reasons we love easter

1st (and by far most important): a great day to celebrate that our savior has risen and we have the promise of salvation and the hope of eternity with him.

(far distant) 2nd: we get to wear a fun easter dress for church, have a great day at the park where we see the easter bunny (who happened to be ella's favorite sunday school teacher about to pass out from heat exhaustion), we get easter baskets, and the opportunity to hunt around the house for eggs filled with raisins, jelly beans, or pennies (for our piggy banks, the offering jar at sunday school, or the fountain at AJ's, our choice)

3rd: this easter morning is especially exciting because angie and phil (my sister and brother-in-law) are on their way to China to bring home their new son!

they will be in China for just under 3 weeks to complete a process that began, in their minds, over a year ago, but in God's heart long before that. Joshua RuBin was born August 17th, 2006 just 2 months after Bennett. not only am i excited about a new nephew, i have been encouraged and challenged by angie and phil's faith and commitment to "look after orphans... in their distress..." (james 1:27) and i must say my eyes have been opened to the overwhelming need of orphaned and abandoned children around the world. over the last few months i often look at bennett and think that joshua may be doing similar things developmentally. and one day, as bennett was saying "mama" and "dada" it hit me that those are words joshua wouldn't be saying.

if you are interested in their adoption journey (which began with a simple prayer of a 2 year old) or would like to follow their adventures while they are in china, you can check out their blog at http://heir-raisingtales.blogspot.com/ and of course, your prayers for them, joshua, and their 2 kids they had to leave with grammy and poppa are very much appreciated.

some pictures...

some pictures of a few fun-filled days...


lots of fun memories... we celebrated caleb's 4th birthday with family, a bounce-house and some yummy birthday cake, made a couple of trips to the zoo, had a special baby shower day for angie, and hung out with grammy while she enjoyed her spring break. and thanks to the bee movie, which we have enjoyed the last few days, my kids now think that bees are a sweet little bug we hold and pet.

ikea

14 weeks along and had my 2nd doctor appointment yesterday. everything looked good and we even had another ultrasound. our little one is getting bigger and we could see the heart beating and the hands waving. so amazing. i am even feeling better and we are trying to squeeze all kinds of fun into these last days of spring before summer hits us with a vengeance.

and if you are wondering why this posting is titled "ikea"... that is the new baby name of the week, decided of course by ella.

tony bologna

ella enjoys a variety of stories told to her at naptime and bedtime. if mommy is putting her down, she hears a susan story (which often has to do with a little girl, who sounds mysteriously similar to ella, learning a valuable lesson after throwing a temper tantrum or hurting someone or not following directions) and a Jesus story. if daddy is putting her down, she hears an e.j. story ("ella joy" which is often fun and silly and ends with "ej saves the day!") and a tony bologna story (which originated initially with uncle tony telling these stories to ella's cousins and are so exciting and creative they have become some of ella's favorites). often, ella has special requests and gets specific stories confused... like when it's time to hear a Jesus story and ella wants the one where they go to the D-Backs game and eat tony bologna sandwiches and a little girl falls off her bicycle and ej saves the day.

since tony bologna eats "special" sandwiches in his stories, anthony thought it would be fun for ella to have one of these "special" sandwiches. (i say "special" with quotes because i don't find bologna the least bit appealing, especially in my first trimester.) but this is why daddy is so much fun. having bologna sandwiches has become a favorite meal ella looks forward to, especially on weekends when daddy is home and will make them with her.