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!

update

***UPDATE***marcus won!!! they're headed to the state tournament next weekend in austin! YAY!!!!

well, a lot has happened since my last post.

i celebrated my 29th birthday! yay! richi and bambi came over for a game night (since bambi's bday was 3 days after mine). but we really didn't celebrate just me & drew. i told him i wanted to wait until it was warm, and i could go to joe t garcia's and celebrate! LOVE THAT PLACE!! John & Meredith...you know where we're going when you get in town in a few weeks! :)

lana celebrated her 1st birthday! well, kinda. we gave her a present, put cake in front of her, and she refused the cake! what! she's definitely not my child. :)

lana went to the doctor for her 1 year well check. she's in the 18th percentile for height at 28 1/4 inches, and the 5th percentile for weight at 17 lbs 6 oz.

lana switched off formula onto whole milk. this transition was so easy. i put milk in a cup, she drank it, we were switched. love it. she's been on straight sippy cup since the middle of january and straight table food since then too. this girl is easy. thank you, Lord.

lana started a new daycare! she's at an in home about a mile and a half from our house. drew now gets to take and pick her up most days thanks to his workload winding down. it's been a tremendous help to me being able to work out or stay late when i need to work. and it's been nice for drew and lana to have time together when i'm not around. we really like sharon, the lady who keeps her, and feel like God led us to her. it's so great.

since being in her new daycare, lana has started walking! (see below post). she also says a few words:

mama

dada

dog (dah)

done

hi

also, we put her in her car seat last weekend and she started shaking her head back and forth saying no no no. so, i guess you can add "no" to the list too! :)

and something else that was VERY fun, was being a part of our great friends, richi & bambi, getting engaged. well, i didn't get to be part of it, but drew & lana did. richi sent bambi on a scavenger hunt to basically find him, but our house was one of the stops and lana had a clue. it was so neat that lana got to be part of that. and we can't wait until their wedding! yay!

also, the marcus basketball team has made it to the regional finals! if they win their game (which starts in just 1 hour) then they'll go to state next weekend! drew's already there, but I'm waiting on lana to wake up from her nap before we head down to fort worth for the game. yes, we'll be a little late, but we need lana to SLEEP! she's gonna miss her afternoon nap, more than likely.

let's see, what else is going on? i'm in the process of making lana's outfit for her official birthday party. it's going to be family only, so don't get your feelings hurt if you weren't invited. the theme is hawaiian, so i'm making her a hula/grass skirt/tutu! here's what i've got so far....

but i think overall, that's about it. i'll keep you updated on the game...we can't wait to head to austin next weekend for a getaway! (and i guess for some basketball too! haha)

here's lana's skirt for her bday party...still a work in process. waiting the hibiscus to arrive so i can attach them to the ribbon/wasteband

bambi and lana reading the next "clue"

bath time! boy does she LOVE baths now!

daddy & lana brushing their teeth together

playing with a new birthday present!

hope you all have a good weekend! off to the game!

happy birthday to me (early)

look what lana can do now!

drew picked lana up from daycare today. when i got home, they had this surprise for me! i guess she took about 2 steps at daycare today (something she's done with us, but not on a regular basis, and definitely only when she feels like it!). next thing we knew, she was pulling up on everything so she could walk! without holding on to anything! YAY! our little lana is getting so BIG!

oh gosh

i just found all these snow pictures i hadn't uploaded yet. it shows a LOT more snow. i haven't rechecked the forecast since friday, so i'm not sure if we're still planned for winter precip on tuesday. we'll keep you posted!

this was our front yard...notice how you can't see the street

neither drew nor i went to work thursday or friday. too stressful to drive in.

the tree in our front yard at night. so beautiful. i wouldn't mind framing this one

same tree, but daytime. clearly i couldn't get over the amount of snow on each branch. it was so beautiful. i can't come up with another word besides beautiful. where's my thesaurus??

backyard

catching up

so a week ago today we were starting the thaw out process of nearly a foot of snow in flower mound. i'm just now getting around to posting pictures. i figured our family in oregon and elsewhere would LOVE to see how crazy texas has been this winter.

here's a pic of lana holding snow...not sure what to make of it

mom and lana enjoying the wonderland

diving in

beautiful!

a view from the front of our house. we still got about 6 more inches of snow on top of this picture.

it was all so beautiful. i wish it'd come back! oh wait. it will. tuesday night. more snow in the forecast. amazing.

pictures

so here's a quick update on altus.

we got up sunday morning and drove up there to take my grandparents a generator. we drove through freezing fog, and it really only took until decatur for us to hit ice/snow on the ground. not a lot, but i could see it!

the closer we got to altus, the crazier the scene became. it was nothing i'd ever seen before in my life. the trees looked like they had white branches--there was so much ice on them! and as we drove out to my grandparent's house from town, it felt like we were driving into a desolate area. something out of a war movie....there was no one on the road, no one leaving their homes. it was so weird.

we got there and pulled up to see this:

notice the large pole that is leaning on the tree:

these are the trees in between the house and the barn.

the house was a cool 60 degrees inside, but manageable. they had a fire going and that's how they were keeping warm.

after we got the generator hooked up, we got the space heaters going to warm up the house. i was the only one in the living room and i was working to keep the fire going as well. within 2 minutes one of the space heaters caught on fire. it was pretty stinkin scary. it ruined a good chunk of the carpet and there was ash and smoke all over the house. luckily, my grandma got it out of the house before anything else happened. of course all i could do was scream. clearly i'm not so great in emergency situations. :(

UPDATE:

right now my grandparents are staying at a friends house further in town. they got the power restored there, so they have heat and warm showers. what a blessing! now if only they could get the power back on at their own house!

keep praying for them. its tough having your life disrupted...especially when you're 80+ years old.