanted to come down for a weekend in May, so it worked out well that they were able to come this weekend (and it also allowed us to celebrate Mother's Day with our mom!).

We were waiting to get some "professional" pictures done of our family.

Evie talked throughout the entire dedication:  Daddy, where's Hannah?  Daddy, I see Grandpa.  Daddy, we praying.

Thankfully, her voice was not as loud as the crying babies near us.

Grandma Susan joined us for the dedication.  She was also a pro at quieting Cora when she was crying!

Waiting for the rest of the family to come outside for family pictures

I love Cora's bored look in this one.  I'm not sure what my mouth is doing, though.

Our best one, even though Chris' eyes are somewhat closed.  It's so hard to get a good family shot!

Evie really wanted me to take a picture of James and her.  Notice her little arm around him- so sweet!

The "oldies" sat down to watch the kids play.

Uncle Jeff pulled out the bubbles which caused some of our neighbor friends to run over and play.  Who can resist running after bubbles?

This is a great picture of one tired girl after a busy, busy weekend.  She went to bed at 6:30, and we weren't too far behind her!

It was a full weekend for us, but we were so thankful to have family around for this special event.  Grandpa Bender was able to celebrate Mother's Day with his mother in Wisconsin which was wonderful, but we did miss him!