He is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!!

Hallelujah! Christ is Risen!!! Up from the grave He arose with a mighty triumph over His foes!

What a great hope we have because Christ is our Risen Savior who has already defeated satan!! Remember there is great power for those who are His children and call on His name when you feel that he who is in the world is gaining ground in your life.

I just love Easter! It makes my heart soar when I think of how much God loves me, that He would send His only son to this earth to suffer and die a terrible death so that my sins could be washed away and I would be able to be counted worthy in His sight! Thank you Jesus!

Every year for the past three years we have gone to be the night before Easter Sunday with great ambitions of going to sunrise service and every year, whether because of weather or something else, we haven't made it; and finally this year we did!! If you have never experienced a sunrise service on Easter Sunday on the beach you definitely need to make it a priority. There is something so special about it and words can't describe that joy that comes as you watch the sunrise and know that Jesus is alive!

Well, as I said, we finally made it and just in time. Somehow we ended up about 5 minutes behind schedule that morning and once we finally arrived at the parking lot we raced to unload the children from the car and literally ran all the way down the boardwalk to the beach and just as we walked up to the small gathering of people who were there to worship the sun peaked its first ray over the horizon!! I am telling you, I still get chills thinking about how beautiful it was!

After sunrise service we came home and hung out around the house for a bit. Shelby and JP did a little egg hunt and then we got ready for church. After church we went to lunch with some family and took some pictures at the Lake. When I look at our family pictures over the years and think about how they have changed it just amazes me. I can't believe that we have two beautiful children and more than that I can't believe that I have such a wonderful husband who loves me, but more importantly who loves the Lord and leads our family in His Word.

We rounded out the day with our traditional dinner and egg hunt at Meme's house.

It was a super busy day, but a great day to be together as a family!

Strawberry Pickin'

So I have this friend who always knows what is going on and where things are happening and I am so thankful for her because she helps keep me doing fun and new adventures with the children. As some of you may know, we are in strawberry pickin' season...now, I have never done this before and was so excited to take the children to a real farm to pick their own strawberries and secretly I wanted to pick some strawberries too. Anyway, a couple of weeks ago my friend Heather and I headed to Georgia to this great little farm called Ottawa Farms. They really have a top notch operation there. When we pulled up there was a little area where they had some goats and some pigs and before I knew what was going on the children were off and running to see them. It took some coaxing, but we finally pulled them away from the goats and went into the little store to get buckets for strawberry pickin'. Since I was knew at all this an didn't want to appear to "eager beaverish" (this is what Pratt called me all the time in college because I had to get my books so many days before classes started and also map out and walk out how to get to all my classes) I followed Heather's lead. We tried to give some last minute instruction to the children as they were heading out, but I think that it probably fell on deaf ears because they were just too excited. Anyway, it was a beautiful day for picking strawberries and the fruit was beautiful (and once we got home and ate some realized how good it tasted). I kept thinking that I needed to get back over there to pick more before it was too late, but I haven't gone back yet. We will definitely go over there for some blueberry and blackberry picking!!!

Here is Shelby and Callie. Shelby really loves Callie and I think she secretly loves being able to be a pretend big sister to a little sister. Don't get me wrong she loves JP and all, but there is just something different about how she interacts with Callie and I just love watching it.


And then we have the partners in crime, JP and Wyatt. Oh boy did they have so much fun running around together. JP was laughing most of the time and who knows what things they were doing. For boys just being outside and being able to run is a highlight and they definitely enjoyed it. I think they both enjoyed the "guy time" as well.

Group shot!