Now I know how to do the video thing, so hopefully you can see our Wild Thing in action a little more!

Videos

So, I'm trying the video thing...maybe I'll actually post some of these now. : )

Easter

Easter was a wonderful day of celebrating the birth and resurrection of our Savior with family! After church, we headed out to Lancaster to eat lunch with my family and let Emma and her cousin Will hunt eggs. It's such a blessing that my grandparents are still in the same house and that I get to watch my child hunt eggs in the same yard and trees I once did! My grandparents had a few toys for Emma and Will...including the bubbles they're playing with in one of the pictures, and the egg toss game you can see the adults enjoying in some pictures. Emma and Will had fun hunting eggs, and then they plopped down and dumped their baskets. Emma even figured out how to crack, peel and eat eggs on her own! : ) After all that excitement, we headed to Ben's parent's house to visit with them and hunt more eggs. Emma did great with that again...until she spotted a car! She lost total interest in the hide and seek of eggs at the sight of wheels! I included several pictures of her with her hands out. That is one of our favorite things she does. For the last few months, every time you ask her a question, Emma throws her hands out to say "I don't know!?" It is so cute...I need to try to post one of the videos to show it...always failing to keep updated on-line!! Anyway, we look forward to sharing the glorious resurrection more in depth with Emma in the Easters to come and are so thankful to have so much family with which to share in this celebration every year! Ben was actually reading her Easter book to her yesterday and got her to say Jesus. It sounded so precious!

First Egg Hunt

The Saturday before Easter, our church had an egg hunt for the children. I was in charge of heading up 5 and unders. We split them into two groups...3 and under, and 4s and 5s. My mom got there just in time to help with Emma during the story time for the younger ones while I was working on keeping the times and details straight. I did the Easter story with the older ones using and abbreviated version of the Resurrection Eggs, which was fun. I actually enjoyed teaching again, though it was brief! Unfortunately, that meant I missed Emma's first official egg hunt. Daddy came through with some cute pictures for me though (as did Aunt Mary, too!) We had practiced a good bit at home beforehand to make sure she would be interested, and she was from the first time I hid eggs in our bedroom. I was surprised at how quickly she got the concept of finding eggs and putting them in the basket, and she loved it every time we did it! Ben did say she got distracted a good bit by the pine straw and slides, but at least she enjoyed it and got 6 or 7 eggs in the process! The group picture is of those who came through our church and were there with our own children that day! : ) Finally, as you can see in the last picture, Emma is her Momma! She may be small and petite, but she isn't afraid to speak her mind and stand up for herself! She's playing with her good friend Drew but being sure she's in charge of that door! : ) Hopefully, she'll learn to be compassionate and gentle sooner than I did!

Birthdays

Three of my good friends and I have husbands turning 30 this year, so we decided to give them a guy week-end as a gift. We got together and planned a trip to the mountains for a week-end in May and then worked out a plan to present it to them. We ended up having some of the high school girls bring a cake and envelope of puzzle pieces as a "singing telegram" one night. The girls graciously got into it with us and dressed up as thug guys and wrote a rap. We got lots of laughs and were surprised out how quickly our husbands put together the puzzle that was a rhyme explaining our gift. The great thing about the evening is that the Tarheels were playing ball that night, and the guys ended up planning for the night to start earlier with pizza, which ended up making things easier for us because one of our "rappers" had last minute plan changes and needed to come earlier. Don't you love how God cares about even the small, seemingly insignificant details of our lives?! Ben would probably want it mentioned that he is the last one turning 30 in the group. : )

We celebrated my dad's birthday the next day after our church egg hunt...definitely not his 30th, but at least not double that yet! : ) At the egg hunt that morning, a bunch of parents were once high schoolers my parents worked with as youth volunteers. Mom was so excited to see so many there and wanted a picture...she then decided to turn it into a big birthday card for my dad, which he loved! What a great blessing and testimony! The last picture is of Emma receiving the "clean plate" award...though we are happy she is a good eater, we have never encouraged her to go quite so far as to lick her plate clean. Guess sometimes you just can't get enough! : )

Baby Shower

Our Bible Study group had a shower for the Mick family a few weeks ago. We don't plan to do a round of showers for everyone's baby #2, but we missed out on their first. They love Panthers football, so we went with that as a theme, and had some football relays and cheers as games. The girls team scored the most "touchdowns" in the evening, but I will say the men did provide the best entertainment with the cheer they created to "help Sandi through labor"! The evening was complete with a football field scoreboard, referees and tailgating food, and we all had so much fun celebrating the upcoming arrival of Ethan! We gave Kayleigh a Big Sister shirt that she was so proud to wear to church the next day. : ) She is going to be a wonderful big sister...she has been so helpful with all our babies over the last year and 1/2! Mommy-to-be is due on the 19th, but it's sounding like Ethan might make his debut sooner than later.

Off to see the animals...

Our Refresh group headed down to Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia one warm Thursday morning in March and had a Wonderful day together! Thankfully, my sister was able to get the morning off so she and Will could join us! I'm not sure who was more ready for a nap...the kids or moms!! We were able to make our way to all the animals, eat lunch, and ride the carousel before we packed up to head home.

Yes, the zoo pine straw was almost as intriguing as its animals!! Always have our hands in the dirt!
Emma loved watching the penguins swim and dive, but she did have more interest in Will's cars once they caught her attention!

Will and Linnea checking out the cow...Emma loves the farm animals
there. We had a great time feeding
the goats again!

Sisters and cousins...what a
blessing!

This picture of me and Emma below on the right was after the carousel stopped...she paniced when the ostrich started moving up and down, so I had to hold her most of the ride!! : )

The Tahoe with three full car seats!! At least we know they can fit if the Lord blesses us with three close together!! ; ) Don't know if you can tell in the picture, but Emma and Linnea were holding hands; how cute! Linnea is 3 days older than Emma, and they were both LATE!!