MEXICO 2007

I love this song. I couldn't find the official video of it but this one is great. Hope it inspires you today!!!

Mom's Braggin' Board

It is every mom's right to brag about their kids. Like they just do all of these wonderful things because of us:) No, seriously, I am just so proud of their accomplishments! Where else can I openly brag on them but my blog?!

Lauren is now potty trained! She has been using her little potty for awhile. She has gone for about 4 days with only one accident. Last week, she started telling us when she needed to go. So wonderful to not have to buy diapers!! We do use them on occasion because I am afraid of the dreaded accident in public. Maybe I will get over that soon.

Brendan had now reached his goal for the year of 200 Accelerated Reading points. He is so happy. He has been reading so much lately. He is in 10th place in the entire school 3rd grade- 12th grade. What can I say? He loves to read!!

Ethan came home so happy on Friday. His teacher told him that his handwriting paper was the best in the class that day. She also said he wrote like a 5th grader. He was on cloud nine. So glad that he finally got some positive encouragement that meant something to him!

Aaron, well, as you know is a mess. His latest thing is that he is getting married. His PE teacher is going to take him and Cassie to the gym to get married. He asked me to come take pictures of them. He was very excited about all this until I told him that he has to move out when he gets married.

So as you can tell, never a dull moment in our household.

Thank you God for these sweet years. Help me to remember how short they are!!!

Thirteen Years Today!

Yep, today is our wedding anniversary! It's hard to believe we have even known each other that long. I tried to post some pictures that I scanned numerous times but it just wouldn't work. We were able to go on a date this weekend. My mom watched the kiddos while we went to a movie. The movie was good. The popcorn and chocolate---EVEN BETTER! We decided to just hang out tonite. Johnny's Pizza was the kids choice for this evening. Hey- as long as I don't have to cook, I feel like a queen!!!!

A New Adventure

We are planning a new trip in April. Thad and I will be going to Shell, Ecuador to visit a missionary couple. This couple is doing the type of work that we really feel called to do. This will give us the opportunity to see what their everyday lives are like, check out the area, and see if this might be the place that God has for us. We are pretty excited about it! I am not excited about leaving my children behind. We decided that it would be best for us to go check it out first. I really don't think that they would enjoy the 5 hour bus ride to and from the airport;)
So please pray for our family. Pray that we would prepare our hearts to hear what God wants and not what we want. Pray for our children as we are away from them and a safe trip for us.

Drive Thru Safari

It was such a beautiful day yesterday. We just couldn't imagine sitting at the house again. So we took the kids to this drive thru safari not far from our house. It has been open for a year or more but we just have never thought to go. It was so neat. We didn't know if it was worth it or not at first but .....








the kids loved it. There were so many animals that didn't get their pictures taken.These are just a few pictures that I took before they gathered around our car. I was try to keep little fingers safe so I didn't get any pictures of the kids with the animals. The kids were hanging out of the car and the animals were coming in the car!

The kids LOVED that they could actually touch the animals. They were not scared a bit!!





They enjoyed laughing at me when an ostrich snuck up on my side of the car and wanted to get a close up of me. I have heard those birds are mean and I didn't want to have a first hand experience! Just a peak at our Sunday afternoon. Hope you had a good one!

Happy Birthday Lauren!

We had Lauren's birthday party last Sunday. Good thing because we were all sick on her real birthday- Feb 13th. But this first picture is of Lauren and Grandma opening her first gift- a Mickey DVD.









She loved her chocolate Mickey cake! I can't believe she is two!











Grandma and I had a good time making the cake.






We had so much fun. Both sets of grandparents were there and her great grandparents. All of her cousins came too. Their favorite part was the princess pinata. How can you not have fun when that much sugar is involved?!!!

Update for now

So, I never got around to posting on Lauren's birthday. The kids were so sick that day. We ended up making a dr appt to find out that the youngest 3 have the flu. So you can understand why no post huh? Aaron and Lauren feel pretty good. Ethan has been so sick. He is so pale and sometimes green. I am happy to report that he is up and around today. Hopefully, everyone will be feeling completely normal soon.
Thad spent the day here with them at home while I took Brendan on a fieldtrip. This wasn't just any fieldtrip but a reward for all the points he has accumulated for reading. If it were any regular fieldtrip, I would have stayed home. He really needed to be rewarded for all of his hard work and he wanted his mom to come with him. I had a great time. It was nice to be out of the house for a while. We went to a place here that has go-carts, lazer tags, and so much more. The go-carts were definitely my favorite. Then we toured the tv station and made it just in time to be on the end of the noon report. I have no pictures because I forgot the camera. I did take one on my cell phone of Brendan giving his version of the news. Maybe I can download it--maybe not.

Just Hangin' Out

Ok, was I bragging about being well or something a few blogs ago??!! Ethan has had a high fever for a few days. He feels better during the day but the fever comes back at night. He has missed two days of school so far this week. Aaron claims to have a cough so I let him stay home on Monday. On Tuesday morning, he wakes me up with a horrible cough complaining that it hurts. So, he is home for his 2nd day too. On top of that, Thad started feeling bad Sunday night. He has no fever but SEVERE head congestion. Lauren has had a little fever. Brendan and I are the caretakers because we feel fine! I pray that everyone feels better SOON! This is a big week. Lauren will be 2 tomorrow!! Everyone has a Valentine's Day party on Thursday and I am a driver for Brendan's fieldtrip on Friday! Somethings gotta give!!!!!!!!!!! So pray for us this week. We don't want to feel bad or miss out on all of the fun we have planned.

I hope to give a little post for Lauren's birthday tomorrow. I am still trying to figure out how to download my videos to the blog.

Our "Little" Project

So this is the "little" project that we started on January 4th. As I said earlier, we cleaned out this storage space, painted, added new baseboards, hung all of these trophies....etc...What a job!!! It took a whole month to get this done then move the stuff from the old office to the new office. The first picture is the view from the front door. Click on the pictures to get the full effect. Ethan shot the goat closest to the lamp. The elk is Thad's famous full body mount. He tried to put this in our house but when I saw its facial expression and the "boy" parts that just scream out at ya, I told him I changed my mind about this being in my house. What would you do?!



Do they have enough animals or what????!!!!!








This is the conference room. My oldest shot one of the fallow deer on the wall in this room.









These is where all of the work is done!!







And this is the work-free zone!




As you can tell, this office is huge. I didn't even include the pictures of the kitchen, secretaries desk, Mr. David's desk, and bathroom.

Maybe this will explain why I am so behind on blogging. What will I use for an excuse now?

Our Weekend Guests

We had some very special guests at our house this weekend. The Kammingas & Werkemas made their way to Louisiana from Michigan. We were so glad to have them and treat them to their very first crawfish boil. AND since it was the weekend before Fat Tuesday, we also had king cake. They enjoyed all of this cajun culture but everyone agreed that it would have been a little better if our Irish friend could have joined us. We saved some for you Nevin!