Easter Weekend Festivities

Saturday we took the girls to a community Easter Egg Hunt that is at the elementary school up the road from us. Last year Chris took Katie to this same hunt and it was totally disorganized and all the big kids pretty much took all of the eggs so she only came home with 3 or 4 eggs. This year it was much better. They had the hunt organized by age group so that each kid had more of a chance to find eggs. They had lots of eggs and asked that each kid only take 30 eggs. I thought good grief that is a lot of eggs. The girls were excited because they go to fill up their baskets with so many eggs. Saturday was the nicest day of the weekend. It was sunny, windy and in the 60's. So it was a beautiful day to be outside and enjoy some sunshine.

Saturday evening we had our friends Jeremy and Stefanie over for dinner they have a boy, Breaden, Katie's age and a little girl, Lydia, that is a little younger then Bree. The kids played, while the adults got to chat and catch up. After dinner my friend Stefanie and I left the kids with the dads and her and I went to see a play at Broken Arrow High School. One of the girls in the play, Jennifer, is a senior and is in my SS class at church so we what to go and support her on the final night of the play. The play was called "How to Succeed at Business...Without Really Trying". It was so amazing.. I felt like I was watching a Broadway play. I had to keep reminding myself the kids were juniors and seniors. It was a fun night out and was so proud of Jennifer for her performance.

Sunday morning, the girls woke up with excitement to see what the Easter Bunny had brought them. They had Tinker Bell baskets with some dress up clothes and candy. Chris and to run off to church early on Sunday because he was Jesus in our church's Easter cantata "He's Alive" so he had to be there early to get ready. He was so nervous about this play, he has never done anything like this before but he did such an awesome job. I was so proud him. The girls saw him in his dress up after the play and needless to say they did not like it at all. I think it was the long hair that they weren't sure of. We had a great day even though it was very cold and pouring rain all day. The girls still wore their Easter dresses, but they weren't being very cooperative when it came to picture time, plus since I was on my own getting the ready for church we were running a little behind because I wanted to get to church to get a good seat for the play. So here are a few pics from the weekend. Hope you all had a wonderful Easter Weekend!

Katie at the Easter egg hunt....with a full basket
Bree getting her eggs...she wasn't quick as everyone else so Katie helped her.

Checking out the eggs to see if they won a big prize....60 eggs to open and no big prize but lots of candy.

Easter Bunny hopped by our house Saturday night and left some goodies.

Katie happy about what the Easter Bunny left her and Bree.

Bree checking it out what she got....with her crazy morning hair.

The girls all dressed up in their Easter outfits....best shot I could get with a 4yr old and 2 yr old.

Bree looking too cute in her green dress and piggy tails... I love that she lets me fix her hair.

My big girl Katie, she picked out her Easter outfit this year. Evidently, momma doesn't know what looks good. :)

Tribute To Our First Babies

A little over a year ago Chris and I lost one of our very first family members. Lexie, who was our first dog we had. Lexie had to be put down because she suddenly got sick and was not able to eat or drink. Today it was time to make the decision for Alex. Alex, was the second dog we got shortly after we got Lexie. They were buddies and grew up together. He had started to show the signs of his age, but it became clear that he was just to sick to stay with us. We had both Lexie and Alex for almost 14 years. They were so much apart of our family. For the past couple of years my parents have let our dogs stay with them on their land since we were in the middle of moves and partly because the dogs weren't acquainted with our girls. They seemed happy with the land and the room to run around so we thought it was best to let them stay. It has been hard on me because I loved our dogs so much and missed having them around. I am sad that they have left us, but know that the best decision was made for both of them because I did not want them to suffer and they have lived a long good life. But I thought I would take a few minutes to write down a few of my favorite memories of them.

They were both rescue dogs that we got from the animal shelter. We got Lexie first, but after a few months we felt she needed a buddy so we went back and got Alex.

When we first had Lexie, I would come home from work to find her curled up sleeping in my dirty clothes or either she would be chewing on a nice pair of shoes.

Alex was about a year old when we got him and he had a rough beginning in life so he was little scared of anyone but me. He stuck by my side all the time. It he was such a reserved dog at first but it didn't take him long to come out of his shell.

Lexie and Alex both were my buddies when I was pregnant with Katie and was so sick. They sensed something being wrong and would just lay beside me and keep me company. Some days they would stay inside with me all day and would not even want to go outside.

Alex would always sleep at our feet and Lexie always slept by our head, as if they had to keep both ends protected.

There are so many more memories like this. They were both great dogs and I will miss them dearly. They have been with us for so long that is seems weird to think that I will no longer see them when I go and visit TN. Alex and Lexie you were the best, loyal and loving. Glad you were a part of our lives for so long.

Time to Sing

Sunday at church the preschoolers and kindergarten age kids sang a few songs for Easter. It is so funny that I used think about when Katie was a baby about having her in church and how I couldn't wait for the day she was big enough to participate in these types of things. It's kind of crazy to think she is already this big. Below is a link to the video footage from their little mini program.

http://www.onetruemedia.com/otm_site/view_shared?p=871cd9b29d5279bcd26669&skin_id=701&utm_source=otm&utm_medium=email

Bella Dancearella

Katie and Bree both love dancing to their Bella video. On Saturday they were both dancing and playing so nicely together that I got some video. It was so funny to watch Bree try to keep up.

Elmo, Elmo, Elmo

If you don't know alreay, Bree is a Elmo crazy little girl. she loves anything Elmo. So when I heard that Elmo Live was coming to town we decided to get some tickets and check it out. The show was on Saturday. Both the girls carried an Elmo doll and were ready to see him. I think Katie was just as excited as Bree was. The show was pretty good. The first part was much better then the second half after intermission. Bree and Katie both didn't hardle move at all during the first half, but the show kind of slowed down the second half and they were losing some of the kids interest. I think overall they had a good time and it was a good family outing. Here are some pics from the show. Oh, and before we left the house I decided to fix Bree's hair for the first time. She finally has enough hair to kind of fix. I was so excited that she let me give her piggy tails and she left them in all night. Such a cutie!

The girls ready to leave. Bree with her piggy tails. The sun was so bright so I couldn't get them to look.

Some of the Seasame Street characters

Look daddy it is Elmo!!

The family

Daddy with the girls.

Potty Girl

On Friday morning I got Bree up and was changing her diaper. I noticed that her diaper was completely dry. So I thought I would try and sit her on the potty, since she has started to show some interest in it. She sat there for a few minutes and then tinkle, tinkle, tinkle she was so excited. Her eyes got real big and she just grinned. She was so proud of herself. In true tradition, when you start to potty in our house you get M&M's so she got one M&M that morning. Again on this morning she woke up again dry and we tried again. After a few minutes, she wouldn't do anything. I told her if she potty she would get a M&M, that seemed to do the trick because a second later I heard tinkle, tinkle and then she said M&M. So I guess you can say she has picked up the routine. I guess we will have to see how it goes from here, but hopefully we are on the track to no more diapers. YAY!!!

Ike Mission Trip

Last week Chris and I went as sponsors with our church for a mission trip to Galveston, TX to help rebuild the area that was devastated by hurricane Ike six months ago. We had 43 all together that went, 34 youth and 9 sponsors. We arrived on Saturday and got settled at Westgate Baptist church, this is where we stayed for the week. Sunday we attended church at Westgate in the morning and then the afternoon we did some site seeing in Galveston. We drove over to Galveston island, but we had to take the ferry to get to the island so we had a huge coach bus on the ferry but the kids loved it. They fed the seagulls on the ride over, there were so many of them it was a little scary. They would just keep flying at you because they think anyone on the ferry has food to feed them. When we arrived on the island we saw first hand all the major damage that Ike did to the island. It was unreal, everything was gone and everyone was just living on their land in FEMA trailers. These trailers are so small that I couldn't imagine what it must be like to go from living in a nice size house to having your family in a trailer that is probably around 800 sq feet if that. I just felt great sadness for these families who had lost everything.

Monday through Friday we worked at a church in Bridge City, TX that had lots of damage from the storm. They needed lots of painting to be done, baseboards to be installed, dry wall installed, doors hung and so much more. Since we had so many kids with us we decided to split them up in two groups each day and let a group work at the church and take the rest out into the community and help people with their houses. I stayed at the church for most of the week and headed up the painting team. We painted 12 rooms overall and each room had to have any where from 2 to 4 coats and some rooms which were a nightmare ended up with 5 to 6 coats of paint. Chris and another guy named Jeff and some of the youth guys helped hang dry wall and put up baseboards. The other team that went out helped out the people living around the church buy helping them removed drywall, floors, trash ect from their homes so that when these people get their insurance checks they can start rebuilding. The one thing I noticed most was that the people who are living through all of this just seemed so tired, their spirit is broken and just seem hopeless. Everyone was so thankful for all that we did and some would just cry over the fact that we just took away their trash. It really made me see that these people are hurting so much and I think they feel they have been forgotten. I just hope that by us all being there and doing this work for God that it made them feel that God has not forgotten about them. He is still there and He will help them rebuild and heal their community. It was such a blessing to be able to be there and give everything I had for God last week. I truly realized that what we did last week is what being a Christian is all about. It is giving everything I have to God and allowing Him to work through me so that people can see His compassion, His love, and His greatness. I am so thankful for Gods faithfulness to me and all of the blessings He has given me.

Here are some pictures from the week. I will post more on picasa.

Breelyn and Lexie who were in my room.

The girls working on a room...one of many we painted

They guys who worked hard on baseboards and hanging sheet rock. Wanda was our motivator for the week. She is a wonderful woman.

Katie and Adrianne worked hard on all of our doors in the church.

Playground after we restored it and cleaned it.