Celebrating Easter

He is Risen!!

Photos from Easter Morning:

Photo 86 of 365, taken March 31st.


We did have a slight amount of snow {see underneath the tree in the background, there were small, scattered patches of snow throughout the yard} on the ground Easter morning. I can't remember the last time that has happened.

Photo 87 of 365, taken March 31st. It's a rare occasion when we get a photo of me and Dave.


Photo 88 of 365, taken March 31st. The girls making a very delicious breakfast. I may have forgotten to make these resurrection buns this year without a reminder from the girls. They are so good.


Running around the yard to find eggs. It was a beautiful Easter day! Definitely the most Spring-like weather we have had so far this year!

If only you could see these dance moves in live action instead of frame by frame in this collage...they are pretty special!!

The reason we celebrate Easter ~
"Yes. Someone is going to come and rescue you! But he won't be who anyone expects.

He will be a King! But he won't live in a palace. And he won't have lots of money. He will be poor. And he will be a Servant. But this King will heal the whole world.

He will be a Hero! He will fight for his people and rescue them from their enemies. But he won't have big armies, and he won't fight with swords. He will make the blind see. He will make the lame leap like deer! He will make everything the way it was always meant to be.

But people will hate him, and they won't listen to him. He will be like a Lamb - he will suffer and die.

It's the Secret Rescue Plan we made - from before the beginning of the world!

It's the only way to get you back.

But he won't stay dead - I will make him alive again!

And, one day, when he comes back to rule forever, the mountains and trees will dance and sing for joy! The earth will shout out loud! His fame will fill the whole earth - as the waters cover the sea! Everything sad will come untrue. Even death is going to die! And he will wipe every tear from every eye.

Yes, the Rescuer will come. Look for him. Watch for him. Wait for him. He will come!

I promise."
~ excerpt from The Jesus Story Book Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones.

HAPPY EASTER!!

Please Read to me, Emma

Photo 83 of 365, taken March 30th.

Good Friday

It has become a Good Friday tradition to go to the noon service at church and then come home to decorate eggs.

Photo 81 of 365, taken March 29th:
Emma's friend, Willow and Rebekah's friend Skylar came over to help us with the eggs.


Willow is one of the funniest kids I have ever met, Emma just loves her! Someone at church asked them if they were twins, they were dressed similarly at the time as a result of raiding our closets looking for matching outfits, but they look nothing alike :-)

Photo 82 of 365 taken March 29th:

I thought Rebekah's expression to dropping her egg into the wrong color was too funny.

She was trying to make a pink egg, and accidentally used the red dye on the left instead of pink. The red egg turned out beautifully!

The pretty eggs.

Alyssa was so proud of this centerpiece she created on the kitchen table with a glass bowl and some of our cute plastic eggs.

Thank you, Lord for Good Friday. The very foundation of our faith rests on what you did on this day and our whole lives are changed because of your sacrifice. Thank you for your incredible love.

"You see, God knew however high they reached, however hard they tried, people could never get back to heaven by themselves. People didn't need a staircase; they needed a Rescuer. Because the way back to heaven wasn't a staircase; it was a Person.

People could never reach up to Heaven, so Heaven would have to come down to them.

And one day, it would."
~ excerpt from The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones {staircase referenced from the people's attempt to build a giant staircase to heaven with the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11}

Emma's Level 7 State Meet

Sunday was Emma's level 7 State Meet. She did a great job, scoring her second highest all around of the season.


I'm not sure what I am saying to Emma here, but it looks serious. Because of the timing of the sessions, I needed to be the coach on the floor for Emma's group. I think it made me more nervous than her, she seemed completely un-phased by my presence. She just did what she always does while my mind raced like crazy trying to keep up :-)

Photo 80 of 365, taken March 24th:

Great meet, Little Em! We are very proud of you!!

A Day For Birthday Parties

Saturday {the same day as the Easter Egg Hunt, below} was a fun and busy birthday party day for the girls!

Rebekah started out the day at a party for her friend, Bella at Kidz in Motion. It was our first time there and they have a super neat "tubes" area in the center of the play area, surrounded by several smaller themed play areas. Rebekah loved the dig site, the doctor's office and the classroom. I loved the huge lite brite set, but it didn't really catch her attention too much. Maybe because she has never played with my actual size version of the game from the 80s.

Photo 79 of 365, taken March 23rd:

Rebekah and her sweet friends. The little girl in green was the birthday girl.

Later in the day, all the girls went to a party for one of their best friends, Alyssa. She had a fun bounce house and gymnastics party. I took limited photos because my cell phone camera was just not cutting it with the gym lighting. It was an awesome day to celebrate with friends!

Chocolate Easter Eggs

Photo 77 of 365, taken March 23rd:

Early yesterday morning we took the girls to Pick N Save for their annual Easter Egg Hunt. If it looks like Emma just woke up in this photo, it's because she did...she grumbled on our walk in from the parking lot, why do they always do this so early? And I, for one would like to request a little more enthusiasm from the carrots, I feel like they are missing the mark on their job by a bit.

That tricky Emma, she'll get ya every time.

Alyssa was too old for the Easter Egg Hunt itself this year, but don't worry about her too much. She knew just where to go...to the table where the Lion's Club were serving piping hot pancakes!! Yum!

For the egg hunt, the store breaks the kids into age groups and sends each group down their own aisle of the grocery store that has lots of hidden treats everywhere...and just a few plastic eggs with prize certificates in them.

We ended up with two huge grocery bags full of chocolate eggs. More chocolate eggs than all 5 of us could eat before next Easter, so who knows what we are going to do with them all.
Photo 78 of 365, taken March 23rd:

Both girls somehow walked away with the first prize plastic egg in their aisle. I tell you, they're always winning the good stuff!

A New Favorite for the Girls...

Yesterday, we discovered a new favorite frozen yogurt place: Sweet Frog!!

I am not sure how new they are to our area, but they were new to us, and we LOVED it!!

Photo 76 of 365, taken March 22nd:

The self serve on everything is a little dangerous for eager hands and hungry eyes ready to fill their bowls with enough ice cream for three people, but the girls managed to finish everything they dished out ~ it was soooo good!

The Never-Ending Winter

Photo 75 of 365, taken March 19, 2013:

I took this picture after school yesterday, with at least some disbelief that we are more than half way through the month of March and we still have not really seen even the slightest glimmer of Spring. This is Wisconsin, I probably should not be surprised.

The girls aren't bothered by the snow, but it would sure be nice if it all melted! Spring is coming soon, I just know it!

A Very PINK St. Patrick's Day

We celebrated St. Patrick's Day in a very pink way ~ I took the girls to see Pinkalicious at First Stage Children's Theater.

Everything was so pink and so cute, the girls loved it all!!

Photo 74 of 365, taken March 17th. The girls enjoyed the musical, and it was very fun! Alyssa auditioned for this season of plays, really hoping to get cast as "Pink" and it was one of those things that as I watched the play, I was secretly a tiny bit thankful that it didn't happen. Pink was a little sassy for my liking and unfortunately {or maybe not so much} Alyssa doesn't quite have it in her to pull that off.

Nothing better than pink cupcakes to finish off a fun afternoon at the theater!

Alyssa's Music Festival

Yesterday Alyssa competed at the WMSA Music Festival for the first time. It was the district level of a state-wide music competition for kids in middle school and high school throughout Wisconsin.

Photo 73 of 365, taken March 16th:

This is Alyssa right after her French horn solo. I thought she looked so little playing in this huge room all by herself. She worked really hard on this piece, using any extra time during her free hours to get in additional practice on it. She got a second place ribbon, finishing only a half point out of the first place range. Before WMSA she was thinking about taking Japanese next year instead of band, but I think the experience has convinced her that she should keep playing the French horn, at least a little while longer.



This is a video of her singing solo, where she sang "Wind of the Western Sea." She could not pick her singing selection for the competition, she had to choose from a list of pre-determined selections. The song definitely grew on her as she practiced it more. She won a first place in the singing category. We are so proud of you, Sweet Alyssa, great job!

Lunch Date

Photo 72 of 365, taken March 13th:

Yesterday Dave and I went out for lunch while the girls were in school. We try to have a lunch date every so often since those are so much easier than trying to go out in the evening, and we sure must like Mexican food because as I have scanned through the photos I took at our lunches, several of them have been at Mexican restaurants. This was so yummy and I even tried guacamole for the first time! I loved it, but I am not sold on all guacamole, or avocados for that matter. I know avocados are very good for you, but something about the texture isn't quite right to me.

Game Night "Shedule"

Emma planned a family fun night schedule for us one night last weekend while Alyssa was busy with a youth group activity at church. I think Emma enjoyed being the kid-leader of the family for the night. She was extremely punctual, making sure we moved from item to item on her list in the exact time frame she planned out for us.

Photo 71 of 365, taken March 9th.

Her phonetic spelling makes me smile. She wrote the word schedule like she-dule, but was pronouncing it the way that English people do. I think this is a bit of her German sneaking up on her without her even knowing/realizing the error she's making. It happens to all the girls at different times, that they either say something not quite right, or it's too proper to be "Proper American English," and it makes me laugh knowing it's a just a little something they picked up at school. Oh... and make sure you don't forget to RSP!

Behind the Scenes at the Milwaukee County Zoo

We always enjoy the "Behind the Scenes" weekend at our zoo each year. This year, I think we saw mostly repeats of exhibits we have already been behind the scenes for, but it was still fun anyway!


The zoo really feels like a different place in the Winter. So much more quiet, and not just because there are fewer people there. One of the zoo volunteers explained to us how different the personalities of the animals are in the Winter, when they are more restful. She said the animals seem to miss the audience very much when there is not the summertime crowds.

Being explorers {explorers who glow, no less}.


One of the new things we did this year was to visit the care areas of the Primate House. The tour guide pointed to this laundry set up and explained that this is one of the only habitats in the zoo that has a need for laundry services. This is because the animals like to have towels and small blankets in their exhibits to cover up with and play with the way they might do with a large leaf or some brush in the wild.

I listened to him explaining this and could see that Emma had something that she wanted to say. As we were walking away, she leaned into me and with a confident nod and a very knowing tone she said, "Those gorillas do their own laundry." She said it like she was proud of them, and it just created a funny mental image for me as I pictured the gorillas hovering over a washing machine and folding towels after zoo hours. Yes, at the Milwaukee County Zoo, we have the most advanced primates in captivity. That's Emma's story anyway, and she's sticking to it!

I think we take one version or another of this giraffe cutout picture on every visit to the zoo.

Photo 70 of 365, taken March 9th.

Festival of Nations

One night last week, Alyssa's school held their annual Festival of Nations. I forgot to bring a camera, and did not even have my cell phone on me, so I missed getting a picture of her spring time haiku in Japan, and I completely missed even seeing the homemade board game she made as we walked through South America {it was just one of those nights}. We did manage to stop and get face painting done.
Photo 69 of 365, taken March 7th:

The girls loved the way their face paint looked, but if you ask Rebekah, she'll tell you it was awfully sticky. She was equal parts sad and excited to wash it off, and I was scrubbing flecks of that blue paint out of the bath tub for two days afterwards. I'm not sure where it was coming from after the initial time I washed it out...it just kept magically re-appearing.

Another President's Home

Photo 68 of 365, taken March 3rd:

On our drive back from Iowa, we stopped in Galena, Illinois to see President Ulysses S. Grant's home. Emma was so proud of the can of orange soda that she is holding here. She posed with it in every photo we took on this day. We later joked that we needed to photoshop Alyssa into this pic.

Emma by a statue of Ulysses S. Grant's wife. She was the first wife of a US President to be referred to as The First Lady.

Happy to be playing in the snow on the Grant property.

Galena is a really beautiful place!

Wow, Gymnastics!

The gymnastics meet in Iowa was super intense, some of the highest scores I have seen at a USAG meet ever. They started the meet in a very different way than I have ever seen as well. After marching in and announcing the participating teams, they had the teams gather at the middle of the floor.

Photo 65 of 365, taken March 2nd. The announcer had some words of advice for all the gymnasts, then they began cheering as they huddled together. Even though they give team awards at meets, gymnastics tends to be a very individual sport. It was kind of neat to see them encourage unity among the competitors.

Overall, it was a good meet for Emma. She had her highest vault, beam and all around scores of the season, setting the level 7 club record on beam and all around for her gym. There were girls in her age group scoring 9.6-9.7 on every event, and she wasn't quite scoring that, but she kept a positive attitude about it, and it is good for her to see that such a high level of competition is out there.

Photo 66 of 365, taken March 2nd. Her team ended up in 3rd place.

Photo 67 of 365, taken March 2nd. A highlight of the day was meeting 2012 Olympic Team alternate, Anna Li. Anna was there coaching for her family's gym. She is probably one of the best female uneven bar workers in the world.