Happy Mothers Day!

Happy Mothers Day!  This is our first family picture with all 5 of us!  Joshua is sleeping and Rebekah wouldn't turn around and look, but it's the best we're going to get (you should see our horrendous Easter picture!).  Today we dedicated Joshua to the Lord.  This is the pledge that we took:

We recognize these children as gifts from God and give heartfelt thanks for God's blessing.

We dedicate our children to the Lord who gave them to us, surrendering all worldly claims upon their lives in the hope that they will belong wholly to God.

We pledge as parents that with God's help, we will bring up our children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord, making every reasonable effort, with patience and love, to build the Word of God, the character of Christ and the joy of the Lord into their lives.

We promise to provide, through God's blessing, for the physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual needs of our children, looking to our own heavenly Father for the wisdom, love and strength to serve them and not use them.

We promise, God helping us, to make it our regular prayer that, by God's grace, our children will come to trust in Jesus Christ alone for the forgiveness of their sins and for the fulfillment of all his promises to them, even eternal life.

We promise to lead our children to a lifestyle of holiness by our words and more importantly by our example.

We promise to teach our children to be faithful to the house of God and to the daily disciplines of bible reading and prayer. 

We did not take this pledge lightly, we fully intend to abide by everything that we promised.  For Joshua, and our other children as well.  God has been so good to us, to trust us with three precious souls to raise!

Joshua started out in this outfit, but he pooped during the ceremony and it leaked...