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Monday, April 25, 2011

spring 2011 header


Easter 2011


It's super late (for me anyway) as I start this post, and I have so many pictures to share! How many times do I start a post with, "It's late"?? Seems like always! I guess night time is the easiest time for me to spend a few moments in front of the computer with out little miss wanting my attention! :)

We had a fabulous Easter! The Easter bunny came to our house and misjudged the size of Ella Claire's Easter basket. It seemed to overflow a little. That might be a perk of being an only child...only a few more months left of that!




Most of the contents of her basket were for our beach trip coming up in June.


We had a wonderful service at church and of course took family pictures afterwards. This was attempt #1 at our house. But, the sun was blinding for some sensitive eyes. :)


So, we moved into the shade...


...but still blinding!!! So, we decided to wait until we got to my parents.


Much better!!!


Our little buddy, Ashton and his mommy came over to eat lunch with us. Please remember them in your prayers. You might remember me watching Ashton last November, and then again in December. His mommy, Lynn is battling bladder cancer. She has been receiving chemo all year and we are praying for a miracle.


Ashton and Ella Claire looked so sweet in their white.


Ella Claire was not in the mood for pictures..is she ever?? and absolutely would not look at the camera to get a picture of her and her daddy. Even so, I think I caught some sweet moments of the two of them. He LOVES this little girl!!!


You can see she wasn't thrilled to take a picture with me either! :)


Ohhh, but I did get a kiss!!


Nonnie and Papa handed out a few Easter baskets.



Then, we headed outside to hunt Easter eggs. Ella Claire's first Easter egg hunt!


Serious egg hunter.




I think we have a passy on the ground!


The egg hunters had just a few spectators....


And in the end, we had three little winners!!!


Today was lots of fun, and as always, so sobering as I thought about the details of the cross and the resurrection. We are truly blessed!

Okay, it's just a little after midnight now as I am finishing up, and I am praying Ella Claire sleeps all night. With the activities of the day, she missed her nap and went to bed an hour and a half early at 6:30.  I guess on holidays, that sort of thing happens. This probably means I will be getting an early wake up call! See you soon, friends! Happy Easter!

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Hippity hoppity, Easter's on its way!!


The last few weeks have just flown by! Our schedule is quickly filling up and we are getting back into the swing of things. It feels so nice to be doing normal things again. Going to church, cooking dinner for my little family, getting on the floor and tickling my sweet girl, visiting with friends. These simple things sure mean a lot to me right now. 



Last week, my parents went out of town and while my sister and brother in law were working, I had the pleasure of watching little Madelaine. Ella Claire and Madelaine are at such a fun age these days. Whenever they see each other, they just look and smile and are basically giddy with laughter. It's just about the cutest thing you have ever seen. At least that's what we think. ;)



For the most part, they play great together. But, Ella Claire thinks only Madelaine is a baby. I have to remind her that she is still a baby too and that means she can not pick Madelaine up! :) I only had to remind her of this 1,000,000 times during the few hours that M was at our house.



Can you tell I have some learning to do when it comes to my camera? For the life of me, I could't get a good picture where one of there little faces wasn't blurry. It also might have something to do with the fact that these girls are extremely fast and moving non stop. I was happy to get a few pictures with them both looking my way. None the less, learning a little basic photography is on my to do list for this summer.

Other big news around our house is that Ella Claire got her first scraped knee. I guarantee you, it was a much bigger deal to me than her. She fell on one of our walks last week and was such a big girl about it. No shed tears at all. She actually hopped right up and was running again.



She does love to point to it and say "boo boo", and lifts it up so I will kiss it. It kinda makes my heart swoon, that she wants me to kiss her boo boo.



She wanted me to know, that she hurt her hands as well. They also needed kisses to make it all better. I was happy to do it.

When we got home, after we took pictures to document the occasion, I cleaned it up and put a cute little hello kitty bandaid on it.



Once again, she was a trooper and didn't complain a bit. But, after a few minutes, she realized she does not like bandaids. We have been completely unsuccessful with keeping one on it. I don't understand that at all. Especially since the bandaid had a little kitty on it. I did my best at keeping the germs away, but this little girl was not having it!



I can't believe this week, Ella Claire will be celebrating her second Easter. It seems like just yesterday I was about 12 weeks pregnant with her, wishing she was already here so I could bring her to our Easter service at church. (Even though at that time we didn't know if we were having a he or a she.) And, it really seems like yesterday, that I was putting her in her big ole Easter basket to have her picture made. She is too big for that basket now.




Easter is such a wonderful, wonderful holiday and I can't wait to show her over the years why we really celebrate it. We are already reading Bible stories, singing songs and talking about Jesus. I know that her little mind is absorbing so much and the more we read, sing and talk, the more she understands. But, the truth is, even as an adult, the sacrifice Jesus made for us on the cross is hard to comprehend. He endured so much for us. As a parent, I can't imagine how God must have felt sending His son, His only son, to die on the cross and carry the sin of the world. He loves us so. Each one of us.

One of my favorite Christian artists is Casting Crowns. In November of 2009, they released another great CD with many powerful songs on it. Yesterday, one of my friends posted a few of the lyrics to one of the songs as her face book status. An hour or so later, I was in the car and heard it on the radio. The name of the song is "Glorious Day". It's a great song, especially at Easter time to remind us of Christ's sacrifice for us. It might sound a little familiar to you and if so, it's because it's their version of the hymn "One Day".

"One day when Heaven was filled with His praises 
One day when sin was as black as could be 
Jesus came forth to be born of a virgin 
Dwelt among men, my example is He 
Word became flesh and the light shined among us 
His glory revealed 

Living, He loved me 
Dying, He saved me 
Buried, He carried my sins far away 
Rising, He justified freely forever 
One day He’s coming 
Oh glorious day, oh glorious day 

One day they led Him up Calvary’s mountain 
One day they nailed Him to die on a tree 
Suffering anguish, despised and rejected 
Bearing our sins, my Redeemer is He 
Hands that healed nations, stretched out on a tree 
And took the nails for me 

One day the grave could conceal Him no longer 
One day the stone rolled away from the door 
Then He arose, over death He had conquered 
Now He’s ascended, my Lord evermore 
Death could not hold Him, the grave could not keep Him 
From rising again 

One day the trumpet will sound for His coming 
One day the skies with His glories will shine 
Wonderful day, my Beloved One, bringing 
My Savior, Jesus, is mine 

Oh, glorious day"


If you get a chance, go listen to it. It's powerful, and it's true! 
Happy Easter!!!



Monday, April 11, 2011

here comes the sun


Good Monday morning!! Was your weekend filled with as much sunshine as ours? We have been having the most beautiful weather and I am so happy to be able to get out and enjoy it. Since the weather started warming up, I have been promising Ella Claire that I would take her out as soon as I felt better. Saturday, that is just what we did. I bought a few blow up pools and water toys from target last year on clearance when the season changed, and I was happy to have them waiting for us this year.  I lathered us both up in sunscreen and we headed outside. Unfortunately, my sunscreen didn't work as well as I would have liked, and I spent the evening and all day yesterday looking like a lobster and wishing I would have used a higher SPF! (I'm still stinging a little this morning!) Praise the Lord Ella Claire's sunscreen did it's job!

One of the toys is like a mini splash pad. You hook it up to the water hose and water squirts up out of the holes. I underestimated it at first and turned the water on wide open. Ella Claire let me know real quick, that was a little too much for her.

So, I turned it down and she got a little closer.

She decided it was safe to enter. :)





We spent all morning outside and loved every second. I already know what we will be doing all summer!  After lunch, Jeremy came home from work and he blew up another larger pool. So after EC woke up from her afternoon nap, we headed back out and spent the rest of the afternoon outside.



Such fun, such fun!!! Hope you have an amazing day, filled with sunshine! See ya soon!

Friday, April 8, 2011

it's been awhile....

Warning! This post is extremely too long and wordy and I apologize in advance if it is boring. I felt like I had a lot to say to catch up over the last couple of months. Feel free to skip the words and scroll through to the pictures! :)




Well hello, long lost blog friends!!! Bet you were wondering if I was ever coming back! There were days when I wondered that myself! I am oh, so happy to say, that I am feeling much better and like a normal pregnant lady should. I am still dealing with a little nausea here and there and normal pregnancy aches and pains, but NOTHING compared to what it was.  I am praying this pregnancy is similar to Ella Claire's and the rest will be easy breezy for me.  Any second time momma's out there laughing at the naivety of that comment? If so, please don't burst my bubble! :)

It feels like I should have a long laundry list of things to bring you up to date on, but the truth is, not much has been happening around our casa over the last 2 months. Let's just say it has been a very looooong and tiring time for all three (I could say 4, but I think baby #2 is probably just happy as can be and oblivious to what we have been dealing with the last 2 1/2 months) of us in this house. All I can really say about it, is that I honestly felt like I had the flu day in and day out for 2 1/2 straight months, with no relief whatsoever, even in the middle of the night. No fun, no fun at all! I am so thankful for Jeremy and his patience and servants attitude. He has literally kept our house running. He has worked his normal full time job and immediately took on the roles of "mommy" and "wife" when he walked in the door each evening. He even got up and took care of me every time I was sick in the middle of the night. He never complained, not one time! But, he has said many times this week, that he is glad I am better. :) I am too, Jeremy; I am too!!!

Ella Claire has kept us busy and poor thing, the last few months were rough for her too. She knew that our schedule had changed and things were different. She got cabin fever very quickly and learned to climb everything including the walls out of her crib! Honestly, she might as well have been climbing the walls. A few days, I would muster up the energy and load EC and myself into the car (in our pj's) and drive to my parents house, just 5 minutes away, to lay on the sofa so my mom could help watch Ella Claire and also give EC a change of scenery.  When we got to their house, she would literally run around like she had been set free. As sick as I was, even I got a little kick out of it.




























For some reason, Ella Claire recently went through a stage where she hated sleep. All kinds, night time sleep and nap time sleep. PERFECT TIMING ELLA CLAIRE!! To make a long story short, she attempted to climb out of her crib one day, so Jeremy and I temporarily set up her pack n play until we could figure out a permanent solution. Thank goodness, after about a week or two, she started loving sleep again and we felt like it was safe to put her back in her crib. I still carry the video monitor around with me while she is sleeping and watch her every move, but for some reason, and thank goodness, she is back to her old, wonderful sleeping habits. In the mean time, I am in the beginning stages of planning her big girl room. ;)






































Since, I have been feeling better and the weather has been so nice, Jeremy and I have tried to start walking again in the evenings. Our neighborhood is in the process of adding a second phase and the new streets have just been paved. It's the perfect place to give Ella Claire a chance to get out of her stroller and run around without worrying about cars.  Tonight, as we were walking the new section, she kept pointing up and saying "moon". Jeremy and I both left our phones at home, so Jeremy ran home and got the camera for us to take a few pictures of her and remember the moment.












































































Fly me to the moon....











































































Taking time out for a snack!






































Okay, that's all I've got for now. My eyes are getting heavy and I have a warm, cozy bed calling my name! Goodnight and have a fantastic weekend!
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