Sad to see it go...

So, the blog will remain here in blogoshpere for a while I'm sure (I'm not deleting it), but I imported it into my "other" blog - http://livingchara.blogspot.com/.  I was having trouble once I removed this one from privacy - getting comments to show up and my blog feed to update, so I just merged them to help myself out :) 

All to say, go to http://livingchara.blogspot.com/. 

:) 

Just a few words from Anna...

Wanted to post a little humor from our darling eldest daughter...

The other day while at her Grandma's she apparently wanted a cookie. When Grandma told her "no" Anna replied, "Grandma, you must obey."

Anna was asking what it meant to be married the other week. After the best on the spot explanation for a 21 month old I could muster I said, "Which boy would you like to marry?" I then began listing some boys she knows just for fun. She said "no, no, no" until we got to Caleb. :) But then I said, "What about Jackson (her favorite boy to "call on the phone")? She said, "No, Caleb," and kept playing. About a minute later she looked over and said, "Maybe Jackson, too."

At lunch yesterday Anna was passing gas. I smiled at her and asked if she was going poopy in her diaper. She looked down in sheer surprise, eyes wide and said, "No poopies in my diaper mommy, there's birdies in there!" I laughed (she seemed to think this was true) and we continued our meal. She passed more gas - multiple times in a row - and looked down and said, "Wow! More birdies in there!"

While we are on the subject of bodily functions (sorry Mom), we also just ordered her a potty because we will most likely be starting potty training soon - we'll let you know, we aren't in a huge hurry at our house. When the potty arrived from diapers.com Anna was checking out the box and on it was a picture of a girl beside the potty. She thought it was her friend "Gracie" who is a couple years older than her. Trying to be encouraging about the potty I said, "Yes, Gracie goes to the bathroom on a potty. She doesn't have to use diapers anymore." Gracie also has a younger brother who is in diapers (younger than Anna). That night at dinner she plainly said, "Gracie goes to the potty but Jackson STILL wears diapers."

Today my mom was teaching Anna to hula - my mom is great with the girls. Anna said, "You're shaking pretty grandma."

After dinner at our house last night Anna brought my dad a Bible off our book shelf and proudly announced that she was going to read the Bible. My dad asked if it was all about Jesus. "No, it's about God," she said.

We love her!

More Easter ideas to come...

Easter Playlist

Here are some of the songs we have compiled for our Easter playlist (most all discuss the death AND resurrection of Christ):

Marvelous Light - Charlie Hall
Mystery - Charlie Hall
Revelation Song - Philips, Craig and Dean
Hosanna - Paul Baloche
My Savior Lives - New Life Worship
Before the Throne of God Above -
For All You've Done - Hillsong
The Power of the Cross -
Hallelujah, What A Savior - Sovereign Grace Music
Beautiful Savior - Casting Crowns
You Led Me To The Cross - Matt Redmann
In Christ Alone -
Jesus Messiah - Chris Tomlin
Jesus Paid It All - Kristin Stanfill
Oh For A Thousand Tongues To Sing - David Crowder
This Fathomless Love - Sovereign Grace Music
Gospel Song - Sovereign Grace Music
Mighty Is The Power of the Cross - Chris Tomlin

Some of these songs are done by multiple, and I mean multiple, artists so you can always find your favorite! We have so versions many of some of them, I didn't even list an artist, but in case you haven't heard of the others, I put our favorites :)

We would also love input if you have some that you'll be adding to your playlist, or that just discuss the glories of the gospel in general. We're hoping the truths in these songs will focus our hearts again on Christ.

Again, I also hope these songs will eventually find themselves into our kids hearts. After all, Anna has "learned" more from music than from my everyday conversations at times! Just last night she sang to Nadia, "Jesus loves you this I know, for the Bible tells me so, little Nadia wants to play, for the Bible tells me so." Apparently mixing Rain, Rain Go Away and Jesus Loves Me, but still precious to a mother's ears :)

"Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart, for I am called by your name, O LORD, God of hosts." (Jer. 15:16)

Easter time!

Easter is just under two weeks away - can you believe it?!

Anyways, in order to show Christ as what we value the most (although we don't as much as we want to or ought to) Daryl and I have to be really purposeful with our days and times and are oh so thankful for holidays that remind us again to emphasize Jesus Christ and the gospel to ourselves and to our children.

So this post is really just an encouragement to be thinking about Easter and to perhaps plan now how you will "take advantage of it" to encourage your souls to look again at Jesus - his death and resurrection - and celebrate all that He has accomplished for us! If you have little ones, it is also an especially great time to help them to see Him.

Because our girls are so young and don't have great memories yet, we haven't used Lenten season to teach them of Jesus' death and resurrection, but are waiting to begin on Palm Sunday. We will start out with 7 candles at the table burning brightly on Sunday, read a Scripture each night to hopefully correlate with that week in Jesus' life and then snuff out a candle. Sounds harsh I know, but we hope this snuffing out of a candle will be a visual representation to us all of the Light of Life being put to death. Good news is, after all candles are blown out and we wrap up the story of Christ's death, come Sunday the family will be greeted in the morning with all 7 candles burning brightly again and the retelling of how Jesus conquered the grace! John 1:5, "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness HAS NOT overcome it." Yay!

We will be doing some other fun things as well - we've created an Easter week playlist on our Ipods, have special cookies to make, a Lamb cake to bake, and stories we have purchased for the girls. I will post more updates this week in case you are interested in any of the resources we have found that we hope to benefit our families.

The best ideas I steal from others :) My favorite resource for holiday planning is Treasuring God in our Traditions by Noel Piper.

Happy pondering on the cross and feel free to leave any ideas/suggestions/traditions your family enjoys this season!

We're Going on a Bear Hunt

"...we're going to catch a BIG one. We're not scared. What a beautiful day!"

We made a bear cave for Anna today. She was pretty scared about it until daddy came home, but here's a little blurb from her about it...

Lastly some pictures of the girls in the cave - once we determined the bears were friendly of course!Nadia with the bears

This is not a great shot lighting wise, etc, but captures them together so well (most of the time!).

And just for fun, our cute little bugaboo - rolling and sitting and everything!

After nap time

Standing with Mommy's help

What a happy Saturday!