Honey, I Shrunk the Kids!

Gavin and I went to the Science Museum on Friday. I've been telling him I'd take him to the Star Wars exhibit for a few weeks now. It was fun spending the day together. Click on Darth Vader to see a few more pictures from the museum:

Micah's 1st Birthday and Dedication

Micah turned one year old yesterday. We decided to do what we did for Aubri's first, and combine the birthday celebration with a formal dedication to God.

We asked our good friend, Pastor Bob Amos, to do the dedication since he dedicated our other two.

We had many friends and family there the celebrate the day with us. It turned out to be a beautiful day, so it worked out well to do everything outside in our yard.

I closed the dedication with a song that I "sort of" wrote the day before. I tried to find a fitting dedication song to sing, but the only one I found while searching was an old hymn called "Dearest Jesus We Are Here". The words are very fitting, but since I didn't know the tune I had to come up with chords and a new melody line, plus some sort of chorus. It turned out kind of cool, so I guess I'll probably record it sometime soon to share with those who are interested.

All went well, but towards the end of everything, Aubri was trying to eat the frosting off Micah's hands and accidentally bit his finger. Poor little guy! :(

At the end of the night, Sara and I reflected on the fact that this would be our last "1st birthday party" we'd have to plan. This thought left us with mixed feelings. On one hand, I think we're anxious for the kids to grow up out of the "diapers and sleepless nights phase"; but on the other hand, we realize that these moments pass quickly and I'm sure there are many things we'll miss about this phase once it's gone.

It doesn't seem like that long ago when we had Gavin's first birthday party... now he's five and going into kindergarten this year. It is amazing to think about how quickly kids grow up. Now, more than ever, we feel the responsibility to raise them the best way we know how... especially the older ones who will actually remember what we teach them from here on out. I think parenting is forcing Sara and I to want to become better people as well so that our children have something to model their lives after. We don't always succeed, but that is part of the goal. The other, more important goal is to teach our children to follow Jesus, to use the Bible as "life's manual", and to be used and transformed by the power of God's Holy Spirit. We can only do so much... God takes over where we fall short.

Family Vacation

Last week we spent time with family in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Both of my parents grew up there, so there are plenty of relatives that still live in that area. It started off with a Moser family reunion (my mom's mom's side) at a nice hotel the last weekend of June. Relatives from all over the country were there. I had to re-meet many of them since it had been a decade or two since I last saw them. We all had a good time, and it was fun to see our kids playing with all the cousins they rarely get to see.

After the reunion, we stayed with my Grandma and Grandpa Hanson (my dad's parents) for a couple days. We quickly discovered that a two bedroom condo is not the perfect environment for a bunch of rowdy kids. Within a day or so, many nick-knacks were broken (mostly by Micah) and Gavin managed to pull the sliding screen door off and tear a huge hole in it as it fell over the nearby grill. Yikes! We then made arrangements to stay with my older brother, James and his family for the rest of the week.
James is a half brother of mine. I've only know him for the last ten years or so. My mom put him up for adoption when she was very young, but he got reacquainted with our family over the years and it's now as if he'd been there all along.

The setup at James and Jackie's house was much more kid friendly. They have a pretty big house, big yard with playground, and two kids that kept our kids entertained. We pretty much had our own space in the finished basement area.

We decided to head home on July 4th. We made it to Mankato by about 10:15pm that night, so we saw many fireworks displays while we were on the road. We tried to pull over to sit back and enjoy the display, but as soon as I found a parking spot we were able to enjoy the last 30 seconds of the finale. We got home around midnight that night.

Lizzy (our dog) was there to greet us when we got home. One of our neighbors fed her and let her out when were gone. Apparently Lizzy wasn't happy that we left without her because she ripped through our custom wood blinds during that time. I guess she likes to see outside when she's locked up.

I ended up working on Saturday and I'm still trying to catch up a little bit this week. Overall, it was a good family vacation. I'm glad I was able to get away from the shop for a full week. Hopefully these types of family getaways will become more frequent from this point forward.

There are many other pictures from our trip. If you'd like to see them, click here.