Zach's 1st birthday

First. Updates:

• It's the 'peakest' of my year end peak season at work now. Worked thru the weekends so that means two weeks of continuous work. It's taking a toll on me..
• We've been miraculously blessed by a recent job offer for Kevin that literally fell from the heavens (most definitely spilt from God's cup and off His lap!) and that's helped us make one big step toward my being SAHM
  
• Zachary decided today that he's pretty much done with crawling and decided walking is THE mode of transport - that's kept K and I pretty much on our toes and feet the whole day as you can imagine
  
• Mum and Dad will be in Darwin, Melbourne and Tasmania over the next three weeks - miss them. Plus it stirs my wanderlust!
• We (seriously) prayed for Baby No.2 to come our way next year
  

And now an excerpt from Zach's birthday pic collection:


We did a collage of his pics from birth. I love this!


Our li't charmer. We love his smile :-D


He was obviously awed by the sight of sooo many adults smiling and singing to him :-)


Just before his test drive...

His birthday meal at Globetrotters, United Sq.

Zachary was having such fun in their playroom


















(pics below) Testing his agility...

Random Thought (#8) - Marriage and Weddings

Mum and Dad celebrated their wedding anniversary yesterday.
Years down, I wanna be like them. Serving the Lord and active. Loving and committed to each other. They're not perfect - they still have tiffs, idiosyncracies that sometimes drive each other up the wall - but they remain committed and faithful to each other.

They have no idea how important it is to me (and for the world) to see them this way.
Faithfulness is not a hallmark of marriages nowadays.

"To have and to hold...till death parts us"
...means choosing to remain faithful in the most difficult of times
...means choosing to love even when I don't feel like it
...means choosing to hope in God together

Submission

Attended weddings over three consecutive weekends. Oh how I love weddings! The atmosphere, the excitement, the joy, the gown...aaahh *dewy-eyed*...all's sweet till....the vows :-)
There will be giggles and darting of eyes when the bride says, "...to submit to you and honour you...."

And these are the very two areas that I'm being further refined. Too many occasions to recount one-by-one but something happened at the wedding we attended last Saturday that (in retrospect) was a simple lesson on submission for me.

Emcee: And now we'll invite...Michelle to do the interpretation for the message...
Me: Me? (stares blank-face at K who is struggling with Z) but I wasn't informed...
K: If that's the case, then don't go up. Z needs you too.
Me: But I'm able to do this, why don't I just step up to this since they've planned for this. They may really want this done; I shouldn't spoil their plans, right?
Minutes of debate later
K (impatient): Will you please sit down? Why do you insist on doing it?
Me, seated and now struggling with Z - obviously unhappy and tells K he's being selfish

At photo-taking session with bride and groom
Bride: Hey Michelle, since when were you doing interpretation for us? We didn't know that...?
Me: Oh really, that's strange. I thought you guys had forgotten to inform me
Bride: Nope, we were just as surprised!
Me, very thankful I didn't 'step up to it'.

The Fulfilled Family

We'll have topical study sessions after service two Sundays from now. We'll use this book by John F MacArthur. I'm glad we're starting this study as I hope it'll give room for deeper discussion and sharing of thoughts on SAHMs and roles in the family. Topics we'll cover in the coming weeks:

• Divine Pattern for Marriage - The Necessary Foundation
• The role of the wife/husband and her/his priorities
• Divine Pattern for the Family - Understanding the Issues
• The role of the child/parents

Will share more as we go along....

Memories from Melbourne

Honeymoon in Melbourne (May 2005)

Been attending too many weddings so decided to dig out my honeymoon pics for reminiscence