Orange for Stellan

Today we're praying for Stellan!

If you scroll down to the second post on Stellan's mom's blog and you'll see that we are not alone in thinking about and praying for Stellan today!

Sweet Girls that I LOVE!

Today :(

And if you want to know how today is going...I present you with...

Exhibit A

That's ranch dressing on my sliding glass door.

Seriously, how do they think of this stuff.

I won't show you Exhibit B, C or D because it might just make me crazy or I might cry.

Rain, rain, go away...I NEED to get these kids out of this house!

Wonderful Weekend

What a gorgeous weekend! We spent lots of time outside!

We watched Daddy play softball with his friends from church.

Running the bases after hitting his first home run of the season.

Swinging is definitely one of McKenna's favorite things.

Christian loves a good playground!

We had an open house of Sunday, so McKenna was doing her best to create more work for me by emptying every drawer and cabinet she could get opened.

And Christian really enjoyed his role of 'big brother.' Look at McKenna's eyes, she's not so sure about this.

Everytime Christian would take off McKenna's head would hit that plastic round thing behind her head. Christian noticed and started putting his hand behind her head every time he took off. Soooo sweet!

Christian drove her around the yard for almost an hour, talking to her and showing her things and SHE LOVED IT!

Taking his big brother role pretty seriously again. I love them and am so thankful for a beautiful, warm, sunny, family weekend!

Rewind

Sorry about this but I've got to rewind a little and play catch up. I'm doing this mainly for the purpose of my blog book. Just a few memories I want to record. So here we go...rewind all the way back to Easter weekend!

The Saturday before Easter we woke up to rain which meant no Easter Egg Hunt at church. It was disappointing but I had a great back up plan. One of the traditions in my family is to have a scavenger hunt on Easter to find your Easter surprise. Thankfully our cousins Gracey and Zavier had spent Christian and McKenna Easter surprises. So I made up some clues for Christian (and Daddy) to follow. He ran up and down the stairs looking in all sorts of random places.

Showing off some of his clues. Since he can't read and I'm a horrid artist, Daddy had to tag along to help decifer my very pathetic clues.

TaDa!! He finally found his surprise in the wagon in the garage. Thanks Aunt Lindsey and Uncle Beez for the special treats!

Christian and McKenna loved their surprises from their Illinois cousins.

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On Sunday after church, Christian knew just what to do with his clues. Thankfully this scavenger hunt could take place outside, although I did make him go in the house to find some clues too.

After finding a clue on top of the slide he was off again!

He finally found his Easter basket hidden under the patio table!

That was fun!

Monday morning rolled around and the first thing Christian wanted to do was another scavenger hunt. I had just finished explaining that Easter was over and that we should be thankful for the special things we got and not always ask for more and at that moment the door bell rang. The mailman left a package from Grammy and Grampy on the front porch. Christian was thrilled!! So I opened the package and hide all his treats around the house and we had our third scavenger hunt! My boy had quite an Easter. Thanks Grammy and Grampy for the special surprise. When Christian got home from his trip to your house he said "Oh, I can't believe I forgot." And I asked him what he forgot. "I forgot to thank Grammy and Grampy for my prizes."

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Speaking of Christian's trip to Illinois. I must start by saying that my dear husband who I love with all my heart, is not much of a photographer. He took this nice picture of Christian standing in the parking lot of the hotel.

A nice picture of Christian outside the stadium.

Someone took this great picture of Ryan with his college roomate, Graham! Graham is a baseball coach at Notre Dame.

A random picture of Gracey and Christian playing on the seats at the stadium.

And that's it! That's all the pictures from his trip.

I'm so glad I deleted all of our other pictures off the memory card before he left, so he would have plenty of room to take lots of pictures! Ha!

Not one picture of cousin Zavier.

Not one picture of Grammy and Grampy.

No tractor or go-kart pictures.

Let's just say, Ryan would not be a good blogger.

Good thing he married me :)

They're Home

My boys got home at 2am this morning and boy oh boy did they have a good time. Christian was awake when they got home b/c in the last 15 minutes of the drive they got to meet a nice police man. Thankfully he didn't make daddy pay any money, he just told him to slow down. Christian was very excited about that and talked my ear off until 3am telling me all about his adventures. When I asked him if he was a good boy he said "a little." Hmmm...sounds like maybe somebody was a little fussy. But Ryan said he did great in the car. They drove 12 hours yesterday and only stopped 3 times. Ryan did confess that Christian had 2 chocolate milks and 2 vanilla milkshakes.
Cousins: Christian, Zavier and Gracey!
Thanks Illinois family for giving Christian so many great memories!

Check this out

My SIL Lindsey just sent me this picture of Gracey and Christian in Chicago at US Cellular Field (yes, I finally googled the name of the stadium where the White Sox's play)! Yay! My boy is happy and apparently eating a lot! I've really been missing him, so this just made my day. Ryan's company bought him a ridiculously expensive blackberry and believe it or not it doesn't have a camera on it, so he can't send me pictures. Very annoying! And another picture! You can tell how cooperative Christian was at this point (it was about 11pm).

P.S. Keep praying! Olivia's doing a little bit better! You can check her blog for an update!

{ Praying God's Word for Olivia }

Read my previous post before you read this one!

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As soon as I read the latest update on Olivia I decided to spend the next hour praying for her. So I prayed and cried and called my mom and cried and prayed and ran out of words and just sat there. Sometimes I'm at a loss for words when my heart is so heavy. Do you know what I mean? So then I started searching the scriptures for something that I could pray for Olivia. When in doubt or if you don't know what to say or if prayer is something uncomfortable for you one of the easiest things to do is pray God's word. I'm going to share what I came up with and I would ask you to join me in praying these scriptures for Olivia! I know, I'm being BOLD asking that, but this is so close to my heart right now, I just have to ask. So would you join me in praying these scriptures for Olivia and her family today and for the next couple of days? I'm going to list the scriptures first and then I'll post a prayer that I came up with from the scriptures. As I'm praying for Olivia I will probably say the scripture and the prayer.

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Psalm 41

"Blessed is he who has regard for the week;

the Lord delivers him in times of trouble.

The Lord will protect him and preserve his life;

he will bless him in the land.

The Lord will sustain him on his sickbed

and restore him from his bed of illness."

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Psalm 103: 1-3

"Praise the Lord, O my soul;

all my inmost being, praise His holy name.

Praise the Lord, O my soul,

and forget not all his benefits -

who forgives all your sins

and heals all your diseases."

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Psalm 91: 9-16

"If you make the Most High your dwelling-

even the Lord, who is my refuge-

then no harm will befall you,

no disaster will come near your tent.

For he will command his angels concerning you

to guard you in all your ways;

they will life you up in their hands,

so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.

'Because he loves me,' says the Lord, 'I will rescue him;

I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.

He will call upon me, and I will answer him;

I will be with him in trouble,

I will deliver him and honor him.

With long life will I satisfy him

and show him my salvation."

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"Lord Jesus, Your word says that you are compassionate and gracious and that when we call upon your name you will answer. So we call on your name right now and ask you to preserve and protect Olivia's life. Bless her and sustain her on her sickbed. Restore her from her bed of illness. We praise you for the work you have already done in her life and we ask you to heal all her diseases. Command your angels concerning Olivia and we specifically ask that you will give her long life! We ask for your peace that passes all understanding to be with Olivia's family right now. You have promised that you will be with us in trouble and we ask you to be with Olivia's mommy, daddy, siblings and grandparents as they walk this difficult road. In Jesus Name, Amen"