Owen's Dedication Day

On Janurary 6, 2008, we dedicated Owen to Jesus. This was a special time for Ryan and me to dedicate ourselves to raising Owen to love God with all of his heart, soul, mind and strength. We believe that the decision to follow Christ will be one that Owen will need to make himself when he is old enough to understand. However, Ryan and I wanted to make a committment to do everything we can to teach Owen what it means to love God and be His disciple and to pray that Owen will choose to give his life to Christ.

Below is the prayer and scripture that we read to Owen as well as pictures from the day.

Lord, we pray these things for Owen in the name of Jesus,

Impress your image upon his soul;

Raise him above the smiles and frowns of the world,

regarding it as a light thing to be judged by men;

May Your approval be his only aim,

Your word his one rule.

Make him to abhor that which grieves the Holy Spirit,

to suspect consolations of a worldly nature,

to shun a careless way of life,

to reprove evil,

to instruct with meekness those who oppose him,

to be gentle and patient towards all men,

to be not only a professor but an example of the gospel,

displaying in every relation, office, and condition

it's excellency, loveliness and advantages.

May he serve his generation,

recommend his redeemer

and be a blessing to all.

AMEN

Romans 12: 1-2

We urge you, Owen, in view of God's mercy, to offer your body as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God- this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is- his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Owen's friends Kyley, Jack, Lucy, Henry, Micah and Rhys

Our Home Group

Pray for Cyd

Sunday afternoon I was doing the same as many of you were - settling in after church, reading the Sunday paper and trying to find something to watch on the tv. Tara came to the front from checking email to tell me something that took me about a minute to process.

Our friend Cyd Mizell was kidnapped in Afghanistan. You might have seen it on the news or in your newspaper. We haven't seen Cyd since Billy and Elizabeth's wedding over 4 years ago, but it still didn't stop the news from slapping me in the face.

Cyd has been working for a relief agency in Afghanistan for the past few years, primarily teaching English and embroidery to girls. No one has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping yet.

Please pray fervently for Cyd and her driver, Muhammed. Pray towards the safe return of Cyd to her family and friends and that she would be protected physically, mentally and spiritually while she goes through this ordeal.

For more info see http://www.arldf.net/. Another interesting article just came out about a protest by a group of women demanding Cyd's release, which is very rare in Afghanistan. See that article here.

Raking Leaves

Owen had his first experience with raking leaves two weekends ago. That's right, here in Texas the leaves don't finish falling until January. We even had to mow the grass (technically, it really did need mowing, but it's much easier to just mow the leaves too rather than rake it all up!). Here's a few shots.

Owen and Dad both wearing their overalls to do yard work.

We're Back with a Geography Quiz

I know, I know...those of you die-hard Owen watchers have been starving for some new material. We stink, we know. But you try keeping up with us and then we'll get into how much blogging can be accomplished. Anyway...

Casey sent out this fun game today and we wanted to share it. It's called the Traveler's IQ Challenge. Try it! Ryan is the reigning champ - got to round 10 with a score of 366,180 and a Travel IQ of 111! Let me know if you can top that. And no fair playing for hours and then getting that score - second time for Ryan got that score.

Also, please notice that we've added a few things to our sidebar. We've been reading a lot lately and we're always listening to new music. We thought we'd share what we're reading and listening to so you can try some of them too. Hope you don't mind that we sometimes both read the same books!

Christmas at Home

After spending a week in Iowa, we came home to Texas for 2 days. This was just enough time to do laundry, repack and have our own little family Christmas.

After our 2 day stop at home, we headed to Louisiana to celebrate with Ryan's family. We drove to New Orleans to spend time with the rest of the Hammett family for a few days. We went into the city for a day and visited the aqarium, rode the street cars and ate yummy beignets at Cafe du Monde.

Owen got his first drum set from Uncle Brent.

Clearly he's not a fan of bows in his hair :)

Owen is hanging out with Aunt Robbi and Isabella.Not only did Santa come to Christmas dinner, Willie Nelson showed up too!

Owen was not too sure about "finding nemo".

But he was meserized by the shark tank.

Christmas in Iowa

We started the holidays with a trip to Chicago with Tara's parents. We spent an entire day downtown shopping and playing. This is where Owen met Santa for the very first time.

After a few days in Chicago, we went back to Muscatine to celebrate Christmas with our family. Ben and Katie drove in Friday night, and Ritzmans came for Saturday and Sunday. We opened gifts, ate way to much, and enjoyed the inches and inches of snow that fell Friday night and Sunday.

Playing with Grandma and his toys Christmas morning.

Owen is making his first snow angel and loving it!!! He's a natural.

Owen's first experience with sledding. A few more times with Mom and he'll be ready for a solo run.

1, 2, 3, Go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On Monday, the Schmidts came to visit and met Owen for the first time. We had a fun day telling stories, laughing and just catching up. What a wonderful time we had with all of our family.

A Brief Stop...

And then on to Louisiana. We're home for just two days - enough time for laundry and catching up with work emails and then we're off again. We'll be gone till Tuesday.

We had a blast in Iowa. Owen was an angel on both flights and with all our side trips. We got about 7 inches of snow on Saturday night, which was fun. Pictures to come later.

One thing we will leave you with is a picture of Owen opening his first present. The kid had a blast. He knew exactly what to do. It was so funny.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from the Hammetts!!

We hoped to get a few more posts up before we left for Christmas, but it just snuck up on us! We leave Tuesday night for the frozen north. We're there for a week, back home for two days and then it's over to Louisiana to thaw out a little.

We hope you all have a great Christmas. It's been a great year for us and we're very thankful for all of our family and friends. We're also very thankful for a few weeks to lay low and enjoy life. We hope that you can all do the same.

And a very Merry Christmas to our friends the Johnsons who just made a big move back to the US with a 2 year old and a 1 month old - we hope you guys can get some rest over the next few weeks and catch up with everything that's happened over on this side of the pond.

We'll leave you all with these pictures from our church small group Christmas party. We made gingerbread houses. Merry Christmas!

Christmas Cookies

When we were in Louisiana a few weeks ago we participated in the time honored tradition at the Hammett house of baking Christmas cookies the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Owen wasn't so sure what to think of all these big people acting silly and coloring cookies, but he thought it was a fun thing and he can't wait to be able to fully participate.

Owen's First Christmas Tree

We went a few weeks ago and picked out our Christmas tree - Owen's first one. We'd love to say that we went to the forest and chopped down the most beautiful, special tree for Owen's first Christmas. But we live in a large metropolitan area, so we did as everyone else - went to Home Depot. Didn't matter to Owen. He had a blast. After we got it decorated we hung two shiny ornaments at the bottom that he likes to sit and bat around.

Owen tells us that this one is good.

Putting the star on top