Easter continued

This was the end of our confession cross. On Good Friday after reading the book we've been going through we took some streamer and had 'Jesus' blood' cover our sins. And since it was after dinner and the boys were a bit rambunctious we also played "He's Dead He's Dead He's Alive" (variation of Duck Duck Goose). I'm still deciding if that was irreverent or not.

Brad and Jaedon went to practice at church early so we had our first (and hopefully not our last) "Easter Sunrise" breakfast. These resurrection rolls were fun. You roll a marshmallow around in some butter and cinnamon-sugar then wrap it up in a cresant roll. The mallow melts when you bake the roll and it's empty when you eat it. Brad had fun making the bacon crosses and the empty tomb pancakes were a last minute addition. Not sure why the picture posted sideways...sorry.

There's not too much cuter things in the world than little men in little suits -

Our afternoon egg hunting and coloring with cousins and friends. But my very favorite part of the entire weekend was Jaedon saying in his ever-growing wisdom, "Ya know, Mom, searching for the eggs if kindof like what we're supposed to do with God and then opening the eggs and eating the candy is too because God is sweet like candy. Right?"
Right on, buddy.

Advent for Easter

We've been reading through an Easter devotional book called the Journey of the Cross for the past several weeks. It's been a neat time to spend more than just a week or a weekend to remember the significance of Easter. We've done a few activities to go with the stories including acting out Palm Sunday (Brad played the donkey role- which was purely practical- no hidden meaning behind that one), "painting" our doorpost for Passover, carrying some 2x4's (this was after reading about Jesus carrying his own cross...not just manual labor ;-), eating unleavened crackers (along with some funny looks when they discovered the tastelessness of it!).
We didn't want to get behind in our readings so we actually even took it with us on vacation over Spring Break. It was a bit strange because our story was about Jesus washing his disciples feet. So we used the hotel rooms ice bucket - hey I'm not nothing if not resourceful. ;-)


but my very favorite thing we have been doing is what I've called our "confession cross".
In November we have a lot of fun doing our Thanksgiving tree- we write out what we're thankful for on little leaves and our tree is full and overflowing by the time Thanksgiving rolls around. These past 2 weeks we've written our sins on a piece of paper and are making it in a cross shape. I wouldn't exactly say this is "fun". In fact, it's very sobering. Humbling. Not only are we writing them down but we're reading them to each other- many times it includes someone sitting at the table with us that we need to apologize to. It certainly isn't as easy and fun as our Thanksgiving tree- but no less important I think.

a new adventure-

I posted this note on Facebook earlier this week. So, because my MOM doesn't do facebook ;-) I thought I'd paste this here for you.

Today we are going to our second class in our fostering licensing training. If you happen to be one of the 4 people who read this and don't know what I'm talking about... you must've just accidentally found my blog ;-) Read on...

So WHY are we adopting? I mean we already have kids right?

Well- here's the long answer:

As people of faith, Brad and I are continually looking for ways to put our faith into action. I mean really- what good is professing faith if you're not possessing it? (to quote my bible study leader)

James 1:27 says

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress ..." So if God thinks they are important- why shouldn't we?

Now, saying this I want to make it clear that we are NOT saying that doing enough good things (i.e. going to church, donating to charity, adopting) is enough to earn us a gold star with God. The Bible is very clear that the ONLY way to God is by realizing 1. you sin 2. sin means there is a debt on your head 3. Jesus is the only one who can (and has already) paid the debt and 4. Every person has to decide to accept their debt cancellation for themselves. Because that debt has been paid for us- we then choose to "do good" things as an expression of our appreciation for our own adoption.

The short answer?

Brad (and company) would like a GIRL in the house! =D

- the DETAILS:

at this point are that we have decided to pursue adoption through our foster care system here in West Michigan. We have our licensing study underway and as of today completed 1/4 of the training required to become licensed. We are being a bit picky as we are looking for a girl and we want to keep the birth order intact- so 2 and under. We have NO idea of a time frame and it also includes quite a bit of risk as the nature of the foster system is to first and foremost reunite kids with their birth parents. This is going to be a huge time of growing for us. We would greatly covet your prayers for our whole family (and any kiddos and families) that we get to meet.

And oh yeah- if you have any hair bow, barrettes, tights, little girl tips... bring it on!

Family time

So I'll spare you from the obnoxious amount of pictures and try to pick a few to let you have a glimpse of our family time in Indianapolis. Our adventure started with a new little (borrowed) gadget named Garmin. All the boys were enamored with her...and Seth especially liked the directions being given in the "squirrel" voice. (Did you know it says "I wonder if they sell walnuts at the gas station?")
So Garmin eventually got us to the Children's Museum in Indy. (Although, I did end up vetoing the squirrel voice because I'm mean.) We had a great time exploring and playing here. It was a bit more "museumy" (yes I know that's not a word) than I expected but there were plenty of hands on/no-reading-required displays for the little guys too. This glass display was awesome. We laid down and looked at this ceiling (which was really the bottom of a 48 foot high display).

We found a hotel with an indoor waterpark. It was ridiculously overpriced but we enjoyed it anyway. Jaedon told me the slides were "monstrous". I think that is a good thing...?

We spent our last day at the Zoo. It was the perfect weather for it. We had a lot of fun seeing the Africa animals (and reminiscing about our elephant ride that happened a year ago). The boys loved the water animals - the shark touching being a huge hit! We collapsed on the way home- and discovered that Garmin may be a bit off at times but overall she was a trustworthy traveling companion. ;)