After a glorious Easter Sunday morning church service, we met Mimi, Papaw, Grace, Micajah, and Eleanor at Table 100 for brunch. Here is our best shot at pictures (since we always take two cars to church... fellow minister friends can relate), we aren't able to take pictures before church. We wanted to snap a family Easter picture before eating lunch (and nap time)...
Sweetness:
Entertainment: Mimi. (After Ralph and his trio serenaded us!)
After lunch, we headed over to the Sturdivant's house for naps (fail!) and play time (always). Silas carried his Easter basket around everywhere he went:
Here Silas and Avery and Eleanor are showing Papaw what the Easter Bunny brought them!
The Saturday before Easter, the Mecks hosted their annual Easter Egg Hunt - hundreds of eggs and about a hundred kids - always so much fun!
Silas and Avery loved all the fun play equipment in the backyard...
The boys taking a brunch break...
While the men hide the eggs, Mrs. Laurel used the Resurrection Eggs and the kids' help to share the Truth about Easter. Here is my big boy listening...
Waiting to get in line for the race to the backyard to hunt eggs...
Avery and her friend from "school" (Mother's Day Out), Ella:
The History Channel has been airing the new 5-part series of The Bible on Sunday nights as we approach Easter Sunday 2013. I've been watching it on DVR each night before I go to sleep - and have been very impressed at their surprisingly current and impressive effects/cinematography. Some of the scenes are captured exactly as my mind's eye imagines them to be... and other scenes offer new perspective or new imaginative ideas on how things might have been 2,000 years before Christ. For example, I love their depiction of Moses and the Red Sea. Some of the early Sunday School books and picture Bibles show a dreamy, sunny day with the waters rolled back as if there are glass walls in an aquarium with the Israelites walking confidently through (and certainly that day could have been like that)... but the scene in the recent Bible series captivates your mind as the Israelites run for their lives through a storm of dark, deep terror with Pharoah closely behind and waves thrashing on each side... and scenes of Abraham and Isaac, Samson and the Philistines, David and the Philistines, Joshua and Jericho, Babylonians and Jerusalem, Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar, Jeremiah the prophet... remind us of not only God's faithfulness but also mankind's sinfulness and God's redemption. So far, the series has been true to the literal Word and history as we know it - truly an 'action flick' full of emotion and passion... just like the Israelites lived. I can't wait to see how they portray Christ (what a tall order to take on...) and His plan for the world, the new covenant.
We have talked endlessly of current events such as arguing over gun control, our President's fruitless trip to the Promised Land and the evil going on in the middle east, the CIA finding new nuclear facilities in Iran previously unknown to us, the Muslim brotherhood continuing to manipulate poor souls and plot (and kill) innocent Christians, the new Pope in the Catholic Church, oh, and the 7th largest hail storm ever recorded (yep, in Jackson, MS last week)... how easy it would be to do the very thing James warns us not to do (1:27): "become polluted by the world." How do we continue to live in the world and not become consumed by the world? How do we think upon what is true, right, honorable, noble, worthy of praise (Phil 4:8) without being delusional about the world we live in? How do we show Christ's love and the only Truth to a world seemingly devoid of any integrity, honesty, and truth?
I don't know.
But we do know and hope in Christ. Love truly does win every time.
This is a song by Steven Curtis Chapman - written from the perspective of the thief on the cross next to Christ... our perspective as humans on this earth.
Scripture memory is one of my 'new years' resolutions' and March's passage for memory is Ephesians chapter 1.
Let us not forget: "in love we have been adopted through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He has lavished on us." (verses 5-8)
When Bruce decided to go to the SEC tournament (we won't mention how his team performed... nor will I gloat about how my team excelled...;), I thought, "let's take a road trip to Jackson, TN to see family!" Since we are on staff at the church, we are always at home on Easter Sunday - so it was wonderful to have a family weekend a few weeks early. Bruce left on Thursday and I had the car packed and ready to go - the kids and I left Friday afternoon as soon as I got home from work. We stopped in Grenada and picked up Papaw... donned in our Kentucky gear...
We arrived about 7:30 that night and had more fun than you can imagine! Silas and Avery couldn't get enough of Poppy playing in the floor with them all weekend:
The weather was beautiful and we found time to play at the park close to their house!
This is good:
Oh, and sweet Eleanor was with us too! Micajah and Grace were hosting an engagement party in Nashville that weekend so Mom was keeping Eleanor. She loved playing with the big kids.
Get ready... this is too much.
Everybody loves Pop's pool... (except Silas. Poor buddy just likes to watch. Maybe next visit.)
Jack and Silas (born 2 days apart!)... such fun with cousins (and Avery and Kaelyn are in the corner of the frame:
The next few are from the Zippity Doo Dah weekend in Fondren... the kids enjoyed seeing the big Clydesdale horses up close at the Wednesday night preview!
With the warmer days of late and (finally!) Daylight Savings Time, us Warfs have spent as much time outdoors as possible...
Sweet Silas and Avery love to pick Mommy "flowers"... Sadly, these are the only flowers Mommy can grow...
(and yes, we make necklaces and bracelets and even belts and hula hoops out of them:-)
These two are a hoot... even at bedtime... here they are cheering in celebration of Ole Miss stellar Signing Day:
Avery likes to do the wave....
And she likes to model a dress... any dress... Miss Hollywood. (the picture is blurry for obvious reasons)
I saw this on social media one day and decided to save it for (MANY) years down the road. It reminds me of my Daddy and his incidental timing of 'cleaning his rifles' when my dates would arrive to pick me up...
