Hello and happy Sunday to you!

It’s been a very exciting week for us because Nathan turned 30 on Friday! In less exciting news, this week has also involved a couple of post-funeral visits, a Church Council meeting, a ministry team meeting, zoom with my cell group, a pastoral visit, leading ecumenical morning prayer, two Sweaty Mamas classes, the first Leading Your Church Into Growth training session and, of course, party prep!

The highlight for me was Nathan’s party (see balloons at the top!). It was lovely to catch up with lots of people and I loved seeing Sophia’s swings and slide with children all over them!

Hightlight 2: Granny and Grandpa came to stay earlier in the week so they could clear the patio of weeds and neaten everything up for us, which was a God-send! We went out for lunch and it was lovely.

Highlight 3: Farmer Ted’s yesterday with our best friends, jumping on the bouncey castle made me so happy I think I could have cast a pratonus spell!

Challenge: let’s just no go there this week.

Ta-Dah Moment: doing three visits I’d been meaning to do for a while. They were all just delightful!

God moment: our lay minister’s sermon in the service today was brilliant. It was about the Prodigal Son, and it really touched me. We are welcomed home and fully reinstated into God’s family, no matter where we’ve been or what we’ve done – thank God!

Mum moment: Today, splashing and playing in the rain with Sophia.

New words: there are more every day at the moment! One particularly heartbreaking thing Sophia is saying is ‘I’m sorry’. We ask her why, but she just says ‘I’m sorry!’.

Tonight as she fell asleep Sophia was telling me about the meow (cat) she met this afternoon who was hiding under the ded (bed) and then she had to shhhhh (be quiet) because the meow was sared (scared) of baba (her, Sophia). She also told me about being in chuch and it being Dada’s Happy (birthday) and everyone said yay (hooray). We also talked about Amen and prar (prayer) being about talking to Jisus.

There’s obviously a lot of connecting words she will pick up over time, but I can definitely hear the general narrative!

Next week I’m looking forward to a family wedding and the Deanery Chapter BBQ.