Time for dinner. I think we will have salads with lettuce from the garden!
Here a few pictures from Anabel’s birthday. She chose to eat at Chickfila. She loves Minnie Mouse and our dog Daisy. The picture of her sleeping is a treasure because it seems that her sleep schedule is off track lately. If she naps it is hard to go to bed at the right time but if she doesn’t nap she melts down before dinner. We continue to find her in her room playing an hour or two after we thought she was asleep. She is so quiet! A couple of nights ago we found her washing her hair in the bathroom sink at 11:30. Bubbles on her head and all. It is hard to not just crack up laughing. She is living up to the meaning of her name, easy to love.
Today is Natalie’s birthday. We had a great day with cupcakes at school, a science fair where she made slime and silly putty. Then we ended with a family dinner at Mimi’s Cafe. Her big gift from us was moving her into her own room. She was surprised and very excited.
I have typed an addition to this post twice before and lost it. Hopefully, it will get saved this time.
The reason I called the post a thankful heart is due to how we have seen Natalie grow in her faith lately. We have been encouraging Natalie to invite friends to church since she was a preschooler. She is now taking it on her own initiative to reach out to others. The week after her birthday she invited a friend from school only to find out that friend does not go to church. She proceeded to ask her if she knew the meaning of Easter and then share that Easter is about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. As she told me about the conversation she was just glowing. So happy and in her words it felt so good. So my thankful heart as we celebrate Natalie this year is that despite a new secular school and our failures as sinful parents, she is growing in her relationship with the Lord and she wants to share that with others. We are so blessed!
Yesterday we were in the pool – yes it was hot enough to swim in the big pool. We opened it last week and the weather has been beautiful and the heater is working! While the three girls were in the pool, Anabel looks up and says, “that’s an A – like in my name.” We all looked up to see an A in the clouds. What a smart girl and an amazing God! 
Again we thought Anabel was asleep. We went to turn off her “reading” light and we found this…
So it is time for an update on Natalie. She is doing really well in school. She brought her grades up to straight A’s the second 9 weeks. She has adjusted well to Merrol Hyde Magnet and we are proud of her for working hard.
She is growing up so fast. Last week we had a great conversation. We were praying for our country on Thursday. Our church is having a month of prayer for missions and each day has a different focus. We don’t always remember but we are so blessed when we do. Back to Natalie – as we talked about the upcoming changes with elections in our country and we could pray she paused and said, “mom, change starts at Redeemer (our church)”. I asked her to explain. She explained that if change started in our church that would effect our city, and that would effect our state then our country then the world. I asked her who made up Redeemer. She said, “you know Pastor Jamie, the worship team, oh and us. We make up Redeemer”. (lightbulb!) Change starts with us.
Today, Natalie went to her first swim meet. She had a great time and she did awesome. She is at the end of the pool in the tie die bathing suit. We were so proud of her.
Anabel traced her name at her Mothers Day Out program. At 2 3/4 we are pretty proud!
Courtney is having a big week. Saturday during her horse riding lesson she had her first fall. It was not a bad fall and she got right back on to finish her lesson. Hooray! On Monday she lost another tooth so she has a big gap on the right side that makes her have a funny lisp. Today she having her tonsils and adenoids removed. She was so brave going into surgery but did not want to wear the hair net. After a dose of Versced she forgot about it and started telling Mike he had two heads.
Courtney is out of surgery and it went well.
Courtney went back to school today the 19th. She did great and really seems to be healing well.
So tonight we think Anabel is asleep. Just before we go to bed we hear a sound and check on her. Below is what we found. There is nothing left in her dresser.
Anabel took a late nap today and slept a little too long so when bedtime came she was not ready to go to sleep. I let her look at a book for a few minutes as she was getting ready to sleep. At 10:30 she came downstairs fully dressed even with shoes, her purse and her phone ready to go to church. She has on a ballet outfit with a black skirt and black turtle neck over it. Two different knee socks that actually belong to the big girls and her little black dress shoes. So cute!!! When stopped laughing and taking pictures we told her she had to go to bed She went right up took her shoes off, put her purse and phone by the bed and wanted to sleep in her clothes so she will be ready for church.
