Going Purple!

 Our Little Pink Girl has decided to make some changes! She got to pick something new out that came in this week. Can you guess what it is??

Oh that's right! Miss E is stylin' with some amazing new PURPLE glasses! Her prescription changed slightly and her bifocal needed to be raised up quite a bit, as it was rather useless in her last pair. We had to go to a bigger size so she would have room to see, as well as use her bifocal so she has room to grow:) She loves her new glasses!! She has insisted on wearing purple pretty much every day since so she can coordinate:)

This morning Eliana marched into her Sunday school class and started informing all her teachers that she got some new purple glasses! We thought it might be hard to adjust to seeing her in a new color but it is a soft purple and it brightens up her face. It's very pretty but the main thing is, she's happy and she can SEE!

We did not check our forecast this morning before we headed out to church so the terrible storm that passed through totally caught us by surprise! It was a warm 62 degrees and wet outside but by the time we came out of church, it was really dark in the building. My first clue that it was more than raining outside was when I looked towards the front doors, only to see a big group of people stumble backwards with hair flying every which way!

It seriously looked like their was a hurricane outside. It was crazy! There was an indoor church picnic for families that we were going to but unfortunately, we left our lunch in the car! Ben had to brave the torrential rains and even hail to bring our van closer and our lunch in. He was soaked when he finally made it back inside~poor guy!

We really enjoyed the picnic, all safe and warm inside the church. Each family brought a blanket, a picnic lunch for themselves and a dessert to share with everyone. After everyone ate, we all gathered in a big circle and said a prayer, with anyone who wanted saying outloud what they were thankful for and we sang "Give Thanks." A fun way to end the weekend!

On the way home we spotted a ton of branches littering the roads and yards and some really bad flooding on some streets. We were a little nervous about what we would find in our basement but thankfully, it wasn't too bad. We threw down several towels and mopped it up and had the boys do a quick clean up while we were at it. They make a huge mess with all of their "projects" and crafts they work on downstairs. There were a ton of sopping wet papers all over the floor!

This week I will have a fun new Christmas toy to share that hopefully will improve my blog! Can you guess what it is??

Tornadoes & T-Ball

Woo-ee! We had a long, sleepless night last night! Thank you to my caring MIL, we got a heads up that nasty weather was headed our way last night. I was up until probably a quarter til 12 looking for weather warnings on the internet and watching the lightening storm moving swiftly in outside.

I knew there were tornado watches in our area til 1am but finally dozed off when it seems like the storm had calmed down.

Only to be woken up by Ben at 12:30am. He usually sleeps through storms and wakes up the next day and is like, "Really? A bad storm?" or "What? The children were up 7 times? I didn't hear a thing!"

He's very blessed to sleep that deeply:)

Anyways, I woke up when he did and realized the storm that I thought had calmed down was waaaaaayy worse. As in, one of the scariest storms I've ever seen. The lightening was almost continuous, the thunder loud and cracking and the rain coming down so ferociously that you could not see a thing outside except the eery lights.

We knew it was really bad and were half-expecting the tornado sirens that went off about 2 minutes later right as the power went out. Even half-expecting them, my hands started shaking and my heart was pounding! Ben said, "Get the kids!" We both headed towards their bedrooms and snatched up our blissfully sleeping little ones plus armfuls of pillows and special lovies and herded everyone downstairs to the basement.

Thankfully, due to all the storms and power outages we've had lately, I was stocked with freshly batteried flashlights nearby just in case. We grabbed those, too, but thankfully and very surprisingly, the power outage was very brief and the lights came back on.

We huddled in the basement waiting with an air of excitment hovering around us. The boys were scared and fascinated. Eliana was looking around like "What in the world is going on? This is kind of fun..."

We stayed down til just after 1am when the sirens were off and the storm visably calmed down. Then we re-settled everyone in bed and prayed they would drift off again. E cried for a minute but went right back to sleep but the boys were so hyped up that it took them awhile. They were really scared of the continual lightening and thunder but finally they, too, settled down both in the same bed and fell asleep:)

I was so jumpy for awhile afterward because you know how they say a tornado sounds like a freight train? That is a very unhelpful statement when you live right next to a freight train line.

So everytime I heard a train coming for the next half hour or so, I would jump out of bed and check! I finally joined the rest of my family in slumber around 2am, only to be woken up by my chirping birdie babe at 5:30am.

I was tired today:)

We all were tired today.

But we are thankful we're safe and it was only a middle of the night adventure to talk about! The boys played "tornado" most of the morning down in the basement. E took several naps to catch up on her lost sleep and was only slightly irritable. Even I got to take a little snooze after getting the boys to rest quietly with books.

Hopefully tonight will be quieter!

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 Here are some pictures of last night's t-ball game!

 Samuel next up to bat!

Samuel practicing catching and throwing before the game started.

 Making sure I'm watching;)

 Running to first base!

 The after game high-fives!

 The happy player;)

 "Is the game almost over? I want some ice cream!" ~Z

 "If only I could just get...some...grass..."

 "I am determined to get this grass, mommy. Just try to stop me..."

"Ah! That's better! I knew it would taste good!"

Nothing tastes better after a hot game than a vanilla ice cream cone:)

Here's to some uninterrupted sleep tonight!!