Happy (Late) Easter! :)

I hope you all had a wonderful Resurrection Day! This year, Faith’s birthday was also on Easter Sunday. Happy sixth birthday, Faith! We had several visitors at church Sunday morning, and had a couple more families to visit that evening. After the morning service, we went back home and changed before going to my dad’s parents’ house for lunch. My 16-year-old cousin took Gerald Jr. next door to his house, and gave him his collection of Hot Wheels and Match Box cars. Gerald Jr. was so excited! He’s practically been playing with them non-stop since then :) Shanna counted them, and he’s got over 120 cars. Whew! :)
Shanna and I in the dresses we made for Easter
Mary is growing so fast, it seems. :) She now weighs 12 lbs. 4 oz. She is the smilingest baby I’ve ever seen! You just have to make eye contact with her, and she’ll start smiling and laughing. :)

Since I wrote last, we have had two more additions to the family. One of our neighbors came by on Saturday and gave us two 8-week-old solid white chickens: a rooster and a hen. He has chicken houses down the road from here, and when the Tyson trucks came to pick the chickens up on Friday, they left those two behind. Our neighbor brought them to us, and told us we could go ahead and kill them to eat, or raise them a while longer. They look like fully-grown chickens right now, because of all the hormones they are injected with. It looks so funny; they’re so big, but they still cheep instead of crowing and clucking. We have to keep reminding ourselves that they are still babies! :) As soon as Mom saw the chickens, she fell in love with them, so now, instead of eating them, they are the newest family pets. :) Gerald Jr. calls himself a “chicken farmer”. He got up from the table the other night and said, “well, I got to go feed my chickens!” :)
On Sunday (the 5th) on our way to church that morning, our van started to overheat. Thankfully we were on the exit ramp right above our church, and were able to get to church before anything happened. Once at church, Dad turned off the van, and white smoke started pouring out from under the hood. We found out after church that a freeze hose had broken, and we’d have to get someone to fix it for us. So we were stranded there at church, or so we thought. So many people wanted to drive us to our house, that we almost had to go “eeny-meeny-miny-mo” to choose who would get the blessing. :) Thankfully, a man at our church has a brother-in-law that could fix it for us.
Monday (the 6th) we went to the nursing home with our church group. We sang for the residents and our Sunday school teacher had a devotion with them. Then we prayed with them. Afterwards we went to the fellowship hall for pizzas.
Tuesday (the 7th) we attended a revival service near our church. The pastor had requested us to sing. The service was really good. Bro. Steve Daggenheart (spelling?) was the visiting preacher. After the service, two different men came up to Dad wanting him to preach for them. One wanted him to preach at a rehab center, and the other was the activities director at a nursing home. They want us girls to sing, also. We’re excited for these opportunities to be used of the Lord.
Wednesday (the 8th) Dad preached at a church where one of his former classmates is the song director. They also had us girls sing a couple songs.
Thursday (the 9th) Mom took us girls shopping for different clothing, hair accessories and jewelry we needed for Easter, and also gifts for Faith’s birthday. Afterwards we took flowers to the graves of my great grandparents, grandma, and two aunts. Then we went to visit my aunt and uncle. My uncle Joe had just had a pacemaker put in, and is recovering from that. We had a good visit with them.
Last Saturday Dad put up two new swings for us in the woods that we’ve cleared out beside our house. In order to hang them, he used his climbing tree stand. One is a standard tree swing, and the other is just one rope hanging down with a loop on the end of it for your foot. You just step into it and jump off the hill, just look out for the little tree that’s right in your path. :) Once you get used to the swing, you can kind of swing around the tree, but I’m not used to it, yet. :) I prefer the other swing, because I can take Mary in the front carrier out there on pretty days and “swing her to sleep”. Dad's "up a tree" :)
Well, that’s a little bit of an update since the last time I wrote, anyway. I’m sorry I haven’t been updating it as often as I’ve wanted to, but it’s harder to do when we don’t have Internet at our own house.
God bless!
~Gera~