CPC wrapup

i have been completely overwhelmed by the awesomeness of both CPC orlando and san diego.

it was amazing to be at both this year. double the conversations. double the awesome.

i guess the thing that sticks out the most every time we're talking Tru and spiritual parenting is the fact that we are not alone. there is a tribe. my tribe. my people who speak the same language and dream the same dreams.

we are hilarious. hil. ar. i. ous. seriously i can't tell you how many times i laughed so hard i cried. this picture only has a few of the many. there are so many more...many who will be coming to RH in May. i cannot wait. so much awesome in one place.

it was also amazing to meet new people with questions and stories and more questions. we were laughing at how a few years ago some of these things that we now speak freely about...spiritual formation for kids, worship as response, 10 environments, etc...were once SO hard to wrap our minds around, but now...now, we live it and breath it and share it well.

here's the thing...this curriculum, and this philosophy hasn't only changed our kids and parents. it's changed us in some profound ways. i am a different person than when we started this journey years ago. it's affected my volunteers and their friends and families. the reach is far and honestly, overwhelming sometimes.

so as i returned home and started missing my tribe like i always do...i started looking forward to the gathering in May, when we'll all be together and can share more stories of what God is doing! and laugh, of course we will laugh! 

micah these days.

micah is a crazy fun kid. exhausting, but fun. we are able to do so many more things with him now and he is communicating up a storm. he gets new words daily, and is starting to string them together. he'll say, "please, mama." he'll also suprise us and start saying a bunch of words that actually seem like a sentence...of course it's a sentence of all nouns :) his latest and greatest was "mama, nie nie, car, bye bye, play." to which of course i said, "oh, you want mama to get your blankie and take you in the car to go to play at the park?" he said yeah.  ha! what a fun time it is to be his mama.

he's still napping and sleeping great. eats any non-kid food...the kiddy stuff doesn't exactly do it for him. he loves to be outside and has been asking to go on walks a lot. he's FINALLY interested in books which makes this mama's heart happy.

things are good around here despite the lack of posts. micah is growing and learning and being awesomer than awesome :) i like to make up words. 

new friends.

we've been MIA for a little while now...okay, a long while, but that doesn't mean a lot hasn't been happening. i've been super busy at work which usually means some things (like blogging) just don't get done because i am exhausted when i get home ;)

The  things that have really stuck out for me personally in the last couple of weeks have been the Playhouse makeover and CPC Orlando and San Diego. All of these things have shown me that even though i'm just one girl running a very large ministry (with my awesome Heather of course), God has given me amazing people to come alongside me, support me, and be in this with me. see that picture of the Playhouse up there? that's our large group room for preschool. that is where preschoolers worship, hear from the Big God Story and respond to God. it's an important room and to be honest, it's been a little neglected. we just haven't had the time to do anything in there...including just maintaining. SO that's where new friends come in. RH has a team of incredible volunteers who create the look for the Centre (the main gathering room). This team also implements vision for big events like Christmas and Easter...among other things i'm sure. Well, this team took our vision for StudioK and the blessings room and created beautiful spaces for us. It was great, but the Playhouse had to wait...until now :) They worked over a couple of weeks to literally make my dreams come true in this space.

It was so fun to see 4 years of dreams come to fruition! and the best part was that i didn't do it. not because i didn't want to...it actually made me sick a little that i didn't think to go in and help at all. i don't like missing out on process, especially in my spaces. (note to self: when we redo the Playhouse in 10 years, make sure to help out) anyway, it was amazing to feel supported by a team that is not my own...not only because stuff got done, but because i have a lot of new friends. sometimes being in a big church can make it tough to be connected...i don't usually feel that because i know my volunteers, and families and kids and the staff, but outside of that  i don't usually meet new people. now, i not only met new people, but have new friends. new faces to look out for in the crowd...people that sacrificed their time to work on something near and dear to my heart, and for THAT i am incredibly thankful.

God is Real.

this past weekend at RH Central was so unreal that it confirmed that God is Real. Does that make any sense? No, I haven't been doubting that God is Real, but sometimes it's easy to forget that He's not only real, but he's working all. of. the. time.

My Saturday started early. 8am. Child Dedications at Central are an event all their own. We host a brunch as families are surrounded by their faith community praying blessings over their little ones. There is a short message, but the real heart of the morning is to be praying for those little ones and their mamas and daddies. This was my second dedication in my new role, and for some reason, it was much more powerful for me than the first. The parents were so real and vulnerable as they shared about their kids and the reasons why they wanted to dedicate their kids. The prayers moved me to tears almost immediately as one dad was literally praying the exact thing I had prayed for the night before. Family, Friends and Life Groups surrounded all these little people and covered their lives in prayers to the Lord. Wow. what a service....and then we did it again a couple of hours later! And, the second service didn't disappoint!

Sunday morning, we had a special guest visiting us from David C Cook. Of course we wanted to morning to go smooth, but we had no idea what we were in store for. Tommy wrote an email trying to explain the awesome, and i'm just going to quote him

I just wanted to take a minute to highlight an amazing weekend at RH.  We have great weekends and then we have unexplainably great weekends and that's what just took place.
Stories started pouring in from all age groups pretty quickly into each service and I honestly felt/feel so encouraged and moved by what the Holy Spirit was doing in the lives of our RH kids/students that I felt it necessary to share.

Initially, I started hearing stories out of small group time in Preschool.  How one little 4 year old shared how she loves "feeling the heartbeat inside her that God created" - as if to say it's how she feels close to him!  Then, stories started pouring out of Elementary:  one was from a volunteer who leads the 5th grade classroom.  She shared how these 5th graders began sharing and suddenly the whole direction shifted by one side comment one of the kids made:  "I bet that would be a lot harder for kids who lived in another country...like, say, India"  From there, the kids (without the prompting from a leader) decided to stop their conversation and immediately pray for kids in India.

At the 11am, I headed over to Middle School and saw 60 kids on their feet worshiping in a way that I haven't seen in a while and being bold enough to leave their seats and head to the back of the room to be prayed over by peers and leaders.  Again, something that in our own strength as staff/leaders is just impossible - to even attempt to force something like that would be a massive failure on our part but to see it happen so naturally can only be explained by the Spirit moving in new ways for our youth.

Lastly, I spent the last half of the service in High School and came in as Connor was heading into leading response.  It was just Connor w/his keyboard and a background singer. That's it.  Nothing else.  No other band support.  And again, something incredible happened.  Kids and leaders began worshipping in ways that have been absent from that ministry for a while and I found myself starting to get choked up by what I was witnessing.  Bachman had set the table for Connor in giving a message (in a nutshell) that focused on bad things happening to good people and there was Ben Robinson - standing to his feet with his arm around one of his leaders - praising God in the middle of "his bad."  And a kid that just 2 years ago was so broken and "thrown away"  - standing in the back, arms extended, singing at the top of his lungs.  It was honestly a beautiful scene.

In these moments I am overwhelmed by what God is doing at RH.  I think that I was just struck this weekend with an obvious reality that God is leading this church and that when we simply set the table, the Holy Spirit moves and changes people even at the youngest of ages.

I just had to share...telling stories is so important, and this week marked something big for our ministries...can't wait for next weekend!

christmas day.

christmas day was started off bright and early for alex and i. we woke up, exchanged our presents, then woke up little man to open his "big present."we ate a quick breakfast, grabbed the last of our stuff (the car was packed the night before), and got on the road to alex's parents' house. unfortunately, we stopped when we were already a ways from home when we realized that we had left micah's insulated cooler. you know, the one with his antibiotics in it :( oh alex was SO sad when we realized. he doesn't like getting to his parents late, and we were already behind schedule. micah had already taken his morning dose and didn't need another until 8pm, so i offered to drive back home during naptime so we wouldn't lose any more time. no one liked the idea of it, but it was what needed to be done to make alex happy, and keep micah healthy, so off we went....

after that little snafu, the morning was awesome. a fun (and crazy) time opening gifts and just being together. the afternoon was mellow...and the drive wasn't too bad. after an eventful evening and morning, being alone in a car for 3 hours singing worshipful christmas songs was actually wonderful! no complaining here...okay a little complaining...so much traffic on the way to OC!

we had a lovely dinner together, and my christmas ended with me staying in our room with micah and falling asleep with him. the kid does not like to sleep anywhere but his crib, and it took a lot of work to get him to sleep at night. for some reason, daytime is easier with him. i think the rest of the adults watched a movie. i fell asleep nice and early snuggling my little man...not bad ;)

we hope you had a wondeful christmas filled with love and joy!

update :: i removed the video because it kept starting on it's own...to see it, go here.

christmas eve.

christmas eve is my favorite day of the entire year. i love it. i love that i start the day with the families of RH. i love having a birthday party for Jesus with hundreds of kiddos. i love being with the amazing volunteers that give of their time on what can be a pretty busy day. love it.

what i also love, is being with my family. it's one of the few times a year that we are all together. all of my siblings. all of my neices and nephews. my parents. everyone together. it's always SUCH a fun night filled with laughter, food, and of course presents! we just did personalized gifts for the kids, rudy (because he doesn't have kids), and my parents. we did a white elephant gift exchange for everyone else. the night has a lot of excitement...and not just for the kids ;) i just love it! and to be honest....it's really nice that there are older cousins to help with the micah ;)

update :: i had to remove the video because it kept playing automatically. to see the christmas eve recap, go here.

the big present.

alex and i were so excited to start brainstorming micah's christmas present this year. i had seen a pin on pinterest that i wanted to recreate for micah. it has a lot of little hardware on it for kids to try to figure out. i knew micah would love it, but i also knew that i would love something double sided so we waited on it, not knowing exactly how we were going to make it happen. then, the day after thanksgiving, i went shopping like normal, and i walked into the first store (jcpenny) to find a wooden tool bench 60% off! there were only two left...and it was only 4am! i knew that alex could do something with it, and micah would love it, so i bought it!

fastforward to 3 days before Christmas...we still didn't have the hardware to add to the toolbench, and i REALLY wanted this to be micah's first "ohmygoshiloveit" Christmas present, so we hired a babysitter, finished the shopping, and alex built the final product. it's incredible! micah was SO excited to play with it Christmas morning and every day since!

when we were shopping for the hardware, i told alex that i felt like we were speaking micah's love language ;) it's cheesy. he's only 1.5. i know these things, but this gift held so much anticipation for me, and to see him love it as much or more than i had hoped it such a gift! so, that was micah's first "big" present! 

christmas eve eve.

making a g bread house is a lot work with a toddler, a photo by alexanderpavone on Flickr.

On Christmas eve eve, I had a total mommy meltdown. Micah had gotten an ear infection and started antibiotics the week before Christmas. The week before that, I was sick. A total bummer for all of our festive plans...I had a lot that I wanted to do with Micah, but it all got brushed aside due to illness. I just felt so sad that we weren't doing anything but laying around. Alex was awesome and suggested that we make our gingerbread house and take Micah to see the lights right down the street. It was the perfect way to celebrate Christmas eve eve!

We may not have done all that I wanted to, but i felt so much better getting in a couple of christmasy activities!

downtown disney.

we normally don't spend much time in downtown disney as we usually go straight into the park, and then straight back to the tram, but we got together with alex's parents, nicole and her fam, and alex's aunt and uncle and a couple of cousins and spent an evening walking downtown disney. it was super fun, and a great way to be with our family...some of whom we don't get to see often! not to mention, i saved my weight watchers points and had a delicious dinner at espn zone ;)

our little model baby.

i made the banner on the chair for our kitchen window an it worked perfect on the chair!

alex styled and shot a christmas shoot for my sister celeste's family. you can see a few of the awesome shots here. we decided to throw micah in for a couple also, and they turned out super cute...if i do say so myself ;)

family pictures.

seriously...micah's little face kills me in this picture!

we took some more family photos with our friend, richelle dante. she has been taking our pictures since our first married christmas in 2008. she has quite the booming business now, and we are so grateful that she still makes time for our little family! here are a few of my favorites.

this is after richelle told alex he was throwing micah so high up that she couldn't get both of them in the frame. yeah, i couldn't watch.

thanksgiving :: part 3 :: camping

the day after thanksgiving (after 4am shopping with my mom and sis), we went down to san elijo to camp with alex's family. micah had a hard time falling asleep which is pretty typical for him. he doesn't like to sleep anywhere but his crib. what he did love was spending so much time with his fam. he adores all of his cousins, and any time he gets to spend with them is always so much fun. a HUGE bummer that happened while we were there was that micah's milk spilled on alex's camera and fried the mother board. i can't seem to find many pictures of the time we spent, but if a picture is worth 1,000 words, then a video must be worth a million...so here's the video recap that alex put together! update :: i removed the video because it kept starting automatically. to see the video, go here.

thanksgiving :: part 2 :: day of

after we delivered our cookies, we prepared a few things to take with us. my brother was here with his girlfriend, tara, and they were busy prepping also. we had two thanksgiving meals...one at my grandparents' house, and another one at my sister Celeste's home. it was a great day...micah loooooves to be surrounded by family...i do too ;)

tara with her candy/cookie turkeys

micah giving great-grandpa some love

can you tell that this kids loves his cousins?

to the left is the best baked mac n cheese. so yummy.

to the right you'll see a thankful poem by maliah (8yrs). so sweet!

thanksgiving :: part 1 :: neighbors

micah is down for a nap.
alex is watching a movie.
i am going to play catch up on the blog. i can't believe i haven't even touched thanksgiving! well...here it goes! 


the day before thanksgiving, micah and i made some iced pumpkin cookies for our neighbors before his nap. Micah likes to "help" by mixing up some sugar and flour in a bowl while i bake :)

 

during his nap, my bro stayed with micah and i made a quick trip to michael's for some packaging materials. while he slept, i used the alphabet stamps i bought to add some life to the plain brown bags. did you know that michael's has small treat size bags with little tabs to keep them closed for only 29 cents?...maybe it's 39 cents, but either way, i like the price! it's hard to tell in the pic, but they say happy thanksgiving...i couldn't find my black ink (i found out later alex had taken it hostage), so i had to use green...not really dark enough , but it did the trick. 

 

on thanksgiving, we went out to deliver to all of our neighbors. micah carried each bag and handed them to our neighbors. it was fun to focus our family on blessing others before we went out to celebrate with family.

 

despite what it looks like, alex was with us....that's what happens when you're the photog! here's a family shot before we went delivering. 

pre-christmas fun

if below doesn't work, check it out here... funny jib-jab

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

better late than never.

alex recently finished micah's first year recap video. to be fair, i didn't ask for him to do it until after micah's birthday, so it wasn't all his fault that it took until micah's half birthday to get it done ;)

i cry every time i watch it. i love it so so much and i love that we have it now. micah loves to watch it and point out his family and friends! just a warning, it's LONG!

Micah's first year from Alexander T. Pavone on Vimeo.

happy half birthday little man.

happy half birthday (yesterday) to my favorite little guy! i can't believe we're already here! look for an update post about all that this busy guy is up to...but not today, i'm late for work!

micah and ryder.

micah and ryder are only 5 weeks apart. they are little buddies, and so much fun to watch. they couldn't be any more different which only makes it more fun to watch the two of them together. alex put a video together of the little guys last Sunday at a progressive dinner that we did. There were pictures taken for the next Faith Community HomeFront Monthly, and it was a fun night all around.

decorating fun.

i've been having so much fun making things for our house. with halloween behind us and thanksgiving on the horizon, i had fun taking down the halloween decorations and putting up the thanksgiving things i made. the only halloween thing that was different this year than last year's "boo" banner was the candy corn i made...again via pinterest. i don't have a pic of mine, but they look pretty much exactly the same as the ones in the pin :) here's a look at the thanksgiving decor up in our house...it's only two things, but it makes our home feel so festive.

thankful tree :: via pinterest

i don't have a specific pin to thank for this, just was inspired by all of the awesome burlap banners!

i am now super excited to start working on christmas...both decor and presents! i am proud to say that i have already purchased several gifts, and i'm excited to actually have time to make some gifts this year too! it's amazing what happens when you start planning in september :)

a day in the life.

inspired by this post, alex decided to document a day in his life. it was funny to watch him set up each shot, but the outcome is pretty cool. check it out ::