2009 in Review: September and October

Two days into 2010, I'm still trying to catch up on my 2009 blogging. Sorry! Here are some of my favorite previously-unposted photos from September and October of 2009.


I call this one "For every good photo I take, I have six more of these."


Cute ones of Katie and Joshua:


On September 6, we celebrated the birthday of John's brother Jamie at a nearby club to which we belong.

On September 2, my dear friend Meredith (one of my bridesmaids and a missionary in Mexico) came to visit. It was her first opportunity to meet Joshua and she and the kids enjoyed a round of giggling, tickling, and posing for the camera.


Joshua's soon-to-be-close-friend Adah (daughter of our close friends Mike and Cindy) was baptized a few weeks before Joshua. Here's a photo of Katie dressing up to "match" Adah's winter apparel, and a photo of Cindy and Adah before Adah's baptism.

September 14: Katie's first poo-poo in the potty.
And yes, I took a photo to note the occasion. But I will spare you. :-)

Joshua's Baptism

On September 27, Joshua was baptized. I've already blogged about it here, including a video of the sacrament, but here are some other photos from that day that I love.

After the baptism, I took Joshua to the church nursery so I wouldn't need to keep him quiet for the rest of the service. He promptly fell asleep after I dropped him off -- here are photos of him when I arrived, and just after he woke up and saw his mommy.


We had our family and a few friends over afterwards for lunch.


I know what you're wondering: What is that last photo? That's a photo of the giant branch that fell during the baptism lunch, spearing our front yard just as some of our friends were walking up to our door. We put Uncle Jamie in the photo so you could see the scale of the branch. We were so thankful that no one was hurt, especially later that week when I heard someone in our town had been killed that afternoon by a falling tree.

Here is the rose that was displayed on our church organ during Joshua's baptism -- our church's way of announcing his birth.

September 27: Joshua and Katie moved to their big beds
Already blogged about it here.

October 3: We visited John's parents. Katie marvelled at JPa's expanded model train set-up, while Joshua tried a playground swing for the first time at the local elementary school.

October 8-12: We went to the beach for Columbus Day weekend. Six weeks earlier, we had left to beach after my family vacation, and I had said goodbye to warm beach weather and bathing suits. However, we were delighted in October to still have weather warm enough to play in the water! Other highlights of this weekend were teaching Katie how to play mini golf and skeeball, and seeing Katie put a not-so-appropriate funnel (read the words on it) on her head as a hat in a souvenir shop.

October 18: Christy Rowe, the mother of my fantastic new sister-in-law Lindsey, paid us a visit from Seattle.

October 23: We left the kids with my parents and took John's parents to see Topol in his farewell tour of "Fiddler on the Roof". Topol is one of the most famous Tevyes ever (he played Tevye in the movie version, for instance), and the four of us were awed to see him in person. He exuded energy and charisma even at age 74.

Halloween. I blogged here about Katie winning our neighborhood costume contest, but here are some of my other favorite photos from the Halloween season.

Before the costume contest, Katie poses with the pumpkin and gourd that she and I decorated, using VeggieTales characters as a model. She called our creations "Jimmy and Jerry".

After the contest, Katie (who won 1st prize in the 2-and-under category) poses with "Cheetah", who won 1st prize in the 3-and-up category. She also tried hula hooping for the first time.


Since Joshua's pumpkin costume didn't win any contests, we tried a few costumes my friend Marce handed down to us. Joshua wasn't a fan of the monkey outfit because he couldn't use his hands.

In the meantime, John and I attended a Halloween-themed birthday party. John and his friend Wayne teamed up for a unique take on the Blues Brothers, while I dressed up as a baby (hey, I already had all the gear around my house!).

The next night was Halloween, and Joshua's third costume try was a charm. He was a Dalmatian, and I painted his nose black to add to the effect. That afternoon, John's parents had babysat while John and I took my parents to see "Jersey Boys", with the added bonus that both sets of grandparents were around when we started our trick-or-treating.

Videos: Here are our favorite October videos.

Katie swings at a pinata for the first time at the neighborhood block party:

At the beginning of most of our Sesame Street DVDs, there is a promotional intro that can't be skipped over. Thus, Katie knows it by heart and even enjoys it. Her favorite part of the segment is a muppet named Khokha from the Egyptian version of Sesame Street, "Alam Simsim". From the time she started watching TV, she has always cracked up after Khokha exclaims something that makes no sense in the English language. In fact, she just walked up behind me as I was blogging and said "Coco-kabaya!" which is our best translation. Here is her laughing as she watches the segment.



Katie runs in circles in the arcade where her daddy is playing skeeball. Katie runs in circles a lot ever since we taught her to run around the coffee table while singing "She'll be Coming Round the Mountain".


Katie tries her hand at mini golf (I had to post two videos because they both crack me up).

Joshua's Baptism: September 27, 2009

Joshua was baptized Sunday at our church. It was a wonderful ceremony. John and I gave testimonies of God's work in our lives and our hopes for our children. You can watch the video below.

I hope that you're blessed as you watch this. As a sacred ceremony, it was a very meaningful event for us and our family.

Here are the testimonies that John and I were planning to give, though John decided not to use his notes so his words are slightly different.

Me: "Hi, I’m Jen, and this is my husband John, our daughter Katie, and our son Joshua. I was born into this church and met John here eleven years ago. We were married here, and Katie was baptized here about two years ago. We consider ourselves extremely blessed to be a part of this church, and are so thankful to the many of you who have invested yourselves in our lives and family.

"Now that we have two children, I’m reminded all the more how much I need the Lord. No matter how hard I try to be a good mom, there are often dangers, both seen and unseen, from which the Lord is protecting us. When I haven’t had enough sleep, I’ve seen the Lord give me supernatural strength and patience. Because of this, I’ve learned not to make my prayer, 'Give me more sleep', but rather, 'Give me more of you today, Lord.'

"We ask you for your continued prayers and support as we seek to raise our children to know and love our Lord Jesus just as we do."

John: "Thank you for being here today to celebrate the baptism of our son. It is our hope and prayer for our son that he become a strong leader for Christ.

"The thing that I am most grateful for about our families is our Christian heritage that began with our grandparents, was carried on by our parents, and has now been passed down to us. However, it is more than heritage that keeps our families bound as tightly as they have been during difficult times- it is Christ’s love.

"He is named after 2 models of Christian leadership. The Joshua of the Bible was unwavering in his devotion to God. Even when asked to do things that did not make sense in the world’s eyes (such as walk day after day around the city of Jericho), he trusted that the Lord would grant them success and never doubted that the Lord would be faithful to His promise.

"My son also carries the name of my grandfather, Roger Hetzner, who was a profound model of Christianity in my life. Having grown up in the depression and then serving in Africa and Italy during WWII, he knew difficult times and his positive attitude and perseverance always served as a guide for how I should be conducting myself.

"As Jen and I were thinking about a name for our son, the verse I was originally struck with was the famous quote: 'As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.' Indeed this is a powerful statement of conviction and leadership. But as I began to prepare for today, another passage immediately struck my attention as well (Joshua 4:5-6), and I felt would be more appropriate for Josh’s baptism.

"Today, just as in times of old, we have a sign for our children of God’s faithful covenant in Christian baptism. I am so fortunate that when Josh asks us about our Christian heritage, we will have a lot to tell him about what his name means, why we gave him the name that we did, or what his great-grandparents were like.

"However, leaders are not born; they are grown, taught, and tried by fire. It is only by the fire of trial that a man’s true character is shown. So today I ask that each of you, that as my son grows up in your midst, please assist us in the task of showing my son what examples of Christian leadership are."


And then there are several things that made this ceremony unique and especially memorable.

1. My brother Stephen, a future Army Chaplain, did the prayer before the baptism.

2. Todd, the pastor who did the baptism, is not our senior pastor. Our senior pastor typically does the baptisms at our church (he did Katie's), but we asked Todd to do Joshua's since Todd is an excellent pastor and a friend of ours.

3. As Todd returned to the front of the sanctuary, you can hear a little voice call out, "HI KATIE!!!" That was Katie's best friend Daniel, calling from halfway across the church. And then you will hear Katie yell, "HIIIIIIIII!!!!" Yes, the microphone definitely picked that up.

4. When Todd was holding Joshua, apparently Joshua spent a good deal of time staring up at Todd's face. But friends have since told me that when John and I started talking, Joshua was doing lunges to try to see us.

5. As Todd sprinkled water on Joshua's head, Joshua grabbed his hand to hug on it.

6. As Joshua was being baptized, I was whispering to Katie about what was happening. Her response? She pointed to the water in the baptismal and said, "I want water!"

Thank you to those of you who shared this special day with us. And the many more of you who will share it virtually through this blog or Facebook. We appreciate your prayers and support of our family.

More baptism photos

I posted the report and initial photos of Katie's baptism here, but I have several more to share! The professional-looking ones of Katie in her baptism dress were taken at Target the day after Christmas.