Easter Saturday

* I tried to post this on Saturday, but it wouldn't upload, so here it is now!*

We've had a really good weekend so far; we've spent time baking and visiting with friends, watching Caroline play soccer, dyeing Easter eggs, and just enjoying a little extra time off together.  Last night Caroline and I went to Barnes and Noble for a Fancy Nancy story time and some Fancy Nancy activities while Jeff stayed home with Charlotte.  Caroline really enjoyed it and as you'll see from the pictures, she got dressed up for the occasion.  

The pictures probably say it all best, so here's the real recap:  

It was a special "big girls only" outing, so I let Caroline stay out a little late and she asked for a huge cupcake for dessert, I obliged.  I think she ate all of the icing and about two bites of the cake.  

As if the giant cupcake from Starbucks wasn't enough, we baked cupcakes today and Caroline was the decorator (are those cupcake toppers the cutest things ever?).  Charlotte was her regular happy self and watched it all from the bouncy seat:  

Here are some pics from the family Easter egg dyeing extravaganza:  

Caroline playing soccer:  

He rose!

I found this Easter cooking illustration for kids and it was really the best way to talk to Caroline about Easter in terms she could understand. There is a hands on element to it and a tangible illustration, so it was better than just reading her Bible stories about Easter or trying to explain to her the reason behind Easter. I'm not sure all of it comes together cleanly enough for a 3 year old anyway; I often have a hard time wrapping my head around it all! But, maybe that says more about me than anything else . . . ?

If you can get to the store and do it today or tomorrow, I highly recommend it, or put it in the file for next year. After you read through the linked page, this will make more sense, but Caroline's response to each part of this was really funny. The basic recipe is to dip marshmallows in melted butter then roll them in a sugar and cinnamon mixture and finally wrap the "spiced up marshmallow" in a crescent roll and bake for about 11 minutes or so. The marshmallow represents Jesus and the crescent roll represents the tomb. In the baking process the marshmallow "disappears" just as we celebrate Jesus' resurrection from the tomb. When we pulled the end product out of the oven (delicious by the way, so try it even if you don't have kids to do it with), Caroline picked up one of the rolls and looked through a tiny hole and said, "Hello? Jesus are you in there?" Then looking up at me with wide-eyes, she exclaimed, "Oh, no! Mama, he's not in there! He rose!"

Success!

Nashville!

We made our trip to Nashville this past weekend and had a great time. The one drawback to being away for a few days is all of the catching up that awaits you on your return. I am in the midst of trying to get caught up, Charlotte is a little under the weather again, Caroline is taking swim lessons this week, and my suitcase still sits packed on the floor by my bed, so I'll do my best to get some pictures posted on here as soon as I am able. In the meantime, you can check out Allison's blog and Jeremy's blog for a recap of the trip and some really great pictures too.

Jeffrey in the News

I have to brag on Jeffrey James;  he made the newspaper today in Baton Rouge!  Jeff has been designing T-shirts and doing some freelance graphic design work for a few months now and the store that sells his shirts had a fundraiser fashion show earlier in the week. The newspaper did a feature story on it and one of his shirts was pictured. Here's the link!  

You have to scroll to the second picture in the photo line-up and it says that the shirt is by Au-si, which is the name of his design company.  His company is also listed in the article itself.  We had no idea that it was going to be in the paper, but my mom called me this afternoon to tell me that Jeff's shirt made it into the People section; we were surprised and excited to see it on the cover page!  

As a side note, the name of his company has a sweet back-story.  Caroline's two first real words were "outside" and "guitar" (is she her father's daughter or what?).  "Outside" in Caroline-speak sounded more like "au-si", and so a company name was born!  

I'm so proud of you, Jeffrey James!  

We're taking a road trip!

A very, very long road trip. Well, if it was up to Caroline we'd be taking a very long road trip. We are actually heading to Nashville soon to see friends, and Caroline has been really excited about flying in an airplane to get there. Granted, she thinks we are also going to be skydiving from the airplane, but I'm sure the disappointment that we will be walking onto and off of the airplane will die down once we're in the air.

As we were saying prayers last night, Caroline said, "And God, I am going to fly to Cooper's house and then I want to drive to see Santa and New York and then we will drive to you in Heaven." I wasn't quite sure how to respond to that, so I didn't.

Pray for this baby

You can click on the button to go to his mom's blog where you can read his story. Apparently things are not going well for him today.

Finally

Spring is finally here and we've been spending some time outside in the afternoons, taking advantage of the day light and nice weather.  So, I'm finally getting a few minutes to put some updated pictures of the girls up!  Like I said in my last post, we've just been busy, but we are doing well.  In addition to spending time outside, the season of life where our weekends are overtaken by birthday parties has begun; so between spending time and money at Target and Wal-Mart and weekend afternoons at bouncy birthday places, I haven't had much free time on the weekends!  Caroline enjoys it though, and I suppose that's all part of growing up, for both her and us.  

Charlotte is changing just about every week.  She is a truly happy baby who loves to smile and (almost) laugh.  It's hard to believe she is about to be four months old, but every day I look at Caroline, it is a testament to the cliche that "time flies".  Charlotte has never been a big fan of the pacifier, she usually only wants it when she's ready for a nap, unlike Caroline who couldn't leave home without it.  I had a feeling Charlotte would be a thumb-sucker instead of the pacifier loving baby that her sister was, and she proved me right this past week and found her thumb!  

Caroline has moved up to the "big kids" class at school and she is really loving being there.  She had started to say in recent weeks that she was still with "some babies" in her class at school, and now that is no longer the case!  They've been working on writing letters and recognizing words a little more than they did in her previous class, and I she is enjoying the challenge of that.  She comes home and wants to "do homework" now and practice all of the skills they are teaching her at school.  Caroline is still growing like a weed and I am not sure how we are going to continue to clothe this child, she grows out of clothes faster than I ever imagined a child could.  She has also gotten back into the habit of making up songs which is entertaining for all of us.  

Caroline and Jeff ran another kids' race this weekend and they had a great time running it with friends.  After the race, there was a DJ playing music for the after party and Caroline had to join in the Cupid Shuffle, proud moment for us!