Easter Weekend

He is alive!  The whole reason we celebrate this Easter season is to celebrate the resurrection of Christ.  I am so thankful I serve a living God!  One of the most amazing things about this weekend is remembering we aren't separated from God anymore.  We can have a close personal relationship with Him - everyday.  We don't need to make sacrifices for our sins anymore as the ultimate sacrifice was made on the cross.  The reminder was that the veil was torn in the inner court of the temple.  To show the power and awesomeness of God, when Jesus died the 60 foot, 3 inch thick veil tore from top to bottom!  Wow.  He truly was the Son of God - Matthew 27:54.

Also with Easter, God has graciously given me a wonderful family to celebrate with.  My grandparents came to town on Wednesday.  This was the first time meeting Kate and seeing us in almost 2 years.  Thursday we got Happy Meals and shopped a bit with the kids.  Friday we went to our park and played on the playground, had a picnic and fed turtles in the pond.  This one of the triplets cracks me up.



Friday night we had an awesome Good Friday service full of worship and the Lord's Supper.  On Saturday we had our Easter.  The kids opened their baskets from Papa and Gigi and I gave the triplets some owl pillows I made, some fruit snacks and books.  We let the kids hunt eggs before lunch.  This was Kate's first hunt and she took off, got about 10 eggs, sat down and began devouring the candy inside.  Jack had the most with about 40 eggs and the triplets had 25 - 30 each.















After eggs, we ate lunch and my mom got the kids a small inflatable bounce house which the spent a few minutes in after which we said, let's move this indoors because it was hot outside.  The fun continued inside and then ate lunch.



Naps came after lunch and we then let the kids play in the sprinkler and slide.  They loved it and were so funny.  Some the photos are hilarious.  Please excuse Kate in only underwear.  We aren't that redneck, we just didn't have a swimsuit for her.









Sunday morning, the kids got a few treats from us with some wrapped "saved" Christmas gifts from last Christmas (now Easter gifts) and we headed to church.  Again, another time to celebrate Christ and his resurrection.  Easter is my favorite holiday and time year - can't wait for next year!

Beach Explorers!

The closest "good" beach is almost 2 hours away even though we can get to salt water in about 30 minutes.  I wanted to find a "quick trip" beach where I could take this kids that wouldn't be a whole day event.  This beach is not huge, but has some bathrooms, water, white sand beach, plenty of little animals to explore and is only 45 minutes away!  The kids had so much fun running in the water and exploring all the little areas.  The water had tons of sand bars and was only about calf-deep on the kids way out there.  Hello summertime beach!

Kimberly Baby Shower

This Saturday, we celebrated the impending birth of Reese Abigail making her debut May 17!  Kimberly is going to be ANOTHER amazing mom to Reese.  It was a great shower full of friends, family, little girls and good food.  We are excited to meet Reese next month (yeah, that soon).

Balloon Wreath

The above Balloon Wreath is so simple to make and I love it.  1 - I love balloons and 2 - cheap to make.  Check out this site for all the details...http://www.twomoreseconds.com/2010/09/celebration-balloon-wreath-tutorial.html  and check out this one too...http://www.howdoesshe.com/birthday-wreath.  Anyway, a fun idea for holidays, birthdays and even baby showers!  

Wet and Wild Weekend

Wednesday night we left for the Haven and Orlando to visit family.  Craig also had a business meeting in Orlando, so I stayed with Craig's aunt and uncle and the kids on Thursday.  The visit was great, but the weather was not.  We think we had a tornado come through.  We were fine, but there was definite damage around the neighborhood, hail and serious rain.  We were also without power for about 15 hours, so we played in the dark and ate out that night with Craig's aunt, uncle and cousins.  We LOVE spending time with them and they are such a blessing to us as Christian family!

We had our short visit with them and headed to Orlando on Friday to visit Craig's dad and family.  We did the usual - hung out, played, ate, relaxed.  It was a nice trip.  We went to a local park and Jack got in a little golf practice in Craig's dad's backyard.





We also got a room at the Gaylord Palms - wow!  The hotel is HUGE!  It is Florida themed, so they had a Key West area with a huge boat in the atrium in water, a replica of the fort in St. Augustine and an Everglades section that had alligators.



They also had a kids pool and toddler area.  The pool had a water slide in the shape of an octopus that went into the big pool.  Kate and Jack both went with me on my lap.  Kate loved it and Jack liked it.  Kate did it about 3 times.  The toddler area's water was freezing, but it was fun to run around and watch the kids go under the waterfall.  Check out Jack and Kate's faces in some of these.





Even Craig got in on the action, fully clothed!  Dedication.


We drove back Sunday and headed straight to the church.  We capped off the weekend catching the last performance of "Captive" at our church.  The drama is set in a Vietnam-type era in which a "rebel" leads many against another (the world).  The rebel is represented as Jesus Christ who saves us from the captivity of this world and can free us from our sin.  It was wonderful.  And one guard in particular, my dad, had an Oscar-worthy performance!

Golden Hours

The kids and I got up early, well, they were up about 7 and I thought, since you are up, let's go check out the morning light and take some photos.  Here are a few I got this morning...

Then, I called Lisa and asked if they wanted to join us for the evening golden hour.  Here are some from this evening...