Quick 5

O Death, where is your sting?

O Hell, where is your victory?...

Our God is not dead...He's alive, He's alive!

1.  In the midst of last week's yucky snowstorm we made the trek to my parents' house to celebrate Easter.  There was egg-dying and egg-hiding and egg-finding and ham eating.  It was fun for all.  Especially Joya, who was able to eat her chocolate marshmallow bunny by handing it to Grandad to open rather than to her mother, who surely would have made her wait until after dinner.

 2.  The girls are pretty sweet with Bria.  They always want to kiss her, although they seem to only want to kiss her while she's trying to eat.  And because of Joya's "germy germs" I do my best to keep her at an appropriate distance from Bria's face.  But Joya still tries to kiss her.  She most often tries when I have Bria up on my shoulder to burp in between and after feedings.  Which means most of Joya's kisses land on Bria's butt.  Who can say no to that?

3.  I read a hugely encouraging blog post this week called "5 Ways to Keep Your Sanity with a Newborn."  It was filled with tiny little nuggets that serve as good reminders for me in these super-long brief newborn days, written by a lovely gal who has a baby exactly one month older than Bria.  She has claimed these newborn days as a time to dream and plan, when she can't really accomplish all the normal things that you can when you don't have a newborn.  It was just the grace-filled statement I needed to hear, since I feel like I should be accomplishing quite a bit more than I am these days.  I need to recognize that this phase won't last forever, and it's okay to function at base-level survival, while dreaming and planning for the times when Bria's not so needy and I'm not so sleep deprived. My next question then is at what age are they no longer considered a newborn?  I think I need a deadline.

4.  The Kimble family is coming into town today.  Lee's parents and sister and brother-in-law are coming in to meet Bria and celebrate Easter and hopefully provide the girls with a much-needed reprieve from the monotony of our life right now.  I wish they could come visit more often because a) we genuinely enjoy hanging out with all of them and b) I love having a kick-in-the-butt to really clean my house.  They'll be here for a long weekend, and we are so excited.  Alaina's been counting down the "sleeps" all week.

5.  Here's a sweet little face to round out this week's Quick 5:

Christ is Risen, y'all!