Tornado Trauma Continues

The rain and cloudy skies and storms have been going on here for weeks. And it doesn't appear that they will be letting up anytime soon. But Brynn still hasn't been able to adapt and get over her new fear of rain drops and wind. The rumbles of thunder and flashes of light are her new nightmare. And so the following texts took place between PJ and his mom...
Annette: Wow sounds like u guys have had some major weather. Any damage?
Preston: Does ur granddaughter's decline in mental health count as damage???

Yep, for her sanity (and consequently mine) we need the sun to start shining around here I suppose. And to almost make matters worse - we had an incident the other night. PJ was at the stove working on our fondue cheese when I asked him to reach above him and grab me the matches. Which he did. And a moment later he noticed his scrubs were on fire. Uh huh... we are talking flames. And what did he do? Or I guess I should say what did he not do?... After years of drills he did NOT stop, drop and roll??!?!??! He blew on the flames. But they went out. And why am I bringing this up? Well, because while I was momentarily concerned for my husbands safety - proven in the fact that I did NOT run and grab my camera while he was in flames. (I just waited and asked him to relight himself on fire once I realized I panicked and missed the moment ;)) - the very next thought that entered my head was "Oh wow. Honey don't do that again. I don't think Brynn would survive if she was woken up to smoke detectors going off!!!!!" We really would have lost her then!

OK, so the picture of the burned scrubs made me laugh cause I remember much bigger flames... really!! They weren't tiny by any means. And just so you don't think I'm awful, that crazy picture of my daughter actually came from these cute ones of her jump roping on Easter morning...

...she sure does love to jump rope. And has gotten so good at it over this last year!

8 Months!

Month 8 was a BIG month for Kate. Her hair has seemed to be coming in and getting thicker and so far its staying pretty red. She worked real hard and started eating better. And consequently learned how to grab little items off her highchair tray and put them in her mouth. Which then led to her putting everything in her mouth like a normal baby.

Yep... that's a foot. The foot of Clark Morgan to be exact. When I said everything I meant everything :/ Which has made me realize how awful are floors always are and we've had to work hard to keep them swept and vaccumed and picked up.

She also figured out how to sit herself back up - which I thought was a huge accomplishment since she was getting frustrated and would just cry when she needed help with that.

Then about 2 weeks ago she started getting up on her hands and knees and trying to inch around. And slowly she'd crawl a little bit around the room...


We'd leave her one place and find her sitting up in another. Have to admit I kinda liked it when she stayed where I put her. But as of this week she is a full on crawler. She comes and goes as she pleases. And now she's working on pulling herself up on stuff. She's only made it to her knees so far but its not long before she's all the way up. Oh, and I do believe the tiny little corner of her first little baby tooth finally poked through this morning (her right side). And one of my personal favorites... she started clapping this past week also. Yes, she's been a very busy little girl. I guess one thing that hasn't changed is that she still isn't able to get her sounds out very well. But that's ok... I need something to remind me she's still my baby...

Easter Egg-stravaganza

Thursday afternoon when Gramma & Grampa Peper got here we decided to get the holiday fun rolling by dying Easter eggs...

And Friday was all of our farm fun.

Saturday morning we headed over to swimming lessons at the Y. Then we rushed home to throw an Easter party so we could celebrate with a few friends - the Hartmans, Shumways, and Morgans. It certainly was an egg-stravaganza!

We had a hot dog BBQ...

And colored some Easter coloring pages and formed and decorated easter eggs out of Crayola Model Magic...
And of course I can't not hop at the chance to do another egg hunt...

Kate has loved all of the eggs laying around. And since she was sitting right smack in the middle of all the chaos someone decided to hide an egg (or two) in her dress...

Yep, she didn't mind. And found a few of her own. And even tried to take some of Andy's...

Everyone cracking out their findings...

Sunday morning we discovered the Easter bunny certainly did hop on in overnight...

Since daddy was working, and grampa & his knife were sleeping, Tyler got busy and tore open all the awful toy packaging without any problems! He was a man on a mission.

And when Kate woke up she was pretty happy with her basket...

... and even liked Brynn's new flipflops!

We were thrilled with all of our gifts and blessings. But of course, we remember that the greatest gift of all was the life and love of our beloved Savior and Redeemer.

Easter Sunday

Kate's first Easter...

As I went to shower and get ready for church, I put on the Living Scripture childrens movie of the Ressurection. When I came back down my dad informed me that Tyler sat and watched the movie very intently like I had asked him to. Then when it was over he matter-of-factly stated that that wasn't a real Easter movie because he never saw the Easter bunny. And that didn't actually didn't bother me that much. He knows about the Easter bunny. But he can also tell you why we celebrate Easter - how Jesus died on the cross and then lived again after three days and that because Jesus did that for us, we too will live again. However, he isn't yet able to distinguish the difference between the secular and the spiritual celebrations of the holiday. They are one big celebration in his mind. And that's ok with me for now. But I think for next year I may ask the Easter bunny if he could come to our house on Saturday instead...

This little bunny...

...went to the farm!
This morning we headed over to Eckerts to have breakfast with the Easter Bunny! Last year Dylan was a mess... he started screaming the minute he could see the bunny (even if it was all the way across the room). This year he was in love!...

I think Kate was too...

It was a scrumptious breakfast. And thanks to there being a break in our awful storms we were also able to do all the other fun activities.
Like taking a tractor ride (notice the ominous clouds in the background)...

(Jonathan, Brynn, Macie, Brookie, Tyler, Andy, Dylan)

Our friends the Morgans and the Shumways were there too (minus the daddy's).

We also decorated Easter cookies and planted beanstalks...

And got to do an egg hunt. It went much better this time around...

And we actually spent lots of time holding the baby chicks and bunnies...

All the kids were super brave. But Dylan had a special place in his heart for the bunnies.

He didn't want to let go. He said they were his bunnies. He would have carried them home if I had let him.

Lots of hours of happy Easter fun. And within minutes of walking in our door the rain began to pour again. We were grateful for the momentary clearing!