Mother's Day

This year was a very special Mother's Day for me.

I woke up to Colin's "card"--letters that he individually drew 

and cut out himself, then displayed on our dining room table *grin*

And Cameron's card that he made me in school. He also gave me a flower that they planted in class!

(Have I said how much I love his teacher?)

It read, "I love you because you love me." I'll take it. :)

After a wonderful morning spent with my church friends and family, Shane took our family and my mom out to eat at my favorite Mexican restaurant.  It was truly lovely not having to cook or clean up.  I love love love going out to eat.

Reasons #1-5 why I am the most blessed mother alive:

#1

Numbers 2, 3, and 4

And at the left end, number 5!

God has blessed me with a wonderful mother and the opportunity to be a mother to four amazing little people. All else aside--what could make Mother's Day any better than that?

Happy Easter

{The traditional church photo...one of my favorite pictures of the year!}

Luke 24:6 "He is not here, He has risen!"

What Martin Luther King, Jr. means to a six-year-old

Since my boys have off of school on Monday, the discussion came up tonight as to why.

Colin: "Because of Martin Luther King."

Cameron: "Junior."

Colin: "Yeah. Martin Luther King, Jr."

(This was funny to me in an of itself, because Colin--the oldest, of course--is always the one with the vast knowledge in our home--Cameron rarely gets to 'one up' him.  However, it continued.

Cameron: "Mrs. Winkler told me all about who Martin was."

(Insert stifled giggle from me here. Cameron continues, with quite a bit of emphasis, since all eyes were on him.)

"He was a black man. And he preached. He preached aaaaaaaallllllll over because back then, there were bad men. They were white and they hid behind bushes. When little black kids came along the bad white men would take them away from their mommies and daddies and the white men would make the kids go live at their farms and cut down their corn. They were called snaves."

(I am rolling by this point...internally, of course.)

"The police told Martin not to preach anymore. But he just had to. He had to preach that those white men weren't doing what they were supposed to be doing! He just had to. So they arrested him and took him to jail. Then a bad, bad man shot him and now we have Martin Luther King--(looking pointedly at Colin) Junior-- day."

I think, for a six year old, he relayed a pretty good bit of understanding of what Mr. King did for civil rights. And I think he treated Colin to a bit of information in the process.

Win win.

*grin*

Happy Memorial Day

{always grateful for the service of our men and women in uniform}

I hope yours was as wonderful as ours!

The reason this day is so special

THEN

Colin Matthew
Born October 31, 2003

Cameron Douglas

Born October 14, 2005

Ethan Ryan

Born on my birthday, January 31, 2007

and

Lola Claire Fransisca

Born January 23, 2010

And 

NOW

 Such wonderful gifts

sent from God Himself

and I am so immensely thankful.

Our Easter

As usual, we had a really wonderful but busy Easter.

Every year, our church does a sunrise service (6:00 a.m.). It's always rough getting the kids up, but we are always so glad we went. It is always such a blessing! I got to sing with our church's quartet and really appreciated my pastor's message. I'm so thankful for the sacrifice Christ made for me on the cross!

After our church-provided breakfast, we headed home for a couple of hours until we had to be back at the church for the regular morning service. We had a wonderful time of worship--an Easter cantata, a powerful message, and I was privileged to sing a solo--The Getty's "Power of the Cross". Here is a video of what I sang (man, I wish I could've sounded like THIS!)  I never get tired of watching this or listening to her sing.



Such an amazing song with deep truth! I felt so blessed to be a part of such a special day at our church (and, truthfully--was REALLY glad I didn't squeak or squawk in front of all those people in my church! *whew*)

We got some really cute pics afterwards--the boys and my Mom, their "Grandma Jane"

Love this one of Colin and my mom. Col takes such good pictures for his photo-crazy Momma.

We got this shot just in time....

....because not a moment later, children started melting down before our very eyes.

First, the Lolee girl....

....then Ethan started the pouty face....

 ....then Cameron even started getting saucy, which is unusual for him!

As you can see, Colin was in fine spirits the entire time. *giggle*

Lola had a fit whenever anyone even pointed the camera in her general direction.

{This is, however, a good shot of her purple-to-match-her-Daddy-manicure.}

{Oh, and her teeth. They still kill me.}

As soon as you would let her down, she was all good.

Our little 'princess' is beginning to throw some royal fits, I tell ya.

So, Shane and I decided to ditch the brats the precious little ones and take our own picture. 

This is the standard pose each year*giggle*

My poor mother desperately wanted one shot with Lola...she practically had to crawl on the floor and sneak in the shot without Lola knowing! I was talking away to Lola; mom crept in; and I whipped out the camera and snapped a shot. This is what we ended up with! Hysterical what we woman will do for pictures.

Then, it was home to do Easter baskets.  

We have taken major strides in our diets around here...and have done away with most refined sugars (along with HFCS, hydrogenated oils and trans fats, food dyes, nitrates and nitrites, MSG, etc.) so Easter baskets presented a bit of a challenge.  But we conquered! The boys didn't even seem to miss the candy.

The boys were so excited.

We made them close their eyes while Shane put the baskets down in front of them...

Lola opened her eyes early. She didn't seem impressed.

By this point, the boys were giggling so hard...we all were!

Finally--OPEN!! Cam was really excited with what he saw, apparently!

Ethan was the cutest to watch.
He took each thing out, one by one, and exclaimed over how special it was.

"GREEN play dough! WOW!!"

Colin got a scorpion. 

Actually, to be more specific, another scorpion.... 

....and Cameron got a squishy tarantula. 

They were ecstatic.

{The things that make boys happy. *sigh*}

E, exclaiming over his bug book, his new Bible....

....and his new "spiderman socks! Spiderman socks, Mommy!!"

He put them on post-haste.

Lola was content to play with her brother's sunglasses....

....Colin was happy to model his!

Note to Colin--you are looking far too grown up for my liking, son. Please stop that.

Then, it was on to the egg hunt.

I can not believe how quickly three boys can find eggs that it took Shane a half hour to hide!

I could barely snap the pictures in time!

E was thrilled to see his basket filling up!

I was not thrilled to see that I had underwear in the background of this photo.

Each of the boys found a special baggie full of goodies (under their pillows) from Grandma Jane!

The egg hunt continued for several minutes, as the boys had to find the more cleverly hidden ones....

Lo had a great time with her baggie during the hunt.

Counting the loot

Lola managed to get the hang of shaking the eggs (to see if there was anything inside, no doubt), 

squeezing them (to snap them open), and then would look at me and grin with that,  

"I know I'm not supposed to be in this stuff" look.

The best prizes inside the eggs, by far--the dollar bills.

We did allow the boys a few treats--Peeps, of course--supplied by a 

certain grandmother who shall go nameless to protect her innocence.

*coughcoughGrandmaMJcoughcough*

My little carb lover trying Peeps for the first time....we'll call that a success, I'd say.

All in all, it was a super day.  So thankful to have such meaning behind Easter, and to be able to be with family and truly have a fantastically FUN day!