TN and Easter

We took a little vacation to Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg, TN with Ben's family for some much needed QT. The main reason for our time together was to be with Ed, our brother-in-law, since he's being deployed to Afghanistan for the next year. Ed is such an amazing husband, father, brother, uncle and an all around great guy. Here he is with his and Carla's 9 month old son, cutie-pie Cooper. We are going to miss you Edward!! And we will be praying for your quick and safe return home. Disney 2012...it's on!!

All the cousins that were on the trip, minus Elin who was sleeping:

These were on the tram in Gatlinburg. When Grace first came home (from Russia) at 18 months old she wore 6-12 month size clothes. Elin is now wearing some of Grace's 1st clothes, at 6 months. It blows us away to think about how teeny tiny Grace was at 18 months. She still has a teeny waist but loooong legs and she is so smart. She is reading on a 3rd grade level and is in Kindergarten. She's also so happy to finally have a girl cousin to play with.

We were so busy during our trip that I didn't take many pics. I also had a very low camera battery and no charger. But this next set is from our stop at Biltmore on our way home. We had a very short visit and it was pouring rain when we arrived. But when the sun came out it was fabulous. All of the pics we took at the house gardens are on Ben's phone, but I brought my camera when we went to Antler Hill Village for lunch.

My battery died right before we went to the barn to pet all the farm animals but the 3 day old baby goats we saw were suuuuuper cute. The bunny rabbit, goats, chickens, turkins, horse and sheep were pretty impressive too. I'm very jealous of the Grant and Lowrance families who live so much closer and can visit this awesome place more often. In fact it was Sunday's tulip post that gave me the great idea to visit Biltmore in the first place. I'm a sucker for hundreds of beautiful tulips. Of course as we were walking through the gardens I was telling Ben all about how we needed this plant and that plant, and how I was going to plant hundreds of tulips in our yard this Fall. You know, with all the free time we have these days.

During the 30 minutes we had to kill after church on Sunday, while we waited for our favorite restaurant to open for brunch, we had a mini-photo session at a nearby school. Bobby's Alma Mater (Gaston Day), actually.

Ben put an Azalea flower above Elin's ear and I just love this picture.

Elin is still an amazingly easy baby who is always happy. She smiles for anybody and everybody and never gets upset when she's left in the church nursery or with her daytime sitters. She'll start at Buxton's school in June and I have a feeling she will love it since she gets so excited when we go "visit" to pick Buxton up. And she officially has her 1st tooth! The Doc said it was coming at 4 months, and we had all the drooly, poopy, snotty symptoms to go with it for the last 2 months. Finally the first bud appeared and thanks be to God for Elin being tougher than her brother at this stage. And Amen for girl power!

Buxton is really into jumping off everything these days.

He's into a lot of other things that I shouldn't write about that go right along with the "terrible 2s". But with every difficult moment he challenges us with, God's Grace with this sweet muffin overcomes it.

I'm also thankful for God's Grace in keeping my sweet Zion alive and well for the last 12 years. I've made a vow to myself to spend more time with him and give him more attention each day. I know I didn't really need to share that but it's one of those things, if you say it out loud/say it to others, it's more likely to happen.

horses, 6 months and celebrating life

I'm a little behind due to being out of power for 2 days this past week. I really wanted to post about our super fun visit to my Mom's horse barn and all the rest earlier in the week, but better late than never. Plus tomorrow is Ben's birthday and I'll more photos to post from that, I suppose.

On Sunday we went to Mom's barn past Weddington. It is really beautiful there and we all enjoyed it very much.

Elin is loving being able to sit all the way up in the stroller now.

Buxton wouldn't have anything to do with the horses. Even this small white pony that we were going to let him ride. Nope...not havin it.

This is Mom's horse, Secret:

We had a lot of fun. Playing in the ring,

swinging on the awesome tire swing,

climbing on the gate,

and jumping off the steps the riders use to get on their horses.

We celebrated what would have been my Grandma's 92nd birthday that day (April 3rd). Here we are singing Happy Bday to "Gmama".

And the really neat thing about my Grandma's birthday is that Elin turned 6 months old the next day (April 4th). And Elin was born one day before my Mom's bday. I love things like that.

Here are pictures from Elin's 6 month "photo shoot":

Here is Buxton at the same age in the same chair. They have the same eye color, but I think they are starting to look less similiar.

enjoying the view

our screened porch to sunroom renovation is "officially" complete and we sure have been enjoying it. the quotes are because there are of course minor things that still aren't done...like carpet on the stairs, drapes on the windows cushions on the chairs, but these things will get done in due time. i hope.

anyways here are pics:

there's just enough storage for toys in the bookshelf to the right to keep buxton happy for hours. all he needs are his cars, trucks and trains! baskets make for easy clean up and it's really nice not having a ton of toys downstairs now.

the stairs going up to the play/workout room:

i had to post this pic cause i am getting SO many comments on elin's hair these days. i guess it's growing quickly and right now it tends to stand straight up like she stuck her finger in a light socket!

notice the bright sun and summer clothes. what a teaser that weather was.

another try for pics of both kids. not as good as the last little session we had in january but still pretty good. getting buxton to hold her the right way is quite an achievement.

these are just to make you smile:

and here is what we've been doing in this nasty cold weather. watching movies and eating lots of popcorn!