tman's dedication

saturday night we dedicated tanner at church. it was our opportunity to commit him to the Lord and commit to raise him in a Godly home and in a way that pleases the Lord. what a great time to celebrate the blessing tanner is to us with both family and friends. we pray that tanner comes to know Christ as his personal savior at a young age and spends his life loving and following Him.

uncle grant praying for tanner and for us as his parents

The verse we picked out for tanner for his dedication was from Luke 2:40-"And the child grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him." they had cute frames for everyone with the verse they had picked out.

somehow in the madness we didn't get tons of group shots...but here's a great pic of me and my little guy (just imagine you can't see mom's head in the background!) and tanner with his ipop.

 tanner and his daddy during worship

after the dedication we headed across the street to eat at buca di beppo. they did a great job of handling the whole o'neal family (plus josh and cordarius), the whole bailey family and tanner's bff family, team wakeem.

after dinner, mom/grammy insisted we take a family picture...yup, in the parking lot. so we decided to appease her...since it was mother's day weekend and all. what was i thinking when i gave the camera to josh and suggested he be the photographer?!? well, the pictures say it all. it was a disaster waiting to happen-josh with the camera (um yes he's crazy) and my family (um yes they're crazy too). so here's what we got...oh yes, a few crazy pics but nothing worth framing...or really anything blog-worthy but i thought they were hilariously funny and representative of 1-josh and 2-my family.

take 1: i am sticking out my tongue; lance looks like he's about to spit; my dad is apparently still chewing his dinner; taylor-"what, who me?!"; and poor brian-he apparently is thinking "what the heck?!?!"; clearly mom is the only one ready for a picture

 take 2: yes, josh was kneeling on the ground. why? i have NO IDEA! and since josh was on the ground, lance decided he should bend down, making him look shorter than me. sadly this is the best one we got...maybe it'd be good if there was a skyline or something interesting in the background!

 take 3: i'm cracking up laughing (probably at something josh did), tanner looks thrilled about taking another picture and mom's hair. yea, mom's hair...no more explanation is needed as to why this picture will never be framed.

 take 4: at this point josh was acting like the paparazzi. i couldn't keep a straight face, lance was clearly having lots of fun with josh, taylor is laughing and mom decides now to take off her purse?! cause maybe that'll help??

 take 5: yup, i'm still laughing and tanner isn't even close to looking or smiling at the camera. oh yea, and the binky in grant's pocket is just great!

 take 6: yup, still laughing. and apparently it's contagious since dad's laughing too. and it looks like josh thought the shadow on the left should fully be included in the picture...or he was just going for an off-centered look.

 take 7: yup, it got funnier. and apparently dad/ipop turned into a pirate. aaaaarrrrrrrrrhhhhhhh!

clearly a family photo op failure. and sadly these were the only pictures i got-somehow gigi and pops, poppa, uncle mark, chris and kristin, anna, audrey and ellery avoided the camera.