the best easter yet!

happy resurrection sunday! :)

by the way...this morning we sang this song at church....beautiful.

well, for some reason, a reason i now know, God moved me to persuade drew to go to the branch for church this morning. i haven't felt quite right spiritually, as is usually the case when you're church hunting. we thought we'd found one, the village church, but for some reason something is holding me back. it could be the massive size, it could be the worship time (which is so loud! but kinda fun), or just the fact that we were at the branch so long and actually know people there. whatever it is, my uneasiness (is that a word?) drove me to ask drew if we could go to the branch this morning for service.

when we got there, chris announced that they were taking money from today's offering and giving it to people in need. we were instructed to write down the name of someone we know in need, put it in the collection plate, and at the end of service they'd draw some names. it was bizarre. part of me was saying, "really, a raffle? this is how you're trying to get people to come back next week?" but another part of me was saying, "how great that so many people are going to be blessed by this church financially!"

well, i guess you can tell what happened...my name was the last one called. they had drawn my card. and at first i was just smiling, because i do tend to have freak luck when it comes to winning stuff. but then it hit me what had just transpired. God had wanted me right there so we could help someone in need. and that's when i lost it and just started sobbing. it's such a beautiful way for God to let me know that he sees ME! and he hears my prayers every night (trust me, i pray for this same person every night!!) what a blessing to me and what an incredible way for God to be able to speak directly to me! and i'm pretty stinkin excited that someone is going to be blessed financially by this too! Thank you, Jesus!

so, i was a mess. and i've been off an on a mess today. we still had a good time showing lana her easter basket and letting her try sweettart jelly beans for the first time. but this easter i will ALWAYS remember as the Easter when God let me know how much he loves and hears me!

Lana in her pretty dress

lana and daddy ready for church

opening her basket

playing with the plastic eggs

lana just bein' lana :)

hope you were all moved this Easter--by more than just too much sugar! :) and i pray that he speaks to you in ways that display his never-ending love for you!

please be in prayer for my mom tomorrow morning. she's having some tests run.

THANK YOU!!!

birthday party and catch up

oh man, i'm so behind. i just DONT have any time for this blogging thing...or facebook for that matter. the weather is beautiful so we're going on lots of walks and honestly just have more fun things to do than sit on the couch! but we're watching tv, and i'm a major multi-tasker....so here we go!

lana's birthday party was about 3 weeks past her birthday. drew's parents were coming in from oregon and we really wanted them to be a part of the celebration. plus, now that my sister & her fam live in houston, we had to plan it around a time they could make the drive up. it was perfect. the theme was hawaiian, the cake was amazing, decorations very festive...but of course, it was snowing outside. weird.

here's a picture of drew enjoying one of lana's toys...the plasma car!

lana sharing her cake...she's just not into sweets, which could be a good thing!

the libby family!

her AMAZING birthday cake my friend, joanna, made her!

the day before the party, i was off so we took drew's parents to eat at joe t's. oh buddy. if only it were closer. i LOVE that place. it was a beautiful sunny 72 degrees outside and we had such a good time. we went down to the stockyards too. i honestly don't think i'd ever been before! weird!

enjoying the grass & sun!

with grandpa in the stockyards


at joe t's

before that, we were in austin for the state tournament. marcus did such a great job, but some very critical calls toward the end of the game caused them to lose (really, i'm not just saying that because we lost! they were HUGE misses on the ref's part!) so, we headed home on saturday to get rested and ready for drew's parents to come in town.

while we were there, we stayed with darbie, a college roommie of mine. i hadn't seen her sweet little girl since she was born two years ago, so clearly she'd never met lana either. we had fun catching up and talking and watching the kiddos play.

here's a little barn play house that lana had a good time playing in

here's gigi's jacked up radio flyer...well, the only part of it that's truly a radio flyer is the top part...the rest came from a golf cart. it had a cooler and they were in the process of building a radio for it! crazy!

gigi also had an escalade power wheels. i ALWAYS wanted one of these growing up, but of course never got one. this was SO cool! lana had a lot of fun riding in it!

gigi's not such a bad driver!

well, that's about it for now! more pictures to come. drew and i are going to ranger opening day on monday! WOOHOO!