Good Friday 2011

Josh said, "I am waiting to go the park with dad!" We had talked about the four of us going to the park together after Maundy Thursday dinner. So, Josh says, "Yeah, like Jesus went to the Garden (of Gethsemane)."

 
So early this morning, we went to the park, so we could reenact what happened in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus went there with his closest friends. Here, Josh wanted 3 of us to 'fall asleep' while Jesus prayed:

A couple of us wanted to pray like Jesus did: "God, we commit our lives to Your plan, not our plan, for our lives."

Jesus said YES to the Father. We can say yes too.

Back at home, we made 'hot cross buns'.

The buns are iced with a cross shape.

We then headed over to Good Friday Service to join more brothers and sisters in Christ to worship Jesus together!

2011 Holy Thursday

 

The boys made a tissue paper ''stained glass" crosses

  to remind us of what Jesus did on the cross for us,

 

 that He died and Rose Again, so we could spend eternity in heaven with him!

 Our dinner menu reminded us of Jesus' last supper.The conversation was lively and excited as we shared what reminded us of Jesus. The stripes and piercings of  the matzo cracker reminded us of where the nails went through and the marks of the leather whip. The bitter herbs reminded someone of the tears shed by the Israelites when under Pharoah. The lamb of the passover lamb, protection from God, and Jesus' taking the our place for the consequence of our sins.

Pete led us in the Washing of Feet, like when Jesus served his closest friends, by washing their feet.

  Josh especially like the foot washing; asking for more washing and more time :-)

 Not only were our feet bathed, Pete bathed us in prayer too.

 The boys washed Tita Marn's feet as I prayed over her.

 We were blessed during our time together during this sweet tradition. Marnie closed out the evening with the boys, while Pete and I enjoyed watching Soul Surfer at the theatres!

Butterfies!

  One of my favorite times of year at the Wild Animal Park is Spring, when we can visit the Butterfly Garden!



This butterfly landed on Pete almost as soon as we walked into the Butterfly Jungle!



Aidon is excited, yet as "still" as can be, in hopes the butterfly will stay as long as possible



A butterfly landed on my jeans, so it was a cool angle on the kids' view!

  

Afterwards, the kids' enjoyed the Samburu Jungle Gym, got lots of energy out, and played Hide & Seek!




Suessical!

 This was a very blessed evening. The kids were SO excited to enjoy this musical theater performance.

 They enjoy Dr. Seuss, so it's cool to see his characters spring to live-action and real life! They both continue to sing the songs.

A memory that I will put in my pocket of remembrance is this. Days later Josh said, "A person is a person no matter how small.  [pause] Mom, We are all WHO's to God." It is so cool to see how a 4 year old relates our human size to God.  God's strength & sovereignty is truly immeasurable, uncontainable, indescribable.

Skyfari Ride

The Lord worked it out for Josh to have some one on one time with both his dad and mom.

Josh picked some zoo time and the sky fari ride :-)

The simplicity of childhood is fun! His favorite part is the "bump" as we start off and finding out what animal is pictured on our car.

The sweet thing about Josh is how he loves his family. He only wanted to go on an outing if all four of us could be there! So, when Aidon was out of school, we headed out for more family time :-)

A destination after the sky journey is the polar bears - and they were swimming...

sports!

going for the hoop!

receiving the pass...

focusing on the target!

Josh has his "own" sense of style: and likes the short AND long pants look sometimes!

loving the moment

PJ Nite

Snow Balls!

I started to miss blogging with the past couple months without a computer. Then one of my boys said, "Can't you blog at the library?" So, here we are, one boy on each side of me checking out www.jellytelly.com.... first post in a while..

With all the blessings of local rain, we actually had an evening where there was a 100% chance of rain. This week we had a previously planned trip to Mammoth that was cancelled, and instead we hoped to bring the kids up to play with snow one day. This was our opportunity:

We drove just a bit under an hour away and were so excited to see the snow on the mountains, in the distance, then all around us, and on the trees: [excuse the rotation, i'll come back and fix that!]. The kids said the snow ball fight was their favorite part of the trip:

We came home and snuggled up in a warm room to read and hang out:

Mama teaches Baby too swim!

A new baby hippo was born at the zoo weeks ago, and Pete has been desiring to visit. We spent a Sunday afternoon there, and most of our time was spent "oohing" and "ah-ing" at the Hippo pond. Here the mother is guiding the baby into the water. The mama looks SO big with the baby hippo next to her.
The mama was teaching the baby while we were there. Guiding the baby as it was in the water, then lifting the baby up to get air. It was fascinating.

The boys were "boys" and were tree climbing right after and being silly. Here is our younger son' "EEEE" pose:

And now you can tell they are on a tree:

If you are in the area, maybe try to stop by :-) Happy Hippo Day!

The Cat Walk

 What a blessing to have a picture of the three sisters together. We were hiking the zoo with our 3 boys and the main animal attraction on this trip was the Big Cat family - mountain lion, cheetah, jaguar, leopard, et al. Josh enjoyed seeing the differences between the cats. My favorite sight that day was seeing the panda bears. The have such personality! It was one of the bear's birthdays, and he had tons of bamboo to feast on.