Kine Cone!

The other day we stopped by a park in the Woodlands which is one of our favorite family activities. We spotted some wildlife (aka 'a squirrel) and the kids and I started foraging for some nuts or something that we could use to entice the little furry creature down from the tree and into our hands. Joshua and Emily were unable to find nuts but did find some nice pine cones or 'Kine Cones' as Joshua so lovingly refers to them. Joshua is doing his best to beckon the squirrel to come down from its safe haven in the trees and eat from his little pudgy 2 year old hands. While his efforts were noteworthy they were of no avail as the squirrel stayed put.


Emily made a new friend in the park 'Jacelyn' and they played together and ran around and had a great time. Joshua was trying to keep up but lamented to me that he wanted to make a new friend too.
Joshua had fun riding on the little animals on a spring.

Easter 2009

It was a good full day today as we celebrated the day that Jesus did what He said He was going to do. The day He defeated death and removed its sting forever. Apparently Joe McKinney and I were on the same wave length as we both spent our early hours reading all 4 accounts of the Resurrection. Joe was sharing this morning some interesting insight in John's account. Mary Magdalene gets to the tomb to find the stone rolled away and begins weeping as she thinks that Jesus' body has been stolen or taken away somewhere. A strange man is there and begins speaking to her. This man addresses her as 'woman' and she assumes that he must be the gardener. Then the man looks at her and says 'Mary' and the blinders come off and she realizes that it's Jesus. She didn't recognize Him until He called her by name. That's kind of how Easter is. If Jesus is just like a strange gardener to you than it's really not a big deal and is pretty much just an Easter egg hunt and a trip to church. But the day He calls you by name and opens your eyes to who He is changes you forever. What an amazing thought that as His child He knows my name and one day I will rise just like Him and that same resurrection power will fill me with life eternal and the Bible says that His Spirit fills me with resurrection life even now. Here's a few pics from our day:
A rare moment was caught on video by Whitney yesterday as we coerced Joe McKinney into dancing and kicking his legs out in a semi-rythmic fashion during the end of rehearsal on Saturday. I love being a part of our creative arts team as we love worshiping Jesus together and we also love enjoying each other and cutting up a bit. I must say that our youth worship leader, Brent Call on left, brings out some intense goofiness in me.

Last night we took some time to decorate some hard-boiled eggs. The kids really got into it as they dipped them in food coloring, painting them, stuck googly eyes on them, etc.
Josh was devasted when his little egg creation slipped from his hands onto the floor like Humpty Dumpty. He gave us some world class pouty faces in this video as he tried to communicate for us his great distress regarding his egg's 'boo boos' that he tried to bandage up with some foam stickers.

It was really special as the pre-k and kindergartners came down during our service and led us in worship to the song 'Grace flows down.' Seeing all these kids singing and doing the hand motions was very special.

Emily and Joshua back at the house after church.

We had a big potluck lunch with at our neighbors' (Ted and Shelly) house after church. It was a great time as we celebrated together and visited. We set up a little easter egg hunt in our front and back yard that afternoon for some of the kids. Tyler is quite a bit older (in the back of the picture) so we put a few eggs super high where he had to find creative ways to get them down like throwing other eggs at them to knock them off of high tree branches, etc.

Lastly I'll leave you with a couple of Joshisms before I sign off:

Josh to Gigi 'You have pretty hands...you have pretty eyes...you have a pretty mouth....you have a pretty nose...you're whole pretty'

Josh to Daddy 'I love God...I want to go in the Bible and hug God.'

Emily got to celebrate some Easter festivities with her Pre-school class on Thursday. They made bunny baskets out of an old 1 gallon milk jug as shown here in the picture. She is posing with all of her classmates right before they were unleashed upon the playground for an Easter egg hunt.


Yesterday Emily stopped for a second to talk about the events of Jesus' last week here on earth leading up to the cross. She assumes a pretty relaxed pose on the couch here but starts with Palm Sunday and then mentions the Last Supper, the cross and the Resurrection in a brief summary. This was one of those moments that we felt very blessed to have our children in such a solid children's ministry where what we're striving to teach in our home is so beautifully reinforced and taught at church.

Gigi and Granddad came in yesterday to hang out for Easter weekend. They all jumped on the couch for a second to let Emily share about her new sticker book that she received.

Emily is showing off some new dance moves to a song from Alvin and the Chipmunks. She started off the morning by teaching me about prayer. As I'm finishing up bath time she looks at me and tells me, "Daddy, when we ask God for something sometimes He says 'yes', sometimes He says 'no' and sometimes He says 'wait'" So there you have some pretty good wisdom about prayer. Later on in the day Joshua was asking me about what it meant to be born again as one of the songs they were singing had that in the lyrics. Yeah, try explaining that one to a 2 year old....So I kind of stumbled through how to simply explain that concept and thought I probably should use words like justification or new creations in Christ and so forth. So I talked about asking Jesus into your heart and he replied 'I ask Jesus into my heart last day'. Later on he asked the same question to his sister and Emily did a much better job explaining it than me for sure.

Emily had her last soccer game on Thursday. She has definitely come a long way since the first game where she freaked out about balls being kicked at her by other strange people in uniforms. She actually showed some aggression, kicked the ball, played defense, and almost scored a goal. I think she'll probably be up for another season.Emily and Joshua got some good bonding time in with Gaddy (Great Aunt Debby) while we prepped for our weekend retreat in Wimberley. Here is a little song that she had them singing in appreciation of our dog Wrinkles who now permanently resides on her new Hill Country Estate where she explores rocky ravines, has become an avid river swimmer, takes naps alongside beautiful river bluffs, and has also become a pretty accomplished rock climber.

Praise the Lord we survived our young families retreat this weekend as we had 18 adults and 16 kids running all around my parents property. Brent and Rick spotted 4 snakes and tried to hunt them down unsuccessfully, we had an easter egg hunt, slip and slide, baby pools, lots of food, craft times with the kids (thanks to Caitlin and Rachel), Bocce Ball, bean bag toss, chicken foot, some good husband/wife time, great share times, river exploration, fishing (way to go Derric and Sam - 8 catfish!), campfires and smores, tent camping by the river (Tom, Drew and Tyler), and on and on. My favorite aspects of this weekend were just the times to sit around and get to know these couples in our Married Life group better and Whitney and I had a great time (simply 45 minutes) of going through questions like 'What have been the top 5 milestones we've been together', 'what are the three most important decistions we need to make this next year', 'where would we most like to vacation', etc. It was just refreshing for all of us as couples to have some questions like this to go through with our spouses and connect again like we used to. When life starts going 100 miles an hour and kids enter into the equation it's easy for you to go from husband and wife to roomates who exist to run a complex household.

I came across this scene yesterday morning as we were trying to get the kids ready for church. It's pretty cool and funny how they find such amazement in the little things like a night light. Josh was just dumbfounded how by merely moving his little body back and forth it was somehow mysteriously connected with the light turning on and off.
Emily continues to grow fonder and fonder of music. Lately she has been singing her heart out to her songs from the "King of the Jungle" musical that our church children's choir will be performing in the next several weeks. She also loves writing her own songs every once in a while as is demonstrated above. I have called this particular song the na na na na na na na song. Also, if you're looking for a cheap toy it's hard to beat latex glove baloons!
We treated the kids to a little Johnny Rockets tonight (Free Kids Meals on Tuesday nights!). Of course Joshua got chicken and Emily got a hamburger.

Poppaw and Grammy's Visit

Here's a few pictures and video highlighting our last few days with Poppaw and Grammy's visit. This video was taken at Emily's Preschool as Grammy got to come and read some stories to the class. In this shot she has magically turned the classroom into a majestic forest where they are all on a bear hunt together.

On Friday we all loaded up in the car (Brian driving (yes!), Poppaw Copilot, Whitney (the sandwich meat in between the kids) and Bunny crammed in the back with all the strollers, snacks and umbrellas) and we headed to Brenham for the Bluebell Icecream Factory tour. The kids are sporting their official hats above. We all agreed that our official new favorite is Old Fashioned Vanilla with Stawberries...mmmmm good.

On Saturday morning we woke up at the crack of dawn (for us at least) and raced off to Emily's 8:30 soccer game only to discover that there was no soccer game and it had been cancelled. The sad thing is I'm the coach and I had no idea my own game was cancelled....oops. It was a little chilly. But Emily did score three goals in our pretend game. It wasn't a complete loss for us as we did get to swing by and get some kolaches and doughnuts from Sundales.

Josh wasn't overly thrilled about being outside in the early hours of the morning in the cold for a 'pretend' soccer game.

We all went over to Burroughs Park later in the afternoon on Saturday. It was a beautiful day. Emily had a blast sitting on these cement animals, playing hide and seek on the playground equpment.

Emily also had a blast on the swingset as Poppaw pushed her higher and higher. I think that she even had a chance to push Poppaw for a little bit too.

One of the highlights of the park experience was a little game we made up. The kids would crawl through this tunnel above and I would be the big monster and stick my hands through the holes at the precise moment they would be racing through the tunnel. If my hand happened to make contact with their body it would spontaneously erupt into a feverish tickling spree which would provoke Emily and Joshua into uncontrollable fits of laughter.

And of course the only way to top off the end of a day full of activities is to pile on a couch or bed and read some great books together. Grammy read "No more jumping on the bed", "An Orange for a Belly Button" and topped it off with "Three Armadillos Tuff". The last book's intense and complicated plot scheme proved too much for our valiant little son Joshua and as you can see by the picture above he admitted defeat and plopped over and was out for the count.

The Shopaholic and the Dancin' Queen

Joshua and his sister have been getting much enjoyment out of their new little plastic shopping cart that Whitney picked up at our church consignment sale. Joshua explains his shopping list to me and we have a little chat about finances and his various sources of income.
Emily continues to grow more and more in her love for music and dance. Here she is once again in her pink tutu sportin' her stuff. Grammy and Poppaw were able to come and see this little number at her studio on Wednesday. They had a big time as they also got to go the the Children's museum, play in the playground at the mall with the big tree in the middle (that Mommy and Daddy never let them play in because it is the germ distribution center hub of the known universe), go to Chik-Fil-A, and ride the Carrousel. The night was then topped off with about a 9 hour power outage and apparently a tornado that was lurking somewhere around our neck of the woods. The kids just saw it as a fun party in the dark where they got to play with flashlights.

Sitting on a giant couch at the Children's Museum at the Woodlands Mall.

Emily and Grammy experiencing the Caroussel at the Mall.