Easter...a glorious day!

I love Easter! I don't get terribly excited about Easter baskets and eggs and all that, but I love the chance to reflect on the ultimate sacrifice Christ made for me, and the victory He has every day! I love teaching my kids the resurrection story with my homemade resurrection eggs. (How is it possible he's grown so much in just a year?) I love the fact that so many people come to church on Sunday, that the church is so crowded and people are hearing a life-changing message! I hope the truth of Easter sinks in with you this year. God loves me enough to die for me, when it was ME who deserved to die. And He has the power to triumph over death...so the power of sin has no hold on me any longer! Amen!

We had a great Easter weekend with beautiful weather and fun activities. We got messy and dyed eggs.



We went to church on Sunday morning and got slap worn out by teaching the 4's and 5's...we had 40-45 kids that day! This was afterwards, putting on our smiling faces because we were headed to Mimi and Pa's for lunch! As a side note, I love this picture because I think the last picture I have of the sign on the front of our church was maybe in our wedding album. It's the church where we met, married, and now we're taking our three children. It's wild to think about!


The kids got to hunt for eggs!


Aaron had to run really fast to get them all!


Gonna beat Reed!


My sweet hubby. :-)


Mammaw enjoyed pointing out eggs to the kids.




We even hid some down in the woods by the treehouse-in-progress. Isn't the railing beautiful?


I love having the family together, enjoying the beautiful weather.






Hannah really was at the Easter festivities, but she was upstairs asleep almost all afternoon. She takes really good Sunday naps because she rarely sleeps in the church nursery!

A great trip to Poppy's

A few months ago I was on the phone with my sweet friend Allison, who lives in Orlando. We hadn't seen each other in nearly 7 years (since I was in her wedding), and I told her I really wanted to get together next time she came home to Mississippi to visit her family. Her hometown is about an hour from my dad's, so we set a date of Easter weekend to meet up! I left Chris home to do some turkey hunting and take care of some things on his to-do list, and the kids and I loaded up for our first long road trip in the new van. Quite an adventurous undertaking considering I am nearly 8 months pregnant!!

We had a great time, but I won't be sad if I never have to take the kids in another public restroom. That sure got old.

I was happy to see my brother--when I visited last year he was called out on a job (he works in the oil rig industry) so we only got to visit a couple of hours. This time he was home the whole time, and he got his three boys for the weekend so we could get the cousins together.

Aaron didn't really remember Uncle Ross, but really thought he was cool when they got out the tools to fix his loose training wheel.


When the cousins arrived on Friday morning, the kids took to the street for a little ride.


I was so impressed by Cole and Ethan on their big boy bikes! Cole is 7 and Ethan is about to be 5. Aaron is only a month older than Ethan.

The Cole-man



Aaron has told us he will NEVER be ready to take off his training wheels.


Gabe just turned 2 and I can't believe how much bigger he is!!


Claire just loves to ride her trike!


Then we took the kids to a nearby park for lunch. This park was awesome! I wish it was close to our house!

One of my all-time favorite pictures of Claire.




Look at the size of those slides!!


Ethan was hard to photograph, but that's him running...


How cool is this thing?


Cole and E-man


There were two fun zip-lines the kids really enjoyed.






Gabe tries to keep up with his brothers.


Snack time!




Claire had a milestone--she finally figured out how to pedal Aaron's bike! She was so proud and didn't want to stop!


The kids got filthy playing in the yard. Just the way it should be. I had to get Aaron to empty all the roly-polies out of his pocket before he could come in for the night.


Claire loves her Poppy, and Poppy loves his only granddaughter! (Only for now at least!)


Here's a slide show of all the pictures, if you didn't get enough!

Happy Birthday Chris!

Last Thursday Chris celebrated his 3rd 29th birthday (or 31st, if you're counting right!).

I gave him a totally random gift of flip-flops for wearing around the house this summer, and some of his favorite candy--Whoppers, Reeses, and Milky Way bars. I wanted to get him a new MSU shirt, but I couldn't find one I liked for him. I'm still on the lookout for a good one.

Thursday night after work we went to dinner with Chris's parents at a local steakhouse. The kids really enjoyed the dinner, and afterwards I made sure we got a couple of pictures.




We got home and Chris was surprised when his brother and a couple of our friends showed up--I had invited them for cake and didn't tell him! So it was sorta like a low-key surprise party. He enjoyed visiting with friends.

The birthday boy with his cake. Aaron really wanted to do 31 candles, or a 3 candle and a 1 candle, but I didn't have that. So we did 3 green candles, and 1 yellow candle. The cake looks pretty, but I didn't like the recipe--it turned out too dry. The chocolate cream cheese icing was good though!


The kids enjoyed it!



And no one will ever turn down chocolate cake!


Nice shot, huh Jason?


Jason and Leigha got to oogle over sweet baby Maggie, who had stopped by with her mom Leslie (who somehow avoided my camera).



The kids ran around the house like crazies (after all the cake and ice cream was surging through their blood stream!). They were sweaty and hot from all the running!



Claire with one of her favorite people--Mrs. Leigha! And ketchup on her shirt!


So all in all Chris said he had a very happy birthday. It's the 11th birthday we've spent together--here's to many many more!

Love you sweetie!

New Year's Eve...five kids under five!

The week after Christmas Chris was at a 4-day Bible study/deer hunt, so the kids and I were on our own. For New Year's Eve, we went to Jennifer & Beth's house. They were babysitting the triplets for the night and we decided to have a cousins sleepover. I brought some awesome salsa, which made for a great start to a fun party!

Aaron was so excited about the party poppers and blowers I had bought, and kept begging to get them out. Finally we let the kids count down the new year at 8:00, before they settled down for a movie. We figured it was 2009 somewhere!



Claire thought we were a bit noisy.


Then the kiddos got in their jammies and we made popcorn!




Aaron and Reed were big buddies all evening. They sat together on the couch to watch Wall-E.


The other kiddos camped out on the floor. Claire cracked me up by putting her popcorn bowl on her belly. Not sure why I thought that was so funny!



About halfway through the movie the kids were running around the living room trying to catch a second wind, except Aaron who was half asleep. So it was down to bed they went! We divided the 5 kids between 3 bedrooms and they sacked out pretty quickly! Jennifer, Beth, and I talked and played Sequence until after 1:00!

The next morning was a great breakfast of pancakes, sausage, and bacon.


Buddies again...


The girls always pair up.


Later in the morning we decided the kids needed to burn off some steam outdoors, so we bundled them up and sent them to the backyard. The boys took tools with them, and started digging in the dirt, "to make holes for the worms to breathe."



Claire was so pretty in her hat and scarf! She was trying to jump rope.



No worms yet!


After a little while we brought the filthy boys in (the girls had gotten too cold and were already inside doing crafts with me and Beth!). This picture doesn't quite capture the filthy face Aaron had. The boys said he put some dirt in his mouth!


Craft time!



I think Claire was a little tired.


Finally it was lunch time! The kids were excited to have a picnic in the living room.







What a great way to ring in 2009!