Easter Weekend

Happy Easter/Ressurection Day to all of you!

we learned a great idea for Easter from our sunday school teacher. he said that the term "Easter" is a pagan term so he celebrated with the candy, eggs, and bunnies on saturday and then celebrated "Ressurection Day" on sunday. we thought that was a great idea, so that's what we are doing in our fam. debbie jo had a great idea to have our saturday time be a little party to anticipate the Ressurection Day. it was brief since we had been downtown all day with Gogo and Pops, but it was fun:)! a little Easter basket hunt in the house and eating candy.

we had a WONDERFUL time with our family over the past week. like i mentioned earlier, time with tom and court was awesome. and then the rest of the week was filled with quality Gogo and Pops time. our kids couldn't get enough of them. they are totally in love with them as you'll see in the pictures above!

so a few hi-lights from our precious time with our branson family:

-being with Joe and Debbie Jo. it filled all of our hearts!!! great conversation, tons of laughter, lots of activities, and great bonding with the kids. it was incredible quality time that we needed!

-going to the Children's Museum and laughing at the kids as they soaked themselves in bubbles and almost got blown away by the wind machine!

-eating mexican food a few times:)

-going to the Shedd Aquarium downtown

-eating "doughnuts from heaven" at the Grand Lux

-sharing seats on the train

-eating a veggie sandwich with Pops

-hearing Hayden say "Goooo Goooo (Gogo)" for the first time an Lil saying "Dodo"

-all of us being on our couch together every night having great talks, and live performances from Lillyanne

-being entertained by Pops and Lulu as their energy levels make them the perfect pair!

-watching Cooper enjoy every minute of being with his parents and sharing about his passions

wow, i am getting sad thinking about how special that time was. so thankful to the Lord for providing memories like that.

kids just woke up from their naps...that's my cue.

love,

missy

talking of twins and doing what i'm made to do

As Lil and I were talking over breakfast this morning, we saw a baby on tv on an ultrasound. It brought up the topic of having another baby sister or brother. Here's how it went:

mom: so when God puts a baby in mommy's tummy-
lil: a "seeso" (sister)
mom: well, it could be a bubba or a sissy
lil: a "seeso".hayden wants a bubba, i wanna seeso
mom: actually, God gets to decide and we just need to say "thank you God for whatever you"-
lil: HOW ABOUT TWO?!?!?
mom: what?!? no! two? oh no!! no no no.
lil: yeah yeah!!! you know, one comes out fust (first) and then anudah one- see? (as though it's just as simple as baking two rounds of cookies)
mom: (i've got nothing. i'm just terrified at the thought..no words)
lil: smile:)
mom: well, anyways, we'll see.
lil: breaks from conversation when she sees a situation she needs to fix
hayden:starts freaking out over the garbage lil took from him (he was pushing back and forth through the house)
mom: still speechless

So, this goes out to my sweet friend Nicole. you are an awesome mom of twins.

Anyways....
hope you're having a great day today so far. it SNOWED here over the weekend. i just couldn't believe it, and sort of can. family (tom and court) came and are still here and it has been refreshing being with them. hayden and lil remembered them right away and adored them. lil and aunt court played a competitive round of "memory" and hayden snuggled up on uncle tom's lap and laid his head on his shoulder. that is just so wonderful. to all our family out there, we love you guys a lot! thanks for the way you guys love our children. it really means the world to us to see their "cup" being filled with love. i believe it will go a long way.

probably the other hi-light of my weekend was church on sunday. it was awesome. our sunday school teacher (who is one of the top theologians of our time) taught awesome things in 2samuel. really opened my eyes. i will talk about that another time. and then we went upstairs for a service that ended in intensely free and well, spontaneous worship. our church was completely worshipping God. no walls, the Spirit was moving and my heart was so filled with the Joy of the Lord. i wish it were like that all the time- that must really be what heaven will be like. no cares about anything else in the world. just completely there and doing what we're made to do.

well, i'm going to attend to my kids now. if you remember, say a prayer for Coops today. he has a presentation today that he's worked really hard on. he is so wonderful. i think the next blog will be about how wonderful he is.

love,
miss

greetings!

greetings! funny, i use that word alot. it's definetly because when i was young, my dad got his feelings hurt that no one "greeted" him at the door when he got home from work. so after communicating his needs (like a good marriage counselor does), i heard him out as a young girl and from that day on, every night when he came home, i would run to the door and yell "greetings!". now we do that for cooper when he gets home from school, and he (like my dad) really likes it:)

so how was your weekend? mine was absolutely wonderful. maybe my favorite weekend in a really long time-probably because we had no plans, therefore no expectations. it started out with my friend jordan calling and offering to watch our kids on friday night. we have this swap deal worked out and it just so happened that she was free! so coop and i went out to dinner, and out shopping for some surprise gifts for the kids. Lulu was in major need of some new princess shoes...and we got suckered into a few more things on our way to the cash register. seriousely, who can pass up a vintage-looking Belle and Cars tshirt? not us apparently. then we rented a movie and of course within ten minutes of starting it, i was out.

this morning we tackled the grocery list as a family. might sound crazy, but we went to three places for groceries!! this has probably been my greatest frustration living in this incredible city. grocery shopping is crazy expensive, so now after many months of studying prices, i've got it pretty much figured out. we started at ALDI's, then to Trader Joes and ended with Super Target. later on after naps, we went to the park and then shopping for house plants/flowers.i'm such a sucker for quality time with my family. and now my weekend/week is just about to get better because my sis in law/dear friend, Courtney and her husband Tom are coming for two days! and then Gogo and Pops for Easter (Coop's parents)! I will definetly post pics.

before i sign out, i can't forget some memorable hayhay and lulu moments from the weekend. let's see...hayden took his dipe off, climbed up on my desk in the pantry (yes, my "office"is in our pantry) and peed. lulu woke up sad from her nap today (lil+nap=miracle) so hayden decided he wanted to hold her in his arms, kiss and rock her like she was a baby. lulu used the word "consequence" for the first time and we discovered that hayden's feet have grown a lot. the poor buddy has been wearing a size 6 shoe all this time and we found out today that he's a size 8. no wonder why he always takes his shoes off! :(

princess parties...for girls only

hello out there! i feel like i'm talking on a stage with a spotlight and can't see the audience:) luckily, there are probably about three of you out there who are actually reading this. so, hello! first of all, just want to say thanks so much to my sis Jamie for getting me started on this blog. i've been wanting to start a blog but didn't know how to. you've always gone above and beyond when there was a need...this is just a small example- so thank you Aunt Mimi!

i started designing my blog tonight and tried to make the whole thing pink, but it was a little hard on the eyes, so here it is. my first official blog. not sure where it's going to go from here, but i'm excited to share thoughts and stories about the big and small things in our life.

so a small story from today: Lil found a picture of when i was the kiowa princess at kamp (i may have just lost some of you). she then proceeded to tell me that she didn't like the picture "because of the things on my face" (indian stripes). i asked her if it was because she wanted stripes on her face too and she looked down, smiled, and said yes. about a minute later, i found her with four markers in her hands drawing stripes on her face. she thought she was in trouble, but i was actually pretty impressed with how straight the lines were so i helped her finish it out. as i'm sure you can imagine, she now loves that picture of mommy. a little bit later, hayden woke up to a tiny indian princess running into his room and he wasn't sure what to think, so we got out some red and black markers and striped him too. he then had a 20 minute meltdown. i guess we'll keep the princess dress up parties between just us girls from now on.

test

testing out the new blog...seeing what happens when I post! more to come soon:)