What a night!!

Last night was our church's fall festival...and it was amazing!!! I was so incredibly proud of our church and each LIFE group as they pulled together to make this truly a great fall festival. At one point our executive pastor informed us the we had passed the 1,000 people mark. Jay will count and see today how many of those are from other churches or those that are from the community.

My cute grils stop for just a minute for a photo in front our our trunk. We had a truck (thanks Sommer) but had a real trunk in it to store our candy!

This was my favorite overall trunk! It was an awesome antique car with a cute country theme. They even had mason jars in their trunk! Their games was a clothespin drop and Virginia said it was her favorite.

Each LIFE group did their own (on their own budget) car trunk for the kids to get candy and then they each had their own game for them to play. We had everything from a real dunking booth (brrr....), a helicopter to take pictures in front of and explore... football throws, inflatables, hot dogs, snow cones, and much more! Great job everyone for pulling together in spite of this economic crunch and prove that it doesn't take a lot of money to reach out to your community! It just takes a group of people who love and believe in God...and it was awesome!
Here are a few of our women from the class. But, we had LOTS of ladies and their daughters come to help face paint. We had a blast and the weather was gorgeous!

The Thrive women's LIFE group put together the face painting. Our theme for our trunk was Kingdom Kids...princesses and princes. It was a blast and all the kids loved it!

I loved the group next to us, because it was a football tent...and they had a wonderful Auburn banner and little Auburn corvette there. We enjoyed playing over there and enjoying a little bit of Auburn in the midst this Bulldog country. We loved feeding our family for $4.50! That bought us hot dogs, chips, and drinks! That's what I call a yummy meal!! Aren't these girls the cutest? Anli stops by our booth to get a clown face before she hits the games!

I had to work my LIFE group's booth painting face after face, so my hubby took the girls around all night. It was perfect for him since he took that opportunity to check on every booth, talk to parents, and making sure everything was running smoothly. You may notice that there is a little boy Jay is holding hands with...yep, that would be my husband watching another ladies' child while she worked a booth. My husband is AMAZING!!! I'm so BLESSED!!!

Now, I have to stop right here and talk about my husband's new role as children's minister. For the past 11 years, I have only known life as a youth minister's wife. I had grown accustomed to a husband whose ministry did not actively target or include my kids...and thus me after a while. I couldn't go on the trips because someone had to stay home with our children. He was totally gone in the summer and we would try to be as involved as we could, but his ministry and focus was on youth...and my kids are kids!

I can't even begin to describe how amazing life for our family is with daddy being a children's minister. We are together ALL the time! He's not gone at night...because children are asleep! The camps he will lead this summer...my kids are going...not as drag alongs but as participants! And I am going too as a chaperone...oh I love it! He is with them in Sunday School, children's church, in AWANA...you get the picture. Jay's full time job completely revolves around our children and family since we are the very people his focus is on daily.

Now, I loved youth. I am grateful for that season of our lives...but this one is just so perfect for where we are right now. Everything Jay is involved in...our children are involved in!

God, I just want to thank you for that right now. Thank you for this season and the gift it has been to our family. You are amazing!

Lots of friends were there and it was great to not only see lots of people we knew, but more people we had never met! Laura is a sweet friend we met in choir.

We had a great time and Jay did a fantastic job organizing the whole thing. Today, we are taking all those games and do an apartment Block Party right here at our apartment complex. We pray that people will come out today and we can share the love of Christ with them. What an amazing opportunity to reach out and love our community!