Flying Kites

On Sunday, it was a pretty windy day. Liza bought kites for the kids for Easter and wanted to try them out. So, after naps, we went down to the park near our house and let the kids try to fly them. Isabella was highly confident (as was Zach) that they knew how to do it. "You just stand there and let it go up in the air." When we actually gave it a try, they found out it takes more work than that. :-) It was a windy, but gusty day, so the kite would fly, but didn't want to stay up for too long. Isabella learned how to run with it when the wind died down and did a great job. Zach did well too but couldn't keep it up in the sky for as long.

Swinging with Friends

Last week, Ashley, Katie, and Baby Nate came over to play and have lunch. Anticipating a rainy day later, we got outside to play. We have 3 swings on our playscape and 4 children. Well Zach took care of that issue as you can see. He was pretty proud of himself.

Question

Last Wednesday while we were driving Isabella to Awana, she suddenly asked me a question. She said, "Daddy, when Judas betrayed Jesus, was he doing bad or was he doing what God wanted him to do?" "Uhhh...." was my first response. I was pretty surprised by this question- not that I haven't thought about that before (along with the pharaoh and others in the Bible) but that she had been thinking about it on her own and finally decided to ask. We talked about it the rest of the way there and had a really good conversation. I'm thankful that she is not just embracing faith in Christ, but really thinking about it too and asking hard questions- even for those much older than 4. :-)

Easter

Zach decorating his eggs. Most of them turned out turquoise because he dipped in every color. He also managed to crack every one of his eggs. But he had lots of fun.
Isabella announced that decorating eggs is one of her favorite things to do. She does really well.
Thanks to our friend, Holly, who came over and helped us decorate eggs. It was very fun.

The Easter bunny hasn't been a topic of conversation around our house. We don't watch a lot of TV so the kids didn't see any commercials with a bunny. Of course, in the couple of weeks before Easter, we were talking about the real meaning of Easter. Sunday morning, Zach came downstairs and found the first egg. He exclaimed about it, and then about the second egg he found. Isabella came downstairs and started identifying who decorated which egg.

Sunday night of Easter, Isabella asked me about the Easter bunny. She told me that some kids were telling her there is this Easter bunny. Then she asked me, "There isn't really an Easter bunny, is there?" I told her no. Inwardly I thought, at least that is one thing I don't have to break her heart on later...

More birthday

I'm so far behind on posting, but I wanted to put this one up because it was so funny.
In the week or 2 before Zach's birthday, he looked through the little Fisher Price magazine that we got in the mail and picked out many things he would like. But of all the things he saw, he was most fixated on the "the penguin thing." The "penguin thing" was a baby toy that looked like it had balls included with it, but was made for an 18 month old. We told him he was too old for it, but he insisted that " I am a toddawer!" and just had to have it. For days he would walk around saying, "Can we go buy the penguin thing?" Finally we told our friend Ashley about it when she asked what he wanted for his birthday and se went and got it. Below you can see the video of him opening the "penguin thing" and how excited he was.

Once he got it home and opened, he discovered that it has balls inside it, but you can't get them out. It is filled with air and has a heavy base so when you hit it, it wobbles and stands back up. He hit it a couple of times and said, "What else does it do?" I was feeling bad that and thinking after he had wanted this sooo bad from the picture, he would be really disappointed. However, I think that he had wanted it so much, that he decided he was going to like it no matter what and would find ways to make it fun. I'm pretty sure that the manufacturers were not thinking of the ways he would toss it around when they were making it. :-) In the next video, you can see him playing and wrestling with the penguin. Since it is a baby toy, he decided that he should do his "baby cry" while playing with it....

Last week he made good on his promise to share it with baby Nate when they came over to play. He is still playing with it too, though not as much as the first day. I was proud of him for not getting down about it not meeting his expectations but making the best of it instead.

just a little something sweet

Last night, our friend Dawn came over to help me do some housework. She had been biking earlier that day, and had fallen resulting in some "boo boos" that she was showing the children. She also has had knee surgery, so we were explaining scars to the children.

Later that evening, after Zach got out of the bathtub, I ran into another room to get something. I came back to his room where he was huddled in his bath towel on the floor. Then I heard him say "Amen." I asked him what he was praying about, and he said it was that Dawn's boo-boo would heal. It was so sweet, and the first time I have heard him praying on his own.

Lord, that he would grow to be an amazing man of prayer...

A couple of funny things...

At Target a couple of weeks ago, Zach saw these guns that he wanted to buy. As his birthday was coming up, I told him we weren't buying him any toys, but I also said he was too young for guns. Friday morning on his birthday, he got in bed with Chris and I and we were loving on him and singing to him for his birthday. He said, "Now I'm big! I can get the gun!" I told him he was still too young, and he gave the biggest sigh I've ever heard. It was so funny...

Yesterday afternoon we were talking about next week being Easter, and I asked the children what we were celebrating for Easter. Isabella enthusiastically announced "Jesus is alive." Zach added "Eggs!" Chris and I laughed so hard...

Happy Birthday Zach!

Zach turned 3 on Friday and we had his birthday party at the Austin Zoo on Saturday. He had a great time. I've got some great zoo pics I'll add later, but for now, here are a couple of cute videos from his party.

Spring Camping

Last weekend we went again with the new parents class for a weekend camping trip. We went down to Bastrop which is only about 45 min a way, but a very nice camp ground. It is in a small pine forest with huge trees, so even though the winds were high, we were mostly protected from them.

There were two other families there with us and we had a lot of fun. We got there on Friday afternoon and set up camp then cooked supper. We played around and made smores (over the coals since no wood fires are allowed due to drought) and then went to bed. It got really cold that night, but we survived. The next day the kids had fun playing around the camp ground. The smiths brought an extra "play" tent that the kids could run around in and have fun. They discoverd that the static electricty did crazy things with their hair...

Isabella looked like she was holding on to one of those lighting balls from science class...

Here she is with her friend Dianna. You can see baby Andy as well with what little hair he has sticking out in every direction.

Zach had fun playing with sticks and spent quite a bit of the afternoon playing "Pine Cone Baseball" with Mr. Rob.

Our tent.
The kids both got fisihing poles for Chrismas from their grandpa and have been wanting to use them ever since. So, on Saturday, we went to wallmart and got all the tackle stuff we needed and then went fishing on the pond. The kids had a great time, but didn't catch anything. The fish were TINY and were not at all interested in the bait we had. But, it didn't really matter. They both loved it anyway.


The second night was even colder than the first. It got down to about 34 degrees and was close to that inside the tent. Isabella went to sleep with Dianna becuase they had a little heater in their tent. Zach got all bundled up and stayed in his bed until about 1am when his hands were like little ice cubes. He spent the rest of the night cuddled up with me and Liza and slept fine. We will be getting a little heater for our next trip though... Here is a little video of Zach before going to bed the second night.

Welcome Home

When Liza was gone to Greece, Isabella got it in her head that we needed to bake her a welcome home cake and get flowers for her. So, that is what we did. It was my first time to try my hand a writing something in icing, but it didn't turn out too bad. The kids had a great time helping to mix up that batter and then watch it go together. Liza was duely suprised too, so Isabella was proud of herself. :-)

Isabella got to pick out the flowers, so she selected the brightest ones there. It's been over 2 weeks now and they still look good. All that food coloring must preserve them.