Easter 2011

Easter was kind of crazy this year. We left Friday night to go to Hattiesburg for the annual Gore Family Reunion. We got there around 3 am, and finally got to sleep around 4am. Needless to say, we were all a little bit tired on Saturday.

As soon as we got to the reunion I pulled the camera out only to find that in my hurry to pack the car on Friday I had left the battery sitting in the charger in my room. Thankfully I had packed the small camera, but the pictures are terrible. I'm going to post them anyway, so I have some visual record. Anyway, the reunion was great! It's always nice to get to see family and Shelby loved running around with all the kids. She also had a great time during the egg hunt. Joey had a great time during the egg hunt as well...taking a nap! She slept right through the entire thing. Oh well.







Later that night we went to the crawfish boil at Renee and Andy's. I think this is probably Jeremy's favorite Easter tradition. I despise seafood, but I really do love the potatoes and corn!

Sunday we had to wake up early so we could meet Mamaw and Papaw in Bastrop by noon. I had to wake Shelby and Joey up to go find their Easter baskets. Shelby was not thrilled about this. I asked her if she wanted to go see what the Easter bunny brought and she yawned and said, "After my nap." Once she got up the stairs I think she was happy though.






Our visits to Bastrop are always great. They have some new pet rabbits at the nursing home that Shelby was able to pet. The boy rabbit was so smart. He would block the doorway so he could try to run inside when the door was open.





Our visit was cut way short though as Jeremy wasn't feeling well. His back had started hurting last week and got progressively worse until Sunday when he was in so much pain all the time. I knew it was bad when at the nursing home all he could do was sit in the chair with his eyes closed and not even talk to Mamaw or Papaw. We ended up leaving and taking him to an urgent care in Monroe. They gave him 3 shots, 5 prescriptions, and did an x-ray to make sure there weren't any kidney stones (none, thank goodness). With all the medicine he is already feeling a little better today.

On our way home last night Mamaw called and said she saw that there was really bad weather in TX (again). I quickly looked on my phone and sure enough, we were headed into a really bad line of thunderstorms and most of northeast TX was under a tornado watch (we are again today, too!). As soon as we drove into Dallas the rain began. It was one of the worst storms we've ever driven through, mostly because we were scared of the lightning. I have never seen lightning so bad before, and it was all around us. Due to some quick thinking and an alternate route we were able to bypass two really bad wrecks- one on 635 and the other on 35- that had completely shut down the interstate. We were just crossing over the LLTB when the lights started flickering at the top of the bridge. Thankfully our power was on when we got home, and it appears we didn't have any damage, although we do need to get someone out to inspect the roof just to be sure. Our neighbors lost a bunch of shingles, but we can't really see the top of our roof, so we'll just have it inspected to be on the safe side.

Since things were so crazy all weekend I felt like we didn't get a chance to really reflect on why we celebrate Easter. But, all last week we read about all of the events from the Garden of Gethsemane to the Resurrection. We then let Shelby watch Lamb of God and she loved it. She has asked several times if she can watch the "Jesus movie", and points out any cross she sees and says, "That's just like the cross Jesus was on!". I also caught her last week doing this:



I walked in and found her and asked her if she was playing school. She said, "No, it's Sacrament meeting." Then I noticed she had taken her toast and broken it up (that's why there are crumbs all over the couch) and given a piece to each of her babies. Her shirt was off because she spilled water all over it trying to get little cups of water for each of them. I thought it was really sweet and it made me feel good to know that some of what we are teaching her is getting through to her. I am so glad and thankful that she loves to read her scriptures and learn about Jesus and is developing her own little testimony, even if she doesn't realize it.

Antsy

I am so proud of our little garden. Everything I planted has now sprouted!

I am not sure if the bell pepper plant is going to survive- it was pretty decimated by the two hail storms we had last week, but everything else seems to be doing well. There is even a tiny jalapeno pepper growing! Can you see it?


I am worried about the garden though. This morning when I went out to water I noticed some ants. There aren't a TON, but there were a few crawling on the squash plant. And I noticed a few holes in some of the leaves...is this from the ants? I looked up a couple of solutions to getting rid of the ants- orange oil, sugar water, etc. I might try cinnamon. I know this works well inside the house. Last summer we got some ants through the vent in the laundry room. I put a bowl of cinnamon out and the ants were gone the next day. So maybe if I sprinkle cinnamon on the soil it will work? Has anyone tried anything that worked well for them?

Let Her Eat Cake!

Today we had Joey's 1st birthday party. After the chaos that was Shelby's 1st birthday, I vowed I would not do another 1st birthday party again. But then I felt like since I DID have a party for Shelby, that I had to have one for Joey too. So, I decided if I was going to have one, I would at least try to keep it smaller.

Since Easter is only a week away we went with an Easter theme. We decorated foam Easter eggs, played pin the tail on the bunny, had an Easter egg hunt, ate some yummy snacks, and of course, had cake and ice cream. It was a great little party- thank you to those who came! Joey had a great time and took an awesome nap this afternoon!

















*Quick note about the Easter Bunny cake pops. They were supposed to look like this:



And instead they ended up looking like Binky from Arthur.



Oh well. I also attempted to make Joey's cake. I spent two hours on it, then threw it in the garbage and had Jeremy go on a cake run this morning. I'm just not artistic.

One is Fun!

Little Miss Joey turned one today! I cannot believe how fast this year has flown by. Jeremy looked at me strangely when I said it feels like I was just in the hospital pushing her out...it must be a mom thing...but really, wasn't I just in the hospital yesterday?

Joey brings so much joy to our house. She is always so smiley. She loves to play with baby dolls or anything Shelby is playing with at the moment. She is getting more and more mischievous, and loves to try and sneak into the office to play on the computer or throw things in the garbage can. She loves adult food. She has surprised me by loving flavors you wouldn't think a baby would like- such as curry chicken salad. We thought she would be walking by now, since she crawled so much earlier than Shelby, but she still prefers to walk holding on to the tips of our fingers- she just needs that reassurance that we are there. Joey loves to laugh, which is good, because she has the cutest laugh ever. Right now she really loves to play patty cake, "This Little Piggy", and sing "Itsy Bitsy Spider". We cannot imagine how boring our lives would be without her. We love her so much.

We started off the morning waking up early so we could have breakfast with Daddy before work, and Joey got to open her present from us so that she could play with it all day. She LOVES her baby dolls and was thrilled to get a new stroller to push them around in.







We had a fun day of doing somersaults, playing in forts, and just being cute.






When Daddy got home from work we went to dinner at BJ's where Joey got to eat a special baked beignet with ice cream and whipped cream. Yummmm. After dinner we went to Going Bonkers. Wow. Joey could not have been more excited. As soon as walked through the door she nearly jumped out of my arms. It was nice because that place is always super packed on weekends, but since it was a weeknight there were only a few people there. Joey LOVED the slide. In fact, her poor knees are probably going to be so bruised from going down the slide and trying to climb back up over and over. She really had a great time and was exhausted by the time we got home. All in all, I think it was a great 1st birthday!

Sprouts