Orange Alert!

Just a quick note to ask you to PLEASE wear orange tomorrow (Tuesday) in honor and support of baby Stellan. He goes into open-heart surgery early tomorrow morning. See the button to the right of this page for details. And, please keep him and his family in your prayers as they face the road ahead. Thank you!

Better Late Than Never...

I know I'm more than a week behind on posting Easter pictures, but last week filled up fast with a dear family friend's passing and memorial service, plus our trip to Oklahoma over the weekend. Our precious friend Pam died Monday after a long and gruesome battle with pancreatic cancer. She was an amazing soul with such a heart for the Lord. We will truly miss her. And as for our trip to Oklahoma, we went to attend Matt's graduate recital at OU. Boy are we proud of him! He's accomplished so much and has a bright career ahead of himself. I'll post more on that later with pictures. For now, allow me to share our fun-filled Easter with you!


In typical Chad and Ashley fashion, we had 21 people at our house this year on Easter Sunday (we tend to like big crowds!) and it couldn't have been more wonderful. Chad's dad and stepmom came in from New Mexico for the holiday weekend, and Carole's daughters and their families also joined us so they could be with their mom, too. Plus, we had my family over. It was a large group, but we'd much rather have everyone all together in one place. And it's really special for Cooper to be around so many people who love and adore him! We started the day with church, then had a nice pasta lunch followed by an Easter egg hunt for the kiddos (Coop and his cousin Caroline).

Cooper starting the day with his Easter basket.

Looking spiffy at church with Grammy and Pop,

And with Poppi.




Opening his Easter basket on steroids from Grammy and Pop!

Coop with Cousin "Manda" getting ready for the hunt.


Let the hunting begin...



Checking out his loot.



Me and my favorite boys!




Looks like a successful hunt for Caroline...

Mmmm, candy!

And just before this precious shot of Coop and Caroline, they were giving eachother hugs and kisses goodbye...

Hope everyone had a blessed Easter Sunday. Thank you, Lord, for your indescribable gift of sacrifice and love!

Videos I promised

Ok, I'm giving this video-uploading thing a shot. Hopefully I can make it work and you can get a little snapshot of Cooper's daily askings for his beloved grandparents. Hope you enjoy! Sorry for the poor quality...they were shot with my cell phone. Oh, and if this works, I'll start capturing more videos and sharing on the blog...