Day With Kate Kate

Saturday, Ila’s BFF, Kate Fine came to visit for a whole day! They had so much fun playing together at the park especially. . .

We saw these big horsies on the downtown mall.

At the park, they liked to walk all around the path and pick up sticks and rocks.

Our Wedding 4 Years Ago

Ila's Baptism

Ila was baptized yesterday! It was at our church here in Charlottesville done by our good friend Paul Walker, who also married Ross and I four years ago. We asked Thomas Dixon to be Ila’s godfather who came up from Duke to be here with us. All the grandparents and great-grandparents and some aunts and an uncle came too. It was a very meaningful day as we celebrated what Christ has done for us and how that will come to fruition in Ila’s life by the work of the Holy Spirit.

We have been thinking about infant baptism a lot lately, and surely we don’t have it all figured out, but we do know that we really appreciate the way it represents what God did for us through his Son on the cross, “while we were still sinners” and as helpless as a child.

We don’t think infant baptism is some magical moment that locks her into Christianity or good moral standing forever. She will grow up with a mind and heart of her own that will have to wrestle with the same things we did. But we don’t think she merely got sprinkled with water either. The water she was sprinkled with yesterday holds a very long history, and we believe there is power in inviting the Holy Spirit to take hold of her life. We want her to look back on her baptism and be moved by realizing that even into her teenage and adult years, there will still be nothing she can do to earn God’s grace. She can only receive it like a little child on her baptism day . . . bruised and drooling and spilling her crackers everywhere. Though it made for some interesting pictures, I love that on her baptism day she had a big bruise on her forehead and a scratch on her chin that she had gotten just a few days before. Though she was “bruised and broken” she was covered in a beautiful white garment, the same way Jesus covers us in our sin with his grace and love. As Galatians 3:27 says, “for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” Thanks be to God that we are fully loved and fully accepted AS WE ARE. Here are some pics from the day . . .

Evolution

Here is Ila as a frog last year, the day before her Auntie Ca Ca’s wedding and this year as a monkey, the day before Auntie Dster’s wedding! My how she has evolved.

Backyard Adventures

So Ila is already an outdoors baby! Any chance she gets, she LOVES being outside. We are lucky enough to have a little fenced in backyard where Ila likes to roam around, usually with her buddy, Sydney. The grass area is pretty bumpy, so it’s good practice for her balance to walk all around on it, finding sticks to give Sydney along the way. She also searches for tennis balls to throw for her . . .

A Monkey And A Wedding

Sorry it’s been a while since I’ve written. I couldn’t get the video to post in the last entry and got frustrated with iweb. . . but now we’re back!

We had a very eventful weekend in Pennsylvania for our very good friends Danielle and Jake’s wedding! It was so wonderful to see two people so in love commit their lives to each other. The reception was at a winery outside of Doylestown, where D and Jake both grew up and went to school together. Ila did great and got to see some of her mommy’s best JMU friends from college too.

Though the wedding was on Saturday, we still managed to dress Ila up as a monkey and get a few shots of her. . .