Growing, Growing, Growing

My sweet little "babies" are getting so BIG and wanting to do so much more on their own lately. It makes me so sad. Little Emersyn turns 1 in TWO WEEKS! and my sweet baby boy Ezra will be 3 in July! Oh how time goes by so fast. I just want to lock them up and save them the way they are! But, at the same time, it so so fun to play and listen to the historical things Ezra says and to watch the things that they do together now. Here are some recent pictures of them. You can also go to http://www.natashatessier.com/eilers.exe  to look at the photo shoot we took of the kids this month!! They are GREAT pictures and Natasha is an amazing photographer. Her website is http://www.natashatessier.com/  .

loves to wear his hat backwards

this picture just gave me a flash of what he might look like at 17!!

lil miss

loves to sit in a chair or on the couch by herself! and drink her bottle

Leadership Retreat

On the weekend of April 9th, I attended a Leadership Retreat through Oak Hills Church. We headed to Roundtop, Texas, which is notorious for having HUGE Antique Markets two times a year, on Friday afternoon and didn't come home until Sunday afternoon! It was my first weekend to be away from lil Emmy girl and Brent's first time to have BOTH kids by himself for the whole weekend.

The weekend was so GREAT! God really met me there and touched my heart with his amazing, immeasurable, unfailing LOVE! We studied the book of Ephesians chapter 3! It talks about God's immeasurable love and how we have the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, the SAME power that raised Christ from the dead!! How we just need to use it and let God dwell in us wholly! Oh, it was a very powerful message and retreat!

I pray that I can continue to met God each and every morning as I get into His word and grow in Him!

"I pray out of His glorious riches he may strengthen you with teh power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith." Eph 3:16-17

Here are some pictures of the retreat:

My roomie and awesome bible study leader

where we stayed

loved this barn that was on the property

The main house where we ate and had our studies

Chrissie

As most of you know, Brent is a Cardiac Perfusionist. He mainly works in heart surgery cases, but sometimes he has to do heart transplants, liver transplants and monitor this machine called ECMO that acts like the heart and lungs while the heart or lungs aren't working properly. There is this little 4 year old girl that got placed on ECMO Thursday. She is an adopted little girl from Serbia. Her adopted parents have a blog: http://allarepreciousinhissight.blogspot.com/ you can go to and read more about what is going on with Chrissie. I was just going to ask you to help petition for this little girls life and pray for the family as they go through this difficult, uncertain time. You should go to the blog and read some of the posts. The mom has such an amazing heart for God and is trusting Him in whatever decision He sees best. It never hurts to pray on behalf of someone!

Thanks!

Oh so Humbled!

Okay. So, I was trying to put this video of Ezra on my blog and it's not working. So, I go to the page where you can edit all of your posts, look at old posts, etc. So I am looking at the post and seeing how I can put this video from my phone on it, and I see that I have comments on my blog posts from other posts!! Never saw that before and so I just went back and read all the comments left by everyone. Wish I would have known about that at the BEGINNING of blogging! So, sorry I have never responded to ANYONES comment! I promise I will look now, now that I know how to do it. And I thought no one looked at my blog! Made me smile! Thanks for the comments.

Ezra

Ezra is so funny! His little personality has come alive lately, and I LOVE it!! He says the funniest things. He has lately started calling me "mom", which I do not like! He also says "um, sure" or "no, I'm good." He loves to give me kisses and tell me he loves me. He is so sweet! He also likes to talk about driving, because he loves lighting mcqueen and going "fast", so when we are talking about driving I ask him if he is going to drive fast when he is older, and he says "mom, I not old enough to drive. I still too little." Cracks me up! He also loves Toy Story right now, so he jumps off stuff and says "to infinity and beyond." (eyes closed and hand up in the air) However, this video is of him running around naked after taking a bath (a favorite thing of his to do) and I heard him saying "my happy face and my mad face". I was curious to see what he was doing so he came into the bathroom to show me. SOOO FUNNY!! Love this little guy!

Easter "Maddness"!

We had such a good/ BUSY Easter weekend! It started with making a trip to Fredericksburg on Saturday. I had a high school friend's baby shower to attend, while Brent played golf with the hostesses husband. The shower was great, and fun to see some of my high school friends, however, I also had both kids with me at the shower, so I didn't get to "enjoy" it as much as I could have. After the shower, I loaded up the kiddos, grabbed some lunch and went to my grandma's house to snatch her up. We headed to the Wildseed Farm and had a picnic lunch! It was such a BEAUTIFUL day! After we ate our lunch and walked around the Wildseed Farm, we went into the Butterfly House. It was just a great day! If anyone is ever in the Fredericksburg area, you should go to the Wildseed Farm. All of the wildflowers are in bloom this time of year! After we were done with the Butterfly house, we loaded up in the car, the kids fell asleep and we headed home. Later that evening, we went to church and heard a great message!

in the butterfly house

Gamma and with Ezra and Emersyn

Emersyn's fav spot at the shower (playing with door stopper)

Sunday morning, we woke up bright and early (thank you Ezra) and the hunted eggs that the Easter Bunny left inside the house! He must of known it was going to rain the night before. Ezra and Emersyn had such a fun time finding eggs. Ezra really liked helping sister find her pink eggs. She even found one on her own.

Coloring easter eggs a couple days before

First easter egg he found

first easter egg she found

Around noon, we loaded up the car, again!, and headed to my dad's house for lunch and another round of easter egg hunting. My dad's wife had some of her family in town from California and some other friends in town from California with lots of kids to hunt eggs! We had a good time enjoying the weather and their beautiful backyard.

Sharing pink eggs with sissy

family photo (yes! we match)

After we were done there, we loaded up the car once again and headed to Austin! Brent's family was gathering in Austin at his Aunt's house. It was good seeing his family! We had yet another round of Easter Egg hunting and food! By the time we loaded up in the car again, we were all ready to be home and in our beds! We had a great/blessed Easter and time to celebrate our Risen Lord with family and friends!

cute cousins

laying in the hammock

Opa and Emmy girl

Needless to say, today we are doing NOTHING!

Trial "Camping" run

Last week, Brent had a great idea! He and Ezra were going to camp in the back yard! Brent and Ezra got out the tent, set it all up and even blew up the air mattress to sleep on. Ezra was so excited. He ran upstairs to get his pillow, blanket, books and some toys. They headed outside with flashlights and sleeping bags! I got some cute pictures of them laying on the air mattress reading. So, I head upstairs, put Emersyn to bed and climb into my bed to do my daily bible study. While doing my bible study, I could hear the door open and close every so often and Ezra's little voice saying something. About an hour later, Ezra walks into my room with pillow and blanket in hand and says "I not wanna camp. I want to get in bed with you." It was such a great idea and good try on brent's part. It just didn't last that long. Brent said it may have lasted but he wanted to keep coming inside to get more "things". Those must have been the times I heard his sweet little voice coming inside!

We are going camping the beginning of May at Enchanted Rock with Brent's whole family. I think we will have a good time, but I am curious to see what will happen when it's time to get in the tent and go to sleep!