Update

Susi angel (notice the discarded night time diaper behind her....)
Jon and his donkeys
butterfly sandwiches

Hi all...

Just a quick (maybe!) update on the latest things happening here. Not a whole lot new (other than Luke's bike), but we're keeping busy. Susi and I are both fighting something that came on rather quickly. She was up several times last night, just fussy, and has been complaining today that her forehead hurt. I just don't feel "right," kind of droopy, and slept longer than usual this morning (thanks, Tony!)...keep us in your prayers....

Mama and four other Carters are leaving Thursday for a week trip to Guatemala to visit Dwight. She's quite excited about going, and I think the rest are, too.

Right now, we're getting some pretty fast snow falling outside. Huge, fluffy flakes. We're hoping (at least, Tony is!) for some more accumulation, as most of the snow on the ground, except where it was piled up by plows, melted last week and we still need some "insulation" on the ground until longer bouts of warm weather are in the forecast. Oh, I'm looking forward to all the yummies that will be harvested from our garden several months from now (although we first have to plant many of them....).

Luke rode his new bike to and from the farm yesterday. He is getting so big and accumulating so much knowledge that I wonder some time what happened to my little baby. I am amazed at the logic he has and how quickly he figures things out. He is hilarious to talk to and really carries his own end of the conversation. Last night, when Susi was so fussy, she asked me to unplug one of the two night lights in their room...this morning, the first thing I heard was "Mama, come turn this little light on RIGHT now. This isn't even funny any more!" As yucky as I felt, I couldn't help but laugh....

Ah, something else that's new! Watkins has a great reward program for associates who continue to build the business (get new people to sign up and advance in sales) -- last year, I accumulated enough points to win a free week's cruise in the Mexican Riviera (which is probably happening next week). While I would LOVE to go, it's not something that is doable at this point in my life (boo hoo). So, I used all those performance rewards points and got a free Dell desktop computer! Out of necessity, we got a new computer for our main use last year and started using the old one for the kids, learning games and such, but it is such a dinosaur, it didn't even function well for that. With homeschooling coming up in a couple more blinks of the eye, I knew a new computer would come in handy.....and it is! It came with a great flat screen monitor, loaded with programs, and ready to put together and plug in. Luke spent the morning going through a kindergarten CD and blew me away with what he knows and what he figured out on his own.

Susanna continues to be our little princess and uses any cloth or blanket she can to wrap around her for a "princess dress." She bought some fairy wings with her own money at a rummage sale last week and loves to wear those over her "dress" to be an angel.

Wow, this snow is really coming down!

I continue to be impressed with my husband, the 3-year-old Sunday School teacher. Last Sunday's story was on Jesus' entry into Jerusalem, so he went to the farm and took some photos of Jon's donkeys. The kids loved them! Yesterday's story went from Jesus in the Garden through His crucifixion and resurrection and he did flannel graph for the first time. Again, huge hit with the kids! Next week on Easter Sunday the story will focus more on the resurrection and he is hoping to have enough time to go through the Resurrection Eggs.

Yesterday at church, being Palm Sunday, one of my most favorite traditions at Faith was again carried out. The children (Sunday School classes from 3-year-olds to 2nd graders) entered during the opening songs waving palm branches, carrying them to the front, setting them down, and returning to their parents. I took our camera in anticipation, but they had the children go to the front from the opposite side, so I wasn't able to get a shot of our palm-branch carrying child. However, as it always does, seeing the dozens of children waving their palm branches brought tears to my eyes. Can you imagine being among those who welcomed Christ into Jerusalem so long ago? And I cannot even begin to understand why they so quickly turned their backs on Him!

Last week's play date went very well! The kids got along so well together and played very nicely, although Susanna has a few of her strong-willed moments. I told Tony later it was quite funny watching them because Kayla and Luke were inseperable at moments while Jeffrey and Susanna didn't want to stop hugging and kissing when it was time to leave. Little Miss Nikki may have some competition for Luke....and not just Kayla! Another new-to-Faith Baptist family has a daughter Luke's age who is in the same Cubbie group as him. She has informed her mother that her boyfriend is Luke and informed me of the same thing yesterday at lunch. Luke just looked at her and giggled. Where do kids this young get this stuff????

I've also been having fun making some objects with the kids' food for lunch. it started by accident last week as I made them a PBJ, sliced it, and thought "that looks almost like a butterfly!" With a few dried blueberries pressed into the bread, a sliced pickle in between the triangle "wings," a thinly sliced carrot for antennae, viola! A butterfly sandwich! Some lettuce on the bottom of the plate for grass, some cottage cheese up top for clouds (not a big hit at all... next time the "clouds" were made out of vanilla yogurt!), and we had a beautiful, springtime, healthy lunch!

That's all for today...gotta lay down a bit before the kids wake up (yippee! Even Luke is napping)...and the snowfall continues....