Wonderful Addition to the family --God's family.

Yesterday I was washing the stove and Bethany came to me and said, "Mommy, I want to repent." I looked her in shocked amazement and said, "ok, do you know what repenting of your sins means?"
She replied, "not really."
I said "Well, why don't we talk to Daddy when he comes home and he can help you with that."
My idea was Jason would want to be there if she truly wanted to. I also thought that if she remembered to ask, it was likely and truly the leading of the Holy Spirit.
Coming from the background that I come from -- decisionism and immediate baptism-- I wanted to be careful how it was done. I wanted to be careful what was said and all that. I wanted it all to come from her, and not from me. All to the Glory of God, not to me.

We had dinner and I took a walk. After I got back, Bethany told Daddy, "Daddy, I want to repent of my sins." He looked at her about the same way I did and put his video game away.
He started asking her questions like What is sin? Have you sinned? Give me an example of how you sinned. She was able to answer all of them. He then asked her , " who saved you?"
she replied "God",
Jason "who is His Son?"
Bethany "His Son."
Jason "who is His Son, who died on the cross?"
Bethany "God".
Me "What is His name?"
Bethany "I don't know."
Jason "yes you do."
Bethany "Oh, Jesus". He died on the cross and rose froM THE DEAD." (she yelled the last part)
Brookelyn was getting distracting, so we went upstairs and put her in her crib and Brianna came along too.
We got in their room and talked some more. Asked some of the same questions as well as explaining what repent means. We wanted to make sure she was truly ready. The Bible says, "Become as a little child...". She is 5.
When Jason was sure she understood, he said, "What do you have to do?"
Bethany "pray and tell Jesus I want to repent and ask Him to forgive me and trust Jesus."
Jason said, "do you want to do that?"
She answered, "yes"
Brianna said "I am not ready, Daddy." Of which in a way were relieved. She is her own person this way and not just following Bethany. We pray she will come to the same on her own in the near future.
We sent Brianna out of the room while Daddy prayed. He then told her that he could not pray for her as she had to pray on her own. Bethany said, " you prayed on your own Daddy, and Mommy prayed on her own, because your parents could not pray for you, right?"
We replied, "right"
She then bowed her head and prayed a sweet little prayer and we believe trusted in Christ for salvation.
What a glorious moment when we can see and hear our children come to Him. It brings tears to my eyes as I write this.
What a wonderful addition to the family of God. Now we will start the teachings of baptism and hopefully in a few years we can see her follow Christ in baptism.

Raccoons

If anyone remembers the story about how we had raccoons in our attic, dejavu. Here we go again. This time they are not in our attic, but in our soffits (our eaves). There are at least three of them. They are cute little critters in their own sort of way.
I just don't want them to stay there too much longer. I have an appointment with a trapper on Tuesday to put up some traps to get rid of them for good. I will keep everyone posted on how that goes.
It does cost a pretty penny to take care of all this though, I will say. I will post pictures of the little critters.
In the meantime, I have three new pets.

baby contest

I have been urged by more than one person to enter my baby in a baby photo contest. All it takes is votes.
VOTE FOR BROOKELYN

Here is the site. All you have to do is click and it will take you right to her.

https://www.greatamericanphotocontest.com/voter1/index.aspx?referid=EmailFriends&p=648647&x=.jpg

Here is the second picture that I have entered. Please vote for Brookelyn.

https://www.greatamericanphotocontest.com/voter1/index.aspx?referid=EmailFriends&p=648661&x=.jpg

Thanks and enjoy.

Well, the time has come for my kids to visit Grandma and Grandpa by themselves. Amidst the tears they left this afternoon for a week of fun and games with Grandma and some evenings of fishing with Grandpa.
On Friday, after a wonderful meal, thank you Jeremy for grilling the meat and Anouk for making the beans and organizing everything, we took the family to our newly discovered spot to view the city's 4th of July fireworks. It was another great show and we did not have to pay a dime. Wonderful !!
Yesterday we went galavanting off to Chicago to give the parents the great Chicago train experience. Dad is not fond of big cities and hates driving through them, so we thought it might be nice to show them how wonderful the transporation system is and how great Chicago is once you learn the loops.
Jeremy, Anouk, our girls, us, the Grandparents, and Uncle Josh enjoyed the nice uneventful train ride, followed by a wonderful lunch at the Cheesecake Factory in downtown Chicago--actually in the basement of the John Hancock Center.
We then took a bus to the Lincoln Park Zoo, a FREE zoo right in the park district along Lake Michigan. We could not have asked for better weather. The beaches were crowded with half naked bodies worshipping the sun. We found it to be a wonderful zoo and look forward to going back and seeing more of it sometime soon.
After that we went back to Michigan Avenue, also known as the Magnificent Mile. It has all the upscale shops like American Girl, Bloomingdales, Macy's, 5th Avenue, Apple, Niketown, etc... , and walked a short distance on it.
Finally to top off the day we ended up at Navy Pier and had lunch and enjoyed the cool breeze off the lake for a little while.
We then hopped back on our bus, to get to our train, to get to our van, to get home, and in the end, I think it was a success.