This year Anna wanted an Artist Party. She has wanted one a few other times but I didn’t think I wanted a painting party with a bunch of five, six, and seven year olds. This year, though, I thought we might could handle it.
Here is Anna with her paint splatter cake. She wanted me to just throw icing on the cake to make it look authentic.
She is growing up. When we moved here, she had just turned one. I can’t believe how time has flown.
Anna working on her painting.
Me helping Anna draw circles to paint.
Isabelle and Jada painting away.
Of course when you have a tedious time consuming project the kids get restless and the moms have to step in to help finish it up and do the touch-ups.
Hope and Bailey were doing a great job!
Luke just wanted to make a mess. I had to help him with his painting. This was just him going to town with a piece of paper and the paint.
The next pictures are everyone with their paintings. I couldn’t get a group shot because some left before the other paintings were finished.
Here is everyone singing to Anna. She is the center of attention and is not even hiding under the table! I am so proud of her. She is slowly overcoming her shyness.
Thank you to everyone who came to Anna’s party and made her day special!
Last week on the sixth anniversary of my Dad’s death, I walked across the stage at First Baptist Church Waco to receive my Doctor of Ministry degree. I began this endeavor just a few months after my Dad’s passing and can’t help but think about how proud he would have been to see me hooded last week. The education I received at Truett has already been beneficial to my ministry in Jay. I am thankful for those who helped me navigate through this process even when the easy thing to do would have been to quit.
I am grateful to my family for all they have done to see this day come. Kate encouraged me the entire time, even when I was ready to give up. It was not the workload of the of the degree that was overwhelming, it was balancing that workload while striving to still be a Husband, Dad, & Pastor. Kate helped me to keep all things in balance.
The kids often had to sacrifice time with their dad while I was away for class, often two weeks at a time. They allowed me to get away for a few days while I was working on my project and they gave up many evenings while I locked myself in the camper to complete class assignments.
I am thankful for loving and supporting parents. This is now the third time my mom has seen me walk across the commencement stage of an academic institution. Her continued support has been an encouragement to me.
I am also thankful for the support of Kate’s family. They do not treat me as an in-law, but as one of their own. Many times they were willing to help Kate with the kids while I was away for school. I am glad Mrs. Lori was able to be there for the commencement ceremony.
It was a unique privilege to have Matt Snowden, my first college roommate, deliver the commencement address. Matt and I were thrown together by William Carey College in the Fall of 1997. We had organizational and theological differences, but throughout the years our friendship has endured. I proud to call the Snowden family my friends.
I am also thankful to the many professors at Truett who took the time to invest in my life. Ron Cook, the director of the Doctor of Ministry program at Truett, has been a constant source of encouragement. He has a pastor’s heart with an academic mind. My faculty supervisor, Dr. Levi Price, provided insight and support throughout the process as well. His guidance helped me to formulate the process that would become my doctoral project. My pastor, friend, and field supervisor, Dr. Howard Gates, has helped me to become the minister I am today. He has helped me to understand both the hardships and the blessings of serving a church.
There are so many others who have helped me throughout this process. I am grateful for all the prayers and support. Below are a few picture from the day.
Receiving my degree from Baylor’s President, Ken Starr.
Receiving my doctoral hood.
Standing in front of Truett Seminary on Baylor University’s campus.
Again this year after Easter Sunday services we piled into the car and headed to Mobile to eat lunch and have an Easter egg hunt with the cousins.
Just as in years past, we hurried to take our family photos in our color coordinated outfits. Other than beach pictures it is the only time of the year that we match outfits. The azaleas were the perfect backdrop this year!
Isabelle…
Anna…
Luke…
Nacky with the Isabelle, Anna, Luke, and Riley…
The Reynolds family two days before Jackson was born…
Our family…
I love this picture of Will.
Just the two of us…
My three. We have several pictures of the girls kissing his cheeks. He doesn’t enjoy taking these type of photos, but he is going to have to deal with it. This is our thing now.
The Easter Egg hunt was after lunch. When they finally got the big kids up from the table to hide the eggs. Isabelle is getting so tall.
Luke was in a hurry…
Until he found this egg. Now he is thinking, “How am I supposed to get that one?”
Anna didn’t find these eggs very challenging at all.
Until she got to the ones that were up pretty high… She had to work for this one.
And of course, as is the case with everything that goes on around this house, the big boys had to take it too far. They hid eggs on the roof. Instead of letting the little kids get them, I made the boys stay up there until the little ones pointed them out.
Here are my two brothers. Look at all that grey hair on Will Reynolds’ head! Wow!
When it was all said and done, they had baskets full of things. No candy this year since Luke is a diabetic, but lots of little junky treasures and coins for the piggy banks.
Riley didn’t care too much about the eggs, she wanted to pick all of Nana’s flowers.
Another beautiful Easter Sunday celebrating Jesus’ resurrection and our freedom from sin as a result of it!
A few weeks ago, I had decided that I was tired of all of the busy work that the teachers and school send home with the kids that end up causing more work for the parents (I am very busy these days and didn’t need the extra work). You know…like decorate this poster kid to look just like you (cutting yarn hair, digging out craft supplies, finding an old shirt to cut up and decorate with), send out this Flat Stanley (decorating the paper doll and begging a family member to do something cool with it and send it back for the class to look at), etc. The very next day after my complaining about this, Isabelle comes home with a paper about the Florida Tropicana Speech Contest that is NOT optional. My fourth grader had to write and give a speech! Ridiculous! Needless to say, I was not a happy camper.
The good news for me was that Isabelle came home all pumped that her daddy does speeches every week so he was going to be good at helping her. And like a good daddy he did just that.
Isabelle picked the topic of love. Will had recently preached a series of sermons on Love and Isabelle has been dealing a lot lately with kids picking on and being mean to each other at school. So this subject is near and dear to her this year.
Will helped Isabelle to get an outline together and come up with an organized introduction paragraph. She researched by looking up definitions, listening to Will’s sermons online again, and looking up verses in the Bible that she wanted to use. She filled in the information and wrote the rest of the speech all by herself. Her daddy helped her read over it and make sense out of the few spots that didn’t sound right.
She worked very hard and after giving the speech she won third place in her class. The top three from each of the fourth, fifth, and sixth grade classes then had to give their speeches in the auditorium for judges, those grade level students and teachers, and the parents of all of the speakers.
Isabelle did very well. She was nervous and very quiet, but she tried her best. Even though she didn’t place in this part of the competition, I am very proud of her! I probably would have cried every night and begged my mom not to make me do it.
Here is the video of her giving her speech this morning. It is very quiet and you will have to turn your sound up all the way and make sure there is no noise in the room to be able to hear her. Also, Luke is whispering the whole time and making noises, so you will hear that during the video as well.
For those of you that don’t want to listen to the video, here is photo of Isabelle during the speech.
