Washed

Last week, our two youngest daughter's were baptized! This was a day worth celebrating, and we are so proud of them for their confession of faith. Adalyn prayed and asked Jesus in to her heart during her children's church service, and Megan asked Jesus in to her heart over a year ago, and then waited for months to share the news with us! 

We were planning on having Megan baptized before COVID hit, but once our church closed down for several weeks, we held off. We've been back at church for several months, but Megan never enjoys being the center of attention and we decided to hold off on baptism until she was ready. Once Adalyn asked Christ in to her heart and wanted to be baptized, we told Megan she could be baptized with Adalyn and she was all in. We met with the children's leader and discussed baptism, and scheduled it for the Sunday of Thanksgiving week. What a wonderful time to be baptized! 

Our church gives shirts for those being baptized to wear. 

Gee and Papaw came down for the celebrations. 

3 sisters on Earth, and in Christ. 

Amelia came too! 

A quick family picture before heading out the door. 

We arrived at church, and these girls were ready. 

Gretchen was able to video the baptisms for us, and thanks to online services, their grandparents watched from Arkansas, and we received lots of pictures! 

Adalyn went first. DJ and I had the option of baptizing the girls, but we wanted to leave it to the professionals! Ha! 

Then it was Megan's turn. 

We took the girls out for lunch and then came home for cake and presents. 

Pops & Grandma Dee gave the girls music boxes. 

Gee & Papaw gave the girls praying angels. 

DJ, Gretchen, and I gifted the girls necklaces. 

Megan's was a cross with her birthstone, and Adalyn's was a heart with a cross and pearl. 

Nana is sending them blankets. 

As a parent, our biggest blessing is to raise daughters who know and love Jesus, and all of them have asked Jesus to live in their hearts. We are so, so proud of them. 

 

Tulsa

Our Spring Break this year started right as the madness began. The calls to stay home and social distance. Our girls were SO looking forward to seeing their old friends and going "home" again, so DJ and I heavily weighed our options, and decided to go, but to be cautious and cut our trip short a day, and call off a big play date we had planned. I know our trip annoyed people, and I get it, but I'm asking for a little bit of grace, because we did the best we could with the information we had. 

Friday was a professional day for teachers, so the kids were out. We had a big breakfast with some of our friends here in Austin. 

All the kids had their own table, and the mommas sat nearby and I was so grateful for the older kids who could help out their siblings! 

After breakfast, the kids ran through a field of bluebonnets. Because that's what you do when it's Spring in Texas. 

Saturday morning the girls were pumped for our trip to Tulsa! They even got in their seats before we were even ready to go! 

We stopped at The Czech Stop for some kolaches! 

We made it to Tulsa around 4 and settled in to our hotel room, then went out for dinner, where the new video coordinator at Tulsa joined us. Obviously, Megan was a little stir crazy, because she fixed my hair..... with straws. 

One thing we really wanted to do was go to our old church. So, Sunday morning, we got up, ate breakfast, and headed off to church. 

Side note- Megan had a nightmare about elevators a few weeks ago, so we took the stairs a lot at our hotel. 

A lot of churches were making the decision to not hold services, but thankfully Asbury, held a service, but closed the elementary classes. The girls were not happy, but they quickly got over it when they learned there were doughnuts. 

I have pictures of these girls as itty bitty babies on this bench. 

#andjohnwesleytoo 

I remember taking our very last John Wesley picture before we moved. I don't even know how it became "our thing" on Sunday mornings, but it did. And I remember thinking I'd never get a John Wesley picture again. But, for this one day, we did. 

After church, we met Megan's BFF for lunch at Andolini's- one of our favorite pizza places. The girls were quiet at first, but quickly warmed up and didn't skip a beat. 

Oh this was a sweet friendship. It breaks my heart because Megan's had a harder time making friends here. Thankfully, she's met a sweet friend through gymnastics and has a friend in our neighborhood, but last year wasn't easy for her. 

I miss our old downtown. We took one more photo in front of their mural, and then.....

we had surprises in store for Gretchen!

We picked up two of her friends from their house, and when she rang their doorbell, they had the best embrace! Then, her elementary school best friend surprised her at Cherry Berry. (Megan had requested we get ice cream at Cherry Berry on our trip.) 

The girls chatted and exchanged numbers just as any pre-teens would do. 

Gretchen and Paige. 

Gretchen with Amelia and Julia. 

After ice cream we went to our friend's house for dinner. 

Gretchen and Conner have been friends since kindergarten. 

And his momma is just the sweetest. 

Lyla and Megan quickly became best friends since their older siblings were best friends. These girls share a love for gymnastics. 

We are so thankful for friends who were able to see us on our trip. It really did our hearts good to see friends and re-visit Tulsa. 

We headed home Monday, and honestly, it felt good to see this sign. 

Our trip home was so long! The girls did great on the way to Tulsa, but we had SO many stops on the way home. Thankfully, Texas has some pretty awesome rest stops with playgrounds, so we let the girls play. 

We got home Monday evening, and the girls spent their Spring Break at home, while schools made the call to be out an additional few weeks. 

Friends, this is such a difficult time, and wherever you are, if you need anything at all, please don't hesitate to reach out. 

Friday Favorites

Happy Friday friends! I'm linking up today with Andrea, Narci, and Erika and sharing some Friday Favorites, which just so happen to be a random assortment of photos from the last week. 

Sunday morning, it was just Adalyn and I at church. She took her photo with John Wesley, which has been a little Sunday tradition, and I realized how much I'm going to miss these photos, and of course, our church home as well when we move in the next few weeks. 

Last weekend, Megan had her turn at Camp Gee.... a few days in the summer, where each girl gets some 1:1 time with their Gee. They made doughnuts for breakfast one morning. 

and she played a ton with her cousin!

they also had watermelon.....

and made cookies. 

They got incredibly dirty jumping on Gee's trampoline. 

We're not sure why, but anytime the girls jump on it, it rubs black off all over their bodies and clothes, which means they need a heck of a scrubbing. 

They went swimming, 

and saw Christopher Robin. 

Megan loved being with her Gee and her cousin for a long weekend, and our house was strangely quiet without her. 

There's a little store in Alma, Arkansas that my mom and I will go to when we meet halfway between her house and mine, and I found University of Texas Christmas cards! I picked up four packages for our Christmas cards this year, and thought they'd be super fun since this will be our first year at UT.

I also picked up ribbon and materials to make us a football wreath, and I can't wait to get to Austin and hang it on our door. 

Addy Pearl got caught reading one of the Danielle Steel books my mom lent to me. 

And we had morning snuggles in my bed while she watched Spirit. We texted this photo of her to DJ to tell him good morning.

This time away from DJ has been unexpectantly hard. I really thought that the girls and I would be super busy with house showings and be at the pool a lot, and frankly, I've been a bit depressed as we haven't had a ton of showings, and little movement on our house here. While, we'll be able to get moved to Austin before our house sells, that's even taking a little longer than I think I initially expected. I'm finding that I'm not sleeping well at night, which means I'm sleeping late to try to play catch up or even taking afternoon naps. We're caught in the middle of, we should be packing to, we still have several weeks, so there's no sense in packing everything now. Plus, we want our house to look nice during home showings, so it makes no sense to pack everything we own. We're not in a routine, and we're all suffering because of it, but I'm struggling to get motivated to find one. 

Basically, life has been a little hard and I'm admittedly depressed about it. We're just ready to be together as a family, and in our house, and we want the girls in school there as soon as possible. I want to be decorating and unpacking and spending our weekends at football games. 

This too shall pass; it's just passing very slowly right now!