Happy Easter!

We kicked off our Easter season with the boys' class party and picnic. What a fun time they had! The party was the church playground and pavilion and we were fortunate to have some perfect weather for the day.

We started off with some time on the playground with all our buddies

Time for some lunch.....

....and for dessert they each got to decorate their own cupcake! Look at how hard they are all concentrating. Followed by some sack races
Drew getting ready to raceBen ready to jump And then it was time to find the eggs
My two precious boys and I The three musketeers
With our teacher, Mrs. Fisher
And one with our whole class

Big Boy Beds Built for Twins!!

We sure have gotten every bit of use out of the toddler beds. But they are long gone, and not to be missed. We've moved on to bigger and better and - most importantly - longer. Which is important since they are both growing and growing.

We found a great deal on these from some people at church and then had them refinished to match the rest of their bedroom furniture. They ended up looking pretty good, I think.

So far we haven't had any arguments over who will get to sleep on the top bunk, which was surprising to me. But they do both want to sleep on the bottom bunk. I don't know, maybe it feels like a little fort under there. So we began a rule that we'll switch who gets to sleep where on the first of every month. So far, so good. Let's hope it continues.

Here are a few pictures of our first night in the big bunk beds!

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!!

Under the Big Top!

Obviously, its not February. However, I do want to remember what we did in that month of this year. So here goes. We thought it would be a fun treat to take the boys to see the circus for the first time this year. We've wanted to take them before this year. Seems like we discuss doing it each time it comes in town. But then we've always decided against it because its kind of a long show, and we just weren't sure if they would think parts of it were scary. But this year, since they are 4 (four and a half if you ask them. Yes-the 'half' is a very big deal at this age.) we thought they would really enjoy it. And they DID! In fact, I'd even say they loved it. We really made a whole day of it, thanks to our friend Jaime who told us to show up extra extra early to see the pre-show. So we did, and we were able to get them right up on the velvet rope to watch a few of the clowns perform. You can tell a little bit from this picture what they thought of it, but it really doesn't do it justice. Truly, they were belly laughing so hard that they were cackling and roaring. Almost couldn't catch a breath. I definitely didn't expect them to think that the clowns were so funny. But Ben especially thought they were hilarious.

So then it was time for the main event. Michael scored us some really great seats so they were able to really get into all of the action. And, of course, any time you take a break of any sorts - even if that break was meant for you to get to those really great seats - if you're 4, it is viewed as an opportunity for a snack {read: junk food}. But hey, when in Rome, right? So Daddy got us all settled in to our seats and headed back out to snag some very brightly colored sno cones in the biggest, funnest cups he could find. What a treat for these boys!Here they are right before the show began:And a few shots of all the fun during the show itself.

It really was a well-done show. We even enjoyed ourselves too. But the best part was getting to watch Drew and Ben have such a fun experience for the first time. When I think of it that way it really was the greatest show on earth.