DC

Alright seriously, people....I need to figure out a quicker way to blog or I'm never going to keep up with this thing. Ok, so on with the post. My in-laws came to visit us last week. We were super excited to have them visit. Thursday we decided to make a trip to Washington DC. I have never been to DC before, so I was really excited to see it. It takes us about 3 hours to get there from our house, so we got an early start. Just a heads up....don't go to DC if there's a baseball game. We drove around the suburbs for somewhere between 2 to 3 hours trying to find a Metro station with open parking spaces so we could ride into the city. So our plan to get there around 10am didn't quite work...we got there around 1pm instead. But, after that adventure the day turned out to be pretty fun. We, of course, got no where near close to seeing everything, but we got to see some of the Air and Space Museum, Natural History Museum, and theAmerican History Museum....and got to see the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the WW2 Memorial, the Korean War Memorial, and the Vietnam War Memorial. We walked approximately 6 miles and had no strollers. A stroller would have made the walking a little more enjoyable with the 3 kiddies, but I must say, for them doing THAT much walking, they did very well. All in all, it was a fun day. Here's some highlights...(WARNING...LOTS of pictures)...

Austin took a little nap...he took half of it on Pappy, and half of it on Daddy...

On the Metro (that we finally found parking to be able to ride on)...

Daniel wasn't really asleep, but he wanted to mimic Pappy's every move...

I loved this picture with the Washington Monument in the background...

And here would be the kids about 3 minutes after we ate dinner (at Longhorn I might add...oh, yum)...

They were worn out! All in all, they did great with all that walking. My hips and legs did hurt for about 3 days following our adventure, but it was worth it. We plan to make lots of day trips to DC so we can eventually see everything!

Lily's First Surgery

About this time last year, Austin had surgery to put tubes in his ears and Daniel had surgery to get his tonsils and adnoids removed. Well, Thursday, around a year later, Lily had her first surgery. Her surgery was to have some dental work done. Back in October, right before we moved, we went and had our teeth cleaned. Well, we discovered that Daniel and Lily had cavities! Well, then we moved very soon after. So we quickly found a dentist and he got to work filling their cavities. Well, Lily had a very deep cavitiy...deeper than he realized. So as he was filling the cavitiy and going deeper and deeper to clean it out little Lily girl started getting pretty uncomfortable. So he filled it temporarily and recommended her to a pediatric dentist. She recommended we put her to sleep to fill it and while she was asleep she went ahead and filled her other smaller ones. This couldn't happen until last week. So this past Thursday, 6 months after finding the cavities, we headed to the hospital for Lily to have her mouth worked on. She was SOOO good! We had to be there at 9:30am, for her surgery at 11:30am and she couldn't eat or drink anything all day! But she handled it pretty good!
We brought a bunch of books, and they gave her a coloring book...

Then we discovered a drawer under her little table that would slide open on both sides. So what did we do? We mailed things back and forth to each other...

We waited and waited in her little out-patient room. But we stayed very entertained. We didn't even realize we had a tv until about 20 minutes before they took her back! Around 11:45am they finally came to get her and her surgery started around 12ish. Then that took about an hour and a half. When they brought her back to me she was sound asleep...

She stayed that way for about 2 hours! Then she finally woke up and was HUNGRY! They gave her 2 popcicles...

And then we were able to go home (well actually to McD's for chicken nuggets for the starving girl)....around 4pm! What a day! But I must say, it was quite relaxing to me! Most of my time was spent reading, eating lunch, watching Food Network, and most importantly....sitting!! And Lily did just great! We had a good ole' time together! And now we are working harder than ever to keep these kiddos from getting more cavities! Below I've included a funny video of Lily practicing falling asleep with the mask....that I might add, they let her take home!! Enjoy!

Easter Weekend

Happy Easter everyone! This Easter was a little different for us. This is the first year we haven't lived by either one of our families. Usually after Easter Sunday services we spend the afternoon with grandparents, great-grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles...the whole gang. But this year it was just the 5 (or should I say 6) of us. We missed everyone, but we still had a good ole' time! This Easter season was also different for us becuase we had a lot of events leading up to Easter Sunday at church. Thursday night we had the Living Last Supper...
Jason played the disciple Andrew. Basically it was a play picturing the last supper, and each disciple got up and explained a little about their character. It was neat. Then Friday evening we had a Tenebrae service. I had never been to anything like this before. It was a very solemn service consisting of readings about the crucifixion and somber songs. It was focused on the death of Christ. And then Saturday we had an Easter egg hunt for the kids and of course Sunday morning worshipping and celebrating the Resurrection of our Savior and Lord. It was a busy week, but I really enjoyed it! I liked how each event of the week closely mirrored the time-frame of events that happened over 2,000 years ago. Sunday our pastor preached from 1 Corinthians 15 about how had Christ not risen from the dead, our faith, our religion, our preaching would be in vain. Basically our lives would be lived for nothing. The resurrection is everything! Praise God that we serve a risen Savior who has defeated death and the grave!! Here's a family pic of us all dressed in our Easter attire...

Before church we let the kids open their little Easter gifts. We never do much, just a small toy and some candy, but they get excited. I have pictures but forgot they were on our camera. So you may get a random post containing those pics (adding pics after I've started writing the post is a pain). Anyway...so after church we got home and I fixed us a fairly classic Easter dinner...ham, potatoes, green beans, deviled eggs, and biscuits. (please excuse the half-eaten biscuit...I was hungry)...

We had a brief rest time (Jason was up around 5am for our church's sunrise service which by the way I really wish we had made it too...maybe next year I'll brave waking the kids up that early)....and then we dyed eggs...

I got 5 koolaid packets and we used those to dye the eggs rather than the kits. I got 5 packets for $1, so it was much cheaper. I only had 6 white eggs left and the rest were brown. The white of course were much prettier colors, but the kids still had fun none-the-less. Here's what we came up with...(oh, and the kids had to write their names on the ones they dyed)

Then they decided they wanted to hide the ones they made for us to find and of course we would hide the plastic candy-filled ones for them to find. So here they are hiding from us (I peeked to get a picture...I'm just glad I didn't get caught)...

And here's what we got! It was so funny finding them. Usually we would find them in sets of 3. I hope you especially enjoy the grease stains on the belly of my favorite sweatshirt...

So then of course we hid their eggs and here they are finding them...

After the hunt...

And of course....going through and finding the candy...

It ended up being such a fun day full of worshipping, good food, and family fun. Oh...and for our memory I'm going to share a little dialogue that took place between Jason and Lily after church yesterday. Jason asked Lily what she learned in children's church. She replied.."The bad guys put sharp things on Jesus' head. And put nails in His hands and feet. Then they made him carry the cross and then wrapped him in a sheet and put him in a cave." Then Jason asks.."What happened next?" Lily replies..."We colored." I cracked up when I heard that. Of course I know she learned about the resurrection too, because on a different occasion she told me, but still...that was too funny! I hope you all had a great Sunday celebrating the resurrection of our Lord as well!