Grace's 1st Birthday!

June 11th was Grace's first birthday. On that same day we decided to have Grace dedicated to the Lord. Our church is still new and Grace was the first baby to be dedicated. While we don't have pictures, I wanted to share with you the things our Pastor did to make this day special.

When Adam, Jayden, Grace and I got up on stage, the music leader mentioned that this day was also Grace's birthday and asked the church to all sing "Happy Birthday" to our little girl. It was pretty amazing to hear. The Pastor then shared what Grace's name literally means and then that Grace was named for both my grandmother (Grace was my grandmother's name) and Adam's grandmother (Townsley, being Grace's middle name, is the maiden name of Adam's grandmother, who is also the last remaining Townsley). As he spoke, a slide show of miscellaneous pictures we had put together of Grace over the last year, was being played on the big projection screen.

After a prayer was said, he presented us with a wall hanging. It had Grace's name, the meaning of her name and some life verses that Adam and I had picked out. Since Grace's namesakes both love and serve the Lord, we thought it appropriate to use a favorite verse they had. Adam's grandmother, Alberta French, said that one time when she was a young girl, her daddy was away. He wrote a letter to her and at the end closed with a verse, Matthew 6:33. She said it was always special to her after that. My grandmother, Grace Folkertsma, is now in heaven. While she lived her favorite verse was Nahum 1:7.

As a family we love this idea of a life verse, something we can pray for our little Grace as she grows in life and the Lord.

To celebrate the day of her birth, we had a family party at Nana and John's (Adam's mom and stepdad) where we ate, swam, ate, and opened presents.
It was a great day and I can't believe she is a year old!

Turning a year older is never easy...

Gracie didn't like her hat too well.

Lighting the birthday candles on her cake.

The kids watched quietly... (L to R: Micah, Jayden, Sarah and Trevor)

We had a lot more candles on her cake than the her number of years, but aren't they cute?

She liked the glow from the candelight...

...And everyone singing to her.

Can you believe she cried over having to eat chocolate cake?

I just kept on trying to get her to taste it! I knew she would like it!

I should have given up earlier on the hat.

"Try it one more time, Gracie. Pleeease??"

FINALLY! Mmmm, good.

That's my girl!

When Grace really likes something, she nods her head and says, "Mmmm."

It was pretty good cake...

more pictures to come...