Happy Resurrection Day 2013!

thanks DeDe for our beautiful outfits:)!

Thank you Jesus for your sacrifice, and for defeating death once and for all!  Thanks that your resurrection means life everlasting for those who follow you.  Thank you that death truly means life.   I pray that I continue to learn that and live it out here on earth.  I pray that the truth and beauty of the cross knocks me to my knees daily.

Once and for all, our debt is paid, 

There on the cross it is finished! 

The Lamb of God for us was slain; 

Up from the grave He is risen! 

Up from the grave He is risen!

~Chris Tomlin

Dyeing Eggs!

 I wasn't sure I would get to it this year, but alas I already had the kit in my pantry and enough eggs to do it! Love when it works out easily like that! 

The big girls had a blast dyeing eggs this morning.  

I had fun editing the pics on picmonkey:). 

 Have you tried it yet?  It's a really fun free editing software online.  

And I will enjoy eating the eggs! 

 

A Bullet Point Post

• Things are about to get C.R.A.Z.Y up in here!  Ellie Kate is playing soccer and Samuel is playing baseball.  We also have gymnastics for the girls one day a week.  I'm not big into over scheduling our kids so we shall see how this goes with so many activities.  

• Anna Mitchell is 13 months and I should do an entire post on her but I won't because I don't have time.  She is hilarious.  Trying to talk all the time.  She never stops moving and now she rarely stops talking:).  Her real words are Da-Da, Pepper (the cat), Baby, Uh-Oh,  wats tha (what's that?), Um (yum), and sometimes Mama.  Then she tries to say Ball, and Where Did It Go but only we would understand what she is saying.   Annie still takes two naps and is sleeping well at night!  She still gets her morning and bedtime bottle but now usually only gets her straw sippy cup throughout the day.  I will hopefully phase out these last two bottles in the next few months.  Yay! 

•  Samuel is still doing mostly good and learning a lot about self control and obedience.  God has really taught us all how to be more patient and Samuel has especially learned that he can control himself and he can have very good days.  It's his choice.  It has been so great for him to succeed and we have given him rewards for how awesome he's been.  He knows ultimately that God is His biggest help in this time and has really answered our prayers!  We still struggle with bad attitude and some behaviors that are unrelated to ADHD...just normal kid elementary school stuff that is not fun at times. 

• Ellie Kate is rocking it out at gymnastics.  She can do so much and I'm so proud of her and what all she has learned in such a short while!  She is also reading up a storm and loving it!  My little Ellie Bellie continues to be such a drama queen and so emotional about everything though.  I'm a little nervous about the teenage years.  I've said that all along, but lately she has just been soooooo dramatic about everything and soooooo emotionally driven in every response.   But otherwise, she is smart and fun and also never sits still!  

• Abigail is our sweet child.  I'm not playing favorites but really she is.  She has always been our most compliant and moldable child.  I'm thankful that God gave me one of those because I now know fully that our children's compliance is really nothing we do as parents...it's so much of what's already in their nature.  Sure, it's our job to train and discipline but man when they are already by nature compliant, that job is so much easier.  Abigail still struggles, but for the most part she is just sweet and easy.  She aims to please me and her daddy and most of the time her siblings.  Although, she certainly knows how to push Ellie Kate's buttons and sometimes seems to enjoy that role:).  Abigail is also doing gymnastics right now, but I think she wishes she could do soccer.  Ha ha!  Our little tomboy is very excited about the warm weather so she can return to wearing gym shorts and tshirts everyday.  

• I am very proud and excited because I have finally lost all my pregnancy weight from Annie.  It only took me 13 months!  Geez.  This one was the most difficult to get back to normal from for sure!  So, now my goal is to continue to get back in shape and lose even more weight so I can get back to what I was before infertility.  In the last 3 months I've lost almost 10 lbs and over 17 inches.  I've gone down two pants sizes!  Wooohoo.  

Well I think that will just about do it for this morning.  Like I always say, if you want a more day to day idea of some of what we do around here in picture form, find me on instagram:).  I usually take 1-3 instas a day. 

A Very Fine Tea Party!

As you can see, we had a tea party for Ellie Kate on her birthday.  It was so much fun and possibly my favorite party yet!  I had so much fun coming up with all the details and making everything in our house so pretty:).  Ellie Kate was sooooooo excited to have her school friends see her house and come to the party.  I loved watching how excited she was.  Her friends are so sweet and they all seemed to have so much fun!

I borrowed a lot of stuff from my mom...the tablecloth, silver tea set, and cups and saucers. 

I had sweet tea in the tea pot and the girls LOVED pouring that into their teacups.  It was so cute!  

I also had pink lemonade in their milk bottles in case they didn't like the tea.

When the girls arrived, they had to get ready by putting on a hat (dollar tree finds by my mom),  pearl necklaces (from amazon.com), and lip gloss that I applied.  They all looked so beautiful when I was done with them:). 

Outside, I had a few activities for them.  First, the decorated little tea pot foam frames.  They loved that of course.  Then I had little purses from Hobby Lobby and fabric flowers (I asked a sweet friend Allison to make them for me) for them to pick out.  I then hot glued the flowers onto the purse.  They loved these too!

Since Ellie Kate and her friends are so into American Girl dolls, I had them bring their favorite doll to the tea party.  I made little party hats for the dolls that turned out so cute.  I found the template on pinterest.  I was going to have a table set up for the dolls to have a tea party at, but I just sort of ran out of ideas by the end of the week and couldn't implement that one, so the dolls just got carried around a lot and then sat on the chair together during tea time.

 

For food, I did a Publix cake, fruit, Publix petit fors, chips, cheese straws, and little sandwiches (not pictured).  Simple and mostly cheap (besides the cake).

I think EK will remember this party for a long time.  It was so much fun and we loved celebrating our special 6 year old!!!! Now, I am just soooo glad to be done with parties for awhile!  My children have birthdays all in a row with Christmas in between and it's exhausting, but fun:).