This Easter Season brought about many activities but in the center of it was worship of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and reflection on His death and resurrection. We as a family and church attended the community Holy Week Services at noon each day. Our church co-hosted on Monday with another local church and helped to provide the lunch. Our youth did a wonderful job of helping to serve, we are so proud of them. The youth attended each service which was awesome. A few days they came over to our house afterwards for some fun. (They were on spring break that week) Then on Friday we had a "Destination Unknown" planned for them. We took them to Greensboro that afternoon to the mall and had a Scavenger hunt planned for them. It was a blast and extremely tiring! We thank the Lord for Pastor Ryan and Alicia who God has called to our church to work with the youth. We have seen some real growth in the hearts of our youth as well as numerically. It is an encouragement to see.
The Saturday before Easter we had the annual Easter Egg Hunt at church. We had over 25 children participating plus parents/grandparents. Amy, our children's worker, always does a wonderful job with this and shares the Gospel message with the children so they know the real reason for the holiday. At one point during the hunt I realized that this was Isaac's 2nd Easter!!! My how time goes by so quickly! He was introduced to alot of our church family at the last Easter Egg Hunt and his first Sunday in church was Easter Sunday last year! He had a good time and got 2 eggs which he was very content to hold and play with. Next he will be running around all over the place and we will be trying to keep up! (He is still not quite walking yet but He is so close!)

I thought I would give you all an update on how our little girl is doing! I am 25 weeks along now in this pregnancy and I can definitely say it going by much quicker than the first! I am feeling great at this point besides just feeling a little tired, but with our schedule that is a given. Our little one is over a pound now and a little longer than a banana! I have to go for the wonderful gluclose test in three weeks where I drink the heavenly orange drink and then they take my blood. And then after that we are close enough to due date that I have to go every two weeks!!! Our little lady has grown to the point that I can feel her moving very frequently, many times a day. This past week I think she started taking up gymnastics. We will keep you posted as we get closer :)

I wish I had something creative and witty to say, but I don't. :) I am enjoying a beautiful sunshiney day (we have had a few days of rain without the sun peaking its head out) It is a calm, restful Sunday, Aaron is already back at the church getting things ready for tonight's service and Isaac is taking his LONGer than normal Sunday afternoon nap (He always makes up for all the excitement and attention at church by basically sleeping all afternoon) So I thought while I had a few minutes of quiet I would post some pics and let you all know what we have been up to :)

A few weeks ago Aaron and our youth director, Ryan had the wonderful opportunity to spend a few days with the pastoral staff at Elizabeth City EMC. Aaron shadowed Pastor Max and met with the rest of the staff while Ryan shadowed the Youth Pastor, Nate Williamson. And since it was family, Isaac and I got to tag along! It was wonderful to see Nate, Leah, and Emma and get to spend some time with them. Isaac and Emma hit it off and were so fun to watch together. Leah and I got a small dose of what it might be like to have twins! We had a wonderful visit with family, a fresh look at ministry, and lots of encouragement. We had a little bit of sickness mingled through with me getting sick our last day there, and as we traveled home late Wednesday evening, Isaac had his first experience with the stomach bug. :( That is one thing I could have waited a long time to experience as a mother, your child very sick and not being able to do a thing about it. With me being sick that morning, Aaron was wonderful and did all the dirty work with clean-up and helping Isaac out since I still had a weak stomach. After about three stops along the way, we made it safely home, and Isaac slept peacefully through the night (mom didn't sleep so peacefully, keeping one ear open in case he got sick again) But he was fine the next morning and ate a good breakfast. Thankfully he recovered much quicker than mommy!

Below is a video of Isaac and his cousin Emma.

Isaac will figure out one way or another to get things done. With this particular toy he figured out that he could use his mouth to push the button down and it will make the balls spin around. It is one of the funniest things to watch. I have since shown him that he can use his hand to press the button down, but I think he still prefers to use his mouth!!

Here is another of his favorite toys. It has gears that are connected to one another and when you press the button they all move and it plays a little song. Well, at this point he just likes to pull the gears off and throw them behind him as fast as mom can put them back on :)

He got ahold of the swiffer one morning while I was cleaning and decided to do a little cleaning himself. Every time I have it out he always wants to get ahold of it. I just hope he still wants to use it when he gets older!

Here he is with Papaw and Mamie. They came in for a week during his birthday and got him the spiffy little suit he has on.

He looks so cute and cuddly in this pic with his little snow suit on :)

Isaac's favorite place to head is the kitchen where there is lots of stuff for him to get into! I have a low shelf in a bottom cabinet where I keep some of my cookbooks. This particular day Isaac somehow managed to get my heavy Taste of Home cookbook off of that shelf and it rested on the side of his walker. He was walking around the house with it open on his walker and just smiling great big like he had really accomplished something!

Sometimes he plays in his crib before he actually takes a nap. This particular day he had walked out of his pants and also pulled the mobile apart before he fell asleep. (The mobile is no longer over his bed since he continually played with it and broke it)

My Grace Is Sufficient For Thee

The Lord seems to be wanting to teach me to fully trust in Him. In many of the devotions and Scripture I have read in the past few weeks that has been a recurring theme. In these times of economic instability for our nation as a whole, you wonder how it will all turn out. You see the prices in the grocery store continue to rise, gas prices unstable, etc without seeing much relief. In the midst of this, God is teaching me that He is my provider and that He knows what I need! In these times of instability we can rest fully in the arms of One who does not change and never will! He is the only One that can be fully trusted and relied on and He has our best interest at heart. I was particuarly touched by a devotional I read from Streams in the Desert, compiled by Lettie Cowman and I just wanted to share it with you.

The other evening I was riding home after a heavy day's work. I felt very wearied, and sore depressed, when swiftly, and suddenly as a lightning flash, that text came to me, "My grace is sufficient for thee." ...It seemed to make unbelief so absurd. It was as though some little fish, being very thirsty, was troubled about drinking the river dry, and Father Thames said, "Drink away, little fish, my stream is sufficient for thee." or, it seemed after the seven years of plenty, a mouse feared it might die of famine; and Joseph might say, "Cheer up, little mouse, my granaries are sufficient for thee." Again, I imagined a man away up yonder, in a lofty mountain saying to himself, " I breathe so many cubic feet of air every year, I fear I shall exhaust the oxygen in the atmosphere," but the earth might say, "Breathe away, O man, and fill the lungs ever, my atmosphere is sufficient for thee." Oh, brethren, be great believers! C.H. Spurgeon

We have had two doctor visits this week, one for me and the new baby and one for Isaac's first year check up. As I am writing this I am starting to realize that we have not posted anything about this pregnancy on the blog and some of you may not even know we're expecting again! Sorry (I'm ducking my head) Well, the due date is July 21st and the ultrasound showed that the baby is developing wonderfully and it's a little girl!! We are so excited. The time is flying by with this pregnancy. I have been doing wonderful and feeling great. I'm beginning to feel our little girl move around more and so that is in my opinion one of the highlights of being pregnant. Isaac's doctor visit went really well. He gained 4 lbs and grew 3 inches in the last 3 months and the doctor was really pleased with his development. He has officially been off the bottle now for 6 weeks (Hooray!) and eating all table foods (Hooray!) and no longer on formula (HOORAY!! HOORAY!!!) and talking all the time!! In the next day or two I will try and post some pics of our family and hopefully maybe some of the ultrasound pics :)

This article came through our email this week with a clipping from Housekeeping Monthly 1955. As I read it I thought, WOW! How far we "think" we have come since then, or maybe in actuality how far we have gone in our own selfishness and self-interest. Anyway I thought it was interesting and as Aaron and I were talking about it the other night, I wonder how many more homes would be a more pleasant place to be, how many more families would be together, etc. if women would take on this self-giving attitude of caring for their husbands. Just some things to think about. (You should be able to click on the picture to bring up a bigger picture of the article)

It is hard to imagine that Isaac is one year old already! His birthday it the 11th of February and we had a week long celebration. Both sets of grandparents were able to come down when they could and watch Isaac open gifts and eat his birthday cake. It was lots of fun and I know Isaac loved all the presents and cake!! When Aaron's parents came in for the week, Papaw picked out a chocolate cake! As you can see, Isaac was a mess, but he absolutely loved it!

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

So, here I am, up at 4 am with a bad head cold or sinus or something. Anyway, my head is very stuffy and I'm feeling close to miserable. It seems that it's in the wee morning hours that I post to the blog, maybe that's because little man's asleep and all is quiet.
Isaac turned one year old this week. I can't hardly believe it. It literally seems like yesterday that I held him in my arms for the first time. He is growing up so quick and looking more and more like a little boy all the time instead of a baby. His personality is really starting to shine through too, he loves to have fun and goof off with mom and dad, making faces, squinting his eyes, and turning his head sideways while he's eating in the high chair. He loves to laugh and play and doesn't stop moving! He is becoming very independent and somewhat stubborn, loves for you to wash his hands but not his face! He doesn't like for you to hold his hands to show him how to do something new and will pull them away every time. He is sweet and laid back and hardly ever fusses and will eat ANYTHING we give him. The times have become more and more precious when we are together as a family. We are so grateful for this little boy.
We have had quite a few visitors in the last few weeks, and since the computer with the pictures is in the guest room, you will not be seeing any more pictures for a few more days. Aaron's dad stopped in for a few days visit on his way home from KY, our friend Chris Nealis from KY came in for a week, followed by my sister for the weekend, my parents later that week to celebrate Isaac's one year a little early, and now Aaron's parents are here for the week. We love having people in our home and are grateful all of them could be with us.
In the midst of our visitors, I had a tooth that had started crumbling. yes, very distressing. So, I called the dentist office when they were opened next and told them the situtation and that we were not able to pay to have any work done until next month. So they set up a consultation with the dentist to see what needed to be done. This was slightly distressing me, to say the least, I hate having work done on my teeth and I have horrible teeth, and I wanted it fixed....NOW! But the means were just not there, which was also another distressing factor to me. But I am so thankful that when we get our eyes off focus from the Lord and his provisions, he gently reminds us again of His faithfulness and care towards us. I went in to the dentist and his assistant is a wonderful Christian lady. One thing led to another and it was known that I could not pay for any work to be done at the moment. After the dentist came in and checked it out, he said he had some free time that day and that he could go ahead and fill it and I could pay later! What an answer to prayer! So I actually had two teeth side by side that needed taken care of b/c the cavity was in between the teeth. When I got ready to leave, the assistant looked over at the paperwork and said, "He didn't charge you for that" I was wondering if I had misunderstood or didn't hear her right, but no, God had used that dentist to take care of something that was big for me, but a minor thing for God to take care of. I praise the Lord for His goodness and care, even though I definitely don't deserve it. He is a good God who loves his children, He is my Provider.
This seems to be somewhat of a random post, but then again, it's really early in the morning so what can you expect? Lots of random tidbits of what is going on in our lives at the moment. So, since the rest of the house is not up yet, I think I will do a little reading and then try and get a few more hours sleep. :)