Holy Week

Our Holy week had a horrible beginning, but ended wonderfully!

 

Saturday, Will had a headache but was able to take some Tylenol to get some relief. On Sunday, it was worse, but alternating Tylenol and Ibuprofen he was able to preach both sermons and make it through the day (even though the headache gradually worsened throughout the day.)  He woke up Monday morning around 1 AM with a painful headache and a fever of 102. Throughout the day Monday he fought off a fever (maxing at 103) and a sickening headache.  During the day he made a doctor’s appointment for Tuesday. Around 7 PM I decided that I didn’t want to wait and  I took him to the hospital to get checked out and try to get some relief from the pain. He was admitted to receive IV antibiotics and pain meds.  After two nights in the hospital he was released. Today was the first day that his headache was completely gone (just a little sensitivity to the light).

 

 

Fortunately, my mom had already planned to spend the week with us while Mobile’s schools were on Spring Break.  We truly were blessed to have her here this week while everything was chaos. I also have to say thanks to Will’s mom for coming and sitting with Will while I was at the church for the Dental clinic sign-up. Oh yeah, did I forget to mention that we had that this week also.

 

Wednesday, Anna’s Kindergarten class had their Easter party and participated in an Egg Drop at the school. Anna’s egg didn’t survive the first drop. A friend took pictures but I haven’t gotten them yet. I’ll try to post them later.  Thursday was Isabelle’s class party. She had a great time and filled up on lots of junk food. Here she is with her friend Skylar during the party.

 

 

The kids dyed Easter eggs this week, but Isabelle was only interested long enough for me to get one picture of her, Anna however, was willing to paint for hours if she’d had enough eggs.

 

 

The week ended with an amazing Easter Sunday. During church this morning, our youth presented a drama that was beautiful and the choir sang the beautiful song, My Savior, My God. It is so true, there is nothing we can do to change the fact that He rose from the grave and lives today! Last night as I was tucking Anna into bed, she told me that Easter was her favorite holiday. I asked her why and she said, “not because of the candy and Easter baskets, but because of what Jesus did for us.” I am so glad that my kids know why we celebrate Easter and not just about the fun kid stuff.

 

After church we had Mike and Jessica and the kids, Grandma, and Nana and Pawpaw for lunch and a great Easter Egg hunt. And for the first time ever (I think), it was warm enough for the kids to swim on Easter.

 

 

 

After a beautiful day of worshipping our Lord, and thanking him for what he did for us, all of my kids are healthy, and in their beds asleep. I am blessed.

A Beautiful Day

After cleaning for most of the morning, we decided to spend the afternoon relaxing in our backyard.  The weather was perfect.  It was sunny and 75 degrees with a nice breeze.  The kids had a blast!  Here are a few pictures from the day.


Luke spent a lot of his time pushing his grocery cart and collecting sand from the sand box. 

All three kids enjoyed the swing set.



Isabelle even took time to push her brother!


Anna, our little dare devil, wanted Will to take a picture of her jumping off the swing.  Here is how it turned out.

Here the kids are enjoying their fruit snacks.

We ended the day with a meal of homemade chicken nuggets, homegrown corn (grown at Mrs. Robbi’s house) and field peas.

Spring? Or Summer?

The weather was so pretty this afternoon.  After playing outside, the girls complained that they were hot so I let them swim in the pool. They were in about fifteen minutes before they started turning blue. We even let Luke in the pool for about five minutes and then I made them all get out. Nonetheless, they had a great time! Isabelle said, “I didn’t know it was summer yet.” I told her it was still Spring, even though it felt hot enough to be summer. Here are a few pictures of their first swim in the pool this year.

 

Two Very Different Girls

Isabelle and Anna are only about 22 months apart in age and while they have very similar personalities, they are also very different. Isabelle is much more outgoing and friendly. Whereas Anna is only outgoing once she gets to know a person. Anna does not like to be center of attention and when she is, she shuts down. Isabelle's organizational skills leave something to be desired. I would have to categorize her as a "slob." Anna, on the other hand, spends time cleaning her room and is particular about where her stuff should be. When it comes to school work, Anna has much more focus than Isabelle. Anna is also much more adventurous than Isabelle. Isabelle likes to have fun, but she is more cautious in her approach.

After going through the videos from our most recent trip to Walt Disney World, I discovered a video that truly illustrates these two very different girls. Here is the video of our family on Thunder Mountain. Thanks go to the Lowry family for watching Luke while we rode.






Personally, I think Luke will end up more like Anna as he seems to be more adventurous as he grows older. That could be just because he is a boy!

Let me know what you think. If you can think of any other differences between Isabelle and Anna leave them in the comments below.

My Little Man

A Weekend with the Rushings!

This weekend we went to Fort Walton Beach to spend some time with family. Everyone had a blast. On Friday we all went to cheer on Parker while he played baseball.

There were so many of us that we took up just about the whole set of bleachers. There are several people missing in the photo above. As usual, Lala is aggravating one of my kids.

We tried not to embarrass Parker too much. After the game, we played board games and the Wii. Here are the girls playing some kind of Headbands game.

And here are Uncle Steve and Logan playing Guitar Hero on the Nintendo Wii.

Sometime late at night the kids were all giving out and decided to go to sleep. All the kids slept in the game room with Grandma on the floor. They watched the new Tangled movie to fall asleep to. I think all of them stayed up to finish the movie except for my two girls.

The next morning Grandma and Aunt Jess made pancakes, bacon, biscuits n’ gravy, and sausages for breakfast. The kids got to eat at the grown up table; but because there are so many of them, it became a kids table. On a side note, Aunt Jess’ pancakes aren’t as pretty as Grandma’s.

After breakfast, we decided to go to the beach and play. Here are Parker and Logan playing in the sand.

The boys felt the need to catch everything. So by the end of the day, we had crabs, hermit crabs, minnows, and jellyfish in buckets.  Luke wasn’t too sure about a crab that Parker and Matthew caught.

Luke was content to dig in the dirt and throw the ball around. Here is Luke, Grandma, and Anna filling up a bucket with sand.

Here is Graci playing with the boogie board.

Here are Lydia and Isabelle posing for a picture.

And here is Anna on the boogie board.

Luke still loves the water.

He and Uncle Steve played with this bucket for a long time before he realized that someone had put ‘feesh’ in it.

Here is Lala trying to carry all of her stuff to the beach…by herself.

Can we guess who the two instigators of this next picture were? Yep…the grown-ups.

The kids all decided to fly kites. But as soon as they were up in the air, they handed them off to the adults to hold. This is only five of our eight kites.

And finally here is a picture of all eight kids at the beach.

We had a great time and everyone had fun. All of my kids are fast asleep. Thanks Grandma!