Thankful for His gift...

We are thankful for God's gift to us this past Easter weekend celebration!

For Christians, Easter weekend is really the most important holiday during the year we can celebrate. Without it, we have no faith! Each year we hope to make Easter weekend more important for the kids and balance out the egg hunts/candy with talking about what it really is about. We have found a few things we are starting to make a tradition, like resurrection eggs. This year though, my favorite memory was the Bible reading our church does leading up to resurrection Sunday. Our church has people sign-up (one at a time for 15min increments) that start reading the Bible in our sanctuary, starting in Genesis, 24 hours a day from Wed before Easter until the morning of Easter Sunday. I signed Ella and I up this year and we read on Good Friday morning. We started in Psalms 119 and in our 15min read through Psalms 130. Honestly, Ella did all the reading. I stood next to her and helped her with a few words. I was planning to read a little more, but she really loved it...it was hard to stop her. I did get to read Psalms 127, and found my section great. My verses included this -

"Sons are a heritage from the Lord, children a reward from him. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one's youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver if full of them."

I felt truly blessed standing up there with Ella as she read and how much I could tell she really loved the Word.

Here are some pictures from the rest of our weekend. We got to spend our day with Zach and Chelsi and their kids and had a nice time.

Silas stuffing his face with candy.Silas stuffing his face with candy AGAIN...

Happy Birthday Silas!

Silas turned 2 on Monday! We had a fun day celebrating. We finally went to the new "all-abilities playscape" that just recently opened. The kids loved it! I stuck with Si most of the time since it was his big day and I tried to get some pictures of him playing. The park was really great...it had a little city replica, unusual swings, a great climbing tree for Caleb and a musical area. Caleb ran into one of his friends there from his preschool so he was really excited. When we left the park, Caleb said, "Now that was a good park!" (like I have been taking him to lame ones up until now...)Here is Caleb with his good friend from preschool.We had a small family party that evening for dinner. He is opening Curious George here and a new rocking horse in the next picture.We ended the party shooting off daddy's rocket out in the field behind our house and riding in daddy's truck, which is the Silas's favorite thing to do - perfect ending to his day.

Our son the monkey

Caleb is proving to be a natural climber. Thanks to a friend, he got to try out an indoor rock climbing wall. He absolutely loved it! He climbed up over and over again and did not run out of steam. His face really shows how excited he was.

Winter in Texas

It's winter in Texas still, can't you tell! They kept begging for me to drag the pool out and the slip-n-slide. They settled for the sprinkler and "back porch" water-covered slip-n-slide.

Love to you...

Happy Valentines Day! Love to you all.....
Ella had a Valentine program on Friday at a retirement center and then again this morning at school. It was so sweet! I love her school - the program included bible verses, funny songs love songs, loving God songs...it was perfect! If I can get it to load on here, I will post... The kids made Valentines for the older folks in the home and afterwards went up and talked to them and handed them out.
I love this picture....Ella did not hesitate and went right up and talked with them. She has her hand on the ladies leg... :)
Both kids had Valentine parties today at their schools and then tonight we had our own Valentine surprises and dipped pretzels and strawberries in chocolate like last year. Although, Silas joined in this year...mostly just sucking off all the chocolate off the strawberries...and not eating them.
Ella's valentines we made....they turned out cute, but a lot more time consuming then planned.
This was the Valentine we sent out to grandparents.
Here are a few other pictures of my monkeys doing tricks and crazies outside.
Here is a home school day...interesting attire she came up with. She is wearing an old scarf of mine as shirt...and then a tutu...
Ella reading to Caleb...I thought is was sweet. She is blowing me away at how well she is reading. She was reading to him about Eskimos living in Greenland...
Until the next time....

Riding Bikes

It was a monumental weekend for bike riding! Yesterday Ella decided she wanted to try riding her bike without training wheels. We have not been practicing with her, but decided to go for it. Daddy took the wheels off and away she went after a few tries! She is riding all the way around the block on her own with daddy running close behind.

Well today, Caleb decided that he could do what Ella could do! We took the wheels off and he picked it up right away too. He is a little more wobbly than her and has not figured out how to stop and get off well yet, but he made it all the way down the street with not a hand on him.

They were so excited and we were so proud of how brave they were. And, no big falls either! Something really special is that grandma Katherine and great-grandma Mimi are here visiting, so they got to see it! Here are some videos.



Ella riding bike



Caleb riding bike

Halloween

Here are some pictures from our fun Halloween night! We trick-or-treated in our friends' neighborhood and there were lots of us! Then, we went back to our house later in the evening to see neighbors on our own street.

Obviously, Ella was Rapunzel, Caleb was Ironman and Silas was Pooh. I was really happy that Silas kept his costume on the whole time. (Thanks Gwyneth for Pooh!) Ella bought the Rapunzel hair months ago with some lemonade stand money she made. Caleb borrowed his costume from grandma (thank you!).

Here is a little video of Silas trick-or-treating...