Easter Weekend

We started off our Good Friday with visiting our friends at a local nursing home.

Annabel is telling the lady here that her bucket is empty and she doesn't have anything for her.

Since Easter fell so close to my due date this year, our family was sweet enough to come to us, rather than us travel to Texas.  What a blessing!  We got to go out to eat with my parents and cousin Kasey on Friday, then Kasey and the girls got to swim in the indoor pool at the hotel.  I found these suits at Walmart and I'm pretty sure they're the only ones my girls will want to wear this summer.

I asked my dad several months ago if he'd build a shelf to hang above Whitt's dresser.  Anyone who knows my dad, knows he's a perfectionist, and he didn't disappoint when it came to this shelf.  It's probably the nicest piece of furniture we now own.  I know only a carpenter would appreciate what went into this, but y'all, it's awesome.  I still need to find a few things to put in it and on top of it, but this wall is pretty much done, now as well.  (That's an antique tool box my dad bought Whitt sitting on the very top.)

The print hanging on this wall is a prayer I've been praying over Whitt pretty much since I found out he's a boy.  It says, "Lord, let Whitt grow into a mature man whose stature is measured by Christ's fullness."  It comes from a passage in Ephesians chapter 4.  The Holy Spirit fell all over me one morning in my quiet time as I was praying for my children and I just knew this was the life verse for Whitt.

The girls received one of the most exciting pieces of mail we've ever gotten on Saturday.  It was an Easter basket full of goodies with a note from our dear Ms. Kalee asking them to be flower girls in her wedding!  We are so excited!!!

Saturday night we celebrated Jon's, Shane's, and Emil's birthdays at Shane & Juliet's house, but I didn't take any pictures.  It was such a nice night with our families, enjoying bbq on their deck.

Easter morning the girls were surprised with their Easter baskets.  And I realize that the background of this photo is very "keeping it real."  Don't judge.

And now we're all put together like the picture-perfect family we always are...hah! (extreme sarcasm there)

And after church, everyone came to our house for lunch and an egg hunt!

Sweet little cousin Margot.  We wish she didn't live all the way in Dallas!

Murry Bell excited about her finds!

And we deemed Annabel the hands-down winner of the egg hunt.  She was so proud of herself.

Juliet brought some fun confetti eggs.  Adeline had a blast cracking them over her Nana's head.

Uncle Emil pushing two of his nieces on the swings.

Annabel showing her grandparents how she can climb the rock wall.

And Happy doing more swinging..

Everyone left to go back home after egg hunting, and we all took a nap.  When the girls got up, we finally got around to dyeing eggs.  The weekend had been so busy we had never gotten a chance until this point.  I found these cool egg holders at the Dollar Tree.

What a fun weekend!  We are so blessed with such a loving family, but even more blessed by our loving God who sent His Son to die for our sins!  Wow!  How awesome is that?

Early April Happenings

Even though every day seems to drag on as we wait for Whitt's arrival, when I look back, April has really flown by.

Annabel has decided that not just crown tattoos go on your forehead.  Thankfully they wash off easily!

The girls were playing dress-up one evening and I told them to pick out what they wanted to wear to supper.  This was Adeline's choice of dinner attire.

Annabel had her first trip to the dentist.  She was a pro!  Both girls got good reports.  No cavities!

I found these great divided paint cups on pinterest and just had to have them.  They're a hit!

We had a "check us out" day at church where we were supposed to wear checks and tweet or instagram a photo of ourselves wearing checks as a way to get the word out to visit our church for Easter.  I love participating in all that kind of stuff.  I'm that girl who dressed up for every single Red Ribbon or Spirit Week or Homecoming, etc in school.  I'm pretty sure this was the first time in Jon's life he ever participated in anything like that.  I know he loves me for it.  :)

One day Adeline said, "What are those lines on my forehead?"  I told her they were wrinkles and showed her how mine did that, too.  She said, "why do you have more than me?"

I finished the crib wall in Whitt's room one Monday while the girls were at KDO.  My sweet friend, Amanda got me the print I hung by the rocking chair.  The last paragraph of the poem says, "Cleaning & scrubbing can wait 'til tomorrow, for babies grow up, as I've learned to my sorrow.  So quiet down cobwebs, dust go to sleep.  I'm rocking my baby, as babies don't keep."  I definitely get that more than I ever imagined when I was pregnant with Adeline, so I just had to have this sweet poem in Whitt's nursery.  I still can't read it without tearing up.

One day my girls shut themselves in their bathroom and Adeline yelled, "we made a big mess in here, but we don't want you to see.  You can come in when we get it all cleaned up."  Y'all!  I could have just melted.  I pray every day that God will use her sweet sweet spirit to glorify Him and bless others.

One evening Cousin Murry came to play because both her parents had work stuff.  Juliet hadn't been gone five minutes before we had her dressed like a princess and posing for pictures.  Although she doesn't look super thrilled here, she really did enjoy it.

We've had some beautiful days this month, so we've spent a lot of time outdoors.

Little Miss Independent helped herself to some jelly beans, her milk, and her bible one morning.  I love it!

Adeline loves napping with Mommy's big pillow.

My small group girls had a little "sprinkle" for Whitt and me one night at Chuy's.  This is the only picture I got, but it was such a fun night!

We've had several picnic & park play dates this month, as well.

This particular play date wore this little one out.

And here I am at 35 weeks outgrowing my maternity clothes.

My little cuties all decked out for their Easter parties at school.  (It was like 36 degrees this particular day.)

I got their big sister gifts for the hospital all wrapped and ready to go.  I can't wait to give them to them!

She wakes up with her hair almost exactly like this every single morning.

One day, about an hour after I put her down for a nap, I caught this girl playing on an old iPhone.  I asked her why she wasn't sleeping and why she'd gotten the phone without permission.  Her response was, "I came in the living room to ask you, but you were asleep and I didn't want to wake you up, so I got the phone and played quietly.  I tried to go to sleep, but somedays it's just hard hard hard for me to take a nap."  Once again, melt my heart!  She got a cookie for a reward.

One night Annabel kept asking to eat supper.  I told her we had to wait until Daddy was home.  She ran to the dollhouse, came back with this, and said, "this daddy here, let's eat!"

Adeline helping me count down....4 more weeks to go (at the point of this photo).

We are all so ready to meet Whitt!  Come on, May!

Spring Break

When we started planning Whitt's sprinkle, I requested we do it the weekend before Arkansas' spring break so I could spend a few days past the weekend in NB, since we wouldn't be having any of our usual activities at home.

We arrived in TX Friday afternoon.  It was a glorious 80 degrees and almost everything as already green.  So exciting to us Arkansans that have only seen snow for a million years.

The girls played with my dad's decoys like they were pets.  Adeline is carrying around a giant coyote.  Cracks me up!

I got to see my bestie, Amanda, every day for 5 days because she stayed in town the whole time I was there, as well.  It was glorious!  We got to do things like get mani/pedis, eat pizza & watch a movie, and one day we even let grandparents keep our girls while we shopped all day and enjoyed some delicious Fuzzy's tex-mex.

The girls had an applesauce picnic in Tiny's sewing room one day while she and I worked on some things for their spring/summer wardrobe.

Lots of sewing...

The trip wore this little one out so much, she slept almost two hours on the way home.  She never does that!

My recliner/rocker for Whitt's room came in while I was gone.  I was so excited to sit in it!  I rested here quite some time after we got back before I gathered up enough energy to organize all his shower goodies.

The girls played lots of dress-up.

And on Sunday we went to a little walking/nature trail near our house and explored.  Adeline was fascinated by all the fossils.  That's a pretty hard concept to explain to a four year old.

All our spring break fun was quite exhausting!