happy valentine's day!

...hope it's a good one!

...so we hosted the coffee hour after church on sunday, and we baked these cookies saturday night with ted's sister lauren...i have to admit that ted and lauren did almost all of the work...i was busy keeping cadence at bay...

...of course, ted and lauren weren't just decorating cookies...they were creating works of art!

...the cookies were definitely a hit on sunday morning...we only had a handful left to take home...

...i have to say that it felt really good to be able to serve our new church family even if it was in just a small way...i didn't think i would ever want to be part of an organized church again, after my disillusionment with some of the mainstream evangelical and fundamentalist experiences of my past life...i think i would have been content to sleep away my sunday mornings, especially after a late saturday night rock ‘n’ roll show, rather than sit in a church and try to stay awake…but then cadence came along, and well, you may as well forget about sleeping in…not only that, becoming a parent has really forced me to deal with my issues regarding christianity and the church…and what i’ve realized is that faith is in fact very important to me…i am who i am because of my faith and because of who i know jesus to be…and i realized that i do actually want my family to grow in a community of faith, to put down roots, have other folks watch our little cadence grow up as we watch theirs, to be encouraged and exhorted by others who share my convictions, esp. to love and to serve a broken world…