Grace brings you the Good News of Christmas

Grace explains the true meaning of Christmas.



Luke 2:10-11: "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord."

Grace's Christmas solo

After bouncing around stage with her cousins and friends and hardly paying attention, Grace is planted front and center for her solo, "Happy Birthday, Jesus."

Abigail & Friends at her 1st birthday party

Abigail loving her 1st birthday cake

We're not sure if Abigail knew she was supposed to eat the cake, or if she thought she was applying mime makeup. Either way, success!

Abigail stepping out on her birthday

In the week leading up to her birthday, Abigail really took great strides (ahem) in her walking abilities. Here she is on her first birthday taking it one step at a time (a-HEM).

Grace and Josh play Pike Road live!

Josh and Anna got Grace a little drum set for her birthday. (Greeeeat.) She loves it, of course, as does Abigail. Here's Grace auditioning for Josh's next CD.

Abigail learning to walk

Grace & Friends painting their masterpieces

Abigail snags a man at Grace's party

Poor J.B. is the object of Abigail's rather rough affection.

Grace's 3rd Birthday Party

For those of you who could not be here, here's a clip of Grace blowing out her candles. We missed you!

Grace reciting Scripture verses, Part 2

And here is Grace reciting 2 more verses:

"Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven." Matthew 5:16

"However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace." Acts 20:24

Grace reciting Scripture verses, Part 1

Here's a video of Grace reciting 3 Bible verses she has learned. I'll show you another in the next post.

She recites John 3:16, Genesis 1:1, and Deuteronomy 6:5. How well did she do?

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." John 3:16

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Genesis 1:1

"Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength." Deuteronomy 6:5

One Web Album Maxed Out; New One Started!

I'm not sure how often this happens, but Jerusha managed to fill up the allotted space on her Picasa web album. She was forced to get a new account under a different email address to begin the easy task of filling a second album.

So the good news is we have more pictures up online! Here's Jerusha's email that she sent around with the appropriate links. The slide shows to the right are also linked to the new album. Enjoy!

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Okay, so it has been a while since I have notified anyone of new pictures added to our photo gallery. The reason is because I had maxed out (shock!) my Google Picasa photo gallery, so I finally created a new account and uploaded some new pictures. (Although, some of them are months old by now.) Here's the new web album link:

http://picasaweb.google.com/BenandJerusha2

The new web album now includes:
1) Photo shoot of Grace and Abigail I did recently
2) July 4, 2008
3) Father's Day 2008
4) Anna's (Ben's sister's) visit with us in May
5) Trip to NY for Anna's College Graduation
6) Oswald Family Beach Trip in May (2 albums)
7) Anniversary/Family Trip we took to Atlanta (Coca-Cola Museum) and Stone Mountain back in April

You can also always go back and look at my old web album anytime, as those pictures will remain on the web at the first account: http://picasaweb.google.com/BenandJerusha

You are invited to view Jerusha's photo gallery. View Jerusha's Gallery If you are having problems viewing this email, copy and paste the following into your browser: http://picasaweb.google.com/BenandJerusha2 To share your photos or receive notification when your friends share photos, get your own free Picasa Web Albums account.

Abigail starts crawling

Beach vacation: Orange Beach, Alabama

In early May we headed south to the Gulf Coast for a week of sand 'n sun with Jerusha's family. With a total of 5 little girls this time, it made for a busier week (at least for the grandparents) than in times past and for exponentially more photographic moments! Here is a small sampling of our digital harvest.

Like our youngest niece Chloe, this was Abigail's first trip to the beach.

The older girls, Grace and her cousins Caylin and Cason, quickly launched into their best Chariots of Fire impersonation our first evening at the beach.

Jerusha's parents, John and Maretta, with their precious granddaughters.

God bless 'em: not only did they provide the nice condos for the families, they also had the 3 oldest girls with them at night and most of the day, which made it a more leisurely vacation for Jerusha and I and Josh and Jenny, but much more work and less sleep for them. They're the best!

A typical day went like this. The 3 older girls would get up early and wake their gracious and giving grandparents, who would feed them and bring them to the indoor pool:

While they liked the pool, their favorite game was to push a "sleeping" Uncle Jeremiah into the pool. This task being accomplished, peals of high-pitched girl screams would reverberate off the indoor pool walls.

In the late morning and afternoon, the girls might make it out to the sand and the sand toys.

These worker bees usually kept pretty busy.

But they knew when to take some breaks in a kiddie pool we brought, too.

They also had a blast splashing in this one, too, especially in the hottest part of the day.

The water was a bit cool to the touch in the hot sun, so Abigail wasn't crazy about her first toe-dip in the Gulf water.

Now hanging out with Mommy? Always a blast.

Being held by Grace, however...well, that's a bit more unpredictable. You can almost see her thinking, "You're watching Grace closely, right?" Cute girls.

Cue the Beach Boys: "Two girls for every guuuuy."

Abigail and Chloe were not in the sun as much as their sisters, but these would-be sailors made the best of it. "Stroke! Stroke!"

One night we all went putt-putting. We tried to teach Grace that the idea was to hit the ball in the hole...

...but usually she would hit the ball from the tee box, chase it down, and plop it in the hole.
I'm pretty sure Granddad (my mom's father, the avid golfer) would not approve. But golf sure is easy when you play it that way!

It's hard to get a group shot with everybody in them but we managed one that night with the help of some other people.

For those who don't know who is who: from left to right is John, Maretta, Caylin, Jeremiah, Chloe, Grace, Jerusha, me, Joshua, Jenny, and Abigail and Cason in the strollers.

But the younger ones eventually got to leave their mark on the beach at the end of such a fun week. The very last day there was Mother's Day, so in the midst of packing up suitcases, bags, and cars, we made Mommy feel special with a card and some gifts.

And of course, we had to get some final pictures on the beach, but convincing the girls of that was a challenge. Here's one of the better shots.

Another fun week at the beach.

Will there be more little ones in this family picture next year? Never know....

Celebrity Abigail

Our neighborhood, Bridle Brook Farms, threw a Summer Bash this past Saturday that drew the attention of the local paper. Two beautiful pool babes, Jerusha and a splashing Abigail, made it into the photo essay of the Bash.

Click the pic below for the full version:


Well, the back of Grace's head did make it into the photo essay, too.

Stone Mountain, Georgia

From the World of Coca-Cola we headed east of Atlanta to Stone Mountain, the largest piece of exposed granite in the world.

It was quite a neat place/park with lots to do, so much that our plan of a one-day visit turned into two days.

Though not conducive to my tastes, this Confederate Memorial carved into the granite mountainside was the celebrated (and much souveniered...is that a word?) focal point of Stone Mountain.

This relief of (left to right) Jefferson Davis and Generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson was admittedly quite an impressive engineering feat that produced a product taller than the monument at Mt. Rushmore.

Now that you've seen this memorial and the bearded men carved thereon, let me tell you a funny story that arose from our visit. The day after we returned to Alabama, Jerusha asked Grace about our visit.

"Grace, did you go up to the mountain?"

"Yeah."

"And what did you see up on the mountain?"

"I saw Jesus!"

"You saw Jesus? What did he look like?"

"He was on a horsey!"

Despite my best efforts, my southern belle has already learned to confuse Robert E. Lee (or was it Stonewall Jackson?) with the Savior! Not good. It seems I have much more to teach her.

The old-fashioned way to scale Stone Mountain is an hours-long hike up the backside. We chose this way:

And all were glad:

No matter how you get to the top, the view is incredible.

And it's windy!

One of things to do down below is wander around an "old-fashioned" village with various attractions.

We saw a glass-blower bake a pizza, I think. Or maybe he was making a glass vase or something.

There was a "4-D" movie about Southern story telling, which featured all sorts of snakes and other critters that jumped out and into our faces. Needless to say, Grace decided after a few minutes to forgo her 3-D glasses and cling close to Jerusha. Here are the gals before the frightful flick.

One of the highlights for Grace was the Stone Mountain train, which took us on a trip around the base of the mountain.

It was relaxing for most of us, expect for Abigail, who jumped whenever the engine or the brakes made a loud noise.

In the evening we all gathered to worship the Confederate Memorial, or something like that. No, it was a laser light show that has been going steady (albeit with upgrades) for 25 years now.

Grace dug into the cotton candy with gusto while we waited for the show to begin:

The light show was fun, loud, nicely patriotic and, in the end, explosive.

The next day's activities began with a tour of the "Plantation," for which I use quotes because it was really a collection of old and old-fashioned-furnished houses (including some slave quarters) gathered from around the South and put in one general area. Abigail had a good vantage point but she was still bored.

We had fun ducking into a big magnolia tree, although ironically Jerusha (the one who has lived in the South for 26 years) was the most enamored with a tree that I would have thought she was quite familiar with.

Like I said, Abigail was too bored or too tired to pay attention for long.

At the barnyard area, we got to pick out our lunch, er, see the animals. Grace was generally rather sheepish (ahem!) around the animals, but did venture close enough to feed this one some hay.

This goat got her so excited she decided to show off her vertical.

C'mon, there's a little daylight under those little feet. She's got ups! She'll be dunking a basketball soon enough.

Pretty Abigail enjoyed some pretty flowers toward the end of the Plantation tour.

Later we hopped on the boat for a brief ride 'round the lake. The boat was called, appropriately enough, the "Scarlett O'Hara." Here are my southern belles and me.

A good time was had by all, even by the sleepy one. So here's a Yankee recommendation for any of you to check out Stone Mountain, Georgia if you're in the Atlanta area.

And I couldn't resist another cute shot of Abigail napping, this time as a sailor girl.

World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta

For Jerusha's and my 4th wedding anniversary trip, we all (yes, including the girls) went to the Atlanta area for a long weekend. First we hit the World of Coca-Cola in downtown Atlanta and had fun seeing both how Coke was first made, how it's made today, and the cultural impact it has made both here and internationally.


Once inside, the famous Coca-Cola polar bear was there to greet us. Everyone loves this furry fellow, right? Well, everyone but Grace (and probably other small children), that is. Notice her death grip on my shirt.


He pretended to be sad when Grace cried at the sight of him, but for the next two days Grace chattered about how she made the bear cry. Selective memory is an amusing thing.

Here we are watching the Coke get bottled.

Reminded me of those Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood excursions where he'd show how peanut butter was made or something.

The best part, though, was the last part where there were soft drinks from around the world for you to sample. Grace, who rarely gets soda/pop/coke, loved this part, as did the rest of us.

They wouldn't let us take this Coke bottle home...

So we settled for some smaller souvenirs.

Abigail was desperate to try some Coke, too.

World of Coca-Cola conquered.

Up next: Stone Mountain, Georgia!

Check out our Picasa album here or the slideshow to the right for more pictures from this weekend. Jerusha could only get 303 of our pictures up there, so it's still incomplete by some people's standards. ;)