Happy Easter Everybody

Random assortment of Easter Photos :-)

"These are my best friends!"

Good Morning, Davey

Around 7am this morning I was sitting in the living room and I heard Davey talking and cooing in his crib. He was content for over a half-hour as I prayed and read my Bible with a cup of coffee. I wished I could stop time and listen to those sounds forever. Who gets to enjoy a morning like this?! It's a miracle that God had me out of bed and spending time with Him. How patiently He teaches us slow learners how to enjoy Him!

Before I knew it, Mac was up and we went to see Davey. Love this stage:

Happy Feet

Ever since Corrie and Mac saw the movie Happy Feet, they have been trying to impersonate the dancing penguin from the movie.

I think you've nailed it, guys! :-)

Praise God from Whom all blessings flow

A few of our many recent blessings:

Camping in the living room

Picnic lunches in the carport

 

Mac and Davy putting their feet together

 

Going for a "jog" (I use that term liberally)

 

Davy and me Learning Greek with our friend Heather

Playing outside again!

Talking and laughing with Davy in the mornings

Sharing couch time together

Playing dress up (Corrie's version)

Having buddies come and visit!

 

Breakfast

Mac: "Mommy! Me and Corrie are sharing a chair today!"

Me: "I think that's gonna get a little messy, Mac."

Mac: "Yes, of course it will!!!"

That's Mac. :-)

Fro-Ro is on the map!

That's right folks! Our little mountain town had it's 15 minutes of fame a few weeks ago with a visit from Mr. Al Roker himself!

We had a nice big snow and he came to broadcast the weather to the whole nation from a sidewalk just minutes from our house. Pretty surreal and funny!

Maybe next year, Davey! For now you get to look out the window at our "snow-pocalypse."

One the best parts of playing in the snow: warming up afterwards on the couch with pillows and blankees and wearing PJ's  :-)

Sweet retreat

God gave me a very great gift this weekend: I joined the ladies at my church in a trip to Lancaster, PA to see the Sight and Sound Theatre production of Noah.

Mac and Corrie got to spend a few days with Grandpa and Grandma Johns in Baltimore while me and Davey traveled up together.


I wasn't sure how it was all going to shake out with Davey along, but I decided to just go with the flow and enjoy this great gift (and hope that whoever God chose for us to share a room with would be okay with an infant in the room!)

What a very, very sweet surprise the whole weekend was!

Being with all of these ladies is such a gift for me. They love so genuinely and from their hearts. I am so different from them all. I just enjoy being with them and observing and listening to them...it is so refreshing and funny.

For example, I packed a few outfits for me and Davey, and we pretty much wore the same thing the whole time. While unloading our luggage, I overheard one of my friends say, "Well, of course you have to pack at least three outfits for each day because you just don't know what kind of mood you will be in!"

The entire plan for the day on Monday was shopping...for knick knacks and purses and accessories...not exactly my dream activities! But the fact that I could care less about the shopping made me available to drive others around and also spend time listening and visiting with friends going through hard times.

Instead of being a hindrance, Davey was such a blessing to us all. Both of the ladies that God put me and Davey in a room with are dealing with painful/difficult life circumstances, and God made Davey into His special little source of comfort to them. One of these ladies just lost her husband of 47 years, and Davey seemed to love her immediately. She held him often, sang to him, laughed with him and prayed for him. He loved it all. He seemed to save his best and biggest smiles for her. Here she is, singing to him:

There was no shortage of ladies who offered to hold him for me during our Bible study and meal times:

And a special added bonus was that I was able to keep Davey quiet enough to sit through the whole 2+ hour play! I was pretty sure I would have to leave at some point, but it seemed like he timed his crying for the loud singing parts, so no one could really hear him. At the end I found a special surprise all over my shirt and pants: a leaky diaper! It was a fun car-ride home in pee-covered clothes. Right about then I realized there IS an advantage in packing three outfits for each day!

Outside

It has been tough for us to get outside and play lately. (And by "lately", I mean for about the past six or seven months).

But today God has brought us out of the house to enjoy being in His creation! The sunlight feels good.

Davey is sleeping, warm & cozy inside.

Corrie is picking flowers.

Mac is pushing the stroller around and gathering a nice "collection."

And mommy is carrying around her book; catching up on some much-needed reading.

Thank you for this gift, Lord. You love us so!

Davey H. Johns

Loves his daddy so much. It's amazing to see how Davey lights up whenever he is with Ellis. I hope they get to build lots of robots together one day!

This is Corrie Johns

Last weekend Grandma Belding gave Corrie some Cinderella shoes. I can't believe our girly has her first pair of heels already! She's been walking around in them non-stop for the past 6 days.





She's been calling them her "glass slippers" (They are actually plastic). If you could only see the steam and fog built up in those things. They make her feet into little sweat machines! I am starting to hear the sound of her stomping around in those heels in my sleep!

Corrie is also starting to test the boundaries, big time. She's usually our "good eater," but lately she has been refusing to eat her dinner. Twice she has had to stay at the table until bedtime :(  

Mac was never able to hold out that long! We've got our work cut out for us here. Last night she would not take a bite of bread and had to sit at the table long after we were all done:

                           

She starting putting on a little show for us, just to make sure we knew she was still there:

I was starting to wonder when Corrie would break. I started praying for her and for wisdom for us. Was she going to spend another whole evening confined to the dinner table?

Nope! Phew. What a pleasant surprise to see that she decided to eat her bread.

I knew she loved that bread, and I also knew she was hungry. She just wanted to test the limits.

She's also been testing bedtime and naptime. This is what I saw the other night when I checked in on her. What in the world?!!!

Little girly has had several nights of getting out of bed, getting disciplined, getting out of bed again...all the way up until 9 and sometimes 10pm. Never had to do this before with either kid. Bedtime has always been our sure bet...

Well Corrie, I am on my knees in prayer for you again. Love you so much.


On a side note: Your brother and Grandpa Dean think you are a pretty great little girl to have around!

Fish and House Guests

Ben Franklin said house guests are like fish: they start to smell after three days. Generally true! But not always. If you are lucky, you might come across a family who welcomes you in and genuinely doesn't mind your smell...even after three days!

A few weeks ago, me (Amanda) and the kids hopped in the minivan for a road trip back down to NC. We were missing our friends, the Rockes, pretty bad. We left on a Tuesday, and Kelly said, "stay through the weekend!" Wow.  I was sure we would drive the poor Rockes crazy before then. My plan was just to play it by ear and see how it went. 

It went awesome.

When we arrived, the kids fell right back in step with each other, playing together and having fun before bed time. It was so great to see Kelly and Dan...that night I could hardly fall asleep because of how fun it was to be with our good friends again. 

We picked right up with our usual routine...meeting friends at the park, going for walks, visiting the mu-zay-um (Calvin's words), and squeezing in the traditional visit to Starbucks. The one huge disaster we experienced was trying to "treat" the kids to lunch at Chick-fil-a. I kept building up the playground and how fun it would be to play there, but when the kids got there, the babies had hit their limit and the play structure was built just a few inches too big for Jack and Corrie to climb. There was so much frustrated crying as Jack and Corrie tried to keep up with their older brothers. 

Jack eventually made it up to the top, where he got stuck and then started crying. Calvin tried to help him down and ended up pulling his pants and diaper completely down! Poor little buddy was stuck hanging over the edge of a big triangle-shaped step! Kelly climbed up to rescue all of the kids and we packed the kids up and headed back home, shaking our heads. 

On another note, here are some pictures from the neighborhood park. One of my favorite parts of our visit was getting to hang out with Jack. We moved when he was still pretty young, and I love getting to know him a little better when we visit. Below is a picture of the first time I heard him say my name. Pretty special. He said, "Look, A-may-da, a sss-tick!" Little guy made me smile so much..."Yes Jack, that is quite a stick you found!"

                            

All of the kids really made me laugh when I saw how they played on the climbing wall. This park is full of slides, but here is what they decided to slide down. Who knew that a bumpy, splintery ride could be so fun?

Hard to believe that Cal and Mac were once this little. Back then, they pretty much just looked at the wall and layed on it.

Speaking of back then, below is a picture of Kelly and the kids shortly before we moved to VA. We thought our little herd had grown so big! 

Just look at us all now! Hey Kelly, Macklemore called...he wants his jacket back! 

And here were the kids eating at the table the last time we visited: 

Amazing how much they have all grown since then!

A few other highlights: 

The kids had the best time with Dan. Just like when Ellis comes home, when Dan stepped in the door the excitement level of the house would go up about 20 notches. We are just waiting for this video to go viral, Dan!

Corrie and Mac loved having greek yogurt in the mornings. Mac thought it was ice cream, and I totally went with that. We just call it breakfast ice cream.

We went to the museum and Cal made an origami cup and bat. That little guy never ceases to amaze me!

Davey and Luke spent lots of quality time together in the baby corner. Such active little guys!

I think we only turned the TV on once the whole week. Pretty cute little group sitting on the couch together!

Putting the car puzzle together was a fun activity for everyone...except Mac, who was content pushing the indoor car around for hours instead. 

Probably one of the most amazing parts of the visit was nap time. I think we utilized just about every inch of the house for those kids to get a good rest each afternoon. We could not believe that the kids actually slept so well. Better than usual, for my kids at least! One time Kelly did have to go up and check on Calvin, who was crying loudly. He had broken his origami bat :-(

Here is Davey lounging in his extravagant bathroom bed. Jack was a sweet helper, talking to Davey and helping me get Davey up from his nap.

Here's Cal visiting Corrie in her little laundry room cottage:

Not pictured is Luke sleeping in his cozy closet villa. Sort of reminded me of sleeping in the entrance to Narnia. But I did get a picture of Mac's first time ever playing soccer with a buddy. Way to go guys!

The other thing I wanted to mention is what a great gift the Rocke's friendship is to our family in so many ways. Every time I leave NC, I leave a better mom and wife...a better Christ-follower all around. There's so much more I could say about that, but I will just say: what a great God we have, who delights in giving His children such good friendships!

Our visit to NC was helpful and needed in some practical ways. Before visiting NC, I was pretty much still a hermit...not really ready to brave the grocery stores and parks with all three kids. Somehow, when we are all together with the Rockes, it doesn't seem like such a big deal. When we got home, going to WalMart with only three kids seemed like nothing!

The other great influence that Kelly had on me this visit was her great ideas for teaching the kids and making activities for them. I got some materials from our trip to WalMart to replicate some of what I learned from her. Here's one of the activities I made:

Yep, before we knew it, it was Sunday already...time to pack up and head back to the mountains of VA. Reflecting back on the week, Kelly and I both said that our week together was a wonderful rest. Somehow, in the midst of squeezing 6 kids, 4 and under under one roof, we enjoyed a rest for our hearts and minds. It's just relaxing when are all together. Isn't that something special?