Easter

We celebrated Easter at our house on Saturday morning because Saturday night we were going to Lance's parents house and (of course) they had their own little easter basket and egg hunt for him there. The Easter bunny was good to him, he got some candy, a new outfit, and a t-ball bat and gloves (and a few other little things).

This picture is of all of Javan's cousin's on Lance's side. Its loads of fun for Javan when we get together with them.

Pop that popcorn!

My friend, ashley, often mentioned how much she loved fresh popped popcorn in a pan better than the commercialized microwave popcorn. But I never got a chance to actually make it that way.

Today was the day! Oh yum...if you cook it with butter it already has the buttery goodness taste baked in. Aaaaannndd....its so much cheaper...and waaayyyy more fun for a 4 year old!!!

Decorating easter eggs!!

Branson Pics

I finally got around to uploading our pics from Branson. To view them, click this link:

https://picasaweb.google.com/Merriettgrace/Branson#

And a few other pics....

Javan's first T-ball practice

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Helping Lance clean his motorcycle.

A day at the park.

Today we decided to have lunch at the park. Javan chose a park that is downtown by where Lance works. It wasn't one of the usual parks that we go to. 

Well after wee had lunch and played for a while...they started setting up the towns Easter Egg hunt!

Lucky day!! Javan had a great time and afterwards they had a storyteller. It was an awesome day!!

Basket O Loot

A little bunny

The story teller and the 3 little bunnies in her story. She was very good. 

She kind of reminded me of my mom. In fact, I think my mom should

start a business as a storyteller :-)

Ahh its a beautiful day. Lance, Javan and our neighbor Matthew went to the park to play some tennis and some catch and I am relaxing in a quiet home finishing up some sewing projects. Can't get much better than that!  

We had an awesome day. I'll blog about it soon but the pictures are on Lances phone so I have to wait until he gets home to post about it. 

Meanwhile, hi ho hi ho away I sew... 

Can't wait to share with you all about the projects i'm working on. I will definitely blog about them when I'm all done :-)

A garbage disposal and an ice cream maker

Some of you may remember the time about 18 month ago (give or take) when Javan decided to put some of his rocks in my sink... which ultimately ended up in a destroyed garbage disposal.  It was just Javan and me at the time and I was sooo proud that I purchased a new one and installed it all by myself :-)

Well, last week the garbage disposal decided to go kaplooey on me, no rocks involved - I promise!

Since it was still under the 2 year warranty, I decided to give it a shot and called the company. They tracked the serial number to prove that it was still under warranty and TADA a new garbage disposal was delivered yesterday..

The best part.... I didn't have to install it this time! haha. Gotta love that hubby.

The same day that I called the disposal company, I couldn't get my ice cream maker to work. I knew that it was just operator error, considering I had only used it once before and it worked perfectly fine then...so, since I had calling the company on my mind (from the garbage disposal incident) I decided to call the company that made the ice cream maker to see if they could figure out what I was doing wrong.

Apparently, it takes too much time to walk through it with me step by step cause they just sent me a new one!! We gave that one to our friend.  Shew, we had a garbage disposal and an ice cream maker delivered to us in the same week and didn't spend a penny.

So, the next time your appliance doesn't work (and its fairly new) it might be worth trying to call the company.

Oh and I also learned that substituting honey or maple syrup for sugar in making ice cream is not really a good idea if you want it to look like ice cream (but it does taste just as yummy).

and.... sorry for the random post that says one word "stop". Every once in a while I get marketing text messages and if you text them back with the word "stop" they usually stop sending... I accidentally send it to the blog instead - who know's how i pulled that off.  haha.

We went up to Lance's parents house for the day. Javan was THRILLED to get a ride on the tractor. :-)

Yesterday was a gorgeous 80 degree weather day so we decided to head out on a bike ride.

Javan and I wanted to show Lance where the kindergarten was so we rode our bikes there. Jav and I had visited the school for the first time on Friday for Javan's kindergarten round up. Any anxieties I had about sending him to this school were put to ease. The teachers all seem wonderful and we found out that one of Javans friends from church will be going to the same school. An answer to prayer!!

They have an awesome playground there so we played for a while.

That was where Javan went across the monkey bars for the first time all by himself!! Amazing!

We are on our way home!

It was a really wonderful relaxing vacation! THe sight and sound show was Awesome! Jav really enjoyed it!

Mom-mom sent some extra money so we could buy Javan a t-shirt.

Well, we did buy a t-shirt but we also bought an umbrella for him.

WHAT a hit that crazy umbrella has been!! He has taken the umbrella everywhere.

After the show we had a wonderful dinner with Pearl and Rick...don't worry he brought the umbrella...

The picture is of Javan in the backseat, with his umbrella, watching movies on his computer. The umbrella is actually helpful blocking the sunlight through the window. :-)

2 hours of unlimited go carts!! YAY!

Its been a fun couple of days!

On Thursday Javan got a package from Aunt Julie which is always exciting. He wore his new slippers on top of his new socks for the rest of the day. Stickers, stamps, and some really goofy glasses.

Friday morning Javan woke me up by crawling in bed with me, cuddled up and sang Happy Birthday. He remembered it was my birthday and was excited to sing to me! **melt** helped me forget it was 6:40 am.

After work we packed up the car and headed to Branson!

Staying in a hotel is so exciting for a four year old!

This morning we had some breakfast and headed right on over to the go cart place!

The sight and sound show is at 3:30!! Can't wait!

A God who heals

So, last night right before bed by LOWER back started hurting me.

I used to have upper back pain from time to time from the accident but nothing really major over the past few years.  Of course, I have the occasional back pain from time to time from sleeping wrong or carry something the wrong way or whatever.  I didn't think much of it and when to bed.

In the middle of the night the back pain WOKE ME UP. I couldn't get comfortable.  THEN a migraine started to set in.  Gosh, its been years since I've had a migraine.

I couldn't see straight.
I felt nauseas from the headache
and my back still hurt!!

I took some aspirin and laid in bed thinking "I've got to call the pastor in the morning because there is no way I'm going to make it to church" (it was my week on the assimilation team).... and finally fell asleep.

I woke up feeling better. the headache was gone and just the slightest lingering of the back pain. The car ride conversation between Lance and me was all about what could have caused all of that pain that night.

We were baffled.

The sermon was great, as usual, and even though it was slightly off topic from what the pastor was speaking about I got this incredible urge to ask God to give me an opportunity to pray for someone this week.

One frustrating thing about being home all day everyday is that I don't get a lot of opportunities to pray for people. I began to think, ya know, I probably get more opportunities than I think and I should ask God to reveal to me one person this week that I could pray for.

I felt good about my prayer to God and after the message was over and  they started worship, I had to run to the bathroom quickly.

On the WAY to the bathroom, one of the pastors stopped me and said "Merrie, Would you mind praying for a couple of people when you get back." He had known that in the previous services the lead pastor was going to ask for anyone who needed healing prayer to come up front.

I still hadn't made the connection from my prayer during service and Pastor Fred's request. I ran to the bathroom, returned and Fred lead me up front to some women who needed prayer.

The first women I prayed for, I asked "How can I pray for you?"

Her response: "I have terrible back pain in my lower back". I put my hand on her back and prayed for her. She said I put my hand right in the same exact spot that the pain had started.... how did I know??

The second women I prayed for, I asked "How can I pray for you?"

Her response: "I have terrible back pain in my lower back".

The third women I prayed for, I asked "How can I pray for you?"

Her response: "Please pray that God will heal my migraines."

I had taken a class on Healing and prayer at this church over a year ago and during that class I was told that God sometimes puts pain on your body when he is going to heal someone else of that same pain.

This was something that I have never ever experienced before.

I may never see these three women again. I may never know if God actually healed them or not. But, one thing that I know FOR SURE is that God wanted me to pray for them.  I feel so honored that God was willing to use me in that way and I can't wait to see what other ways he is going to be moving in my life in the future.

Praise Him!!

Toy Story on Ice...

Giggles at intermission...what a fun show!

Waiting for Disney on ice to start!!!!! So exciting!

RECIPE

Oh boy... I just found this AMAZING cheese cracker recipe.  Its soooooo yummy and soooo easy!

I might  be making these every day!!! (if you want them crispy like an actually cracker then cook them longer than the recommended 14 min)

http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/2011/03/23/recipe-easy-cheesy-crackers/

By the way, for all of you coffee drinkers out there. Check out these homemade flavored creamers. I can't wait to give some of these a try:

http://deliciouslyorganic.net/homemade-coffee-creamer/print/

Well we were a bit impulsive this weekend.

It all started on Friday when lance needed a new ignition coil for his car. His car is awesome and comfortable but it is so expensive to fix.

After lots of discussion we decided to put the car on craigslist on Saturday morning just to see if we could even sell it.

Four hours later it was sold and gone.

What did we do. What any logical family would do in this situation.... we bought a motorcycle!

Ok maybe most people wouldn't buy a motorcycle but Lance had been eyeing this particular bike for a while and soooo we decided to get it.

It was a good deal and we will probably sell the bike for a car after the summer or maybe not...who knows....we aren't too worried about it. Either way we are having fun with the motorcycle this summer. :-)

This morning Javan excitedly announced

"Mom my tooth is a little wiggly"

I didn't believe him at first. But SURE ENOUGH one of his front teeth is loose!!

I keep clinging to the idea that he is still my baby.... I know....denial...its ok.

Today was a great day... well, with this week... everyday has been awesome. The weather has been beautiful which just makes everybody here happy happy.

Spring break!! Lance has no school work this week and Javan has the neighbor kids around to play.

Every day this week we have gone on bike rides.  Its been fun going around our little neighborhood but lately we have had fun biking through the hills by the apartments nearby.

There is a open field with several steep hills and a big tree that javan wanted to climb.  He said to me
"Mom, I'm going over to climb that tree."
me: "OK"
Javan "but last time I hurt my ankle trying to climb it" (grabbing his elbow)
me: "that's your elbow"
Javan: "Oh, well, i hurt my ankle"
Me: "do you know where your ankle is?"
Javan: "no" and starts to walk away.

I was laughing to myself about it, Lance was zooming up and down the hills so he didn't hear the conversation. Then, Javan stops, turns around and says... I mean I hurt my HAND. waving his hand up in the air.

What a silly kid.

We met a new friend today. His name is Jay. He is 5 years old and is in Kindergarten. He goes to a different school then Javan will but lives in one of the houses in our neighborhood.  The dad stays home with the kids so it sounds like Jay will be around a lot. I'm so glad Javan will have a little neighborhood playmate :-)