Easter 2017

We had a very busy Easter week.  Busy with good things though and fun times with Grandma Morris in town.  We had an Easter egg hunt at Grandma Barreth's home on Saturday.  Here's a few pictures from that. 

The older two had to let the little ones have a head start.

We hid some eggs for the advanced hunter.  Here she is getting one on top of the van.

Climbing to get one.  I mean, this is a hunt after all.

Is it me or does she look like a pre-teen?

Owen.

My two girls Easter Sunday.  Aren't they beautiful?

My 3

Ben wasn't in this photo because he was getting ready to tell the kids at church the story and dressed like a Roman soldier.

I got Zeke a chocolate bunny holding a baseball bat. There is no Easter bunny here, just boring ol' mom and dad giving you chocolate. :)

Romy was with me when I chose the one Easter treat to get the kids and I was pleased that she chose a chocolate cross.  Pleased because it was less chocolate overall and also because it was a cross.  When I gave it to her on Easter morning... she wasn't pleased.  My mom said, "isn't that just like all of us.. we choose something and then when it comes we aren't pleased with it."  She got over it and ate it in one sitting.

Here's a few of Ben telling the Easter story through the perspective of a Roman soldier (watching the Crucifixion and guarding the tomb)

Today we went to our Community Bible Study and Romy looked so cute today that I wanted to take some photos of her.  She insists on making a "funny face".

The first of our peonies opened today.  What a wonderful gift!  What a life to be thankful for!

Spring Time in the Park

I love spring.  I love the flowers, the weather, the sun, the everything.  Here's Romy helping me cook again. (making deviled eggs this time)

Ben teaching the Bible to kids.

Gwen participating.

Max sunning.

Me making treats for teachers at the preschool.

The albino squirrel while I'm on a walk with Gwen.

Riding the horsey at the store.

Ants have invaded.

Zeke in his first grade musical.  He is one of the 3 little pigs.  Isn't he precious?

On getting older

I'm no Maya Angelou, but here goes-

When your eyes are a little puffy
And your neck a little wrinkly
And you don't have the same worry
When you can't find the energy for things
And Brussels sprouts and birds and squirrels excite
You know you're gaining ground.

You know when commitment
And hard won unity are sexy
And surrender is a constant friend and not foe
You are moving on-

When you worry about a legacy
More than your own comfort
Or quality relationships instead of quantity
You are getting older

Getting older isn't bad at all
It's slower and more purposeful
And round and full
It isn't straining for what you don't have
But accepting the thing placed in your hands

Tall Trees

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by Maya Angelou

When Great Trees Fall


by Maya Angelou

May 28, 2014

When great trees fall,

rocks on distant hills shudder,

lions hunker down

in tall grasses,

and even elephants

lumber after safety.



When great trees fall

in forests,

small things recoil into silence,

their senses

eroded beyond fear.



When great souls die,

the air around us becomes

light, rare, sterile.

We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,

see with

a hurtful clarity.

Our memory, suddenly sharpened,

examines,

gnaws on kind words

unsaid,

promised walks

never taken.


Great souls die and

our reality, bound to

them, takes leave of us.

Our souls,

dependent upon their

nurture,

now shrink, wizened.

Our minds, formed

and informed by their

radiance,
fall away.

We are not so much maddened

as reduced to the unutterable ignorance
of
dark, cold

caves.



And when great souls die,

after a period peace blooms,

slowly and always

irregularly. Spaces fill

with a kind of

soothing electric vibration.

Our senses, restored, never

to be the same, whisper to us.

They existed. They existed.

We can be. Be and be

better. For they existed.

― Maya Angelou