Passover

For the past few years we've celebrated Passover with our dear friends The Steele's. It's so amazing to see what is celebrated & remembered during Passover while knowing that Jesus broke the bread - His body- and offered them the cup -His blood that was "poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins" (Matthew 26:17-35).

We use 'The Messianic Passover Haggadah' as our guide. It explains everything that is done during the Passover feast and provides scriptures and songs as well. We light the candles, wash our hands, drink the cups of wine, eat the bitter herbs, read the story of Passover, eat the meal, hid the Afikomen.... you get the idea. We do it all! And the kids really enjoy it too. Hannah was disappointed that she didn't find the Afikomen but she did get to open the door for Elijah.

The Seder Plate
Lindsay made cute little seder plates for the kids and we had the main plate as well.

1. Cup of Salt Water (represents the life of pain, suffering and tears that the Israelites led in Egypt)
2. Roasted Egg - replaces the lamb shankbone and is eaten during the sedar meal. (symbol of mourning of the destruction of the second Temple)
3. Bitter Herbs (to remember how bitter the life was for the Israelites in the land of Egypt)
4. Horseradish Root (causes you to shed tears of compassion for the sorrow that "our ancestors" -yes, they're even our ancestors - knew)
5. Chopped Nuts & Apples - you dip your matzah in the horseradish and then in the apple mixture. (To remind ourselves that even the most bitter of circumstances can be sweetened by the hope we have in God.)
6. Lamb Shankbone -Since the Temple in Jerusalem no longer stands, lamb is not eaten at Passover. (represents the lamb whose blood marked the houses of the children of Israel/their obedience to Gods command.)
7. Parsley - dip the parsley in the salt water and then you eat it. (Passover is a springtime holiday, when the earth is beautiful and green with life. The parsley represents life created and sustained by God.)

Hannah loved her mini-Sedar plate.

The kids table.

Samuel washes his hands.
Who may go up the mountain of God?
Who can stand in his holy place?
Those with clean hands and pure hearts...
Psalm 24: 3,4

Joshua barters with Isaiah for the Afikoman (the middle piece of matzah -out of the three pieces- that was broken, wrapped in a cloth and hidden from the kids. After the meal the kids searched for the hidden Afikomen).
This is my body, which is being given for you:
do this in memory of me."
Luke 22:19


Hannah opens the door to welcome Elijah the Prophet to our seder. Hannah had a wardrobe change halfway through because her "best friend" spilled his juice on her dress.

Gotta Love...

Little boys who love to eat spaghetti. It's a good thing since it's one of my favorite meals!

It reminds me of a certain someone else who used to love spaghetti.

Hannah July 2008
wow my photography skills have improved a bit since those days!

Crock Pot Chocolate Cake

While blog surfing one day I came across this blog and found the following recipe for Crock Pot Chocolate Cake. It is so rich and moist ... my mouth is watering just typing this recipe for you!



Ingredients:
*1 package chocolate cake mix
*1 (8 oz) container of sour cream
*1 cup chocolate morsels
*1 cup water
*4 eggs
*3/4 cup vegetable oil
*1 small package instant chocolate pudding mix

Directions:
1. spray crock pot with nonstick cooking spray.
2. mix all ingredients in a bowl by hand. pour into crock pot.
cover and cook: on LOW 6-8 hours or HIGH 3-4 hours.
3. serve with ice cream, raspberries, cool-whip, strawberries or whatever your heart desires.

*just a side note: you can leave it for slightly longer than 8 hours but it will eventually start to
burn*

saturday morning

how cute are we?

Baby Paden...

Hannah...

(yes Paden is sucking on a pink pacifier)

Samuel...

Are you beginning to wonder if Samuel ever wears pants?

Happy Birthday

to the best uncle ever...

Uncle David!We hope you have a spectacular day. We're sad that we can't be there with you to celebrate but we're thinking of you today. We love you very much!

Bobby, Heather, Hannah, Samuel

Sweet Spring

(just click on the collage to see a larger/clearer version)

To celebrate the first day of spring and the gorgeous weather that it brought, we took the kids to Sertoma. What a beautiful day!

I Hate:

• Mechanics
• The fact that we took the van in for a new timing belt and it's been there for over a week.
• Having no vehicle and two kids that are begging to go to the park. (Do you see a theme here?)
• Colds that linger and linger despite the use of natural home remedies (that have never failed me before.)
• Duke & Purdue (I'm not saying this b/c of Bobby. I've watched the games and these two teams are obnoxious.)
• Creepy spiders in my laundry room. I'm actually looking forward to summer this year but I'm dreading laundry days. Last summer I found one too many brown recluses in the laundry room (one is one too many.)
• That most of Bobby's family live so far away and we only get to visit them once a year. I wish Hannah & Samuel could get to know their family better.
• The fact that my niece is getting married this weekend and we weren't even invited b/c of all the ridiculous drama that ensued after the separation.
  

March Musings

Samuel is driving me crazy today.
He's had a cold going on a week now but is normally pretty happy.
Not today. He's cried about everything.
Bobby encouraged me to just be cheerful and smile even when I'm discipling him.
It worked.
He's asleep now and I'm looking forward to a pleasant evening with him.
*****
Still no Grandma Rocket (our van).
Still no time frame as to when we'll be getting her back.
I'm really frustrated.
Two kid and no vehicle is no fun.
*****
Things aren't all bad though...
Today Hannah did her chores without being told.
And dressed herself without any help.
She even picked out the clothes herself.
*****
Tomorrow Bobby doesn't have to work at Clemson.
The kids don't know so it will be a pleasant surprise for them.
We're going to lunch with my family and then we'll go hiking.
*****
Today I have my final eye examination.
It's been over a year since I had my eye surgery.
It was so worth it too.
I can get up in the mornings & get going without having to deal with contacts.
I can swim and get splashed without having to worry about contacts.
*****
Hannah & Samuel's seeds are sprouting in their little greenhouses.
They're so proud.
We will be giving some special people their own cactus' (cacti?) soon.

In Other News...

Well the snow has moved out and spring-ish weather has moved in and brought March showers with it. We're still rejoicing though! I thought you might like to know what our little family has been up to (other than playing in the snow :-)

Bobby: He's still working at Clemson during the week and then at Captain D's three days a week. But not for long! May 2 will be his last day at Captain D's. Woo hoo!! He's been so busy with both jobs, schoolwork and work around the house that I feel like we barely see him. It's fine though because it will all be over soon and he'll finally get a much deserved break. We can't wait.

.......................

Heather: I'm still keeping up with Hannah & Samuel as well as endless housework. I've also been s-l-o-w-l-y making my way through 'Anna Karenina.' It's a great book and the language is fairly easy to read but it's so long that it's taking me a while. This past week I started babysitting for a friend of mine. I'm watching her 9 month old son Mon-Wed for a few weeks. It's been interesting having a little baby around. Hannah is fine with him but Samuel has been a little jealous and unsure. It's been challenging and fun though.

.......................

Hannah: Bitty-Boo has been having fun, fun, fun! She has truly enjoyed every bit of snow we've gotten and on warm sunny days she's either played on the trampoline or pedaled around on her bike.
She's been a great helper around the house. She does her chores (making her bed, feeding Oscar, helping separate/fold clothes, vacuum) and then gladly helps me with the dishes and cooking. She's so cheerful too and it makes me so happy to have her with me every day.
She's becoming very independent as well. One day I put her in the bath tub to play before I came in to wash her. About 15 minutes later she came into the living room wrapped in her towel. She'd already washed her hair, bathed, drained the water and dried off. I love it!!
Her greatest achievement lately has been learning to write her letters. We bought her a dry-erase notepad to practice and she works on it nearly every day. She's become really good at writing her "mama" letters and is still working on her "baby" letters.
Her two main interests are coloring/water painting and flowers. She has already started a mini greenhouse with daisy seeds (and they've started sprouting too). Today I told her she has a green thumb and she looked down as her hands and said, "Where Mama?"
Hannah is writing notes to her friends.

She wrote these baby letters all by herself without my help. She just studied the example and wrote them!
.......................

Samuel: Bitty Buddy has been having fun right along his big sister. It doesn't matter what she's doing or where she is, Samuel is always right beside Hannah. They play together so well (for the most part!) Hannah loves Sam so much that she wont' spend the night with her Granny if Sam doesn't come too.
Samuel has also been a great helper around the house. He's just naturally neat and clean. He'll put toys away or throw away trash without me even telling him to. The other day he spilled OJ on our end table but I didn't realize it. He suddenly come running out of the bathroom and fell down. I started towards him to help but he jumped right back up yelling, "I'm okay!" He had a little wash cloth in his hand and he ran right over to the table and started cleaning up the OJ. Wow!!
He's talking more and more every day. At home that is. He seems to be pretty shy when we're out and about with other people. He's a pretty serious little fellow as well - but only when we're out in public. Weird. Anyway, yesterday he was eating lunch when he looked at me and said, "I want 'nother vitamin. Orange. And Hannah pink." After about two weeks of persistent work (on my part) he finally knows his colors! Now he'll point and tell you what color everything is (Hannah's pants purple. Daddy's bag is blue. etc.) He can also count to 10 without any help!
But his greatest "achievement" of all - he's potty trained!! He only wears pull-ups at night now. I was beginning to think that all of our work on "elimination communication" was in vain because at the end of last year he went through a "potty pause." He simply refused to tell me when he needed to go potty. I became very frustrated. But my dear friend Lindsay encouraged me b/c her son is two months older than Sam and he had done the same thing. A few weeks before his second birthday he was keeping his pull-up dry. I put him back in underpants and he started telling me when he needed to go potty! All before he turned 2!
His interests at the moment are Hannah, playing with the toy guns he got from his Papa, reading books, putting on cologne to " 'mell like Daddy" and playing outside.Sammy is proud of his new gun!

He's carrying Bobby's cologne asking me to, "Smell like Daddy?"


What have we been up to lately? Staying busy and enjoying our time together :-)

The other day Hannah squeezed herself into Samuel's 24 month Halloween costume. She was determined to be a T-Rex!

Global Warming...Seriously?

Monday evening Hannah begged me to let her spend the night with her Granny Jordan. My mom is recovering from pneumonia and so the kids hadn't seen her in over a week. My mom agreed so we packed their bags and took them over to my parents house. We knew that there was a possibility of snow but I didn't really think we would get any so I wasn't worried.

I woke up around 6am Tuesday morning and saw our yard lightly dusted with snow. I figured it would stop snowing shortly (like it usually does any time we get snow) and returned to bed. I woke up again at 7:45am when the phone rang - it was Hannah calling to inform me that it was snowing and she wanted to come home so we could play in it. The roads were crazy because no one had been driving on them and of course they hadn't been scraped yet. So I drove s-l-o-w-l-y to my parents house and picked up the kids. They were so excited and dying to get our and play in the snow.

It turned out to be an amazing day. Bobby used a vacation day and stayed home with us, to the delight of Hannah and Samuel. It snowed until 4pm straight without stopping - and it was so beautiful! The kids took a long nap and while they were napping I took a quick run. It was hard though because it was so cold, the roads were a mixture of slush & ice and I was constantly inhaling snowflakes! When I returned home Bobby left to go running so I curled up on the couch with a warm blanket, a hot cup of coffee (or cream & sugar with a little coffee added in) and 'Anna Karenina.' I'd say March is off to a great start!

I love snow and always will...

Be prepared. There are a lot of pictures. We spent an entire day playing in the snow and I took pictures of everything.


Gorgeous snow.

Snowball fight. Snowball tasting.

How big of a snowball do you need Hannah?

Here, taste this.

Hannah eating a snowball.

Poor Oscar. Sammy threw a snowball at him :-)

The making of a Snowman ...
Hannah also wanted to make snow angels but popped right back up after she lay down. "It's too cold Mama!"

Sledding... in our neighbors pasture.

Hannah wasn't too excited about sledding but after a couple of times down she loved it.

I nicknamed the hill we used for sledding Cypress Mountain (think Vancouver Olympics).

I went down "Mt. Cypress" with Sammy. He immediately jumped up and yelled, "Again Mom-may!"

Sammy impatiently waiting for another turn.

He's already laughing!!