Happy Easter!

Our Easter Family Portrait. Notice I'm laying down, as if they just caught me napping. Typical.


Hoping y'all have a very Blessed Easter.

Thankful on a Thursday

1. Easter week, a time to reflect and remember what my Savior did for me.

2. My Sweetie. So handsome and fun. I'm so thankful that he loves me so much.


3. After spending so much time with Dave while he was sick, it's been a nice week of focusing more on Calvin. We're so thankful to God for the young man he's growing into. And he's so pickin' handsome, dang.


4. The wonderful fellowship we have with our friends from church. They are so special and precious to us.

5. The playdate that Dave had with Mr. Johnnie-Pants. We left Calvin at Nick's house to 'hang' (they're too old to have a playdate, they just 'hang') but the giggles and fun the Dave and Johnnie had was too cute.


6. Buying the packages of little yellow peeps at the store. Those things just make me smile. I always make a trail of them from the boy's beds to their Easter baskets on Easter mornings...it's too fun to see them find their baskets with yellow marshmallowey ooze comin' outta their mouths. Of course last year, I put them out the night before and by the morning, the ants had found them...Dave didn't even notice...lovely, a little extra protein for the kid.

7. For the next two days Sweetie and the boys are doing ALL the yard work. Cutting the grass, trimming, planting, mulching the beds...I can't wait!


8. The boys have been doing really well with school the last couple of weeks. With being out of school for so much last month because of sickness, they've really surprised me with their attitudes, efforts and grades.

9. Spring is here. Everything looks a little more green, though the forest hasn't filled in yet. And I'm still thankful even though the pollen from the pine trees is falling and covering everything, the whole town is covered in this thick yellow fog, and the allergy meds are on the kitchen counter. But we're still thankful.


10. Sitting in the lab yesterday with the boys and having all kinds of conversations with everyone that was sitting in there waiting. This is what I LOVE about living here, everywhere you go, people strike up conversations with you, it's SO comforting to me.

Hope you are being thankful this week.

Isaiah 53

"He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken. He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.

Yet it was the Lord's will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors."

Thinking on HIM this week.

Our Life is Very Boring.

We are not very interesting these days. Sorry. I know my bloggity posts are not very interesting. Nothing really funny has been going on in our lives.

We are having a lot of fun though. This is the weekend of sports. Last night, Calvin's basketball game. Today he started his spring football season. Then Dave had his basketball game. Tomorrow, Dave starts his baseball season. It's too much fun. Good thing Jay & I love doing this sort of thing.


Dave and I waiting for Calvin at his practice.


See, we were VERY bored.


Dave has taken over my phone and is now very proficient at texting EVERYONE! My dad now thinks that my phone is Dave's and just when I think he's callin' me, nope, he's callin' for the Dave. Oh, and sorry Granny Betty..didn't know you didn't have that texting thing on your phone. You can send us the bill. I meant to have Dave call you back, but then we got busy putting ketchup on our hotdogs. Will have him call you tomorrow. Thanks for your prayers.


Jay & Calvin are in this football crowd somewhere. I was battling a really bad headache most of the day, so I didn't feel like getting up and walking closer so you could get a better look. Let's just pretend you can see them, okay?

Here's hoping something fun happens soon, so y'all have somethin' fun to read about. Tomorrow's Sunday, have a blessed day.

Madness

oh my gosh, i'm going to scream. i just had this really long and i'm sure, VERY interesting post about the saga that is our phone service....and just as i'm typing the ending sentence, my hand moved over the phantom button on this new laptop that likes to erase all of what i just typed. lovely.

hope your day is better than mine is showing.

sigh

A Picture Post

I finally figured out that my new laptop was downloading my pictures to the right place but was putting them in a file within the 2006 photos...huh? I need to tell SOMEONE what year it is.

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Dave sleepin', what he did a lot the past couple of weeks. Though he won't admit it.


A pathetic attempt at playing Wii.


Administrating the meds. He's such a joy. This is the part where I smack him and tell him to take it like a man. Not really. Well, maybe.


Ah, motrin, finally starting to kick in.


Calvin, Mr. Handsome, he has been my righthand man the last couple of weeks. What a stud.


Finally back to school, and their grades have been really good this week. Yippee!


Ah, back to normal. This is as close to normal as it gets for us.


This was my favorite day. Our first day back, running a couple of errands. The boys being...well, boys, in the back seat. Makes a mama happy. And I only had to reach back and slap them a couple of times, life is good.


I don't normally get frozen waffles, but these were free with my new coupon thing I'm doing. I was so proud of myself. The boys were thrilled that I actually found a way to make convenience food healthy.


Another self portrait before I left for town yesterday. I love my boys.


Calvin took this mug shot of my rooster. Poor, Mr. Rooster, he's still not quite sure what he did wrong. But he's very sorry.

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So we have a couple of nice homes picked out for either my parents or Jay's mom, you know, to live in if they need to come out here for us to take care of them. We would really want to spoil them...so here goes the list, let me know what you think...


House #1, it's close to our home. The donkeys come with it and work as a built in alarm clock, so nice.


House #2, it's right across from the fire station, so I know my sister would visit more. You know it's true, Marcie. (sorry Lance)


House #3, what you don't see is that it comes with laundry facilities, yep, washer and dryer right on the back porch. Classy but convenient.


House #4, probably the one that is most habitable, except for what's written on that yellow sign...something about toxins...but it probably won't affect them too much.

We love our parents. We hope they come to visit really soon.

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So we almost missed it, what being on quarantine. Spring. The cherry blossoms. these trees are so beautiful.



Beautiful.



Tulips. These are for my mom. She loves tulips. Here you go mama, for you.

And because I love you so much, and because you are totally worth the expense, and because I'm thinkin' I need to do something nice for you, what with the whole 'puttin' you in a shack' business...some more tulips...





This is the river that we kayak down during the summer. The one that my bro-in-law thought he was going to die on. It's so much fun, and not at all dangerous. We might have to sell a dog in order to afford to do it again this year, but it's SO worth it.


I love these flowering trees. I don't even know what kind they are, if you know tell me, not that I care too much, I'd still use my name of 'big giant purply flowers tree'. I'm very scientific about these things.


And the dogwood, it's our state flower. I love the dogwood. We've got a very sad one in our yard, very sad. So I'm pretending this is our tree, it belongs to one of our neighbors. I didn't want to embarass myself by walking through their front yard to get a better picture of the thing, plus it was raining really hard at this point and I'd already done my hair...a girl has to have priorities. But I love the dogwood tree.

It's been overcast and rainy for a couple of days here, and today, the sun is out, windows are open and the birds are singing. I need to go put on my prairie dress and run through the fields. Hope y'all have a great day.

(Okay, so don't you know that I'm the worst speller, except of course, maybe for my dad and husband, I don't spell good. So then blogger's spell checker decided not to work. Dang it, I had to use the dictionary just to look up quarantine, because how often does one need that word. I hate dictionaries. But don't tell my boys, they still think that mom was a stellar student. Yeah, right.)

Thankful on a Wednesday

1. Dave is doing better.

2. Back to a semi-normal day today.

3. Hearing Dave's laughter all day.

4. Getting to stay in my p.j.'s till after-noon.

5. Dave eating lots of food today.

6. Hearing the normal brotherly banter in the back seat of the car.

7. Dave not laying on the couch all day.

8. Antibiotics and cold medicine.

9. Sweet friends that called and emailed to check on Dave. Thank you.

10. Our health.