Friends are a gift!

Friday was a fun day with friends for us. The Davidson's were travelling to Minnesota for a funeral and stayed with us for a short visit along the way. Although the kids had known each other very well before we moved away, they had no memories of the boys. That didn't matter and they were soon fast friends playing Legos. JoAnn and I stayed up way too late talking that evening and then again the next day. Our catching up delayed their departure quite a bit (sorry Joe!). It was fun to catch up on old times and realize how friends shared many of our burdens during those precious toddler years.


Later that afternoon, I was blessed to have Lori & Hope come over along with Bethany and her 3 year old Wesley (who adores Spiderman). Bethany and her husband are adopting 2 little children from the same orphanage where Hope and Spiderman lived. Bethany practiced her skills braiding Hope's hair and it turned out absolutely adorable as you can see. Once again I was reminded how God gives us friends during each season of our lives who will impact us and our families forever. Just as the Davidsons are still dear to us after four years since moving away, I have no doubt that Lori & Bethany will always remain dear due to the common journey to Ethiopia we will share and the laughs, tears and prayers along the way. I pray our children are always knit together as well.

Here you can see the process well underway. We can't help but think that when the four older girls arrive at our church from Ethiopia this summer, they will all be skilled at braiding and will be able to do each others hair anytime. During this "salon session" Goose declared excitedly to everyone that she is going to have "so many Ethiopian girlfriends soon".

Isn't this adorable? Hope was very pleased with the results and you can't tell here but the back was filled with finger curls - so cute!

Easter Sunday

Here we are before heading to church for an Easter Brunch and Resurrection Celebration. Praise Him as all we have in Christ was made possible when He ROSE AGAIN!

After church we headed home to change before heading to our friends, the Howards, for a beautiful lunch and an Easter egg hunt. Since this is the earliest Easter I will live to see, I imagine that I will remember it as the coldest and snowiest egg hunt ever! Man was it cold outside....

Boo insisted on wearing her dress all day and I had told her she would have to wear her coat. As we arrived I noticed she wore this paper thin jacket instead of her coat and I was reminded that I often take her independence for granted, where was the mother of this poor child?

Just another egg shot. Ironically, for Spiderman's first egg hunt he made his own priorities. You couldn't talk this kid into picking up any of the real eggs we had colored, he went to grab them and then pulled back like they were poison. Nope, he knew early on that the real prize lay inside those bright, plastic eggs!

The whole freezing crowd of hunters with their bounty.

Grandma's visit

Well Grandma just left from her 9 day visit. We had a fun, busy week as there were 2 holidays and 2 birthdays to celebrate oh, and no school!! Yeah! The kids always hate to say goodbye to family when they come visit and my drama queen summed it up today by saying, "my heart is broken". (I think Grandma's was too)



Grandma treated us all to a trip to the theater - Spiderman's first! Horton hears a Who is a WONDERFUL movie and we all recommend it! Not only is it funny and sweet but it has an amazing message for our culture - "a person's a person, no matter how small". This movie screams about our responsibility to care for the unborn and also reinforces that we all have a responsibility to do the right thing no matter how we are treated as a result. We will be owning this movie someday.

BOTH of the boys learned to ride without training wheels on Saturday! We are so proud of them. Considering how little they get to ride their bikes, it is a big deal. Living on this gravel road makes it difficult to ride much. Cars fly by too fast for us to let them ride in the road so it's just the driveway (unless we load up the bikes in the truck and drive into town - that's what happened Sat). Jaybird has been riding non-stop since then and we've promised Spiderman a bigger bike. :)

We had a warm day at the park and I just thought this was a sweet shot of Grandma connecting with her granddaughter.

Boo's drawing was just too cute to leave out. :)

Coloring Eggs

Like most Americans, we took some time this week to color Easter eggs. Of course, this was Elijah and Hope's first time for such a tradition and it was delightful to watch them take their time and plan them out (or in Spiderman's case, dye them over and over and over again so he could ge the most out of each egg).

It was quite a party as Grandma was here visiting for a week full of birthday parties and Easter celebrations.

We won't actually be hunting for eggs until after church on Easter Sunday but I imagine that will be full of fun as well. We did use our Resurrection Eggs on Good Friday as a bedtime story and the kids all loved it of course. God bless whoever dreamed up those eggs!

the family farm (AKA: Tick Hollow)

We just spent a cool, spring day exploring Grandma & Grandpa's farm. It could have been a bit warmer but we did enjoy getting some mud on our boots (and pants, and coats and....). Hopefully these photos will sum it up for you and give you a glimpse at our country bumpkin side. Yeehaaa!!



Can you believe it? A rare sighting of that creature we call "Mom". Yep, that's me - I'm pretty rarely on this side of the camera so I took matters into my own hands to fix that. You never know when that will happen again. :)

Spiderman had a great time scaling the muddy creek bed. He's starting to understand that it's OK to get dirty (or wet) at certain times. He'd really rather stay clean.

You know Daddy is wrapped around someone's finger when he lets a 7 year old drive the 4 wheeler.

Tom Sawyer here has no fear of getting dirty. Had it been warmer he probably would have been bathing in this creek.

Country guy meets City Chick. Big brother and little sister come from very different worlds right now as Aunt Laura visits from Chicago.

The diva enjoyed the nature walk but is NOT up for the daring or dirty stuff.

We actually use the farm pretty regularly but it's not always ALL of us going there at the same time. Kids take turns going up with my man and a week or two ago, the older 3 spent the entire day up there while Boo and I had a Mommy day. I have never seen my kids any dirtier as they came home caked in mud!! Believe it or not, I'd take mud over doing tick checks any day!

Happy Birthday Goose!

Let's see who can guess the theme of this party?



Is there a little girl who DOESN"T like horses?

This was just sort of a time filler but it was so much fun to watch the kids play Twister.

There were definitely some squeals and giggles from Goose upon opening her presents. Not only is she the hardest kid to shop for (as she never really knows what she wants) but thankfully, she is grateful for everything she gets and therefore, is easy to please.

It's hard to believe she is another year older! We had her party on Saturday but she actually turns 7 in the morning. She is enjoying having Aunt Laura and Grandma here and playing with her new birthday gifts. Of course, all she is still talking about is her chickens-to-be. :) The irony is that she is very tall for her age, taller than some 9 year old friends, and yet LEGALLY she still has to sit in a booster seat. It looks almost comical to see her sitting there and to know Spiderman will get rid of his before she can get rid of hers.

Tomorrow she plans to have pizza for her dinner and Grandma is making homemade ice cream. (funny thing is that when we made it this past summer, Goose said "this is better than the other kind of ice cream, we should take it to Walmart so they can learn how to make this kind instead"). She's also starting a gymnastics class tomorrow night so it "feels" like a birthday gift to her.

I know I'm her Momma but I can tell you that she is the sweetest, most joyful little girl in the world! Honest. I keep telling her to stop growing up but she just won't listen (in fact she says she wants to be as tall as Daddy - 6'7" tall -wow!)

Dear Mr. President

OK, I've got lots to post and I'm running behind. Beware for multiple posts this week. :) I'll try to keep them short and in order.



This is Spiderman's envelope - pretty good huh?

On our way to the mailbox (Yes, we are back to being Spiderman again)

These photos are precious to me as my kids "just decided" they wanted to write a letter to the President, George W. Bush. Well, who wants to tell them "no" so we just dug right in. The letters were precious (and I did keep copies) and ranged from telling the President they "liked how he ran the country", asked him if he could "send some money and some food to the people in Ethiopia who don't have any", suggested that he put "Bibles in all the jails so the bad guys will learn how to be good guys", and Boo drew a picture of him as a patriotic colored flower. I even splurged and let them each send it in their own envelope, who knows, maybe they will get letters in return? They keep asking me if their letters have arrived at the White House yet. Priceless!

Here is what I can't help but draw conclusions about. My little children have such confidence that they can approach the God of the universe in prayer about anything and know that He hears them, why wouldn't the President of the United States take the time to listen to them? After all, "God is his boss" and we have the confidence to know that God is never too busy or too important not to listen to us. Praise God for the faith of children - "ye have not because ye ask not".