Easter....past and present

This time last year our family was in the middle of a crisis that we could have never imagined and certainly not desired but even now when it is all still so fresh and far from officially over we can so clearly see the hand of God throughout every part of it. On Easter Sunday 2008, our nephew Caed was about 20 days into a life threatening condition that had him hospitalized for 70+ days, 3 surgeries and their family being away from home for 9+months. He is doing amazingly well today (although still a sick little boy with a condition that will follow him the rest of his life). If you want to be blessed be sure to check our my sister-in-law's blog http://www.curiousaboutcaed.blogspot.com/. The Lord has blessed her abundantly with a gift to share her heart and what HE is doing and has done throughout the ordeal. It is well worth the read but I warn you....kleenex alert.

Anyway....couldn't help but think about where we were and how God has blessed and protected our family this past year. WOW...truly amazing. So here a just a few pics to represent God's goodness to us on this wonderful holiday when we get to praise and worship HIM for the ultimate gift that HE gave us.--Redemption and Reconciliation because HE CHOSE TO DIE for us and hallelujah.....HE IS RISEN.

Caed---Easter Sunday 2008


Caed ---Week before Easter 2009 (check out their blog for a great Easter story 2009)
http://curiousaboutcaed.blogspot.com/2009/04/easter-story-part-1.html


So while we going down memory lane.....look how my baby has grown.

Xan---Easter Sunday 2007 (she also took her first steps this day. There are pics and videos on our old website. http://www.stanandmegan.com/



Xan----Easter Sunday 2008 http://everittfamily.blogspot.com/2008/03/happy-easter.html



Xan --Easter Sunday 2009



Stan and Xan 2009

Palm Sunday

Xan got in the car waving her hands last Sunday and telling me she "do it without her mommy". I wasn't sure what exactly she had been learning in Sunday school and tried to figure out what the pageant wave was all about. Finally on the 4th or 5th time she started waving her hands and shouting Hosanna, Hosanna. OK...so I was a bit slow but I did get it at that point....they had been practicing their march into the sanctuary for today's Palm Sunday service. So very sweet to hear your 3 year old yelling Hosanna, Hosanna-even if she doesn't have a clue what she is saying.

So today was the day and they all did great. All the kids were so excited and were such excellent little palm wavers. What a sweet memory we made today......preparing for a wonderful week of reflecting on what exactly our Savior did for us....for me! The magnitude of it is often overwhelming. This verse has stood out to me lately,

For God was pleased to have ALL His fullness dwell in Him(Jesus), and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through His blood, shed on the cross. (Colossians 1:19&20)

Seriously....the creator of the universe was PLEASED to have ALL his fullness come to earth, suffer and die to pay the debt for me. WOW!

Ok.....thanks for letting me digress just a moment. So here are some pictures from this morning. As is often the case, I'm reminded why I am not a photographer. Oh well the memory was captured....just not too artistically.

Sunday Morning Cutie (with a goofy smile)


Cutie doing the BOP (actually she was running from a bug :)



Most of her Sunday School class (l-r) Elizabeth, Eva, Reese, & Xan
They were all patiently waiting in the vestibule for their time to wave the palms.


Here is a lovely shot of the group and please notice the well mannered Asian child
giving the crowd a nice peek of her Dora undies. (that is her friend Anna Grace beside her with the pink bow and deliciously cute curls)


Ther rest of the group......still waiting.



All that and I didn't get a shot of the actual event. Oh well.....I warned you there was no artistic stuff going on here.....but I promise there were palms and sweet kiddos carrying them.

Proud Mama Moment

OK...I shouldn't be so proud rather I should be thankful but if I'm honest then I'm both. Today after being cooped up in the house for a couple of days (no sickness...I just didn't want to fight the rain) Xan and I ventured out to get a few groceries. We were driving along and out of the blue this was our conversation:
Xan: Momma
Me: (after turning down the radio) Yes, Xan
Xan: I love God.
Me: (Smiling) Me too Xan...and He loves you too.
Xan: Just like my Bible says Momma...I love Jesus.
Me: (Tearing Up) Yes....just like the Bible says. We love Jesus because He loved us.
Xan: I love you Momma.
Me: (Silence and adjust the rearview mirror so she doesn't see her weak mother crying over this ordinary drive to Walmart.)

Have I told you lately how blessed I am to be this little girl's momma.

Why?

I have been asking myself this question lately... WHY? Why do I like reading about other peoples lives so much on their blogs. I keep up with my most fav's thru an application called bloglines that list them all in one place and tell me when there are new posts. Yeah...pretty cool huh....well I have 40 blogs on that list. COME ON....do I really need to keep up with that many people (most of whom I don't personally know and probably never will). Why am I so interested. I most recently discovered Pioneer Woman and have probably spent no less than 15 hours reading all over that blog. I won't go into detail here..you can get addicted for yourself....but she is a real woman living on a ranch in Oklahoma, homeschooling her 4 kids, cooking and photographing her way thru an isolated way of life and she is hilarious to boot. I have enjoyed it immensely but it has got me to thinking...WHY? Why do I care what these other people do from day to day and more importantly WHY am I not out there making my own life instead of wasting hours reading about others? I don't know the answer and to be honest....not sure I care enough to change my horrible habit. AS long as my DH and DD are fed, have clean underwear and we can at least walk thru the house without tripping over anything then I'll probably keep it up. The one good thing (well I guess it depends on how you look at it) it has encouraged me to try to be a little more frequent with my own posts and not worry so much about each one being some model of literary or pictoral perfection (as if---haha).
I'm not even going to proof read this so if you find a typo then just chalk it up to my new found "blogger" freedom of just doing it. Later-

Happy Birthday Nana

Here is a singing bday from Xan to Nana. Enjoy and know that we love you and miss you terribly.

Thank You for my Valentine Presents

Xan had a great time opening her Valentine presents.....thank you Nana & Grandaddy. We love you and miss you.

My Baby is Three.

Wow....2months since my last post. No excuses...just going to jump back in.


Xan turned 3 years old on Monday and I can't believe just how fast it goes. It seems like yesterday that we were watching her learn to roll over or take her first steps. She is an absolute delight. She loves to dress up in her princess dresses (thank you Reagan and Aunt Lori) and is very into the disn*y movies with any kind of princess. "Cinderetta" is her current favorite but it has also been Ariel, Mulan and Belle. She was running thru the house the other night just playing by herself (in full princess garb) while Stan and I were working on something together. After she ran by about 3 or 4 times I finally stopped to see what she was doing. She would run and "accidentally" loose one of her "gwass swippers" while running away. When I finally caught on I interupted her fantasy moment to tell her I had found a glass slipper and I would love to see if it fit her foot. She was SO excited and gladly sat down, propped her little leg out there and pointed her toe for me to gingerly place the shoe ( that is at least 3-4 sizes too big) onto her foot for a perfect fit. It was a neat moment for both of us.


We celebrated her birthday while we were visiting in Texas...she actually got to have 2 parties due to an untimely occurrence (and reoccurrence) of the stomach bug and she loved every minute of both of them. These are some pics from those parties.

Princess Party - Take One @ Nana & Grandaddy's House in Idalou

The girl loves accessories.....she changed crowns, lost the dress and put on all the bling.


Princess Party - Take Two at Aunt Amanda & Uncle Stephen's House in Lubbock

Yet another crown.......

We celebrated on Monday with just the three of us and it was a good day.

Elmo balloon and three dollars too......I like this birthday thing. It just keeps going and going and going.

They brought the dessert and were singing to her but she wanted to sing too......so she did. One round of Happy Birthday and it's a party to her. woohoo

I've got more dress up pics that I'll try to post later this week. (Hello Aunt Judy.....hope you hadn't given up on me.)