Finally Caught up with Peter Cottontail

I am just getting so far behind in my blogging, and I apologize! I've been so busy lately with end-of-the school year stuff, and I'm having a hard time keeping up with it, and I am getting things all out of order. But I didn't forget Easter!

This was Katie Mei's first Easter at home (she was in the hospital last year) and she finally got to experience the Morning Easter Basket. We don't do the Easter Bunny at our house; Easter is definitely about Christ and we don't teach our kids otherwise. But we do enjoy the tradition of an Easter basket with some candy and faith-oriented gifts. Merrilee received silver cross earrings, Jacob got a more grown-up Bible, and Katie Mei was given a book about Jesus.


All three received a white chocolate cross instead of an Easter Bunny. I'm so glad they make these (though I don't think I'd enjoy the white chocolate as much as the yummy brown stuff!)



Katie Mei was absolutely delighted with her candy, as you can tell by the following photo. This child is definitely a candy junky.

Dinosaur man thought his dinosaur jacks set was pretty cool, though he looks less than enthusiastic in this picture.

The day before Easter our local YMCA,our church, and a couple other local organizations worked together to pull off a magnanimous egg hunt. They used the local ball park, which has about five large fields. Each field was for a different age group. I didn't want the kids taking their good Easter baskets out to the park, so I made some egg buckets out of old milk jugs, fabric, paint, and glue. I thought they turned out kinda ugly, but the kids didn't complain.

Katie Mei took to the hunt with a bit of trepidation. I'm not so sure she understood it was supposed to be fun. She had a very stern look on her face the entire time. She didn't really smile until it was over and she got to eat the candy.

Jacob, on the other hand, got right to business. Before the signal to start was given, I pointed out a giant shiny purple egg in the middle of the field and told him I would love to have that egg. Apparently I wasn't the only Mom who told her kid that because when the "GO!" sounded, several kids headed straight for that egg. Jacob wasn't the first kid there, and he was quite disappointed that he didn't get the prize egg for me. We reassured him that I was perfectly happy without that egg, and that he did a great job collecting his own bucket of eggs.

Merrilee went nuts! She is a fast kid and can almost outrun Jay. But put a bunch of plastic eggs filled with candy in front of her, and you'd better get out of her way! Her bucket overfloweth!

You can see Merrilee ran out of room for all her eggs. She was stuffing them in pockets and probably would have filled her socks if we hadn't told her that was enough.

Katie Mei got her first taste of egg coloring this year. She went about it matter-of-factly and handled it very well. She's got great hand-eye coordination (except for spilling her milk at meals every once in awile) and figured out how to put her eggs in and out of the coloring solution rather quickly. Unfortunatley that meant I had to watch her even more closely to make sure she wasn't making a mess.

I noticed that colored Easter eggs is one of the things that take a hit when you have more kids.
There was a day when Merrilee got to color an entire dozen by herself. For the past three years, Merrilee and Jacob have each gotten six eggs. This year it was going to be only four eggs each, which made me cringe! I ended up adding another three eggs so they each got five. Of course, that meant I threw a lot of deviled eggs away after Easter was over. Who can eat that many hard boiled eggs?!

I found a very inexpensive bunny cookie decorating kit at a local craft store, so the kids got to decorate their cookies the day after Easter (told you I'm busy...can't even remember the cookies. You know, I still have two boxes of frozen Christmas sugar cookies in the freezer, as well!)

Merrilee got a little silly with the decorations.

After the Easter morning basket hoopla and going to church, the day was hot enough to spend it outside. Katie Mei enjoyed her bubbles which she received in her Easter basket. FYI, she is so good at blowing bubbles and does not spill the liquid! She still has this bottle of liquid and has proven capable of taking it outside by herself, opening it, blowing bubbles for awhile, closing it, and bringing it back into the house intact. How's that for an amazing three year old?!

Hope all of you had a blessed Resurrection Sunday and enjoyed celebrating our Lord and Savior as much as we did!

Blessings,

Petrie

One Year and Going Strong!

Today is the anniversary of this:

Which makes me immensely grateful to God for this:

She has such a joyful spirit, lots of energy, a stubborn will that is teachable, and a huge love for her family. May God continue to grant her many happy, healthy days! Thank you, Lord, for the gift you have given us in this precious child we call Mei Mei. Prayers have been answered over and over again on her behalf, and her life is nothing short of a miracle. To God be the glory!

Please, PLEASE pray for these girls!

Both had heart surgery this week, and both are struggling to survive. Please lift them up before the Lord! http://www.thekoeppefamily.blogspot.com/ for Jiliang.

http://www.allarepreciousinhissight.blogspot.com/ for Chrissie.

Thank you on behalf of each of their families.

Petrie

Aunt Paige

My sister, Paige, came to visit us this past week and my family truly enjoyed every minute she was with us. I haven't seen my sister in two years, and she's only seen my older two kids twice, so it was such a blessing to have them be able to spend time with her and get to know her. It was also the first time she's gotten to meet Katie Mei. The kids really latched on to her, and I know they'll be asking for her to come see us again soon. Right after we dropped her off at the airport yesterday, Katie Mei was already asking where Aunt Paige was. This morning she and Pooh Bear were having a conversation about Aunt Paige and one of them, I'm not sure which, was planning to take Aunt Paige to the store. Katie Mei has also put the calculator up to her ear once or twice today to talk to Aunt Paige "on the phone". I don't think she'll be forgetting about her well-loved Aunt Paige anytime soon!

I had several photos I was going to post on this blog regarding the visit, but I just decided to do a slide show of all of them. It's about five minutes, but it covers some of the high points of the week. Besides visiting Kolomoki Indian Mounds State Park, picking strawberries, and playing miniature golf, we also took the kids to the science museum (not a very impressive one, I'm sorry to say) and did some shopping. Somehow we managed to stay busy every day she was here, but also had time to relax, converse, and just enjoy our time together. I really hope it's sooner than two more years before I see Paige again.

I'm not much on making slide shows, and I really can never come up with any kind of background music. So for now, please just enjoy the photos and listen to your favorite music while watching. Or just hum to yourself.

Thanks so much for taking the time from your busy schedule to visit us, Paige! It was a wonderful visit and we were blessed to have you here!

And Yet Another Birthday!

Yes, we have two birthdays crunched up in just nine days here. Merrilee's birthday was April 1, and her celebration had a little less pomp than Katie Mei's did this year. Merrilee chose not to get a load of gifts, instead asking that we make a donation to the Care Net Pregnancy Center. We did get her one gift, though. She had expressed a desire for a camera like one of ours that "won't run out of film". Poor girl tried so hard not to use up all her pictures on her disposable camera while we were at Disney that she ended up taking only about nine photos! She was so disappointed! She's always been very frugal.

Anyway, Jay picked up a digital camera for her and she was absolutely thrilled! She also got a beautiful pair of earrings and a necklace from Grandma and Grandpa. Unfortunately, I failed to take pictures of her opening her gifts (she opened G & G's gift in front of them on Skype, so they got to see her enjoy them. Gotta love technology when it works to your advantage!). I did take pictures when she got her special request meal (Fettucinni Alfredo) and dessert (Key Lime pie instead of birthday cake).

After dinner was cleaned up and bedtime was nearing, she asked if the family could play a game together. She wanted a board game, but I reminded her that the whole family could not play any of the games that required reading or were for players over the age of 3. So she asked for Twister, much to Daddy's dismay. He immediately grabbed his back and laid claim to the spinner. The rest of us enjoyed a quick game of contortion and forgetting which body part is on the left or right. Mommy, with the longest legs and arms, won easily--wasn't really a fair game. Hmmmm. My birthday is next. I wonder what game I'll choose to play?

Happy 7th birthday, Merrilee! We love you, and can't believe how fast you've grown into such a delightful young lady.

Love,

Mom and Dad