Missouri

What I failed to mention at the end of the last post was that our car was fully packed to the hilt and as soon as the Spring Program was over we headed up the road to spend the first weekend of Spring Break with the fam in Missouri. So basically that meant a full 8 hours of nonstop questions and comments from the back seat about Cousin Dresi. Did I mention that the talk about Dresi was nonstop? For 8 hours? No, really though, it was sweet. They love her so much and they couldn't contain their excitement about getting to spend some time with her.


One of the things we got to do was watch Dres cheer for her Upward Basketball game. She had two of her own little cheerleaders in the stands and they were pretty excited to yell for her.

And what trip to Missouri would be complete without a visit to see Chuck E. Cheese? I'm sure we spent our combined weights in those little gold coins and won about a billion tickets all to take home some treasured prizes. Pretty fun stuff to these little buddies. And we managed to have a pretty good time too. Those were the highlights of the trip. All in all, it was a pretty quick weekend, but so good to spend a few days together.

Spring Program at Otter Creek

After an especially chilly winter that felt like it would never end, we were ready for all things Spring. With two very active boys, the need for sunshine and playtime outside to burn off that energy is just not negotiable. And boy have we been enjoying spending time outside and talking about how things grow and new life and how God is so good and makes everything fresh and new again. One of my favorite things about Springtime is the boys' program at school.

The teachers work for months (literally) to get these boys and girls ready to put on a show for us, and I have to say it never disappoints. They are so sweet, so excited and so very proud of themselves to show us what they've worked so hard on.

Here they are making their entrance onto the stage, after the "little kids". All lined up, and ready to go..........But first, let's stop and wave to Mommy and Daddy in the audience!The whole program was about Nursery Rhymes and Miss Fisher's class's theme was Little Boy Blue. So they decorated blue t-shirts with rainbows that they each painted themselves, they recited "Little Boy Blue", and sang songs about the colors of the rainbow. Here they are singing "O Lord, you are my rainbow, you shine in every way. With your pretty colors, Lord you make my day. You are the blue in the sky. You are the green in my eye. You are the orange in the pretty, pretty butterfly. You are the bright yellow sun that makes summer so fun, O Lord you are The One." "Red stand up. Blue stand up. Yellow and Green stand up."And here they showed off that awesome artwork on their shirts. Then after all the classes had a chance to perform on stage, they all came back together to sing a few songs with Miss Janet and Mr Murray. Janet is one of our Children's ministers at church and she does Bible story with the kids each week. Murray is our Praise and Worship Minister (and Daddy to one of the twins' friends in class, Faith) and he also takes time out of his schedule to sing with the kids each week. They sang the books of the Old Testament (I'll have to try hard to get some video of that to post on here), a new spin (complete with dance moves) on Jesus Loves Me, My God is So BIG!, and We Love You Lord. What a blessing to have our boys at a place that puts such an emphasis on teaching these kids that worship isn't an hour you spend once a week, but that its the way you live every day. And here is the best shot we could get of a class picture. And one class picture with Miss Fisher, who loves these children so much. I hope Ben and Drew both are able to remember their time at Otter Creek as they get older. Regardless of whether they specifically remember their experiences there, I love that it is helping to shape who they are growing up to be. They love going to school. And I know that it is because they are told every single time they are there that they are loved 'just because' as Miss Pat always says.
I can't think of a better way to usher in the Easter season! I say bring on Spring!!