Easter Blessings: Family

Jim and I are absolutely crazy about these five!

I really don't know when they all grew up.

In my mind they should look like this:

Not this:

(Don't you like how I just sneaked in another pictures of the Grands? LOL!)

They are now ALL OFFICIALLY ADULTS.

Seriously, y'all, when did that happen?

And here we are all together.

Believe it or not, this rarely happens.  Not a one missing.  No one out working, or taking a nap, or out on a date.  So I made them all line up for pictures, most against their will.  It may not look professional, but we take them where we can get them.

Easter Blessings: The Grands

Grandchildren make the world...

...a little softer,

...a little kinder,

...a little warmer.

What a blessing it was to celebrate Easter a day early surrounded my our WHOLE family.  But aren't these faces just the cutest?  The five of them bless our lives in ways we never could have imagined.  If you can't tell by that last picture...yes, they are the apples of Nonna and Pappaw's eyes!

Photo 1: Davin holding Delayne, Brooke, and Maddux holding Elliot on a blanket in the front yard before brunch.

Photo 2: Brooke, Maddux and Davin on Pappaw's antique tractor.

Photo 3: Delayne and Elliot in their Easter presents (matching walkers) so they could be part of the egg hunt too.

Photo 4: Elliot, Davin, Jim, Maddux, Me, Brooke and Delayne.  I told y'all, 'apples of our eyes'!

Praying For Boston

Horrible evils done to innocent bystanders never make sense. They gouge at your heart and make your head spin.  Even more so when you have stood in the very places where they stood.

This was a picture that Robin snapped of me as we waited on a taxi in front of the Lenox hotel on the corner of Exeter and Boylston Streets in Boston back in February of 2011.

And this picture of our hotel was taken from Prudential Skywalk Observatory the day we left.  You can see the yellow Boston Marathon Finish Line running across Boylston (just above the hotel).

As soon as I heard the news yesterday my mind recalled the surroundings and the people we met. People who worked at the hotel, the shops and the restaurants that line the beautiful Back Bay area.  And along with most of America, I grieved...for the families of those lost, for the injured, for the shell shocked participants & spectators, for the first responders...for Boston...and for all of us.

And while I don't even presume to make sense out of senseless acts of evil...I found encouragement in this morning's Scripture reading (taken from the New Living Translation).

For he has not ignored or belittled the suffering of the needy.
    He has not turned his back on them,
    but has listened to their cries for help.
Psalm 22:24

Lord, help us all!