Easter 2011

Praise God for the 3rd day. Praise Him that we can say, "He is Risen!" Easter is a refreshing time of year to reflect on the price that's been paid for our iniquities. It brings me back to the basics of my faith in God. It's emotional. It's humbling. It's renewing. It gives my mind the visuals to always assure me, yes it is done. I can stand before God as the image of Christ because of the gift he has given me and the grace He shows me every day. Now that the kids are getting older, I have been deciphering how to teach and demonstrate the true meaning of Easter. It's the same battle at Christmas. Christian holidays have been taken over by the world tradition, markets, etc. Easter is not about easter egg hunts, decorating eggs, candy, and presents in their baskets. Yes, there are symbols behind these practices but they are rarely taught or mentioned. I don't have the answer. I like doing these traditions and grew up doing them myself. I'm not there yet. My kids are not there yet. We dyed eggs and hunted for them this year. But for weeks we did talk about Jesus' death and resurrection. Kai is starting to understand and question. We made resurrection bread (bake the marshmallow in the biscuit and it disappears when you eat it to representing the empty tomb). I want my kids to know and recognize Jesus on Easter before the Easter bunny. What's you Easter traditions? Dying eggs. Wow, what a mess. Needless to say, the eggs were one color this year. No special egg crayons, stickers, glitter, etc. The egg hunt. Yes, we used the real deal. Kai and Addie actually did pretty good being "gentle" (however, I did place a dish towel in the bottom of their egg buckets). Eli didn't exactly hunt. But as you can see, he does like eggs, especially the yolks once they were peeled. This the only Easter outfit pic I remembered to take. Addie ended up having a really high fever the whole day. She was miserable and this is pretty much what she looked like. Poor girl in cute dress. She had a little sweater too, but she was burning up in it!

Lately, in no order......

Just wanted to get these up before the Easter pics. The kids received a package in the mail this week from grandma. It prompted a whirlwind of cooking in our house! You can see Addie was busy preparing something at the kitchen in her new apron grandma made for her. Eli is a very happy lil dude now that he's all over the place. He was tickled in this pic that he could crawl through the Thomas the Train tunnel with the big kids. He has taken no time at all to explore our entire living room space. Needless to say, the baby gates are up. As if crawling wasn't a big enough adjustment, Eli already pulls up to stand on everything possible. If he can grip it, he's standing. Last week we had the the kids picnic table inside. It made for great cartoons during breakfast. We got to attend a multi-friend birthday party out at our friend's farm a few weekends ago. Each family brought their own picnic lunch and we had cupcakes on blankets all around their house. The 4-wheeler gave rides around the property loaded down with kids and dads willing to brave the wind! The moms chit chatted inside. If you look closely you'll see Pikes Peak in the background along with Eli being held up in the trailer. A very cool concept with an amazing church family and a very extensive invitation list! Addie enjoying her cupcake.

This kid cracks us up! 1. We've been praying daily for a YWAM team from our church. We pray for the team by name each day. Kai has been a little hesitant to pray for people he doesn't know. A few days ago at the dinner table Kai asked "who are we praying for?" Derrick replied "we are gonna pray for unity." Kai crinkled his nose and pondered, "who's unity?" He asked the same question when we told him we were praying for encouragement tonight. 2. During bath time, I was bending over from the toilet seat to dry Addie off. Kai pointed to my stomach and asked, "what's that? Do you have another baby in there?" (Seriously? Leave it to a kid to say what you fear everyone else is thinking-LOL) I replied with what I remember my dad telling me as a kid, "it's a bowl full of jelly" and I added in there for humor's sake, "it's a bunch of PBJ's in there!" I did managed to smile about it. We went on about our lotion and pajama routine and about 5 mins later Kai smirks and adds, "but mom, you didn't have PBJ's tonight!" 3. After dinner tonight Kai was intrigued with something down his shirt. He was peering down over and over. We were enjoying some fruit popsicles together. When we questioned what exactly he was looking for he replied, "something is down there." Nope. After coaching him to lift his shirt to see better what it was we discovered just popsicle juice running freely down to his belly button.

Thursday

A nice little Thursday evening with the family. We took a walk along the creek behind our house and took Scout with us. Then we whipped up a quick grilled cheese dinner! Couldn't be more simple. The kids were smiles the entire night! Good day. Funny how the little things of life make it so full!

My boys

As I've mentioned before, the boys have a special brotherly connection. It's like Eli has "eyes" for his big brother. He hears him, looks for him, watches him, smiles at him, laughs at him. I'm just anticipating the days when he crawls....walks towards.....and runs after him. Really won't be long. Eli still isn't crawling yet. He can stretch a body's length away but he just can't seem to coordinate those back legs. He is going from laying to sitting and vice versa and he is pulling up on everything he is able to grip. He's all of 15 lbs, making him 75 percentile for height and under the 5 percentile for weight. Little squirt....just like his bro and sis. Little E has been rockin' his hat alot lately. He actually leaves it on. He is chewing on everything...his own fingers and mine, shoes, toys, etc. One of his front teeth finally popped through last week....it will be a funny look when it's all said and done. Here's my minature Picasso. He goes through phases of painting.....we are in one now using the flipchart. He has grown and matured so much recently; I blink and feel like I might miss something. He's a caring big brother.....tending to Eli when I need an extra hand, including Addie in his play and frequently reminding her of the rules (mine and his) or encouraging good behavior (usually associated with a reward or snack--go figure). He's catching on to the fun of games like hide-and-seek, memory, etc. He has an opinion on what music should be played in the car (he'll announce "my turn," referring to his choice now). He says stuff that cracks us up every day.... like unforseen enthusiasm, use of slang terms, 3 yr old prayers, etc. Today Derrick asked him to do something and he responded "roger that." Here's the boys riding "Buckey" our rocking horse. Kai welcomed his "little part-ener" to ride. Buckey is life-size to Eli and although he doesn't move, he's almost as exciting as Scout.

An Addie post

Our Addie-girl is the spunk in our lives. Our sweet and sassy in one (as I've said it before). She copies Kai's excitement in everything, she screams when frustrated at anything, she is stubborn about most things, and dances to any beat. She is almost 23 months. She's still under 20 lbs. She is the messiest eater EVER (and often refuses to use any sort of utensil, did I mention she's stubborn?). But she is my biggest cuddler. She loves to snuggle with us in bed in the morning and allow her momma 20+ additional minutes of horizontal rest on occasion. She's into HOT and COLD lately. She determines if food is hot or cold before anything else is taken into consideration. And then she questions you about it. It's cute. We are understanding probably about 70% of her speech (although we'd probably have to translate for you). She and Kai fight more than they every have. And funny, she usually wins. She hits whenever you make her mad or frustrated.....Kai is a slow learner on that one! LOL Lately she's more aware of girlie things. She wants me to put makeup on her when I'm getting ready in the morning. She applies chapstick all over her chin and lips...over and over and over. She likes her toenails painted (along with Kai) and she lets me try hairstyles as long as I don't hurt her. Overall, she has a very independent personality. My cutie pie. Addie watching the gorillas at the zoo. The gorilla on the other side of the glass didn't seem to bother her. She watched the orangatans for 10 mins because there was a baby. She kept pointing to the male saying "Daddy," pointing to the female saying "Mommy," etc. She identifies relational connections well. Drinking her Ovaltine in her snowboots......this is an outfit spurred on by her brother. Dress up (or undress actually) in snowboots always means an adventure to somewhere exciting! The double passy. We're taking small steps to get rid of these (and the handful of others she has stashed around the house, car, etc). It makes for long cranky/stubborn/tearful hours on occasion, but it is time.