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Easter {2012}
I love Easter and all that it means for us as Christians. Seriously, how awesome is it to have a day to celebrate Jesus and the hope that we have in Him…something that we should be celebrating every day.
But even on a day full of such hope, I can’t help but think about my baby girl and miss her like crazy. There is something about seeing all those adorable little girls in their Easter dresses that pulls at my heart strings. As I was looking through these pictures I was thinking about Cora’s first Easter. She had an adorable little navy blue floral Easter dress…one of my favorite dresses of hers. She would have fit just perfectly into our family picture with her navy blue.
We tried to get a brother picture.
It wasn’t very successful.
Levi would hold Griffin for about one second and then let go.
They sure are cute though…and they love each other so very much.
And then we tried to get all the cousins. Levi would not look up at the camera.
And when Griffin started screaming he just got up, patted him on the head, and walked away. Nice.
Gramps and Grammy intervened…but my children still didn’t cooperate. Oh well.
Levi went on his first egg hunt this year too.
We forgot his Easter basket at home so Levi and Dad ran to Walmart to get something for him to collect his eggs in. They came back with a pink camo bucket. I think he wore it well. 🙂
Levi was super excited about his candy.
He opened his eggs as fast as he could. I think even his Gramps was helping him shovel candy into his mouth.
Ellie tried to get the boys to pose for a picture but they were too busy opening their eggs.
I’m pretty sure he would have never stopped eating.
Amazingly, he hasn’t cared about his Easter candy too much this week…which means more for Mom and Dad to enjoy!
And that was our Easter.
As I have been preparing to share my story again tonight, {Please pray for me if you think of it!!} I have been noticing a theme of looking in our lives for victory. That word “victory” has been stuck in my head. My grief story is really a story of victory. It could have been just a story of death and heartache and despair. But because I serve a Living God, it is a story of victory and hope. It is the story of how the Lord has shown me that even a mama who has lost her precious daughter can live an abundant life through the power of the Cross. And guess what? I have noticed this theme of victory in so many places over the past few weeks. At BSF we have been studying the passage in Ephesians 6 about training for battle against the enemy and putting on the armor of God. My notes talked about how Satan is working so hard to cause us to doubt God’s love for us and the goodness of His will for us. Because of Satan’s attacks we need to be ready and find strength in the Lord, In order to fight one must be strong. There must be a strengthening of body and mind, and a determination to win that has its source in the full assurance that VICTORY is possible. Another part of my notes said, Has he planted thoughts in your mind that God made you to have an easy life without obstacles, hard work, or challenging situations? Actually, the easy life is empty, boring, frustrating, unsatisfying, fruitless, and meaningless; it is contrary to the essential character God planned for us. God created us with the desire to meet and overcome obstacles, to enjoy the fruit of success after toil, and to feel the thrill of adventure in full confidence that He is with us and will lead us to share VICTORY with Him. A few days before Easter, my sister-in-law sent me this song and I loved it. As I listened to the words and meditated on the incredible sacrifice that Jesus made for me I was struck by the last words of the chorus. O the blood of Jesus washes me
O the blood of Jesus shed for me
What a sacrifice that saved my life
Yes, the blood, it is my VICTORY
I loved thinking about celebrating the victory that we have in Jesus as we celebrated Easter this year. And it is because of His blood, because of His incredible sacrifice that saved my life, that I am able to have victory in the challenges that I face in my life today.
On Sunday I flipped open the bulletin as I sat down and the title of the sermon was When was the Gospel victorious? The Gifts of the Resurrection. Our pastor taught from 1 Corinthians 15. It is a great sermon. You can listen to it here. Because of the resurrection, we are given the opportunity to put our complete trust during this life in the Risen One and live in full assurance of eternal life. VICTORIOUS.
Wow. That is a lot of my random thoughts jumbled together. But don’t you love when the Lord is teaching you something and it keeps popping up everywhere you go? That is how it has been for me as I have been pondering what victory looks like in my own life.
Praise God for the victory we can have in Jesus. It is through the power of the resurrection that we as Christians are able to claim victory in whatever challenges or hardships we are facing. Is there an area in your life that you need to give to Jesus, depend on His strength, and claim His victory in today?
Yet amid all these things we are more than conquerors and gain a surpassing victory through Him who loved us. Romans 8:37 (Amplified Bible)
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Oh, and one more thing…I felt like I didn’t do a very good job of making time for everything I wanted to do to teach Levi about Easter. No victory there. But a wise woman, whose kids are already grown, told me that I should just keep teaching Levi about Easter even past Sunday. She said that as adults we feel like we need to just pack everything up and move on once Easter Sunday is over, but kids don’t know the difference. So true. We should be thinking about Jesus’ work in our lives through His death and resurrection all throughout the year anyway. It is that important. So we are going to finish up our Resurrection Eggs, keep out the He is Risen banner, keep our Easter Mountain on the table and keep talking about Easter even though it is “technically” over. Just thought I would pass those wise words on to you in case you were discouraged about not having time for everything like I was! Hope you had a wonderful Easter celebrating our Risen Lord!
Levi was super excited about dying eggs.
This is the first year we have attempted egg dying.
I tried really hard to sneak out and set everything up while he was playing outside…but he caught me.
He was pretty patient…for a two year old.
Except that little hand of his kept sneaking into the egg bowl.
“My dye this egg, Mama?”
He only broke a few eggs before we started.
Not bad.
Griffin would have joined him in stealing eggs but his little hands couldn’t reach that far.
Say cheese, cute little boys.
It was finally time to start and Levi started grabbing eggs as fast as his little hands could.
I tried to show him how to drop the eggs carefully but he preferred to throw them in and make a big splash.
A few more eggs were broken in the process.
Once he had an egg in each color he got to stir them.
He stirred and stirred.
After about
I talked him into stirring a little longer.
The whole time he kept saying, “Done now, Mama?”
Griffin was almost as impatient as his brother.
He wanted to touch everything so badly.
Next year you can help too, baby boy.
We managed to keep the eggs in the cups long enough to get a little color on them.
I think they turned out pretty great.
And Levi was so proud.
Griffin’s half birthday came and went and we didn’t even celebrate…I was too busy being sick. Bummer. We will just have to celebrate big when he turns one instead! I can’t believe six months have gone by already. Here is Griffin at six months (a little late).
It is a miracle that I got this six month picture…
…because the rest of his pictures looked more like this. I would set Griffin down, get up on the chair and pick up my camera…and by that time he had already flipped over. He is my first baby to be able to roll over from his back to his stomach. He is all over the place…a crazy rolling baby.
And if he wasn’t rolling over he was busy eating the six month flash card. I have a feeling that once this boy starts crawling I might have my hands full.
Dear Griffers, You have now spent a half year with us now and we are so in love with you. Actually, the past month has been a little rough (we still love you lots though). You got sick for the first time with ear infections, bronchitis, and thrush all right in a row. And Mama was sick too. Not fun. You are still not sleeping through the night, but you are getting a little better. And we are having to do a little sleep training around here lately which is hard on a mama’s heart. I am praying that month seven will be the month of good sleeping!! You started eating cereal this month. Let’s just say you were not a fan. You spit it out every time and pierced your lips as tight as you could when the spoon got near your mouth. Your doctor said maybe you are hungry and we need to get you eating more foods. Let’s hope you like fruits and vegetables better than your cereal. You are so wiggly. You are my first baby who can roll from your back to tummy. Way to go! You roll over the second I set you down anywhere. You are wiggly and it is getting hard to even get you dressed. You are sitting up too, but still with help from pillows. I think you are too wiggly to keep your balance. 🙂 You like sitting up to play and you love your walker too. You love your brother. You are much more content when he is nearby. He brings you toys and shoves your pacifier in your mouth when you need it. He is always wondering how you are doing and where you are. If you are screaming in the car he looks over and yells at you to have a happy heart. A sweet brotherly bond already. Happy half birthday, sweet boy!!
Love, Mama
What is the deal? I can’t see all of my comments in Blogger anymore…which is why I STILL haven’t posted the winners of the sarah + abraham giveaway (sorry!). Blogger changed up the comments page and now I can only see comments 1-200. There used to be a button you clicked on that would take you to another page that showed comments 201-400. Now there is no button. I can’t find anyway to see comments over 200. Unless I am missing something…which is totally possible. I tried changing the comments page so it wasn’t embedded…didn’t work. I tried googling it…no answers. Anyone know what I am doing wrong??
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Maria - Too cute! I love seeing your boys together! We have 4 kids our big 2 are 13 and 10 and then we have a huge gap…with mateo 15months and baby #4 in the tummy baking. But we just found out its going to be another boy so to see Levi and Griffin is soooo cute especially because they are going to be the exact age gap as our 2 youngest! 🙂 Im a lil scared but excited!
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Sarah - Love the pictures. The boys looked super cute in their outfits. The screaming in the cousins picture just makes it all more memorable. You should see our family picture attempt. Our youngest refused to look at the camera! Glad you had a nice Easter!
Sarah @ This Farm Family’s Life
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onlymehere - One of my favorite pictures of my kids is when we were trying for a “special” photo and Travis was just doing his own thing! It makes me smile every time I look at it because it’s just the kind of kid he is, doing his own thing no matter what anyone else does! I hope you cherish these pictures and smile when you see them forever!
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Kelly - The pictures of the two boys are too cute. They almost look the same size!
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Katie - That is too cute! Levi seems like a typical little boy. Can’t stand the camera, loves candy, and is a good big brother. 🙂
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Auntie EM - So sweet….those children are all so adorable. My grandson Braxton is two next month so I saw some of the same things: eating candy as soon as the egg was found, running around to find more, loving the bubble machine his parents gave him, looking so cute in his cute clothes. Whew!! It made Grandma tired but it was a beautiful, joyful, poignant day for me and it looks like it was for your family too. I’m glad you have all those wonderful memories of your daughter. She is proud of her parents and her brothers.
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Nancy - Those are some of the sweetest looking babies I’ve ever seen 🙂 You are such a beautiful family!!
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Mum2twopreciousgifts - I love the Gramps and Grammy photo. I laughed. Isn’t it wonderful when photos reflect the personality of our little folk. Particularly when all we parents want is ONE nice photo of everyone sitting up, facing the front and smiling?
Love, love, love the photos Jess. Beautiful!
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Selena - Your sweet family is just lovely. I always enjoy your posts. We, too, have two little boys. Our youngest will be two the end of this month, and our oldest will be four the end of May. This Easter was the first family pic we’ve ever taken where everyone was looking the same direction… it will get easier! 🙂
I’m sure your heart still aches for sweet Cora, and how you must long for her at special family holidays, esp. I am thankful for Easter and what it means. The HOPE that it provides is beautiful!
Thanks for sharing your family. 🙂
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Rob and Andrea - Sweet, sweet boys Jess! Happy Easter to your family! FYI ~ Your boys made Facebook today! I “Like” a FB page called “I <3 Being a Mom" and saw a picture posted of your two sweethearts in their Halloween costumes this year. I am guessing the photo came from Pinterest or maybe your blog?! Regardless, I recognized their adorable faces immediately as belonging to Levi and Griffin!
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Anna - In the first “brother picture” I think Griffin looks a lot like Cora!!! Precious pictures…
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L ~ S - I just love Griffin’s tummy in the pic! Cute pictures and I like the matchiness. I wanted to do that this year, but it seemed too cold to wear ‘Easter’ clothes…Thanks for sharing about your day!
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Mandy - So cute! I have to tell ya that I have been following you since things happened with Cora and I can’t tell you how much I have loved getting to know your beautiful family. Easter is one of my very favorite holidays. I love everything it represents and the peace that it offers if we just pay attention.
As a side note, I look on pinterest every once in awhile and the last few times it seems like I always come across pictures of your boys. You always have the best photo ideas and apparently he world thinks so too because your ideas are pinned all over the place!
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Mindee@ourfrontdoor - I wish I had been as laid back as you are about pictures when my kids were little. I would get SO bent out of shape when I couldn’t get the “perfect” shot and just let it ruin my day. I love your “true to life” photos so much.
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It's just Mommer - I especially love the last picture of Ellie and Levi, she looks so happy;)
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Dana at StrawberryTart! - That last picture is so sweet. This was a really sweet post too!
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Ginger Sanders - Thanks for the post! I got the best photo ideas for my girls from this post! I can’t wait for Easter to come again, I just love photographing my little girls!
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