TGTG

When we came back from the nephew weekend our church had a very big event; the launch of small groups!  We are calling them Transformation Groups because that is part of our church's mission statement (connecting people to Christ in a way that leads to life transformation).  So for the launch we had a TGTG or Transformation Group Tail Gate!  This was a crazy day for Neil.  He is the staff liaison to the Growing team (who is in charge of the entire ministry) and that team had put in soo many countless hours of preparation to make this event special and to make sure that the transformation groups will be a ministry of excellence.  So on this Sunday it just happened to work out that Neil was leading worship, preaching and then emcee-ing the TGTG event!  Talk about a busy morning!  Amanda made him this name tag :)

Right after church the congregation was invited to come out on the church lawn for a burger picnic.  After fellowshiping at lunch, we headed inside to sign up for a transformation group.  There were a lot of different types of groups for different ages and interests.  To start off we have 8 groups but we are planning to add more as more leaders step up.

Amanda put in so much time organizing this event and thinking of every little detail!  She did an amazing job and it was such a success!  Through this event our church completed one of our huge goals which was to have 100 adults in a small group by the fall of 2009 and at the end of this day we had 92 signed up and we are expecting to get the other 8 from adults who couldn't attend this event.  Great job team! 

Nephews

The "Griffin" weekend was full of fun!  I got to hang out with Brycer a lot.  He is four years old and quick as a whip!

Bryce really likes being a big brother, Lisa said that he was showing Griffin all of his books :)  If you ask Bryce what his brother's name is he said, "its Griffin George".  Now he's got me saying that! People ask what my nephew's name is and I'm like, "Griffin Geor-... Presley lol!"

Bryce is such a sweet sweet boy.  One time he was sitting on my lap and I was just squeezing him and loving him and I said, "MMmmm! Why do you feel so good?"  he squeezed me right back and said, "why do you feel so good?" :)  I love my nephews!

Bryce took this picture of us:

That weekend we also celebrated Neil's birthday with my family!  We had a really good time and Neil got just what he wanted: a dashboard confessionals cd, the new Hillsong dvd, some LSU cups, a gorilla pod for his camara and a heaping handful of 2 dollar bills!  

Griffin

On August 21st we got to meet a very special little man, Griffin "George" Presley Looper :)

He was born on August 16th and weighed 8 lbs!  Neil and I got to go down and see him when he was a week old.  

He was born on a Sunday morning and Neil and I were practicing for the worship service.  I heard my phone go off, and then someone called and I thought something was up.  I went to check my phone and Bart had texted me, "Its time!"  I texted him back to tell him that we would be praying and he wrote right back saying, "He's here! He is wonderful" :)  what a proud father! 

My dad was in Mexico when Griffin was born so we got to meet him on the same day.  It was so special to see my dad hold Griffin, his second grandson.  He had me and Lisa both crying, just out of the overflow of emotion!

I love being an aunt :)  Its so cool to have two awesome nephews and I can't wait to have more!