Easter Weekend Celebration

This is going to be a super long post with lots of pictures, so be prepared!

In order to do the entire weekend justice, I am going to start with Friday. It started off with James going in to the office at 9:30 and getting off at 12:30. (he typically has office hours of 11-4 on Fridays so this was nice for our family). When he came home, he made us an amazing lunch of Beef and Broccoli over rice. I had been having a rough day health wise so this was another nice treat, to have such a wonderful lunch prepared FOR me! ;) We then had James' mom and dad over for dinner. James and I have gotten stuck on making Taco Pizza. It is killer!

After dinner we went to the Good Friday service that they were having at church. WOW!!! I didn't know what to expect. It was so great! The entire service was done with the lights off. Dave picked some fabulous songs and we just sang one leading right into the next one. It was really well put together. We also had some "responsive reading" which required all of our participation. We took communion, but much differently than our normal Sunday morning service. There was a table at the front with the juice in pitchers and a heaping tray of the bread in the middle (Unsinkable...remember Reflections nights and what we used to "snack" on? I couldn't help but think of that!). We formed 2 lines and took communion on our own while the singing continued. Dave ended the service with announcing, "The King is dead!", then a pause followed by "If you want to hear the rest of the story, be here Sunday for the best part!" It was just absolutely amazing. The kids didn't do so bad, so that helped with the experience as well. I had never been to a Good Friday service and this is something that we will definitely be planning on attending in the years to come. What a way to set the stage for the entire weekend of remembering our Savior and why we have Hope! Thanks Dave and Adam!

On to the kids' fun part! We started out Saturday morning with an Easter Egg Hunt at the church. This year it was coordinated by Cindy and it was very well organized! There were 8500 eggs through out the building. She designated "Central Park" of the EduCare (child care) building for toddlers 2 yrs old and younger with siblings 3 or 4 yrs old also. The rest of the downstairs of the building was for the big kids; hallways, auditorium, gym and even some Bible School class rooms. Boy was there TONS of candy! Well, we headed off to the EduCare with Peyton and Gavin and also our nephew Ethan while James' sister took her older girls through the building. There were probably only about 150 eggs in the EduCare but it kept all of the toddlers busy for quite some time. Gavin and several of the younger ones realized really quick that there was candy in the eggs which stopped their hunting skills and turned them into eating! There were also LOTS of appealing toys to play with along the way which also served as distractions. Here are a few pics of the toddlers hunting their eggs.

So, the eggs weren't all really hidden, just scattered for the collecting. This is James' dad (Papa) helping Gavin.

I realized that we didn't have any really great action shots of Peyton "gathering" and this was the best one! Also, a leg shot of her Nana.

Here are the kids, not really ready for a photo shoot, more interested in candy than anything else...except for that cheesing nephew of mine! They all got more than enough candy to satisfy for a while...a long while!

After the egg hunt, we had everyone over to the house for Brunch. There was sausage gravy, toast, fried potatoes and homemade cinnamon rolls. An extremely healthy spread after all of that candy! ;) The kids had little gifts to open from Nana and Papa before they had to travel back to Ohio. They got all of the kids cute little socks. Peyton got one pr with little duckies on them and another with pastel colored stripes. Gavin got a pair of Lightening McQueen ones and a pair of Diego. Both of Peyton's are already dirty from wearing and in the wash. Gavin didn't have any dress sock so he wore his McQueen socks with his suit and dress shoes yesterday! Hey, you go with what you have, right?! We didn't get any pictures of the socks, but the kids did have fun with all of the grass...thanks to help from their Papa!

Cousin helping out!

She has the wonderful talent of crossing her eyes and looking at the top of her head?!

Saturday night, we got a nice phone call from James' brother in Texas informing us that they went crawdad hunting that day. How disgusting! Not the crawdads, the fact that it was in the 80's and they could go outside! It was snowing here this weekend, Sat and Sun both! Nothing stuck, but still snow, YUCK!

Sunday morning Easter baskets were loads of fun! The kids had their baskets from us, but also a basket from my parents! Gavin is an early riser and Peyton is not! We made the choice of waking Peyton up so that we wouldn't have to fight to keep Gavin out of the baskets until she decided to wake up. She is a pleasant morning person, just not an early one. You will see by the pictures that she is happy, but dazed!

Like this one!

Gavin was thrilled once the candy was opened. Starburst, Breakfast of Champions!

The kids both got a "special" egg from my mom and dad that had some candy in it, but also a $1 bill. Gavin quickly threw his off to the side in a "I can't eat this!" fashion, but Peyton was SO excited. I think this was about the time that she actually woke up. Hahaha She knows what money is and gets almost as excited as her mama does!

This was something that we got for Gavin and he LOVED it! I forgot that slinky's are so much fun. We have a video of his going "WOW, WOW, WOW" every time he would pull it apart! I won't post it because this is already WAY too big!

Sunday morning services were again, wonderful! The worship time was so uplifting, Randy's sermon was great and a girl that I used to babysit was baptized! We had Easter lunch at my house this year. James' sister and family, his sister's in laws and his Gramma all came for lunch. It was a delicious lunch and not a whole lot of leftovers. Enough that everyone was full but so much that we will all be eating it for another week! hahaha We had another egg hunt with the kids here at the house. Amy brought all of the eggs already filled and we hid them in 4 rooms as well as several in the hallway (above the door bell...you know!) The kids had a blast hunting them all down, well everyone except for Gavin that is. I think he found 3 eggs and just stopped to start eating the candy. You see, Great Gramma was here and all he had to do was take them to her and say "pweeeese" and amazingly they were opened every time! Sometimes he would take a bite and then give it to her to eat or just give it to her as soon as it was opened if it wasn't what he thought it was!

Something that Amy and Michael have done with their family is hiding a "special egg" with a $5 bill in it. Obviously, this one is hidden much better than the rest. It was a lot of fun for James and I to watch the 2 older girls hunting for that one in particular. It doesn't have to be shared and is for whoever spots it first! We think we will do that as well when the kids get older, but add on to the idea by putting different things in it every year. Here are pics from the family egg hunt. *By the way, it was 29 degrees on Easter morning here so that is why we obviously had to do it inside! Hopes for warmer weather next year since Easter will be later.

17 weeks

I am now 17 weeks pregnant! 3 weeks away from the half way point!!! Here are the fun new things about the baby!

The baby weighs 5 ounces now (about as much as a turnip), and he's around 5 inches long. The umbilical cord, his lifeline to the placenta, is growing stronger and thicker. The baby can move his joints, and his skeleton — until now, rubbery cartilage — is starting to harden into bone. Some of it will remain cartilage for years after he's born. A newborn's skeleton has 300 parts (a combination of bone and cartilage). As the child grows, some of these parts harden and fuse together. By the time the baby reaches adulthood, he'll have just 206 bones.

The Next American Idol!

Hahahaha I thought that these videos of Peyton singing were just absolutely hilarious! She really is a performer. I am really sorry that it takes 3 videos to capture one whole song, but it will be well worth the wait. Watch for her spins that never make her dizzy, her enunciation of every word ;) (artirally), her extremely sharp notes and her ganster signs at the end!

She brings such joy to our house everyday!

So here she is...our Dear Peyton singing I'm in the Lord's Army! (you have to pay close attention to her words so that you can understand her!)

The Stats are in

Peyton had her 3 yr appt with the doctor yesterday.

Weight: a whopping 26.5 lbs
Height: 34 inches tall

She is still under the 10th percentile but believe it or not, she has actually gained 4lbs and grown 2 inches since her 2 yr check! She got her blood pressure taken with a cute little cuff which the nurse told her was giving her a hug on her arm. We also had to catch a urine specimen, and Peyton wasn't so sure about this one! They had a little metal pan that we could hang in the toilet, right above the water so it wasn't like I had to catch it in the cup or anything, but she still had a hard time. We didn't have any luck when we first got there, but right before we left, she couldn't hold it anymore!

We also had to have some blood work done. I would prefer to explain all of that next week once we get some results back, but I would like to talk about my super strong girl! I was extremely nervous about Peyton getting blood drawn. I was there at the hospital by myself with both kids and really didn't know how it was going to go. Well they called us back to the lab and the 3 of us headed back, double stroller and all! Peyton did great until they had me sit her on my lap, tuck her legs between mine and the second nurse walked in. She was starting to get nervous. Well, they stuck the needle in her arm and she said "Owy" and looked down at her arm. That is when the screaming began and it didn't stop until AFTER they took the needle out. As they were putting the cotton ball on her arm, she told the lady in a very whiny, very how could you do that do me voice "That is a boo boo!". Well she got a giraffe sticker with wiggly eyes and got to pick out something from the treasure box. She picked a bouncy ball! She still wasn't over the fact that they hurt her and tried milking it a little more by telling the nurse that her arm was broke!

She still hasn't let me take the tape off, however I told her that it was coming off today. We'll see how that goes!