Happy Easter

Christ the Lord has risen! We had a wonderful day at our International Fellowship and out to lunch with friends. It has been a gray and dreary spring but the sun was out. Nevertheless, the best part of the day was celebrating this:

"But he was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his many ways; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." Isaiah 53:5-6

Praise the Lord, hallejuah. What a glorious savior!

Modern-Day Moses

Cameron was bubbling over with excitement for Alan to come home and to hear about his trip. Over dinner Alan was sharing about the scouts crossing a rapidly flowing river. He tried to throw rocks into the water to help the boys cross, but the water was going so fast that the rocks did not stay. So Cameron piped in with lots of hand motions that when he goes camping and they need to get across the river he will use a walkie talkie and tell the water to move out of the way. I was sitting next to Cameron and Alan was across from him not quite sure what he meant, but we had read recently in one of his Bible Story books about Moses and I finally clued in to what he meant. Alan and I both said, "oh, like the parting of the Red Sea," and Cameron said, "but you have to use a walkie talkie!" Go for it Cameron! Way to go remembering how powerful and mighty God is!

Daddy is out of town...watch out!

Alan goes out of town about once a month with the Boy Scouts or other things anywhere from two to ten days. Every time I learn better not just how to survive, but how to thrive and I am constantly in awe of how the Lord provides for me and the kids in so many different ways. He is so faithful and good!

Alan went on a two night Camporee with his Boy Scout troop this weekend. On Friday they left to join up with a troop from another city. So, the kids and I were out the door at 8:00 this morning to run a few errands before the crowds hit...maybe I should just say before the crowds got really big (there are always crowds)...then we got to spend time with another mom and her kids at a great new (to me) park not far from our house. I pushed Laura Cate in the stroller and Cameron rode his bike (he does this every chance he can get!). We had a great time and then after lunch and rest time I took the kids out to another park that has sand AND swings!! This is a pretty big deal where we live :) Cameron and Laura Cate had a great time. Laura Cate enjoyed trying to walk and I was just hoping she wouldn't take her first steps while Alan was gone...don't worry, she didn't. She fooled us all into thinking she would be an early walker :) She mostly crawled around and got really dirty, but hey, that's what play clothes are for!


Afterwords it was definitely time for a bath.

By the way, Laura Cate is 13 months old today!! Happy Birthday precious girl! Every day she is more and more fun. She is getting braver and taking a few more steps each day.

Easter Eve

He is risen!

Alan found a great website (http://www.squidoo.com/resurrectioncookies) that talk about teaching Easter to children and on it was a recipe for Resurrection Cookies. I recommend this to everyone! Before Cameron went to bed we went through the recipe which had different ingredients to symbolize different things, such as vinegar that the symbolized what the soldiers gave Jesus to drink, and salt, which represented the tears of people who were sad to see Him die. You leave the cookies in the "tomb" (the oven turned off), overnight an wait to get them out in the morning...it was hard for us all to wait, but it yielded to great expectation, excitement, and thankfulness that the cookies were hollow and empty inside. They were also yummy! We look forward to making this an Easter tradition.

Easter Saturday

We had such a fun time celebrating Easter this year. I really felt like it was a celebration. We gathered on Good Friday with Alan's co-workers and enjoyed a meal together and praying together about what Jesus did for us. Cameron is finally starting to understand that know we can celebrate Jesus dying because we know that he also rose from the dead for us! I think Cameron sort of thought of it all as a three day party.

We had an Easter Egg hunt on Saturday with some other families. The dads did a great job hiding the eggs. We found a new park near our apartment, which was great because that meant it wasn't very crowded..it is hard to find any place not crowded here :) Cameron didn't care so much how many eggs he got, but what was inside. Laura Cate enjoyed watching everyone and pushing her stroller around like a big girl (she isn't walking quite yet, although we thought she would).

Laura Cate trying to figure out what to do with the eggs:














Cameron before the hunt. Notice he is wearing his soccer shoes. He said he wanted to be able to run fast in the grass. ...quite the little strategist! That's Cameron...always thinking. Hmm reminds me of another boy in our family! I like to tell people I have two Alans :)





The kids got to run in the grass...oh so much fun!! Cameron also found a great stick...every boys dream :) We all had such a fun time!