Ahhh new babies!

Congratulations to my two friends Dana and Kimi who had babies just two days apart. Kimi had baby boy Jared on April 3rd and Dana had baby girl Zosia (za-sha) on April 5! Both are healthy and beautiful babies. For really cute pics you can visit their blogs through the link on my page.

It was the first baby for Kimi and number four for Dana. Congrats Girls!! I'm so excited for you and you and your families are in our prayers.

Easter blessings

I know this post is late, but I kept enjoying the thought of it and wanted to share it. First some background info.

I remember getting an Easter basket only once as a child and I absolutely loved it, but I don't remember what I thought about Jesus that year or if it distracted, b/c all I remember is the big basket. Also, my grandmother always made these beautiful and elaborate table centerpieces for Easter dinner and I remember loving those, but again, they had nothing to do with what Easter is really about. That bugged me when I started to get older. I'm ok with Easter egg hunts, as long as they have a Christ-focused message or symbol inside like "resurrection eggs". I guess maybe I take Easter and Good Friday more seriously than Christmas, but yes, I'm one of those people who doesn't like the sight of a bunny or chick in my house or anywhere else for that matter when Easter comes around. It may be severe for now, and I'm open to changing as the years go by and the kids grow up, but I'll try to maintain this as long as I can.

Anyway, this past Easter Sunday was pretty low key for us. I had been wanting to organize some "Christ-focused" Easter traditions to do with the kids like the resurrection eggs, or an advent-type calender/chart for everything from Palm Sunday through Easter etc. Unfortunately, I didn't get any of this together and by the time Easter Sunday rolled around, the weather was a bit chilly so we didn't go outside for an egg hunt, and the boys were so tired when we got home from church that we didn't do one inside either. And, I obviously didn't want to do Easter baskets (somehow when candy and gifts get involved, things just get hazy.) We did have a formal Easter dinner with some friends, but aside from a lamb-shaped cake


(which was really cool), we didn't really do anything traditional. So, I decided Charley should at least hear the story and I should talk about it with him. He has two picture Bibles from his Nonny (my mom) that he loves to read. So I got them out and read the Easter story from both of them and talked about what happened as much as a 2 1/2 year old will understand and he ended up really enjoying it! He's asked me to read him the stories several times in the days afterwards and now everytime he sees the tomb he points and says, "That's Easter!" I, of course, couldn't be more thrilled. After my lack of planning, he ends up getting the main point of Easter after all through a simple story, and he actually remembers it now which is even better. Another bonus is that next year when Easter rolls around, he won't expect gifts and candy etc. and instead we can hopefully, again focus on how wonderful it is that Christ died and rose again for our sins! I know he doesn't understand all of that, but we can build on the story as he's ready for it. At least for now, the story and message is simple in his head, as it should be and hopefully, that will help him keep things straight for Easter's to come and so that he'll be able to share that simple message with other kids as he grows up.

I know that sometimes Easter baskets and egg hunts help to get kids excited about an event that they can't possibly understand at a young age and then later they transfer that excitement to the actual meaning of the day, but I think I prefer the way things "accidentally" happened for us this year. I'm amazed that through God's grace, a small child can know about (even if he doesn't really understand) the Easter story. In fact, a couple of weeks after Easter, Charley woke up one morning and said, "God protects us from the tomb!" We had been listening to G.T. and the Halo Express CD's with Bible Memory verses on them and each one has a theme. One of the themes for one CD is "God's Protection" so we'd been talking about how God protects us. I guess he just combined that with the Easter story somehow, because I know he doesn't understand salvation yet. But he still got it right which was really cool to hear coming out of his mouth! I exhuberantly said, "Yes Charley, God does protect us from the tomb!"

What a simple and wonderful message! Thank you Lord for your sacrifice and for rising again as you conquered death once and for all to protect us from the tomb for eternity.

Peter, Paul & Mary

Yay! Will and I got to go to a PP&M concert a week ago at PPAC and it was so much fun! It's amazing that we got to see them perform live and in our lifetime. When you consider that they were with Martin Luther King playing songs so long ago and that they're still at it . . it's amazing! We were so excited that we bought t-shirts! I'll have to post that pic later :) Another really cool thing was that Will got to drive us up there in a Porsche Boxter that his friend left with us while he was traveling. Also, when we left the concert, it started snowing the largest flakes I have every seen. These things were as big as cotton balls! All in all it was a really special night and I just had to blog about it.

long time, no write

Ok, I needed to recover from the long trip (which I'll tell all about later), but I didn't need this long. It's just one of those things where you want to write so much that it seems like too much to do so you procrastinate etc. anyway, this is my effort to get back into the swing of things. I miss blogging and things are piling up in my head to talk about so . . .
First, our trip was long, awesome, hard at times, but really fun! We got to spend about 2 weeks with my family in Rusk and Dallas and about 2 weeks with Will's family in Dallas and CO. We went skiing at Winter Park, where we also got caught in a snow storm, but missed the avalanche at the pass. We went hiking, we got sick, the dog got sick, Charley and Will got to ride on the 4-wheeler in Rusk, and a golf cart (both of which he loved). We got to attend the most formal wedding ever in Ashville, NC at the Biltmore, which was a blast! We saw a ton of friends along the way and made news ones as well. It was a long trip, but a lot of fun. We were very blessed to take it and enjoy seeing all the family that we did. Thank you Lord for keeping us safe.