My hubby and my family and the Lord blessed me with such a special birthday week. I just had to share it with you all. So here are some pictures to tell the story…

First Chris kept the secret for MONTHS and then surprised me with a weekend trip to Nacogdoches, TX to Stag Leap - a place with peaceful, secluded, and oh so restful cottages in the woods. It was fabulous! The cottage was beautifully decorated with a cottage, country, Tuscan sort of look. It had little kitchen and a nice deck and a golf cart for riding around in the woods.

This is what it looked like on the inside:

Savannah wanted to drive the golf cart, but she’ll have to wait quite a few years. :)

My dear little family on the deck:

Secondly, on my birthday, I was taking a nap when I was startled awake by, of all people, my parents! They surprised me by coming a few days early for their weekend visit! It was a great way to wake up from a nap. :) That night, Dad treated us to Olive Garden, and then we came home and had a little party.

I had a pink and brown cake, and blew out the candles praying that my children would love the Lord all the days of their lives!

And, thank you dear friends for the gifts and all the notes you sent by phone, mail, email and facebook! I loved them all! Here’s a little collage of the gifts:

The Lord put the cherry on top with a good snow today! I guess you saw the previous post with that picture, but just so you can see my house, here’s a picture of our home in the snow and a funny one of Savannah all bundled up in next winter’s coat:

This has been a wonderful birthday! Is it just me, or do they keep getting better every year? :)

I’ll end with a thought… You all know that the Lord is preparing a mansion for us in heaven. YAY! Well, do we each get our own mansion or is there one big one for everybody? I always thought there was one for each believer. But, I can’t imagine living in a big mansion for eternity without family living in it with me. Can you? I mean, who wants a big house just to themselves anyway? So, I’m beginning to hope that the mansions of heaven are not in any way like the ones here on earth, but rather are so big that they encompass our family in Christ living together in perfect love and worship to God… I think that would be great. Oh, and I wouldn’t mind sharing a room either. :)

Well, We have seen fleeting glimpses of it…too fleeting…until now. We finally have captured it on film with the help of our good friend Melanie Bogner. She came and took lots of pictures this weekend, and so I will post a few of them here.

Isn’t she absolutely adorable!!!! The smile on my lovely wife’s face was equal to that of Savannah’s smile. I was mowing the grass last weekend, and Catherine came outside with eyes twinkling, and a lovely smile on her face as she said “Guess what? Savannah smiled!” Well, she has been smiling more often now, and we finally caught it on film to share with all of you! We can say that God gave us these pictures to share with you. While we were taking the pictures, Catherine prayed that God would cause little Savannah to give us a pretty smile, and He did! What makes it so special is that Savannah was a little bit hard to work with during the photo shoot, and then WOW, there was that ‘gorgamous’ smile. And she did it again when I was holding her…

Here are some with Catherine holding little Savannah…

And then a few family shots…

Well, that’s all for now. Sorry if the email is big from all the pictures. I have many more to post, but we will save those for another time. May God bless you all. Have a great week!

Chris and Catherine (and little Savannah)