Easter Excitement...

Here's a peak at our unusual but fun Easter weekend... First, Isaiah has been super sick with the croup, so part way through the day we cancelled our childcare arrangements for Friday evening's Good Friday service at our church. We were sad, because they have been doing an excellent series on the book of Isaiah and we were looking forward to being challenged by the message and celebrating communion. So instead of going to church, we stayed home and gave Ross time to watch his NCAA tournament bracket fall to pieces:


Both of us took turns through the past few nights getting up with Isaiah to help him calm down as the croup has made him feel like he can't breathe. It's such a scary thing and we're sad that he's had to endure it. Now, all of us are completely exhausted.

Friday and Saturday Ross took advantage of the +75 degree weather to mow and fertilize the lawn and help a friend painting, and he's got the sunburn on his neck and forehead to prove it (a sunburn in March? that's uncommon even for a redhead). However, the pride of having a lawn that looks like it belongs in Lynden rather than Little Rock has taken a little of the sting out of the sunburn.

Sunday morning we woke up to a coughing and wheezing little boy which only served to confirm the fact that attending an Easter morning church service was definitely not an option. So we decided to make the best of it and ended up having a wonderful day praising Jesus and celebrating Easter as a family.

Isaiah helped Ross make hot-cross buns for breakfast: delicious!


Later, when we put Isaiah down for his nap, we watched a new movie from the makers of the "JESUS" film, called "Magdelena: released from shame." It was a brilliant movie, incredibly touching, and we immediately got excited about how it is being used to reach multitudes of people (especially women in the Middle East) with the gospel. There is one simple scene in the movie that really stands out as a way of summing up Jesus' great gift to us: after a woman is miraculously healed by Jesus, the crowd disperses and Jesus and His followers begin to walk away but she just stands there in the middle of the street saying "Thank You. Thank You. Thank You Jesus..." and then she turns around and follows Him.

You can find out more about the film here. We are so excited about this movie, that if you would promise to watch it yourself and then pass it along to someone else, we would love to send it to you for FREE. It is an excellent tool for sharing the truth about Jesus Christ with others and we would love to equip you with it.

When Isaiah woke up from his nap, we spent the rest of the afternoon doing an Easter Egg hunt with the Resurrection Eggs. Isaiah had a blast finding the eggs and we had fun sharing the true meaning of Easter with him (thanks in part to the Rez' Eggs and his favorite Easter storybook).

We wrapped up our day by making an excellent (and huge, for just the 3 of us) Ham Dinner with scalloped potatoes, glazed carrots, fresh rolls and a banana cream pie for dessert.

All in all, it turned out to be a great weekend, but without a doubt the biggest highlight for us came Sunday evening when called our family back home in Lynden to let them know that we are expecting a baby! Taya will be 13 weeks along on Tuesday and we're looking at an October 6 due date. We just had a check-up and the doctor says everything is looking great. We are absolutely overjoyed and we'll be sure to keep the blog posted with updates as they come. But for now, all we can say is "Thank You. Thank You. Thank You Jesus..."