Photo Scavenger Hunt

 The Friendship International's field trip this year was a photo scavenger hunt around the (beautiful and full of flowers) Hyde Park neighborhood.
Above is silly faces with me and Michele doing hear no, see no, speak no evil.

 this one was birds on a wing, we couldn't find a bird flying so here are birds and some wings.

 our whole team in a small place-a hedge around the sidewalk, we were from Morocco, Scotland, South Africa, Texas, India, Hong Kong, but all spoke wonderful English and had lived all over the world.

Paula was brave and asked the fireman if she could dress up for a Fashion Show pic.
Fun time in great weather and the winners will be announced tomorrow!

Carrie

 Quick stop at Carrie's for the princesses to have tea (thanks for feeding us lunch & ice cream)!

Cora was already asleep but we wanted one of us with our kids!  Something is better than nothing!

Kittens and a Car

 We went to Ft. Worth to visit Caleb's uncle, grandma and family and they had six little gray kittens!  The girls loved them and all survived the weekend.

Caleb's Nana can't drive any more so she gave us her car, a 2006 Chevy Impala with only 60,000 miles!  After the late night watching a movie with cousin Annie, Gloria christened the car with a nap on the drive home.  We meet Catherine and family in Hillsboro to pass our Camary along for a while and enjoyed Pizza Hut together.

Friendship Junior Players

 Friendship International's Annual Children's Tea Party & Play Program begins with showing the ladies what the children do each week which is having a tea party with snacks while listening to a story.

 Then they performed A Tale of Peter Rabbit.  Lydia, Nita & Abby were Cotton Tail, Flobsy & Mopsy.  Hudson was Peter.

 Gloria was the little mouse with peas in her mouth

 other children were sparrows and Harper was the cat.

Part of the group posing after.  Lydia said she was upset because she didn't get to finish her snacks.  We are so thankful for all the ladies who share with and care for our girls each week!

Papa

 Caleb's step-father, Bobby, also known as Papa passed away on the morning of Good Friday.  It was unexpected, though he had seizures and this time he didn't come out of one.  We had plans to stay home for Easter but instead jumped in the car and headed to Beaumont along with the whole family.  There was a private family viewing on the day after Easter and a visitation, then a very nice funeral.  His brother did a eulogy and their pastor did a humorous, thoughtful and encouraging short sermon.  Papa had 10 grandkids-8 six years old and under, and after behaving during the service they decided to explore the beautiful chapel.  They are all looking forward to seeing him in heaven again one day but until then he will be missed here.

Easter Sunday

The family got to go to church together which is strange as two of the brother in laws are pastors. We parked across from the church and got to ride a shuttle-our family filled it up (Lydia was beside Christy) The service was nice though I had to take Gloria out for being too loud...
Here are the kids afterwards. Matt and family were there too but came in a different car so they didn't make this photo.
Our family. Lydia chose to wear the same dress from last year and since I knew this was going to be a trying weekend, I let her do that. Gloria wore dress (and shoes that broke that weekend) from when Lydia was 3.

Even through all the chaos and togetherness, we had several nice moments of discussing and remembering the real reason for Easter-that Jesus died for our sins but He is risen, he is risen indeed!

Fun in Beaumont

Though the reason we went to Beaumont was sad, the family had a wonderful time together. We only see Christy, etc once or twice a year so it was great to have them around...
especially because Nathaniel and McKenzie are so great with the kids
eating chocolate Easter bunnies on Sunday afternoon
dying eggs the most beautiful colors (we had deviled eggs later that day)
lining up for an egg hunt
post running around the kids plopped down to eat their loot. and crack eggs on each other's heads
Linda put sand in her backyard to fill in holes, the kids loved playing in it. We brought Flower with us and the kids also loved playing with her!
After the egg hunt, Nathaniel gathered the kids around and did Resurrection eggs with them. Lydia answered all his questions as she knows the story and we've done it before :)

Grabby Gloria

Gloria has always loved having things in her hands. While we were in Beaumont she got to hold a chameleon...
yellow flowers she picked in the church yard on Easter Sunday that matched her dress...
and Grammy's flowers, she has such pretty ones and Gloria loves to touch them, she knows not to pick but can get them if they fall off onto the ground, after a few days there these started getting knocked so they would then be on the ground!

Passover Seder

I grew up doing Passover with my family and we used a Messianic Seder. After getting married Caleb and I have been it several times with small groups of friends. Well our friends have started having kids and its hard to fit at a table so some have suggested doing a Sunday school one. So here we go for 2012, I expected around 20 people for the first one, we opened it up to a couple of SS classes and the Ladies Wed Night Bible Study. I think by the end we had 58 people there! It went way over time but overall, it went really well. It was the first Passover for many people. We began with a Hebrew praise dance by a small group of women, then the traditional Messianic Seder, including 4 cups of sparkling grape juice, lots of matzo and dipping, singing in Hebrew and a meal (provided by the church kitchen). I learned a lot about hosting an event this big-some suggest that we try it church wide next year! It is a beautiful reminder of Christ's last supper and great to have our home and church family together to celebrate!

Garden Girls!

Getting a radish out of our garden! The strawberries are looking good and we should have some peas soon too. Very exciting to eat things from our backyard.
all dressed up in Mexico dresses for the Friendship International first annual Family Dinner (I put some photos up on FB of that so I'm not doing it on the blog too)
Having a princess garden tea party with our Tuesday playdate.

Crazy girls

My friend Sherri, kept the girls, while I went to a luncheon. Not with Natalie Grant as I had misunderstood but with a rep from her ministry, about an upcoming women's event that looks great and I need to start getting friends to go to (see if its in your city http://www.daretoberevolution.com/)

anyway, Abby has play make up and the big girls dressed up like 'movie stars' then come out and struck some poses for us and made up some songs. Fun times!

Water fun

We have some new friends from Scotland and she invited us to her birthday party at Pease park on Sunday afternoon. Caleb was doing a fishing thing so it was a perfect way to spend a beautiful Sunday afternoon. We met lots of new friends (and one family we already know) had a picnic, sang happy birthday, had cake, flew kites, played on the playground, threw a frisbee, drank a Dr. Pepper (Gloria drank most of mine and then got in the cooler herself and found another). But the neatest part was finding a path from the park down to the creek. The girls were wearing water shoes so they ran around and had a great time and since they were in matching red dresses it was a great photo opp too! Gloria held her dress up ridiculously high but still fell in, but they dried out while playing.

SS Egg Hunt

Our class had an egg hunt at a local park. Jackson & Gloria (the best of buds) show off their baskets.

Find Lydia-I love it, she is flying!
I looked for Gloria and she and Jackson decided they had enough and plopped down together and started eating candy. When Lydia say they were eating she quickly joined them!

Then they played on the playground, ate a little bit of a picnic dinner before going home sweating and full of sweets!

Easter story

To celebrate the real reason for Easter, we found Resurrection eggs during our hunt and used them to quickly tell the story of Jesus' last week, death and resurrection!
Then Lydia sang along (with lit candles) four songs from the Veggie Tales Easter cd (which is fabulous)

http://store.veggietales.com/a-very-veggie-easter-veggietales-cd.html

Salado Eggs

We dyed Easter eggs in Salado and the girls posed for pictures (since then Lydia has let me cut her bangs-she wanted to grown them out but didn't like the clip)


After bluebonnet photos, we also did an egg hunt that included confetti eggs!
Jonathan not quick as inspired by candy as my girls proceeded to dump out his basket!
These girls have egg hunting skills, they run, they search, they love the candy! And after listening to the Veggie Tales Easter song Empty Egg-Empty Tomb (they both remind us of good news delivered on that Easter day...) they also like to find an empty one or two!