Sunday, April 05, 2009

weekend wrap up

i had to edit my last entry because i unleashed the maggie-bump to the world and i had forgotten that it was to be under wraps until robina/andy/wren get here. did i mention this is happening NEXT WEEK?!

so the party at maggie and austin's was really fun. my kids trashed the place with pop and both of them at various parts of the night wondered? bopped? onto the dance floor with fruit skewers and effectively stabbed themselves (augustine in his eye! ow). olive's favorite trick of the night was bringing handfuls of ice cubes downstairs and either handing them off to anyone who looked naive enough or just abandoning them in dark corners to become a mysterious (to us) puddle. augustine spent most of the night on the dance floor with lovey head banging in the strobe light. dont i sound like such a great mom right now? feral children, head banging, kids getting stabbed? good times! but no really, we left around 11:30 and augustine cried "NO! i want to dance all night!" all of my friends are so hilarious. you should have seen the costumes. i can't even go there until the pictures are up. meridith that means you :)

so you know how i've been praying for some engagement between my neighbors and i? yeah i met them yesterday looking how i did in the previous entry's picture. as augustine would say, what the heck in the world?! now they really won't talk to me! it did not help that my family was not dressed up in any way, which would naturally have been a clue that we were headed to a themed party. nope. just weird neighbor girl sporting a faux hawk and leg warmers.

we dragged our bodies out of bed and went to the early church service because i was on baking team which means i am to have my muffins to church pre-9:15 am. OUCH. but we made it all in one piece. i suspect olive was having problems being so sleepy because she wizzed in her pants during church. in her defense the teacher told david "yeah i think she peed in her diaper because she kept telling me she went pee pee." umm what diaper?

some of our best friends from church (mark and rachel tolentino) had their daughter (mya) dedicated to the church today. oh i just love baby dedications. there is some confusion i think about what that means. some sects of christianity do baby baptism - i think because they believe we are all born with original sin but i could be wrong. (it's happened a few times believe it or not) we do not subscribe to such beliefs, at least it does not manifest itself in the same way. i, along with my fellow vineyardians believe sin is a purposeful act and with that act needs to be repentance and a change of heart. so a baby in incapable of sin and also cannot be forgiven anything because they are unable to express contrition. anyways so a baby dedication has nothing to do with sin or forgiveness, rather it is an expression of the parents publicaly presenting their child to the church. they are saying that it is their desire for this child to come to know and follow Christ, that they will pray with and for the child, and that they expect the same from the group of believers there witnessing this moment. it's almost like a really informal wedding, marrying the child to the body of Christ in obligation. i think my pastor said it well today that it takes a family, it takes a village, and it takes a church to raise a child. i really love that last part about our church. like, we are all very familiar with each others children. it isn't uncommon to see babies being held by non-family members during the service just because. i have no hesitation in telling my kids to listen to and respect what any adult in our church would say. i can't explain it very well but it just feels like such a unity exist in our church. sometimes when im on flickr and i add someone it takes me a second to choose "family" or "friend" - but that's a good thing. so anyways we laid hands on mark and rachel, blessed them as parents and believers, that their lives and marriage would point the way to Christ for mya to see. we also laid hands on mya and that is always so sweet to hear friends calling down prayers on an itsy bitsy kid. protection and a sensitive heart, for her to come to know God at a young age, etc.

after church they had a big bash at the tolentino's house. it seemed like at least 50 people were there and i couldnt help but wonder what the neighbors were thinking. i do not mean to imply that we are a bunch of crazy hippies (seriously, we are not) but we had a drum circle going with people playing guitars and people just getting down. i must say i do love when john mccollum sings. (kori, now that i know you read this, encourage him to sing more!) i can't even really talk about the food without salivating. i think 17% of the reason i go to the home group i go to is because of mark tolentino's food skillz. so just understand that i ate so much i skipped dinner tonight because i'm still full.

while at the party sara gallaugher (hi could i drop any more church friends names into this entry?) walked to her house and got me some of her left over red onion starts. so far we've planted 75 yellow onions and i've been itching to get some red but um i live a busy life and havnt made it over to mecca, i mean oakland nursery. augustine and i went over to our shared garden today and popped them into the garden. augustine's job when we are there is to find rocks and throw them over the fence. hey, it keeps him occupied. it was also nice to get over there because i could pop in and see maggie, throw my arms around her and profess my love for my dear friend and wish her an official happy 30th birthday.

5 comments:

For The Love of Rockets said...

I just want to start by saying you ROCK MY SOCKS OFF!! I really love your stories (i dont know any other way to put it sorry)i read them all the time (not in a creepy way lol)you help me relize that there is happiness out there and that brings me a piece of mind and JOY to my heart!!!
p.s your hair rocks!!

Sparrow said...

wow-your church sounds awesome. how did you find it?! all churches should be like that, having that unity.

and your friends parties blow me away. a drum circle and guitars?!? that's awesome.

Olive said...

crystal ann - you're cracking me up. but thank you! :)


cachet - we attend a vineyard church. it is a "neighborhood church" here in columbus so we naturally are going to go there.

Sparrow said...

by 'neighborhood church' do you mean it's right near where you live? i am just curious since i would love to find that kind of church...but have no idea how. most aren't like that, ime.

Olive said...

yes neighborhood church meaning that it has a big emphasis on local people and engaging suffering in this area.