The Lord has Risen!

My Easter Angels

"Praise be to the God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead..."

1 Peter 1:3

Happy Easter! I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter weekend. We had a great time! We went over to my aunt and uncles on Saturday and the kids hunted eggs with their cousins and let me tell you, I have a lot of cousins. Of course, Carter was pumped and ready to go. I was not sure if Natalie would get it or not, but she had a blast too! My niece, Kate helped her too.

I wanted to talk to Carter a bit out the true meaning of Easter. We have been talking about it, but you know how well a 4 year old listens, so I was not sure if he got it or not. However, when we said our prayers Saturday night, he thanked Jesus for dying on the cross of us. Wow, my heart melted right there! I love that little guy.

Camping

Carter and I with playing with glow sticks or as Carter puts it, "We were goosing around"

Larry, Cody Graham and Dusty Doyle

Last weekend Larry and I took Carter camping Saturday night. Of course, Natalie did not go, she stayed with my mom. I have a rule, that A.) the child is fully potty trained and B.) the child has had all their heart surgeries (aka Natalie).

Natalie stayed with my mom and of course she loved it. I think Natalie really enjoys that time with my mom and being away from Carter. When I dropped her off, she just waved bye and blew me a kiss.

We have some good friends with a ranch about an hour or so outside of Amarillo. Starting last year, they have one weekend where families all come out and camp out. If you have a motorized vehicle, like a jeep you bring it. Last year, just Carter and Larry went. Carter had not stopped talking about it since, so I was pretty excited to go this time.

We had probably around 6 or 7 families with kids and a few without kids spend the night on Saturday night. I am pretty sure Carter rode every jeep until the batteries were all dead. We cookout and the kids got to fish a little bit.

I must say, it did get a little colder than we all thought Saturday night. Carter and I started off sleeping on a blow up mattress with just the two of us in our sleeping bags, but around 2am, Carter woke up freezing, so Larry joined us and we sandwiched Carter on the full size blow up mattress.

The next morning we all got and and got packed up. I can not tell you how many times it took me washing my hair to actually get all the dirt out, but we had a blast and look forward to next year. Thanks you Graham's and Teuscher's for an awesome weekend!

First Fish

Last weekend we took Carter fishing out a little place outside of town. He not only caught his first fish, but his second as well. He was super excited and yes, we are using a Spiderman fishing pole.

Hearts of Hope

Once again, thank you Jamie for a wonderful post and for leading me to this incredible documentary.

Above is a short trailer of the winner of "Best Student Documentary" at the 2009 Illinois International Film Festival. Michel Ilbawi, M.D., leads the pediatric heart surgical team at the The Heart Institute for Children. Headquartered at Hope Childrens Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois, they perform over 400 operations and care for more than 3,500 children with heart defects each year.

I watched the trailer and of course teared up. I am definitely going to purchase the documentary. I want to be able to one day show Natalie what all she has survived and how incredible surgical teams are.

Larry told me after her second surgery, he took a couple of pictures that he was going to tuck away for safe keeping. These are not the feel good photos either, these are the ones with tubes, monitors and a big incision; the ones right after surgery. He said to me that when she comes home one day crying because she feels beat down on whatever, he is going to sit her down and show her what all she has survived and accomplished in her life. She has conquered so much in her life so far and she is not even 2 years old, yet. I hate to think what she still has in front of her, but I know with God gave us our special angel and with Him, we can all survivor/accomplish anything.

"The Sovereign Lord is my strength; He makes my feet like the feet of a deer, He enables me to go on the heights"

Habakkuk 3:19

Safety First

She would not take it off, without crying, so we left it on

The weather has gotten warmer, for the most part. We did have a 90 degree weather on Sunday, only to wake up to a little snowfall on Monday morning. Not to worry, it back up to the 80s and of course we have the wind, what would Amarillo be without wind.

Now that the weather is warmer, we have been taking a lot of bike rides/stroller walks. We still need to attach a set to either Larry's bike or mine for Natalie, but she does have a helmet already. We went out last week and since Carter had his helmet on, Natalie thought she needed hers. The picture pretty much says it all.

Oh, and we took the training wheels off of Carter's bike, because he wanted them off. Obviously, we have not gone since then, but the time is coming. Wish us luck!