One More Baptism Pic

Because it's too cute to not share!





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Baptism

The boys were baptized last Sunday. They looked very dapper and took water to the head like champs! It was a very churchy weekend. After a four hour class on baptism on Saturday (our third time through it), we had the baptism Sunday morning, and then Carter sang in choir at a special service Sunday night. (And he really sang!)

Christmas Eve

Carter watches his personal video from Santa (4+ times in a row) 

At lunch after watching The Muppets

Anna in her Christmas Pageant costume (shortly before deciding she didn't want to be in the pageant)

Carter in his Christmas Pageant costume (shortly before deciding he didn't want to be in the pageant).
He did, however, carry the nativity Jesus into the church during the processional. A job he did well, but after which he declared "I hate that job!". He doesn't care to have people looking at him. 

In their Christmas PJs!

With his letter for Santa, accompanied by peppermint bark!

Church Wear

A study in comparison...

Dad gets Carter ready for church

Mom gets Carter ready for church

Choir

Carter has been rehearsing with the Preparatory Choir at church and generally seems to enjoy it.  He sings the songs at home, was very excited to get a practice CD with their songs that he played many times, and rarely complains about have to go to rehearsals on Sunday nights.  This past Sunday was their first performance during the service on Sunday morning.

As some of you may know, Carter has some serious stage fright, though he does not appear to realize it.  Remember this recent event.  Thankfully he doesn't get too nervous and after the fact swears he had a good time.  So he was all smiles when it was time to head to church VERY early.

New shirt and his first tie!

(The tie was all his doing, he wanted one at Target and picked it out himself.)

The choir warmed up in the small chapel and Carter took a liking to the altar and prayer book. Not sure what it means that he didn't seem nervous up there in front of all the people in the room!

Final practice in the big church before the service.

Obviously there are no videos or pictures of the actual performance, but while he didn't sing much, he did sing a few words here and there, stood mostly still, and looked very handsome.  All in all a successful performance that we celebrated at the Varsity with slaw dogs, chili dogs, and orange drink!

Mass on the Grass

It was Mass on the Grass at church again this weekend. Here's what the boys most enjoyed.

Mass on the Grass

Our favorite time to go to church is when they do Mass on the Grass - a casual outdoor service. I much prefer the less formal service and music (fiddle is more my style than organ), and I also just love to be outdoors for worship. Between the heat wave and my propensity towards swelling these days, we opted to sit in the shade for the first time this year! Someone snapped this sweet shot of Carter during communion. I particularly love it because it actually captures all 4 of us: Carter, my belly, and both Thomas' and my hands.

Kanuga

We went up to Kanuga in Hendersonville, NC this past weekend for a retreat with our church. The weather was nice, and we had a good time, though we were missing Cart Cart and Nonna. This year was decidedly better than last year, at least with regard to the amount of sleep we got!

We're hoping more Fowlkes will be there next year!

Kanuga

We spent the weekend in North Carolina at a church retreat. It was cold and beautiful. Unfortunately, the first 24 hours were pretty rough.

Carter's illness, being in a strange place, staying up too late and sneaking a few handfuls of m&m's in the lodge were probably all contributing factors. Regardless, it took us until midnight to get Carter to "sleep" Friday night.

I say "sleep" because it was a fitful, cough-up-a-lung, nearly-fall-off-the-bed, keep-mom-and-dad-awake sort of "sleep" until 2:30am, when he did actually fall off the bed, which began the first crying portion of the night, followed by the I-just-want-to-be-awake-playing-loudly portion, followed shortly by the second crying (why-did-they-take-my-toys-away?) portion of the night.

By 3:30am, we were at the ends of our ropes, so Thomas and I threw on our clothes and spent an hour driving Carter through the mountains to get him to sleep. After a shockingly successful car-to-bed transfer at 4:30am, Thomas and I got a restless 4 hours of sleep until Carter woke up at 8:30am.

Nap time on Saturday didn't go any better (with only 4-6 hours of sleep the night before, he was in desperate need of a nap), so Saturday late afternoon found us driving through the mountains once again.

In any case, we are glad that we went. Unfortunately, we forgot the camera, so here are two not-so-good camera phone shots.

Playing on the climbing wall

At the sock-hop Saturday night. Carter had perked up by then and was the life of the party, dancing with everyone and hitting on the girls!