Easter Smiles

Coconut....did you help the Easter bunny?

We had a very nice Easter this year. I heard a rumor that the Easter bunny got up at 2:00 in the morning to go out and put eggs all over the backyard. After going to church we came home to a yummy roasted lamb with veggies, gravy, and mint jelly! I never grew up eating lamb, it seems like we always had ham for Easter. But actually lamb is so much more significant in a religious sense being tied to passover and the symbolism of Jesus being the lamb of God that takes away our sins! I think the first time I ever had it, it was made by Justin's Mom or his Aunt Leuna. It is very expensive and was like $8 a lb, but hey....Easter comes but once a year so why not splurge a little. I've decided that we are going to make it an Easter tradition every year. I also made some of our other family favorites: green bean casserole and pina colada cake! My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

Coloring the Easter Eggs the day before Easter. This is alway a fun tradition I always did as a kid. There's just something about the smell of vinegar that takes me back to Easters of long ago!

Our Easter day slide show for your viewing pleasure:

Spring Break in Galveston & Trinity

In mid March we went to visit The Memaws & Pawpaw and also took another trip down to Galveston! WooHoo we had a great time. Here is a slide show of us in Galveston....yes I love to take pictures...lots of pictures...especially nature pictures!

When we got back from Galveston we spent several days there in Trinity and had lot of fun helping Memaw plant her garden, having an Easter Egg hunt and visiting with Memaw Fagan! Memaw even opened up her barber shop and gave the boys a much needed haircut. It's a good thing because people were starting to refer to Joshey as "she."

Snow in March!

I am like a month behind on my blogging so I am going to try to get caught up. On March 7th we actually had some snow!! The kids were so excited. This was the first time James and Josh had ever seen real snow and Callie did not remember playing in it about 6 years ago when she was about 1.

I can't believe it actually stuck to the ground. The flakes were just beautiful....but it only lasted for a few hours and then melted away.

Growing up in Arkansas it seems like we got at least one good snow of several inches every year...sigh...I miss that. I have so many good memories playing out in the snow building snowmen, snow angels, making snow ice cream, looking at individual snowflakes on black vinal records.

After a little while of being out in the snow they were all screaming about how cold they were and wanted to come inside. They wanted to decortate a little branch with Easter decorations that Oma had given them. I think she gave me a little tree to put them on but it is somewhere in Our Little Family Vortex (kind of like the Burmuda Triangle of all our lost things)! So we just used a tree branch. Josh even got in on all the festivities and as Callie put it: "helped to UNdecorate the tree.

In Memory of Gracious

Coconut, Tiger & Gracious

We have some sad news from our home....Our dear sweet cat Gracious died yesterday. Our next door neighbor called and said he was laying dead on the other side of their house. We could not tell how he died. No visible signs to give a clue. He was laying peacefully on his side. We are guessing he maybe got hit by a car or perhaps drank or ate poison somewhere.

The kids seemed a little upset but got over it quickly moving on to wondering what kind of pet should we get next...but me on the other hand, I seem to be the saddest about it. I'm trying to go on and not think about it but he was such a sweet loving cat. We only had him for 6 months but I feel like I really bonded with him. You know... I had not had a cat since I left home for college and since then I came to think that pets were too much trouble and could not relate to people who were so attached to their pets..I mean their just animals right? But I was wrong. Pets can bring so much joy to people's lives.

They say they improve your health and lower your blood pressure.

This picture was taken the day before Gracious died. Notice how Tiger is licking him!

We buried him in the backyard and the kids decorated his grave with pretty flowers. I thought that was sweet. I will miss him and I know Tiger will. They had become such great buddies. Always sleeping cuddled up and playing so cute together. Here is a video I took of them playing together on Easter.

Last week we had a major ordeal with Gracious which makes this even more sad to me. The day after Easter Gracious did not come to eat with Tiger and I did not see him for a while...then later that day I heard him meowing out in the woods behind our house but he could not get home. So I thought he was hurt out in the woods and went looking for him. I found him stuck about 60 ft. up in a tree and would not come down. Tiger actually lead the way and stood at the base of the tree! We tried everything to get him down. Justin made this pvc pipe contraption and hoisted some tuna up in a bucket to him and that did not work. He was so terrified to come down and just meowed and meowed.

On the fourth day he was up there I decided to call a tree service to see if they would get cats out of trees. The first place I called said they would come and do it for free! So they came later that day to get him down.....then more bad things happened. As I was showing them were Gracious was, Joshua got out of our fence and ran out into the street. A man who lives down the street stopped and then called the police. I am so thankful Joshua was not hit. I got to him before the policeman got there. That was very nerve racking to say the least!

Thankfully they got Gracious down from the tree just fine and after eating and drinking seemed like his old self. But that is not the end to the story....... Justin came down with a miserable breakout of poison something...ivy,oak or sumac, we don't know. It must have been the vine going up the tree Gracious was in. He broke out all over both his arms and on his chest and stomach!! He has been just miserable the last several days. But it is finally starting to heal!

So that is our sad story. Oh yeah.... and we found a hermit crab from our trip to Galveston last month and he died last week. We buried him out in the backyard too. Hermie...may you rest in peace as well :)

Happy Birthday Callie!

My sweet little daughter turned 7 last month. Here she is getting her breakfast in bed on her big day. She is getting old WAY too fast. I just brought her home from the hospital and now she has just informed me today that her favorite color is NOT pink anymore. Her entire life, her favorite color has been pink and now it is GREEN....this is a momentous step in the life of a girl. She wants to get rid of all her barbies and baby dolls (which by the way she has never really played with anyway) and wants to make her room into a jungle rain forest room. She begs me almost everyday for some sort of reptile as a pet. She really wants a snake.....Ewwwwww. I told her no way and she would have to settle for some jungly looking fish. We got her some but they soon died. So when Daddy gets the fish tank "just right" we will try to introduce more.

I'm so proud of her individuality and adventurous spirit. Or should I say independent mind....she says she is "independent" like Thomas Jefferson. She checked out a really cute book from the library called, "John, Paul, George, & Ben" by Lane Smith. It is a very humorous look at how our founding fathers might have acted as boys. She has read that book over and over again. In our homeschooling we have studied American History by reading living biographies of George Washington and Ben Franklin by Ingri and Parin D'Aulaire. We have enjoyed them so much.

Several months before her birthday when I asked her what kind of party she wanted she said,"Mom, can I have a presidents party....you know...we could decorate the house with all the presidents and you could put them on my cake!" Now THAT makes a homeschooling mother's heart proud! I had a good laugh over that one....not letting on to her that there was anything funny in that! Of course she soon changed her tune to wanting a jungle party..but hey... the thought was what counted, right :)

Since all but me were sick around her birthday, we had to postpone her party to a couple of weeks later but she had a wonderful time with her friends!