Easter 2009 - Part II - Eppersons

Saturday night of Easter weekend we continued our long running tradition of going over to my parent's house to dye Easter eggs. My mom always has a couple of dozen eggs ready for us all to enjoy coloring. Aaris has been able to do everything independently for a couple of years now. For the first time Titus was pretty much independent this year as well. That was fun. He loves to do things "all by myself" as he puts it. My mom's is the best helper though and jumps in right when needed. She also had a fun new design trick this year. She helped to wrap rubber bands around some of the eggs before we put them in the dye color. The egg changes color except for where the rubber band was. I liked putting polka dots on a couple of mine. Aaris's favorite egg was a pink one that had a cross drawn on it. Skylyn pretty much just played with Papaw. We all had a really fun time.

Easter 2009 - Part I - Denningtons

Boy, with 3 kids, our house on the market, and every weekend packed full of activities I have really fallen behind in my posts. So, here we go with trying to catch up.

Aaron's brothers and sister-in-law and niece came into town to all be together for Easter. We spent Saturday letting the kids help Poppy (Aaron's dad) in his vegetable garden. They loved finding worms and digging in the dirt. After that we helped the kids cut out sugar cookies. It was fun seeing them repeatedly pick out their favorite shape be it a cross, an egg, a butterfly, a flower, or a bunny. We then got to dye Easter eggs. There is just something so exciting about watching a plain white egg evolve into a beautiful treasure of color. We then all enjoyed a homemade lunch prepared by Mamaw (Aaron' mom).

Holy Heart Day

Friday, April 10, 2009 (also Good Friday) was Aaris's first annual Holy Heart Day. This is the one year anniversary of Aaris's open heart surgery to repair her congenital heart disease. On this day she went from having a hole in her heart to having a holy heart.

We hope to start the tradition of always finding some way to give back on this day since she was given to so greatly. This year we went to the post office and mailed her cut off hair to Locks of Love.

Other special things we did included making her a Holy Heart Day t-shirt, having a heart shaped sandwich for lunch, making heart cupcakes in the afternoon, going to Going Bananas (a large building full of air-filled bouncy houses, slides and obstacle courses) and eating dinner with all of our family at Cafe 1626.

Aaris is full of energy and has really become a very lovey-dovey girl. She loves to love on people with hugs and kisses and loves to loved on in the same way. It also brings her great joy to find ways to help people and make them feel special. But, still, what thrills me the most is how much she loves God and Jesus! She has even started asking to eat crackers and juice almost daily so that she can remember Jesus.

I still feel so honored and beyond grateful that God healed Aaris for us and that she is a strong and beautiful hearted child of His now one year later. I'm looking forward to a lifetime of these celebrations!

Bluebonnets

Aaron went to our church's annual men's retreat this weekend, so the kids and I were by ourselves. I needed to think of things to do while alone with them in order to survive. I called up my dear friend, Leslie, who takes great pictures and who has a neighbor with a beautiful wild flower yard and organized a time to go take bluebonnet pictures. We got some great hand-me-down clothes that matched for Aaris and Titus, and Skylyn wore one of Aaris's baby dresses. It was beautiful weather, and despite my anxiousness the kids did great. Here are some of the many pictures. Again, thanks Leslie for helping me with the kids and for snapping some pictures of Skylyn and me.

Surprise

SURPRISE!!! That is exactly what I got at 3:00 am in the morning one year ago today. I had been feeling funny for about a week and always hot, never able to cool off. I woke up from a dream where I was taking a pregnancy test. Well, I really needed to go to the bathroom, so I figured, why not. I looked in the back of my cabinets and found an extra left over test. I waited 3 minutes almost falling back to sleep and found myself looking at a plus sign on the pregnancy test. WHAT!?!?! Needless to say it took me awhile to fall back to sleep again. The next day after work the kids and I told Aaron the big news with new "Big Brother" and "Big Sister" shirts. That evening Aaron's parents invited us to meet them for dinner, so they found out the surprise news as well. We had dinner again with them tonight and this time we were holding Skylyn now 4 1/2 months old. It's amazing how our lives have changed in one year. I didn't know I needed her. I didn't plan on her coming, especially when she did. But, let me tell you, I don't know how I could live without her. I love you Skylyn and I'm so happy that God knew better then we did.