My wife is famous!

Not everyone is as lucky as I am -- married to a wife who is not only beautiful, loving, serving, talented, and a great mother, but also famous! Yes, my dear wife is now a recording artist with work available on iTunes!

Okay, so perhaps "famous" is a stretch (the rest certainly is not!). But she has served as part of our church choir, which you can hear on the World Mandate 2009 CD -- now available nationwide on iTunes! The choir is particularly featured on tracks 3, 6, 9 and 13 -- take a listen!

On top of that, you can clearly see Bethany in our latest church newsletter (see below; click to enlarge). Pretty cool!



Dear, just make sure your fame doesn't go to BabyBear's head and that you protect him from the paparazzi that I'm sure will be swarming our house any time now. :)

Fun Times!! BabyBear's first wedding reception...

Howdy friends and family!!

Last night, we had the privilege of attending our dear friends Keith and Kerry's wedding reception. They got married three weeks ago in California and then had a reception last night in TX, so those of us who couldn't make it to CA got to celebrate with them as well. And what a celebration it was!! To see the immense joy on the faces of Keith, Kerry (who looked absolutely stunning in her wedding dress ) and others in attendance was just fun. These two are such sweet, fun, kindhearted people, it truly was a celebration in the eyes of everyone there. We had a great evening.

The invitation specified formal attire, so I enjoyed getting both myself and my boy all dressed up (I honestly can't remember the last time I wore lipstick...maybe Allison's wedding and she just celebrated her 2 yr anniversary! Happy anniversary Allison and Eric!). For BabyBear, we found a tuxedo onesie and some black pants on Amazon.com and I managed to whip up some shoes for him using a pattern I found online. The shoes could have been better (I wanted to put black laces on them, but ran out of time), but I thought BabyBear looked adorable!!!


I have to say, Jeff looked incredibly handsome as well :)


We enjoyed barbeque from Rudy's (MMMMMMM!) and then some yummy pineapple cake and chocolate covered strawberries (a Jeff and Bethany favorite!). There were also slideshows set up around the location with wedding and honeymoon pictures, which were really neat to see. Then it was time for dancing!

Really, it was more like bouncing up and down for me, but hey, it's still exercise, right? BabyBear had huge eyes and was just taking everything in most of the evening. He even bounced on his own with me for several of the songs!! He held his head up just about the entire time we were on the dance floor (a couple hours!) and really seemed quite happy. (My baby is growing up so fast!!!) BabyBear even received a request to dance with the bride and groom!!


I think we could have stayed longer (we left about 9:30), but we didn't want to push it, seeing as how it was BabyBear's first outing to an event like this. Needless to say, we all slept really well last night. Thanks for a super fun evening, Keith and Kerry, and CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy 10th anniversary, ACC!

Our church here in Waco, Antioch Community Church, celebrated its 10th anniversary on Sunday. It's crazy that it's been 10 years since we started! I (Jeff) was a charter member as a senior at Baylor, and Bethany attended ACC her junior year at BU. We immediately returned to ACC when we moved back to Waco, and a couple of months ago officially joined (Bethany)/rejoined (Jeff) as members.

Back when the church first started, we didn't have a building, so we met in various spots across Waco -- the convention center, the fairgrounds, even once at a country bar! Then we bought a building, but it needed massive renovations. So to save money, while the building was being worked on, we met in the parking lot for several months. Thus, for the 10th anniversary service, we returned to our roots, braving the summer heat for a couple of hours to celebrate God and what he's done in the past decade here!

Here's a photo from Sunday; Bethany and I are circled in yellow (BabyBear was in his stroller between us). (See more photos here.)



Fun times!

Guess Who's Two Months Old?

Yep -- me! Okay, so I'm a day late with this post; I actually hit the big 2-M-O yesterday. Gimme a break -- I'm a baby!

Here's me and good ol' Fred E. Bear, celebrating the big day:



I don't have any official height/weight numbers yet; I don't see the doc 'til Thursday. It's been a busy month for me; couldn't fit that in for a few more days. I've been working on sleeping longer stretches (one good 6-to-7-hour shift most nights), improving my focus on things I see, and learning to interact with Mommy and Daddy. Oh, and this:



Yes, I now smile on command! (When I feel like it, that is.) But I really am a happy baby!

The BabyBear Show! presents: Baseball!

Hello, all my Internet fans! In today's episode of The BabyBear Show!, I demonstrate some basic baseball moves. For instance, holding the ball.



I hope you learned a lot from this episode; perhaps next time I'll get Fred McGriff to help me demonstrate my mad baseball skillz. Until next time - adios!

The BabyBear Show! August 11, 2009

Welcome, Internet fans of all ages, to another episode of The BabyBear Show! Today we're back on my favorite playmat, and if you look closely, you'll see more evidence of my newest trick: smiling! Enjoy!



(P.S. If you like what you see here, and I know you do, feel free to contribute to my dad's "Raising Money for a Better Camcorder" fund. His birthday's coming up, you know! Happy birthday Dad!)

The BabyBear Show! presents: Meet the Baylor Bears

I got to visit the beautiful campus of Baylor University this weekend, as Mommy and Daddy took me for a walk. I thought I'd take advantage of the opportunity to take The BabyBear Show! on the road; enjoy!



As a special online-only bonus for all my Internet fans, I asked my able assistants to compile this photo gallery from the trip.

I can't wait 'til I get to go to Baylor!! Class of 2031 rulzzz!!!

We Have Smiles!!!

BabyBear has started smiling!! This is something we are all thoroughly enjoying and I managed to catch his first one on video! It's brief, but enjoyable...stay tuned for more!!



Click here if you cannot see the video above.