Easter Weekend

Nick's parents, Dennis and Marilyn are here for the weekend...this is the first trip where Kathryn seems to recognize them, which of course is very fun for all of us. She is quite taken with "Papaw" and "Mamaw," and they have had fun playing with her all weekend.

On Saturday, we went to the church's easter egg hung outreach, including face painting (Kathryn barely sat still long enough to get her face painted)

"Hey, I see eggs out there! Lots of them!"

"Aha! I found two of them!"
Well, we joined the pagan tradition of easter baskets with Kathryn. :) She mostly just loved taking the grass in and out of the basket and was quite thrilled to discover that there were M&Ms in the plastic eggs! We also gave her a little toothbrush and trainer toothpaste (much needed for that "dragon Breath" of hers) and some crayons. As much as I enjoyed Kathryn as a baby, I'm finding that I am REALLY enjoying her as a 14 month old. I love seeing her respond more and interact. Of course there have been more challenging days, too, but on the whole I am really loving this age. Especially now that her molars are through that she was cutting for a while...that was not very fun for either of us. But now she's back to her sweet self, and Mama is much happier, too!

Gotta keep up on the news

Rekindle '08

We spent a wonderful week last week at Laguna Beach, near Panama City, FL with Mission 28 (CrossWay's college ministry). Since Nick is leading a third of the group in a small-group setting, we were invited to go along this year so Nick could preach one of the messages. Jeanie and I drove down with our three girls in a rental SUV, which was smaller than we thought. So we had three carseats across, which actually worked out well. We stayed the night at my sister Margaret's house in Atlanta (which was a lot of fun!), then headed the rest of the way to Florida the next day. We beat most of the people there since we left a day early, so we got to enjoy a nice afternoon at the beach with the girls when we got there. Kathryn really liked the sand (liked eating it, too!). The weather was pretty nice- a little chilly all week, but sunny every day but one. The highlight for me was enjoying the Worship and messages, enjoying time with friends, and getting to know some of the girls in our Care Group a little better. The ride back was interesting. Jeanie and I got to Atlanta around 9:30, and decided we thought we could drive the whole way back that night (4-5 hours from Atlanta). This was probably a bad idea. The first hour was great- girls were both zombies in the back, watching their DVD's (they were so tired but were just sitting there in the dark, eyes wide open, losing brain cells by the minute), and then the rest of the time involved loud crying/screaming, Kathryn and Alathea taking turns waking each other up....so, it was.....interesting. But we made it back to sleep in our own beds, which was nice.

"Vegging" while watching TV...too funny! Feet crossed and everything.

I think Kathryn was trying to imitate the sound the birds were making in this picture

On our balcony...right on the beach! Amazing.

The view from our balcony...beautiful!

The last morning was warm enough for swim suits, so Kathryn got a true "beach experience"

Sitting in a giant hole one of the students dug

loved the sand...eating it, too!

My Love and me