Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!!!We had a really nice Easter weekend up in Huntsville. Easter morning, wasn't quite as planned - Gram Gram (Lisa's grandmother) temporarily lost a little vision in her eye and had to go to the hospital. She's staying overnight just to make sure everything's okay, so please say a prayer for her! This morning, Elijah woke up absolutely bursting with excitement over the Easter Bunny coming. He was giggling with delight as he waiting to run downstairs to find his basket. After checking out their baskets and visiting Papa Jeff and Jerrie, we went to church and met the Easter Bunny at Valley Hill.
Then we did our traditional Easter riddles and Easter egg hunt with Uncle David, Aunt Kristi, Taylor and Riley. Just incase you don't know what I'm talking about, the Easter Bunny always brings the boys riddles to solve and sends them on a scavenger hunt all around the house, leading them to another riddle attached to presents, and they ultimately end up finding their basket. This year for their riddles, Elijah read words (go find your "pet," go find where Nanny keeps a juice "box", etc) and Luke named pictures of places (car, swing). Elijah and Luke held hands as they walked from one present place to another... They had so much fun searching for Easter Eggs too!!! They did great learning about the Easter story this year. Elijah can tell you all about why we celebrate Easter, explain all the resurrection eggs, tell you about places like Golgatha and the garden of Gesthemane, Joseph of Arimethea...getting a lot of the big words down. And it seems like he's truly understanding the basis of Easter and not just repeating facts he's learned.
Luke can tell you what is inside all of the resurrection eggs and if you say "what happened three days later?" He kind of sings "three days later" like from the song "the end of the beginning". He's not the clearest of talkers, but we can understand him most of the time. He talked the entire way up to Huntsville while Elijah slept. We couldn't believe he was talking so much, but then we kind of just realized that he had time to talk since Elijah was asleep and he was surely making the most of it. He is repeating everything! He was all about the "E Money" (aka Easter Bunny) this weekend. The way he says "car" and any other -ar word crack us up with his yankee accent. He still loves pointing out "boo buses," telling us something is "right there," asking to "touch it," saying "hey guys" out of the blue...He's quite the character and is showing us that more and more everyday!

A Day Out With Thomas the Train

Today we went to visit Thomas the Train

at the Heart of Dixie State Railroad Museum.

We went with our good friends,
Jonathan, Holly, and their little girl, Karidyn.

We took tons of pictures...
We took a train ride on the rail car right behind Thomas himself. The train ride lasted about 20 minutes or so. We rode on an open part of the train.

The kids got to pet some animals at the petting zoo. Luke was petting a baby chick & squeezed it just a little too hard! Unlike Luke, Elijah was very gentle with the animals. =)
When Luke pet the baby goat, he said, "ears," "eyes" (as I had to stop him from pointing the goat in the eye!), "mouth," "honk!"...
Elijah loved feeding the goats and petting all of the animal...

Luke saw him and tried feeding the animals the mulch off the ground! We got Luke some pet food so he could try too.

The kids enjoyed singing, dancing, and playing instruments along with some live music.
We took some pictures on some old trains... a few hours later we saw a sign warning people not to climb on the trains...oops!

What a fun family day full of great memories!

Somebody Dial 911...

(Sung to the tune of "Fire Burning:")
Somebody Dial 911...
The Fire Ants are burning on the soccer field...a whoa---!!!

Elijah had his very first soccer practice tonight and did awesome! He has a really good coach, with lots of energy, and Elijah listened really well! They ran drills, kicked the soccer balls one by one to their partners, dribbled the soccer ball through cones, ran and played defense against the coach, and finally ended practice by chasing the coach and tackling him.Luke painted him a sign with his "dot dots" that said "Go Elijah!" Luke had fun watching his brother, but kept wanting to run on the field (of course) to see his big bro.

Go Fire Ants!

We made a trip to Jacksonville, AL to meet Luke and Elijah's new best friend - Tucker! Of course, that meant getting to hang out with their Uncle Jay, Aunt Beth, and sweet Bella Grace. Tucker is so sweet and tiny - born on Feb 27th. It was great getting to hang out and catch up with some of our best friends...

and future daughter in law...

Here are some more fun pictures from the past couple weeks..

Our Mommy Date for their first donut experience at Krispy Kreme - Stephen LOVES this picture b/c it totally captures the joy and excitement of our boys.

Getting haircuts in Huntsville with Poppy

A few notes about Luke and his ever growing personality - he is growing to be quite a talker. Some of his favorite words "boo buses" (school buses), trucks, airplane, playground, police man, water, upside down, "I do," good girl (every time he sees Sage, but he's said that for a while now), toothbrush, cuddle, and loves loves loves his "paci" still (primarily at sleeping time), ...he's starting to string words together - "bye bye Daddy," "cup please". Most colors are "green," but he is starting to identify more. (Elijah loved yellow at first) Stephen believes Luke is our strong willed child (Oh dear Lord help us!) He is quite defiant when it comes to mealtimes (and the boy loves his food!), telling us no and looking up at us with those stubborn eyes/expression. But hopefully this is just a phase.
Elijah has been trying to give up his naps, which is tough on him (aka falling asleep when we travel 10 min at nighttime) and tough on Mommy. He now has the freedom to use the bathroom on his own during naptime and he can do puzzles or play quietly if he's not tired; however, the days when he actually tries to nap are becoming fewer and fewer. I have to admit, he has scared me a few days when he's crept downstairs while I've been alone in the kitchen. lol And the other day I went up to find him (couldn't see him in the monitor) and I opened our hall closet door, which is totally packed with blankets, boxes, etc, only to have him literally fall out of the closet. lol Only our sweet Elijah...
Loving these sweet memories with our boys!

Oh - and FYI - we have a contract on our house!!! The Lord was checking out our patience, and after just over 2 years, we have a contract on our house with a closing date of June 1st! Now on to finding our next home...

Attn: We have now left the McWane Center =)

So I have to apologize...as my friend, Brooke, said this weekend, we've been at the McWane Center for forever!!! It's hard to keep up w/ a blog b/c you don't want to skip posting things (like Christmas, New Years, etc) but you just have to call it a loss sometimes! So I have some catching up to do...
We'll start with Valentine's Day....Every year since we've been married, Stephen and I have made homemade pizza. We generally arrange the pepperoni's in a heart (awww...) and it's just our little tradition that we've made.





After pizza, Stephen surprised us by taking us to get some frozen yogurt (even though Elijah kept correcting us that it was ice cream). This was probably only Luke's 3rd time to have ice cream/froyo, so he LOVED it, as did Elijah...


We've been enjoying some GORGEOUS weather this week. We've been hitting up the playground everyday - even went for a jog today! But just a couple weeks ago, we enjoyed some snow! Elijah saw is start to kind of hail/sleet and he asked, "Is it hailing because of Pharoah?" =)



Luke is now 19 months, just about the same age as Elijah was when we had Luke - so crazy! At his 18mo check up, he was 55% in weight and 85% in height (dr said either last meas. or this one was a fluke). He gave up his morning nap at 17 months. He got tubes put in last week, which went great. The day after, we had to go to children's to get an xray to see if his finger was fractured (he had just fallen on the hardwoods in his pjs) - no broken bones, but it wasn't fun! The picture below was before his finger turned blue...

Luke has been speaking a lot more (coincidence or a result of tubes, who knows!) He's repeating pretty much everything and is pointing things out...the other day he had to go to timeout (for only the 2nd time). I explained why he had to go to timeout and asked if he understood. He said, "I do." So cute!!! He understands feelings, saying that he "hurts," can make a happy face, a silly face (same as Elijah's at this age), a sad face,...He knows his body parts - loves to point to his "elbow". He is such a sweet little boy - loves his cuddles and his paci, which we were almost broken of, but he formed a habit of sucking on 3 of his fingers, so we went back to the paci. In a few months, we'll try losing it. We'd just rather break him of the paci, which we can throw away, than break him of sucking on his fingers. He just started this little defiant attitude last week. If you ask him something, he pushes his eyebrows down and says "uh.....UH...." and will throw his arm for an extra emphasis. So not like our Luke! I blame it on the tubes! haha. Just kidding! While he didn't learn that from Elijah, Luke is generally all about Elijah. I have NO influence over my poor child's behavior - he just watches Elijah and imitates him. So I have to pray that Elijah's a good example b/c at our house, it's all monkey see monkey do. It is fun to watch them play together and really beginning to embrace being each other's best friend. I was in the car on the phone w/ my grandmother the other day, and the boys started screaming for fun. I tried to get them to stop, but they were so loud, and looking at each other, smiling so big. It was actually incredibly precious; as loud as it was, they were doing it together and so happy about it.

Elijah has been maturing a lot lately. He's able to entertain himself well - give him a puzzle or a painting project and he's set for at least 30 min. He's having less whiny days and more sweet Elijah days. (yeah!!!) We've been reading 3 letter words for a while now and he's doing great. We opted not to send him to preschool next year... TOUGH decision, but we feel it's the best. He's got the smarts, I think, so preschool would primarily be for social reasons. He's getting a lot of social experiences/structure through BSF, Sunday church, Wed night church, and zumba. So, I'll have one more year home w/ my little man before he goes to preschool. So, want to hear some stories? =)
This morning, I got up from the breakfast table to grab the laundry and Elijah moved to my seat, grabbed the flashcards, and said, "Okay Luke, what is this letter....A sounds like ("a" sound)." and proceeded through most of the alphabet.

Mom: Who was the line leader at your bible study today?
Elijah: Joshua
Mom: And where did he lead you? (I'm thinking, playground, bathrooms, etc)
Elijah: into Jericho.
And fyi - he studied about Saul that day! Nothing close to Joshua. lol

Embarrassing Story...A couple weeks ago, I used a raincheck at Publix and forgot to get it back (only used 6 of the 10 deals). I always get the raincheck back, even w/o asking. Well, after I checked out, I asked for it back at customer service. It was a big deal, speaking to the manager & all, but I didn't get it back. So I wasn't that happy. A week later, we were in that same publix & all of a sudden Elijah yelled, "Hey give my Mommy back her receipt!" Apparently, that manager had just walked by. Then she came up to me and said she remembered me and apologized for last week. (I was so embarrassed by this point!) Then Elijah proceeded to tell her how it was not nice of her to take his mommy's "receipt." I had to explain to her that I did not bad talk her and that he just has a really good memory! So embarrassing! Then, she brought the boys two Toy Story balloons a few minutes later, and Elijah said, "if you take my mommy's receipt again, you will get a spanking!" Gotta love the embarrassing situations you're put into with kids!

Emotional Day/Story....So I was about to walk to the mailbox w/ a card for Jared's birthday & Elijah asked me who he was. I told him he lived with Daddy during college. He asked me what college was and I tried to explain using Toy Story 3 and I said, "one day, you're going to leave home and you're going to go to school and live there without mommy and daddy...(tears started to roll)" Elijah asked when he was going to come back home, and I had to tell him that he's probably not going to come back home to live with mommy and daddy, but he'd probably get married after college and that he wasn't going to live with mommy and daddy for ever, he'd probably just visit us. (tears really started rolling). Then he said, "yes I will, I will live with you forever" and I was just crying...lol and then he smiled at me with that sweet smile when he's kind of looking down w/ his head, but up at you with those eyes, and he smiled and said, "Mommy, I will come back after college...I will." Oh my goodness...tears were rolling (and still were like 15 min later). Kind of a reality check...
We only have our sweet kids in our hands for such a short time, but thank the Lord He's always got them in His hands - much safer than mine and Stephens!

Playgroup and the McWayne

Before we get started with the photos, I have to share the boys cutest way of sharing the Christmas story! If you ask them what gifts the wise men brought Jesus, Elijah says, "gold, frankincense, and..." then Luke says, "Myrrh!!!!". And it's nothing we taught them, saying Elijah say this and Luke say that. They just figured out to say it like that on their own. It is so precious!

We've been quite busy doing some Christmas activities this past month!
The boys and I went to Painted by U and painted a "cookies for Santa" plate with our playgroup.


Now, whenever he sees paint, he says "boop, boop!" (the sound effect I made everytime his finger touched the plate)

Elijah and Logan, chilling out after they painted.
Jolynn and Mallory painting a pig.
Nita and Kate painting.

And here is the finished product...
Elijah painted the blue background, the green inside the Christmas tree, and then some garland on the tree. Luke's footprint is in the center of the tree and his fingerprints were used for ornaments and snow.

The boys and I went to the McWayne Center yesterday for a little fun.





We (mommy included!) had so much fun playing in the snow!



Today, we had a great time at playgroup at Tracy's house!
Here we are decorating cookies...

Elijah had so much fun decorating some Christmas people, trees, bells, mittens,... didn't like the redhots so much... he put an entire handful in his mouth, only to spit them out immediately!
Sweet little Kate enjoying some cookies!

Luke got to decorate graham crackers. =)