We got to stop by a "T-Rex" restaurant on our way home from Kansas and J keeps begging to go back, not realizing that it is hundreds of miles away. Doesn't he look a bit concerned that he may get a bite taken out of him. Even C is really getting into dinosaurs. We didn't eat at the restaurant so we can't say if the food is good, but the atmosphere was great!

Here are my parents with my 3, sweet children....although C is crying and......

here I am with my grandparents (and J). Time really flies. This is my gpa that just turned 93...Praise God! And this is the gma that hopes our baby is born on her 93rd birthday! What a blessing to have wonderful loving parents and grandparents. I just pray that I can be as loving and supportive to my children as they have been to me. We plan to drive to North Carolina this Christmas to see Big J's mom's side of the family. E will have a ball playing with two girl cousins that are 10 and 7. Lord willing we will stay well and have safe driving. Blessings to you this Nativity season!

We have a 6 year old princess! E enjoyed her birthday even though we didn't have a big cake. She requested that we make individual brownie cakes with cady pumpkins and critters on them. We did go trick-or-treating and it was the first year that the kids really understood what was going on.....at least E and J. C just took a ride in the stroller to see all the happenings. E was a purple cat, J a blue dog (Blue from Blue's Clues) and C, yes, that good ol' lion. Maybe next year we will have a party at our house. We'll have to see how much energy this mama has. So far so good with this 4th pregnancy and looking forward to meeting this little person that is due at the end of March. My grandma Catherine really wants this baby to come on her birthday which is the 28th and that would make it a week late. C was a week late, so that wouldn't be too much to ask. I was born on my grandpa's birthday and so grandma would like a little present as well. My grandpa Henry turns 93 next week! I am so thankful that we got to see them during the Thanksgiving break......despite the stomach bug going around. God is so good to bless us with getting to see all my siblings and their children over the break even though we are so sorry to have passed our bug to some of them. Lord have mercy.

Of course, it is now way past the time for clothes like this in the north! Brrrrrr! Our morning glories are still blooming a bit, but not like this. I will post a current pic soon with updates of E's birthday. She is now 6!

Yes, Angie, you guessed it! Because of our expanding family we said good-bye to our dear old Altima and hello to a new-to-us 2001 Toyota Sienna. Some of you who read our blog and don't already know will now come to realize that our family NEEDS to have a mini-van because we will have to fit yet ONE MORE carseat in our vehicle come March 21st (or there abouts). We are having another baby! Are you crazy? Yes, we are! The kids really like our new smooth ride and it helps them not poke each other so much on the hour ride to and from church on Sunday mornings. The noise is also absorbed a bit more in the larger space. There is still no yelling, screaming, squealing, etc. allowed, but the space does help when we forget the rules. Oh, life is changing and we are changing with it.

Can you tell where we are sitting?

Savannah, Georgia was a great place to visit with some of my dear friends from seminary past. It was such a relaxing time mentally and emotionally.....a wonderful break from being the vigilant mother of 3 young, squirrelly children. I totally recommend getting away and visiting a place like Savannah at least every couple of years (I went for approx. 3 days). It is nice to be back at home as well....but the laundry, dishes and house cleaning are only getting done my me....no other mamas to help me out. I miss them all! Thank God for friends.

WOW! Did August just FLY by? Where did it go? We DID have a visit from Odo and Mommom, then Oma and Opa. Then we went to Florida to see Grandpa and N and Great Nonnie. The very next Monday E started Kindergarten and Whew! We have just been busy! E has transitioned very nicely although she still has some days that she is tired and just wants to be at home with Mom. I think it's adjusting to having to get to school in the morning. She also takes a ballet class on Mondays and has a hard time getting there, but really enjoys it once she's there!

The weather has finally cooled a bit, but for some reason we have had so many mosquitos! C and J even got bites on their precious faces! Oh yeah.....I was also reading the last Harry Potter novel....that's where all my time went. I really liked it. So, now I have to finish all those other books I've started.

Big J has finished our walkway from the house to the garage and he even put in a small patio to the north of our back door. The kids wanted to help, but mostly just got sandy. The bricks are from the old streets around this neighborhood. A couple of the neighbors behind us had leftovers and gave them to us. I wonder how many people, horses and cars (and what kinds) have trampled on these bricks?

We like to come out in our pjs to look at the blue morning glories climbing on our front porch. We can't wait to see what they look like when all the vines are in bloom!

Here's what the Birthday Boy looked like the morning of his 3rd b-day and yes, that is his requested blue dinosaur cake! We have had a great July so far and even big J turned 29!

We have mostly been playing in the backyard on the swing set, filling the wading pool, playing in the sandbox and watering plants over and over! If only it would rain here just a little bit. Our grass.....uh hum.......weeds in the yard are so dry and brown. We really don't want to water them as we may just be killing them soon anyhow so that we can either put a garden in or reseed with grass. The kids have been staying healthy and I think that's because we have been home a lot. Hopefully this will boost their immune systems for the school year. Come visit us while we are well.

How's this for a couple in love?! Come July 25th we will be married 9 years. Other important dates to remember are: little J turns 3 on June 30th and big J turns 29 on July 13th!
We had a great Father's Week and took some cards and an E home-made collage to Daddy's 'office' to hang up. He will be able to look at some great art if he needs a break from all his theology reading. E has enjoyed her creative dance (pre-ballet) classes so far and we love that we only have to walk down the street to attend. J really wants to go along. I am going to have to find some class or group for him to be a part of on his own. He is really getting big, but continues to love having Mommy or Daddy close. C is babbling so much that I think she said 'octopus' this evening in the bathtub while playing with the bath toys from Grandpa K. The weather has been really nice lately and gives us time to tackle those weeds and put in a brick walkway from house to garage made from the old bricks that use to pave these streets around here. The neighbors behind us offered them to us as they had no more use for them. Our neighborhood is rich with history and diversity. Come visit when you can!

We have been outside so much and just having a good ol'summer that I haven't had much time to blog. Daddy was gone for Father's Day so we decided to have a Father's Week for him. Today we took some flowers and a balloon to his 'office'. (It's really a closet in the library....all the grad students have the option to use one). The three kids had their own balloons as well and some treats for Daddy. Sad to say, we lost J's and E's balloons outside.....at different times. We think they are either flying to India to be gifts for some other little children who have never had a balloon or maybe God will make them into stars up in heaven. We had some big tears. Can you tell where we are standing in this picture?

The first picture is of our family at Fernwood Botanical Gardens. What a luscious treat to be there when all was green and the woods were not too buggy. The kids, of course, are looking over a railing to some water. We love to get out into nature. We have planted more sunflower seeds around our garage and fence and the morning glories are starting to climb onto the front porch. My rose bushes are slowly growing and we planted two tomato plants (one is a Santa sweet grape tomato plant....YUM!)

The second picture is of a press conference held in front of our house and the next door neighbor's to our north. Our Mayor was speaking about all the vacant houses in our city and what the city and other grant funded groups are doing to fix that problem. Our house was rehabed by a such a group. We saw our house briefly on the news. I had been interviewed as well, but I don't think they used anything I said.....I was holding Constance at the time and she was dropping bread crumbs, pulling on my shirt, had a runny nose....you get the picture...probably too distracting. Oh well, I'm not a T.V. star, but I have a nice house.

When asked by Oma on her recent visit if she could visit E's classroom on her last day of school, E replied, "I am going to be in the kindergarten here next year, Oma." We are not sure if that was a polite way of saying, "No Oma, you've already been to my class this year." Or if E was just confused about what was being asked of her. Oma stayed home and played with J and read him some fun books instead. We LOVED her visit and look forward to her next one. (0pa better come, too!)

We got to visit a botanical garden in Michigan and ventured into wooded areas trying hard to keep the running little ones out of the poison ivy. So far we think no one got it. The second picture was taken at E's class picnic...unfortunately it was a rainy day, so the get-together was inside. We enjoyed eating our bagged lunches on her classroom floor and visiting with other moms and dads all smooshed into the school building. We are thankful for such a great school community on campus. Last Friday, Oma got to visit Big J's small office (called a carrel) on the 5 floor of the campus library and the Monday following he got to move his things to a 13th floor carrel where he will be closer to all the books he uses. Now we all have to visit his new 'office.'

It's been raining here.... flowers and weeds are growing! I bought some annuals to put in the front: white snapdragons, salmon and pink impatiens, salmon petunias, and some red salvia. I love to see the beautiful flowers around our house. My green thumb is getting bigger.

This is the official birthday cake messy face picture that we take when we let our 1 year old dig into her piece of b-day cake! C did not take many bites and let her mommy eat all the rest. She doesn't seem to like cake much at all, but will eat ice cream....sounds like her cousin, T.
E and J loved singing to C and I think she understood that we were singing something special just for her.
It has been hot here and the kids are playing well outside. Today we had the little pool out in the back....trying to keep it clean, even though the sand box wasn't too far from it. Well, they finally took the sand bucket and made a mud puddle in the top soil dirt pile that they are allowed to play in (they are NOT allowed to play in Mommy's flower beds, right). Needless to say, they had fun! And I have some DIRTY laundry to do.

This Thursday our precious baby turns one!!!! It's so amazing how the year went by so quickly. We love her and have lots of dandelions to put behind her ears! I can't write too much this week as big J has to use the computer to finish up 3 long papers for finals week. I post pictures of the birthday girl next week (I hope).

Our Daddy can take all three of the kids to the park on with his bike! Notice the kids are bundled up. This actually happened a few weeks ago when it was chilly, but the kids had a great time playing at the park anyway. Now we are enjoying the warm to hot weather and I have planted all my purple pansies and my Morning Glory seeds as well. We have met some new neighbor kids (ages 9,8,6&5) who want to come over every day and we will hopefully communicate our 'boundries' and 'limits' to them in a careful and kind way. We have enjoyed getting to know them and will have all summer to play and plant gardens. Pray for their family as their mom works two jobs and their dad is in and out of the picture. My poor husband is also very busy right now with papers and presentations at the end of the semester. We are definitely looking forward to the end of the school year.....and the added stress. The sun and the beautiful flowers do make the stress less potent, but the kids still feel it when Daddy is working a lot. We have a play date with one of E's school friends tomorrow at his house. He has a sister that is J's age and a brother that is a little bit younger than C. We will see how fun it is getting our 6 kids together. Apparently E writes him 'love' notes often (because 'I love you' is one of the few phrases she can actually write). He mailed her a love note just so he could give her the 'wonder woman' stamp on the envelope. They seem to be good friends as of late, which is different for E this year. She has mostly played with all the girls in her class and ignored the boys, so it is nice that she has another boy friend....just like all her good guy friends back at SVS.

Tulips are blooming!

Can you find my tulip? We have enjoyed the last few days of warm weather so much! We participated in our Neighborhood ADOPT-A-BLOCK by meeting early Saturday morning to have a few encouraging words and some donuts with about 100 of our neighbors and then helped clean up litter all over our block. Our neighborhood association covers about 80 blocks. Plus, the city planted some new (10 year old) Celebration Sugar Maples on our block (in our tree lawn) with the funding from an Enironmental Club on campus. We also found a tiny, afforadable Japanese Maple that we planted yesterday evening. Now we have two new trees on our property to water and care for. Exciting new growth for us! C is growing well and is cutting her two top teeth. She'll have a small toothy grin for her first b-day come May (all four teeth!)

We are thrilled to be outside and I am growing a green thumb. I bought some pansies to border our side walkway and a couple more plants as well. We are feeling alive this Spring!

CHRIST IS RISEN! INDEED HE IS RISEN!
Our children are the most precious gifts to us from God besides the LIFE that Christ has brought us through His resurrection. Thank God for His abundant Grace for us!

The day before Pascha/Easter this is what our new play set looked like! Wow! The snow is all melted today but we haven't hunted for eggs outside yet. The kids have so enjoyed this new play structure that daddy ordered and put together for them as a surprise while we were in Kansas and Oklahoma for visits. Our backyard looks like a new place! Now we just have to find the right spot to let J dig in the dirt so he won't ruin our flowers.

C is showing Clover the bear her baby toys. (learn about Clover from the previous blog entry)
C had a check up for her ears today and they are all better! Yay! She also gained all her weight back and more. She was 15lbs 9 oz. I know that is still small for an almost 10 month old, but we grow those girls tiny, yep! I am just thrilled to have her healthy.

If you look closely at C's high chair you will notice a fuzzy little bear. E brought home a class 'pet' to visit our home. His name is Clover and he is travelling around all the children's homes and going to work with a mom or dad at each stop. He got to take a trip to campus with Daddy and visit the tiny office where he studies. Clover apparently helped Big J look some words up in the dictionary and also had a snack with him. We enjoyed Clover's visit to our home as well since all the kids got to play with him. We even learned the sign language for bear....cross your arms to your shoulders and make scratching movements like claws. We hope you all can visit us sometime, too.

This is our unwelcome guest who lives in our upstairs walls and attic that we cannot access. Yes, he is a little ground squirrel. When the weather has been nice out he exists and runs around collecting some nuts and such. As soon as we are able we will be trying to shut him out when he is sunning himself. He must have a little friend who lives with him because I will often hear them chasing each other and making funny noises. Mating? I hope not!

You know you have a lot of snow when you can't even see the back steps. We have had some sun here, but it continues to snow almost everyday for at least a short time....all that 'lake-effect' snow. We are looking forward to visiting my family soon in warmer places and then the kids will finally be able to run around on some grass for a change. The kids seem to be without a cold (virus) right now and I am praising God for this! C had a double ear infection that is healing nicely and we just pray we all stay well now. Bring on the sunshine!

Here is the master puzzler smiling because, "I did it!" he exclaims. We are so thankful that J has found this new hobby to keep him busy and happy.

E and J have been itching to play outside lately and with the weather up to 36 or 38 some days it has been possible to run around on the ice covered snow and get some outside time for about 15 minutes or so. E takes her snow pants to school and if it is above 25 real feel then they play outside. The kids there have manages to roll some pretty big snowballs together. How fun!!! C has been sick lately and we found out on Saturday (thank God for Saturday office hours) that she has ear infections in both ears. Ouch! She seems to remain happy though and is eating much better now that she is on anti-biotics. We are all mostly over our little colds now and hope to remain well for the remainder of winter.....Lord willing. Going to school is such a recipe for kids to get sick. Strep has been going around E's class since before Christmas. Yuck.

May God protect us all from this.

THE LIFE

Being a mom can be such hard work. Do you see the mess in the background of this picture? I am truly amazed at how often I pick up something that I have just picked up a few minutes ago....or at least a few hours ago. Still, you can see that I have lots of fun with the kids. C is sporting a jazzy scarf that Oma made. She has been such a joy to play with lately. She babbles a lot too and just the other day as she was gumming a piece of paper off of the floor, her daddy heard her say, "yeah, paper." Of course.....she was just repeating sounds that she has been hearing. We better keep a good check on ourselves.

Today E got to visit the magnet school that she may get to attend. She had a 'test' with a physchologist (with other children at the same time). We didn't tell her it would be a test...just that she was going to meet some other children and teachers that she may get to go to school with next year. She said it was fun and easy. There were a couple of other children there from her preschool and I am sure that made it easier for her. If she doesn't get to go to that school, she will most likely go to kindergarten at ECDC (where she attends now).

J has been making progress potty-training. He has made quite the effort lately, mostly b/c he likes getting gum as a treat. He has really figured out how to chew gum without swallowing it. It's a bit funny to see him munching away on it. Other than this 'work', he has discovered that he really likes to do puzzles. He has done our two huge floor puzzle everyday this week, plus a few more smaller puzzles. He seems to be addicted to them. At least, it's a great skill to hone.

Big J is really busy with school, but thankfully enjoying it. It was warmer today and some of the snow on the streets was a bit mushy. Soon we may get to go play in the snow without freezing.

I am just longing for the day when our feet don't get wet when we step outside!

Yes, this is what you let your kids do when it is so cold outside that their noses might freeze off. J has black icing all over his mouth from a donut that his dad bought him. mmmmmm

And C is really in a dolly stroller, laughing as E pushes her around the dining room table. We don't get out much.

COLD

Apparently it is really supposed to be cold this weekend. Brrrrr, maybe negative 10 degrees or so. It's in weather like this that you really wish that your house was insulated. Yep. E got to go visit the fire station today. J got a nice haircut. And C is just the cutest thing ever. She is learning how to sign 'more' and 'all done' and she official says "Hi" all the time. She is so smart, but of course I am biased. I love my kids and yes I do need a break from them at times. What do I do in this cold weather? Well, I just haven't gotten to the gym yet.

This was my very own bike when I was young. It's so amazing to see one of my own kids ride it. We had such a great time at the grandparents and can't wait to see them again! We have no opportunity to bike ride as of late....even my hubby is taking the bus or walking to campus. He says he really enjoys the walk through all the snow. I have some awesome pics of the snow and icicles to upload soon. I better go to bed as I am fighting off a cold....and THE cold. Would love to be in Florida now.

BLUE

J celebrated his nameday on the 17th because it was the feast of St. Anthony the Great. We have a tradition of letting the honored celebrant choose what will be made for dinner and J requested 'blue' food. It was a bit hard to find blue pizza, but as you can see here we did make blue jello and we had blue moon ice cream with blueberries on top after our cheese pizza and freshly steamed green beans. ( all his request) I can't believe how big our kids our getting. The two older ones can be so helpful at times, yet lately we have had quite a bit of sibling mayhem as well. I am learning even better when to ask them to work it out between themselves and when to intervene before anyone gets hurt. E is finally back into the routine of school, C got her first tooth, and it's been snowing everyday here! The snow only accumulates a small amount and mostly melts on the streets so driving is not bad. I should take a picture to show you all. I love the big fluffy flakes that fall here all the time. I am getting used to the cold I think....even though I would much rather live in Florida or California. We played in the snow one day, but really it's been too cold to be out that long. I think we would all be J's favorite color.....BLUE!

BOO!

J had his name day yesterday. More details to come.....

Don't you just love the box as a toy. Today we had about 3 inches of snow (I didn't look it up to see the official amount, but that's what it looked like) so we got out the new sled the kids got at Christmas from Mommom and Poppop. This was our first big snow and J was still less than thrilled to be out in the cold. I waited till C was napping and buddled myself and the kiddos up to romp in the snow a bit. E loved it and J was okay for 20 minutes or so, but the first one to come inside.

We also took the car into the shop today (Daddy actually took it in and rode his bike home...his hands were painfully cold when he got home). Our check engine light had come on Sunday after church. It turned out to be an oxygen sensor. Not cheap, but not thousands either. I have decided that I would really like to go to Vo-tech someday. I love to know how things work and it would be so practical to learn the mechanics of cars. Can you see me in a jumpsuit with oil and grease all over my hands? Well, time will tell.

Christmas was a wonderful time of worshipping at our home church and then traveling to see many of you. I hope we can get to see more of our friends and family in future trips back to KS. We enjoyed putting up a real tree this year and the kids had fun decorating it. Daddy made cookies with the kids a few days before Christmas and then put them on the tree as decoration. The kids got to pick one to eat on Christmas Eve. J was also admiring the candy canes every chance he got and broke many in the process of asking if he could eat them. Unfortunately he only wanted to eat the unbroken ones and therefore would keep getting more down. C was a bit hesitant to touch the tree, but really studied it with her eyes. E was really excited about putting presents under the tree, even if she already knew what was in the box. I enjoyed the holiday season, but am glad to have our living room back to normal....well, almost back to normal. There is a doll house now in the place where our tree stood.