Reflection On Easter

It seems this year that Easter means much more to me than in years past.  Over the last year, our women's ministry (so blessed and thankful for everyone there!) has been thoroughly studying the Bible, and this semester's focus has been on the 4 gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke & John).  This past week we focused on   Jesus' life, death and resurrection.  I guess through this study, I have really learned so much more about the events that transpired as recorded in the Bible and it has really made me see it in a fresh, new way.  I have really learned to look at it from a  personal perspective as to how I would have responded to Jesus and his teachings.  I think about just the overall emotions that Jesus felt for all of us as well as the emotions of Jesus' closest followers, his disciples.  As a mother, I have also thought of the unimaginable grief of Mary and of the amazing sacrifice God gave sending his one and only son to save the world.  Wow.  There really are no words to fully grasp this.  He did this for you and for me and we should never, ever take that for granted.  I think of it every time I fail, and yes, we all fail and fall short of the glory of God.  Every time I fail I am convicted and saddened and humbled that because of my sin, Jesus died for me.....willingly.  I could go on and on about his amazing love, grace & mercy that we are so undeserving of.  I look at the state of our world right now and think about the time when Jesus wept as he looked from the top of the hill at Jerusalem, at a city that would not accept him,  and can only imagine him looking down on us now doing the same.

  

Back in January, I got the new Chris Tomlin CD,  "Burning Lights".  Amazing album.  I listen to it ALL the time. There is one song in particular that I have been addicted to this week and the boys are probably tired of me hitting 'repeat' on my CD player all the time.  Plus, if you've seen me driving around town singing my lungs out  and/or crying in the car, it was to this song (I sure wish my cousin/car singing buddy Kim would have been here to sing with me!) ha!  This particular song is called, "Jesus, Son of God".  This week it has spoke immeasurably to me with Easter approaching, so I just felt led to share the beautiful words of this song with you.  Chris sings this song with Christy Nockels, and she is actually going to be at our church 2 weeks from today leading worship for our women's conference.  So excited about that!  Here are the lyrics and here is a link if you want to listen to the song as well.  Powerful.. 

You came down from Heaven's throne

This Earth You formed was not Your home

A love like this the world had never known

A crown of thorns to mock Your name

Forgiveness fell upon Your face

A love like this the world had never known

On the altar of our praise

Let there be no higher name

Jesus, Son of God

You laid down Your perfect life

Your are the sacrifice

Jesus, Son of God

You are Jesus, Son of God

You took our sin

You bore our shame

You rose to life 

You defeated the grave

 A love like this the world had never known

Be lifted higher than all You've overcome

Your name be louder than any other song

There is no power than can come against Your love

The cross was enough

The cross was enough

 I love the whole song, but the 2 parts that struck me most are "Forgiveness fell upon Your face" and "The Cross was enough".  As the crown of thorns was placed upon his head and blood spilled down upon his face, that was his blood for me.  Forgiveness for me....Forgiveness for us all if we accept him.  It all comes down to the Cross.  The Cross was enough.....the Cross was enough.

I hope you reflect upon that this Easter weekend and are thankful for the sacrifice He made.  

Funny Friday!

I only have a couple of funny ones this week......

Collin asked me a question the other day( I can't even remember what it was), and I replied, "I don't know". Collin says, "Well, WHY don't you know???".  Me-"I just don't.".  Collin then comes back with, "Is it because you're 35?".  :-)  

***

The other day after bible study, I picked Carter up on the playground and Ms. Karen had a funny story to tell me.  They had been learning about Easter and Jesus rising to life from the tomb.  The memory verse was "He is not here.  He is Risen!"  When Ms. Karen asked him to say his memory verse, Carter says, "He's not here.  He's in Prison!"  ha!  I asked him again later just to see and he said it again.  I made sure to tell him that Jesus was definitely not in prison. :-)

***

Have a great weekend!  He is Risen!!

Spring Break 2013

We had such a great week off for Spring Break!  We started our fun on the weekend with a fun, impromptu cookout at the lake with our friends, the Ferguson's.....that is until we got ran off by the park ranger.  I guess the area we were in wasn't technically open yet.  Oh well.  We had already eaten our hot dogs, made a couple of quick smores and were on our way.

Our week was filled with many more fun activities, so here is our week in pictures.....

We did lots of dressing up.  This picture was taken of Carter late on Saturday night after we got home from the lake.  I had brought peeps for the kiddos for their smores at the lake.  I joked with Rachel and said that those peeps had to be laced with something because Carter was all kinds of hyper when we got home. :-)

On Tuesday we headed to Golf Mountain for a little putt-putt action.  The boys had a great time.

Two days later, we went from sunshine to catching snowflakes on our tongue.  Crazy Arkansas weather!

Collin spent a lot of time perfecting his drawing skills.  This boy has some mad drawing skills.  Even daddy was impressed.  He was really into drawing his skylanders.  I even tried to draw one, but Collin made sure that daddy knew that I drew it and not him.  Pretty sad when your 6 year old doesn't even want to try and take credit for your drawing.  Hey, I admit it, the boys definitely don't get their artistic abilities from me. :-)

Friday daddy took off work to spend the day with us.  We took the boys to see the new movie "The Croods".  We all loved it!

That evening we met up with the Ferguson's for a little bowling.  The kids had fun regardless of Collin's expression here in this picture.  He was pretty much over it at this point.  We had fun bowling and even won some bouncy balls at the claw machine!  I never win at those things and won 2 times that night!

Aubrie, Collin, Carter & Lily

Aren't these two just the cutest? :-)

We also had fun putting together a 400 piece puzzle.  After all the work we did on it, I'm framing it and putting it in the boys room (sorry....didn't have an "after" pic.....its of dinosaurs)

My most favorite time of the week was spending lots of time cuddling with these two sweethearts.  I love them so much and will take advantage of these moments as often as I can because they are truly the ones that matter the most!  

We definitely enjoyed our week and it made me realize how much I am looking forward to summer and all the fun we will have when school is out! 

Bunny Love

There were bunnies at school last week.  Carter was SO excited to get to hold one. :-)  I love his smile here.  It couldn't get any bigger.  He was really concerned about the bunny's eyes being red though. :-) 

Fairytale Ball at Crystal Bridges

A couple of weekends ago we headed to the Crystal Bridges museum here in town for a Fairytale Ball.  The school district participated in the "One Book, One District" reading program and selected the book "The Sisters Grimm, Fairytale Detectives".  We really enjoyed reading the book together each night.  Both of the boys really got into it.  There are 9 books in the series, so we may have to get the next one.  Crystal Bridges hosted a Fairytale Ball in honor of the book and even had the author, Michael Buckley, there to speak.  They had all kinds of crafts and activities for the kids to do.  It was the first time we had taken the boys to the museum and they loved it.  We went and made crowns for my two little Prince Charmings and then went on an art scavenger hunt.  We finally made our way to the ballroom to hear the author speak.  It was a fun afternoon. 

Pinocchio

Author Michael Buckley

Funny Friday!

Carter is non-stop entertainment.  He walked in last night with his shorts pulled up to his chest and said, "Hey, Mom!  Look!  I'm an old man!"  

Collin's Birthday Festivities!

Collin turned 6 on February 28th.  So hard to believe.  He was pretty excited about turning 6 and is already talking about turning 7 next year!  Slow down big guy!!!  What a glorious 6 years it has been.  Collin you are a joy to have as a son and a great big brother.  We love  you so much and thank God for you every day!  Please stop growing up so fast though! :-)

On his actual birthday we had some birthday waffles before school.  He was excited to wake up to balloons and streamers in his room.  That evening we went to Red Robin for dinner (his choice) and then back to the house for some milkshake cupcakes.  He got a new razorback hat (daddy picked out), some new shoes, some halo stuff and a new ds game.  Carter got him a new skylander, Shroom Boom, so he was excited about that too.

Friday night we hit the bowling alley with some of our friends.  The kids all had such a good time.  Collin had requested a camo birthday, so we did both of his parties in that theme.  He wanted a tank cake, so that's what he got (from Shelby Lynn's Cake Shoppe in Springdale).  

Kaden, Daniel, Collin, Cole, Carter, Peter, Reagan, Lily, Aubrie, Gabby & Taylor
(Avery somehow missed the picture.)

Saturday we ended the birthday festivities with a small family party.

Courtney, Josh, Hudson & Hayes, Me-Ma & Pa-Pa, Mimi and Papa, cousin Johnathan and Wendy & Mackenzie were there.  We enjoyed some more yummy cake and presents.  

BJ, Wendy & Mackenzie got Collin some Lacrosse sticks.  Excited to learn how to play that!  We might need a coaching lesson Uncle BJ! :-)

The birthday boy and little brother with Me-Ma & Pa-Pa.

Mimi & Papa got Collin a deer target.  He was pretty excited about that!

The boys with Mimi & Papa

The boys with little cutie Mackenzie. :-)

Collin & Aunt Courtney

Cousin Johnathan got Collin some new arrows for his bow!

Thank you to all our our family and friends for being such a blessing to us and Collin!

He had a blast and loved spending his birthday with all of you!

Snow Day!!

We finally got a couple of snow days!!  The boys were super excited since we didn't even have any snow last year.  It was perfect snow to build a snowman.  In a hurried attempt, I just used food coloring to make a face on him, which was a good thing because he didn't last long.  I looked out and found the boys karate chopping/kicking him to pieces.  Poor Frosty. :-)

Razorback Baseball

My wonderful friend, Eileen, invited Modus to hang out with them in the Arvest suite at the Razorback baseball game a couple of weekends ago.  We had such a fun time and even got a special visitor to come to our suite.  The boys were pretty excited about that.  Thank you Eileen for a fun day!

Scout, Collin & Carter with the Razorback.

Carter being silly with Ciel close by. :-)

Showing The Love-Valentine's Day

We had a wonderful little Valentine's Day.  Here's a low-down of our activities....

Collin wanted me to make a tank for his valentine's box at school.  It turned out super cute. :-)

Collin made a sweet Valentine for Josh and I at school......complete with zombies and ninjas. :-)  Love that boy!

He handed out "You Rock" pop rock valentine's at school

And a special Valentine for his teacher. :-)

For his class party, I decided to do a "Sweetheart Sundae" ice cream party.  The kids LOVED it!  They had all kinds of toppings at their table to build their ultimate sundaes and then topped them with chocolate syrup and whipped cream of course!  We then played bingo and they loved that too.  I also had made some little photo props of mustaches for the boys and red lips for the girls so we could take some fun class photos.  

We then headed over to see Aunt Courtney, Hudson & Hayes for the afternoon.  Aunt Courtney is always so great to watch Carter for me while I am hosting Collin's class parties.  Of course, Carter & Hudson had to have their pictures with the mustaches too.

That evening, I decided to have just a small, quiet, candlelight dinner at home with my 3 valentines.  We had chicken fettucine alfredo and a layered chocolate mousse/oreo dessert.  It was yummy!!!

Me with my Valentine's.  I love you 3 SO much!!!