Easter and Other Things

One sign that our Andrew is growing up is that he seems to be losing teeth at an astounding rate! He now has two tooth-size holes in his sweet smile. I love to hear him read any words with the "s" and "sh" sounds aloud in school. So far, I have been the tooth-puller. My strategy- to make sure the tooth is good and ready to come out and tell Andrew, "I am going to have this thing out in 10 seconds. Okay- start counting!" Usually, it is out by 3. With four teeth down and several more to go, he is forming quite a relationship with the tooth fairy. About 10 minutes after he lays down for bed the night of her visit he yells to Micah and me, "I'm about asleep! You can go ahead and come in with the tooth money!" There is no fooling Andrew when it comes to things as serious as money for his piggy bank. There have been a number of thunderstorms lately... and days and days of rain. We live in a second-story apartment and we recently had a Tornado Warning that seemed pretty serious. Since we do not have a good place to wait out a storm, Micah suggested at 11:30 p.m. to head over the the apartment clubhouse and wait it out in the basement. There are a series of rooms there and we thought for sure we would find safety- or at least a more safe place than our bedroom closet. Micah and I quickly put together a "wait out the storm" bag and loaded the kids in the van since the clubhouse is several buildings over. Andrew woke up immediately and wanted to make sure he knew the plan. Elijah, however, more resembled Jesus in the boat with the disciples in his approach to facing the weather conditions. We got over to the clubhouse, unloaded everything and everyone still sleeping (Elijah) and hurried through the rain into the basement. The only thing I can say is- windows and glass everywhere. Not only are there floor to ceiling windows in every room (office, exercise room, Pilate's studio, etc.) but there are also floor to ceiling windows that separate each room from the interior hallway. One entry way side of the building was two-stories of glass and another side is a rec-room that used to be a glass-enclosed indoor pool. We might have well gone to a kitchen store and stood in the knife section. By this time, the storm was too close to load back up and head back to our better equipped, second-story tornado shelter. Thankfully, Andrew and I did scope out a furnace room without panes and panes and more panes of glass! After following the WHAS11 live news feed on the Internet for an hour including multiple viewings of the same commercial for "Craig and Landreth Cars" and having the electricity flicker a few times, all was well and we headed home. We were so thankful to be protected despite our circumstances. We will have a better plan next time!

Today, we celebrated Resurrection Day with our church family. The boys sported some new big-boy clothes. I have some handsome boys, if I do say so myself! Elijah was so kind to take this picture of Mommy and Daddy~ and just in case you're wondering, we didn't coordinate our Easter clothing; it just happened to work out that way:) Our church decorated the sanctuary with hydrangeas this year. We placed one in honor of our little ones and celebrated the hope we have through Christ who now stands victorious over sin and death~ Micah and I have some new news on the embryo adoption front to share as well as more specific ways for you all to be informed about how to pray for these particular orphans ~ so stay tuned!