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Tuesday, April 15, 2008

HAPPY 2nd BIRTHDAY GRANT!!

We love you, Buddy!! We hope that you have a wonderful birthday tomorrow, wish that we could celebrate with you in person!!

Erin and Grant come for a visit!!

Our DEAR friends Gus, Erin, and Grant moved back to California in September! I felt like I was losing my right arm, it was SO hard to let them go! On top of being a WONDERFUL friend for the last several years, Erin took care of Isabella from the time that I went back to work until September!! She did an AMAZING job! I am so thankful and blessed to have had that time!!
Erin and I had been talking about she and Grant coming to visit before he turns 2 and they have to start paying for an airline ticket for him. Needless to say we were so excited when she finally picked some dates and booked their flights! The arrived here in Florence late Thursday the 27th of March and got to be in SC for a whole week! It was wonderful to get to spend so much time with she and Grant, the kids seemed like they picked up right where they left off, and so did we!!
Gus, Erin, Jason and myself have said for a long time that Isabella and Grant are going to get married some day-- Isabella Svendsen -- has a great ring to it, doesn't it?
We had such a great visit that unfortunately I did not get many pictures of, but I will include the ones that I did take!
Eating breakfast with Luke and watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse!!
All three kids playing in Isabella's "house." Actually a car seat box, but she loves it!!
I wish that I had taken more pictures, I will have to get some from Erin that she took!!
Thank you son much for coming to visit us! We love you guys so much!! Next time we see you will be in CA, hopefully!!

Easter 2008

HE IS RISEN!!
Easter was absolutely wonderful this year!! Not only did we get to celebrate our Risen Lord and Savior, but we got to have wonderful family around to celebrate with us! Easter weekend started with a VERY moving Thursday night service at church, and it continued with the arrival of my Grandparents of Friday!!
Saturday the real, busy, festivities started! I went and helped hide over 1200 eggs at church for the annual Southside Baptist Church Easter Eggstravaganza!! It was so much fun to hide the eggs, think about and pray for all of the kids that would later that day be searching for them! Isabella is still at that distractable age, once she found one egg she was happy and played with it only! We tried to get her to look for more eggs but she was more interested in playing with her basket! She had been playing with her basket (from her Grand) for weeks--I have called her "bucket head" because she thinks that it makes a great hat!
My little "Bucket head!!"
An action shot!!
Grand came by to watch the hunt!Before we headed to swimming, she wanted to go down the slide!!
After the Easter egg hunt we had swimming lessons and a nice 3 hour nap!! The naps after swimming lessons have all been three hours or longer!! Nice!!
Great-Grandma loves to shop for Isabella, this time she brought her some Easter decoration, a very prissy ruffled purse (that she HAS to keep a handerchief in to blow her nose with), a bathing suit cover-up (that she is wearing in the picture) and a lamb that she slept with for days.In the evening my Dad came from Charleston for a visit! It is always really nice to see him.
Easter Sunday morning my Mom and Grandma went to church with us!! It was a wonderful moving service, to celebrate our wonderful risen Savior!!

Unfortunately I forgot my camera Easter morning so we took pictures with my moms, I will post them as soon as I can get them from her!!I don't know why, but I love this picture!! It is so sweet to me!!
My Mom was carrying Isabella into church and Grandma and I were probably ten feet behind them, Isabella looked over Mom's shoulder and said "Come on Mama!! Come on!!" Absolutely as clear as you and I could say it--it was so cute! She amazes me daily!
After church we went back to Mom's for lunch, and a nap for Isabella!
It was an absolutely wonderful day!!

Marching on. . .

Okay, so as usual I am running a little late in my posting!! March ended up being quite a busy month, or at least it felt like it!!
On March 8th we started swimming lessons for Isabella--I know that she is too little to actually learn to swim--I am just hoping that at the end of the lessons she will have a healthy fear of the water!! I really want her to enjoy being in the water too. She was so funny the first couple of weeks, she kept looking at us like "What are we doing?" I would totally recommend "Water Babies" classes for any child, she loves it!! They taught us to teach the kids a certain command and say it every time that they come into the pool to us-- jumping in from sitting on the side of the pool!! Jumping in is her favorite thing to do!! I hope that she will be a little fish and love to swim!!
The next week Jason got in the pool and swam with her! It is so funny how she varies from being a Mommy's girl to a Daddy's girl--from day to day, sometimes moment to moment!!
In the picture above they are doing the motions to "The Wheels on the Bus," pool style!!
I am so glad that she is enjoying the lessons as much as we are!!