Love the Lord your God, listen to His voice and hold fast to Him, for the Lord is your life! Deut. 30:20


Monday, April 14, 2014

Early Easter

We had an early Easter with the family this weekend.  Adam's brother is arriving from Wisconsin this week and will be here over Easter so Jill's family would be busy next weekend.
 We decided to meet at Mom's so we could just wheel Dad over from his room at the home across the street.
I went over on Saturday and took over most of the food and the Easter baskets for the children.  
The grounds at the home was just gorgeous!

 A beautiful day!

Sunday morning began quite pleasant, but storms were expected.  They rolled in shortly after church with rain and hail, but it was short-lived.  But along with that storm, the temperatures dropped so it was quite chilly by the time we got together.

The children received their Easter baskets, filled with goodies.  Coloring pages of the resurrection of our Lord - the real meaning of this most glorious day!, packages of bug shaped crackers, and of course, a chocolate bunny!, new stuffed animals, ....

I sent a package of goodies to my Arkansas grand kids too since they couldn't be here.


 
Silly Aunt Mindy! 

Time for the egg hunt!
Of course, we put some eggs in obvious places for Claire.



The older girls had to look a little harder.



 Counting how many she has found.

Time to eat!




The girls wanted to go back outside.


 Who lives here?

 The girls are so happy after they are fed and are playing outside!


The rest of the family was watching the Masters Golf tournament.
That sounded good to me.  The temperatures kept dropping and it was getting so cold!!  I believe I was the one who was more bothered by it.  The girls could have kept playing.  But they didn't complain - too much.


 

My heart is so full to know that Christ came to this earth to save, to rescue.  He conquered death!  His love is overwhelming to me!

I love the pictures of this book - Peter's First Easter by Wangerin.
I put it out on my coffee table at this time of year.

I serve a risen Saviour,
He's in the world today;
I know that He is living,
Whatever men may say;
I see His hand of mercy,
I hear His voice of cheer,
And just the time I need Him
He's always near.

He lives, He lives, 
Christ Jesus lives 
today!
He walks with me and He talks with me
Along life's narrow way.
He lives, He live, salvation to impart!
You ask me how I know He lives:
He lives within my heart.

Friday, April 11, 2014

Filling in

Jill and Adam attended T4G ("Together for the Gospel" - a biennial conference for pastors and church leaders) held in Kentucky.

I was called to fill in and take care of the children.  Can you believe I was only packing for 4 days??























When you have a big trunk, you can take lots of things to do with the kids!

The kids were watching for me when I drove up!

What a fun time we had!  We had crafts to do... 








we painted Easter eggs,
                    and played outside.


Going for a walk.

But of course, their mom had tasks for them to do each day.  Like guitar and piano practice.


and feeding the guinea pigs. 






On Wednesday morning, Sandi, Adam's mother, came to spend the day.  I was able to go to my young mother's Bible study group, walk with my friend Sheryl and take a nice nap!


 Papa spent the day with us on Thursday.

There was library story time for Sophia on Thursday morning.  While she was doing that, Papa, Claire and I went to the coffee shop, the hardware store and the thrift store.   


 Papa had several projects to work on in the afternoon.  Like fixing the swing.  Sophia did not have any school on Thursday because of kindergarten round up so she helped Papa.


 When Hannah got out of school, she was so excited to see the swing back up!




Papa trimmed some branches in the pine so the girls could climb the tree!


They loved getting up so high!

Claire is almost 2 and so has begun to throw little fits when things don't go her way.

But mostly she is just fun!
Singing on the microphone...

and to her kitty.


Playing with her babies... she LOVES babies!
Calls them "Wah, wahs" since the "babies on the bus go wah wah wah all day long".
 


The night I fixed spaghetti, we stripped her down to her diaper.  
Such a mess!
Of course a "baf" was in order.

After her bath, she has started a new game.  She runs all over the house all nakedy with only her hooded bath towel on.  She LOVES it!  Of course when it is time to finish the game and get pjs on, she will let you know she is not happy with that plan!


The girls have gotten hooked on "Gilligan's Island" so they watched an episode each night while I got Claire ready for bed.

When I put her to bed, we read books, then pray and sing.
A song I sang this week was "Oh, how I love Jesus."
"Oh Claire do you love Jesus,
Oh, yes I love Jesus.
Are you sure you love Jesus
Yes I'm sure I love Jesus.
And why do you love Jesus
I'll tell you the reason,
Because He first loved me.
Oh, how I love Jesus
Oh, how I love Jesus,
Oh, how I love Jesus,
Because He first loved me."
Then the next verse I insert Sophia's name.  Followed by Hannah's name.
Mommy.  Daddy.
Papa. Nana.
Gramsie.  Granddad.
Mindy
Josh.
Staci.
Emeri.
Eli.
and others if I don't fall asleep first.
Which I did one night.

The girls got in 2 episodes of "Gilligan's Island"!


I love this chalkboard that Jill has in her dining room. 

And I really love this message for this month!



What a blessing to fill in sometimes!