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Showing posts from 2010

Three Favorite 2010 moments

John: Boys Canoe Trip, Hawaii in Feb, and Election Day Deanna: 2nd Honeymoon to Hawaii with John, planning and being a part of Carol's wedding, and leaving the diaper stage forever! Ashlyn: Seeing the St. Louis Arch, Chicago trip, and visiting 3 American Girl stores in one year Joshua: Boys Canoe Trip, taking care of Ella twice, and hanging out with Uncle Chris Caleb: Playing with Uncle Chris, going canoeing, and riding the bus Jonathan: Christmas, my birthday, and loving Ella

Happy Birthday Dad!

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We love you very much! We hope you have a great day and look forward to your birthday lunch with us! Mom, says "Happy Birthday too."

Ashlyn the film maker

Ashlyn got a new digital recorder for Christmas and has become quite the interviewer/film maker. She has made over 20 videos already. Today she made a video of her room that we worked on the day after Christmas. We decided not to put the bunk bed back together after all. But we moved the furniture around the room and she really likes it. We added her new quilt rack to the room to display the quilts she has made with Grandma Sue. Here is her first blog video:

Fun with Forts

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While I was taking down Christmas in the family room, the children were putting up forts in the living room. I think this one was mainily for Ella, the cousin dog we dogsitting for a week.

2011's theme is contentment

A couple of friends get together after Christmas each year and come up with a biblical virtue or theme they wish to work on the following year. They spend time in God's Word that year studying that truth and hold each other accountable on the theme they wish to work on. I have decided to give it a try in 2011. My area of improvement....contentment. Lisa, you are going to have to hold me accountable :) The reason I pick this word is easy, I struggle with contentment everyday. Complete contentment with my house, my car, my yard, my budget, my children...I could go on and on. God is showing me recently how content I should be with the life He has given me and how this life is not eternal. Christ is enough! I plan to read about this truth daily as I read my bible each evening. My encouragement today: Heb 13:5 Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." I plan on talking to As...

Merry Christmas from our Crew!

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We hope you had a wonderful Christmas today. We sure did. We stayed home all day and enjoyed our PJ's , new toys, and melting snow. We have a little visitor for a week and I think she had a good day too - this is her typical pose at our house. Half of our crew is sick and the other half is taking good care of the others (the main reason for the lack of blog posts lately, I am in the sick half). We forgot to take alot of pictures today so I will try to take some enjoying our week off together next week. A small mental image of our day includes marshmallow gun wars, remote control helicopters hitting the ceiling all day, zhu zhu pets squealing in delight and some serious racing between Mario and Luigi. We are reminded today of Christ in our lives and how much love He gives us too. Not one gift we were given today compares to the one of His birth so many years ago. Merry Christmas everyone!

One month countdown begins....

Dominican Republic trip is one month from today! We had our meeting and have our 8 day agenda in place. I am the team's photographer so I am excited to bring back alot of pictures. I have bought a few pair of scrubs and have my passport and luggage picked out. Please pray for the hearts of the children I will be in contact with, both at the school where we will be cleaning as well as the AIDS orphanage we will visit on our last day. May God be glorified through the trip and His love and mercy shown through our mission team.

Bunk bed switcharoo

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The boys have all been fighting over who should sleep on the top bunk lately. Actually, none of them wanted to. So I finally gave in to taking apart the bunk bed this weekend. The room is big enough to have 3 twin beds and they usually play in the school room/play room anyway. Around the same time, Ashlyn started talking about getting a full size bed or putting back up her bunk bed (right now we have one of the twin bunk beds set up in her room and the other in storage downstairs). She has decided to have the bunk bed again. So sometime during break we are going to put it back together in her room. Here are a few pics of the boys room. I am watching the big paper mache letters at Joanne's to hang above each of their beds (C, J, and J). I love that in the Pottery Barn magazines when there are 3 beds in a row on a big wall. We have some Star Wars stuff on a shelf above where those letters will go too. I might do something with Josh's headboard too when I work on the let...

Baking Progress

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Our Family Advent Calendar

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I have always wanted the Noel Piper advent calendar for our family. This year I finally decided to buy one for myself and discovered they no longer sell it. A friend of mine at church told me about another friend at church who also wanted that advent calendar so she made her own using a similar story. I created one the past few days using that friend's as a model . I loved how it came out. I made it out of felt and was able to buy all the supplies for $5 (and I made two of them - one for my best friend too). That sure was cheaper than the one I had originally wanted! The story we will read is from Luke 2 and each day we add another part to the story. I have the pieces stored in the back in an envelope on 3 pieces of felt. I hope to sew pockets on the back before next year for each piece - it was too large to put them on the front like Noel's calendar. Here it is...

Why God made banks...

according to Caleb: "You know why God made banks mommy. So all those people who don't have any money can go there and get money. He wants to help them" This was said right after I told him I didn't have enough money to add crazy bread to our pizza order tonight.

My favorite Christmas gift

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The world's best photographer, who happens to be my best friend, gave me a wonder surprise today. She made me an accordion photo book for my wonderful photo purse she gave me a couple years ago. I had never seen one of these accordion books before our Nebraska trip where John's Aunt had one of her first grandbaby. They are great and are magnetic to close. Here are a few pics of it.. The front cover The inside The other side The back cover

Our cold and busy weekend

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It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas here in Kansas City. A lot of lights are up and on and some fun white stuff today... This weekend was very cold, but we were still able to get out some. We hung out with our church family on Friday night at a open house in NE KC. On Saturday, we hosted a nice birthday dinner for my mom and her boyfriend Larry. It was a really good time and nice to finally get to know him more. On Sunday, we went to church and then saw the 3D Narnia movie. It was our first 3D experience and everyone really enjoyed it. Here is a shot of that... This week will be a slight warmer than this weekend and not quite as busy. We are looking forward to Christmas already. We have moved our tree in by the fireplace instead of in the cold sun room. It is wonderful to listen to hymns and songs of Christ's birth all the time now. One more week of school for FCA too...off to hot cocoa and warmth :)

In a galaxy far, far, and away...

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there was a big kitchen store who invented a wonderful little product, Star Wars pancake molds. One humble female Jedi attempted to make Yoda, Darth Vader,and Storm Trooper pancakes. She soon realized that you have to be from Planet Nebu to get them to turn out... Mr. Skywalker will attempt the 2 nd attack this weekend. We'll keep you posted...

FCA Christmas Program

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Ashlyn performed O'Come Emmanuel with her fellow 4 th graders in both Latin and English (second picture). She also joined 3rd thru 6 th graders on her recorder for 2 Christmas songs (last picture). She did a wonderful job! It's great to see her getting louder and more confident at the these things. We missed Joshua who was home sick. And we missed Caleb's school program when we were in Nebraska last weekend. So this was our only school Christmas star this year...

Learning all the parts of his name

Here is a cute video of Jonathan. Sorry it is sideways. We have been working on learning different parts of his name. He really does know his first name, even though it does not appear that way in the video. We called this video, Grandpa Gary's Influence. You'll see why at the end. Enjoy!

Mahoney State Park 2010

Here is a 5 minute glimpse of our fun at Mahoney State Park this past weekend...

A sick day at home

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Josh stayed home sick from school yesterday (so long perfect attendance award!) He is so different than my other two, who are obviously more like me. He doesn't care at all to miss school. Ashlyn and Caleb can't rest at home wondering what they are missing and how much they will have to make up. Not Joshua...he enjoys movies, pjs all day, puzzles, soup and a little snuggle time. I surprised him with Panda Express while the Maids came and cleaned too. It was a great day. He had to miss his Christmas program last night because he still felt bad, but he is all better today. And he was pretty quick at doing his work from yesterday and today during school time. Now I just wait and see if anyone else gets it (sore throat, bad headache, and small fever)...

Christmas in Nebraska

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We are back from Nebraska and celebrated Christmas early with Grandma Sue and Grandpa Gary. We got a much nicer cabin this year, had fun ice skating, painting ceramics, playing the in the tunnels, slides, and ball pits together, watching the NE game, and of course just enjoying each other in the freezing NE air. We also got to see Aunt Sandy, Uncle Paul, Aunt Nancy, Taira, and Great-grandma Steiner before we came home. More pics in slideshow form to follow this week...

Gingerbread Art

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Some dancin elves...

The kids and I had a little fun playing on the laptop during school today. Here are some favorites...

Christmas cards went out...

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I am a little more organized this year - we still have to give to church and neighborhood friends, but we got all of the out of town ones done :) This weekend we go to Mahoney State Park with Grandma Sue and Grandpa Gary to celebrate Christmas....I think we can just sit back and bake the rest of December!

Studying hard

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Today was a little cooler than usual so we did our schoolwork upstairs in the dining room instead of our basement school room. We typically stay in our pjs on cold school days especially when we don't have to go anywhere. Here are the kids working on their homework. Notice our 3rd student got a little cozy with some books under the table while we were working so hard above and snoozed for an hour or so...

Our karate kid

Jonathan: "When are we going to go to karate kid?" Mom: "Do you mean, when are we going to watch the karate kid?" Jonathan: "Nope, I mean GO there." Mom: "You can't go to the karate kid, but you could go to karate class or watch the movie." Jonathan: "I want to go to karate kid where you get to kick people in the butt and the winner gets the big key! Oooaahh (kicking the air in front of him)" Mom: "Hmmm." This is our 1,200 blog post! Thanks for reading it and staying in touch with our crew!

Winter is approaching...

We woke up to snow flurries today! Caleb and I talked all about the snow adventures we are excited about this year as we drove to school. When I drove back, they disappeared. But the others looked out the window before then and saw them too....My meteorologist friend Gary is predicting a light winter, with some ice storms instead of alot of snow. We are praying for a little more snow on MWF than last year....seemed like it always snowed on Tues and Thurs when we were home from school anyway. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

What's for lunch?

Today Ashlyn, Jonathan and I went to a few stores while the other boys stayed home and played Wii. Each group of 3 did their own thing for lunch. When I called home to see what they were doing, Joshua said they had KFC and John ate at the penny place. I asked him what the penny place was. He said, "You know the really cheap place he likes." I still had no idea. Then he said, "The sandwich place with pennies on it." I realized he meant, Mr. Goodcents! It made me laugh.

Being Thankful...

We played the ABC Thankful game just as our chapel speaker suggested last week - thanks Mr. Greco ! Each person thinks of something they are thankful for that starts with each letter of the alphabet. Here are the kids responses from oldest to youngest....( Ashlyn , Joshua, Caleb & Jonathan) A - (apples, airplanes, alot of apples, America) B - (bees, babies, bananas, binoculars) C - (cats, cane, cake, cars) D - (dogs, duffle bags, dogs, dogs ) E - (elephants, epics, eating - Jonathan doesn't want to play anymore) F - (fangs, fame, four) G - (giraffes, girls, goat) H - ( Hansons , hands, Hannah Montana) I - (incline, inspiring, igloo ) J - (judge, Jonah, Joshua) K - (king, kangaroo, Kindergarten) L - (love, locusts, lollipop ) M - (mop, mommy, mom) N - (nice, nector , nickles) O - (obstacle courses, on & off, oxygen) P - (pollination, pencils, park) Q - (questions, quilts, queens) R - (righteousness, rain, red) S - (stars, steaks, stores) T - (truthfulness, teeth, trees)...

Pilgrim Fun

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Yesterday in 1st grade, the kids all dressed up like pilgrims. They also did some cute crafts, played a really messy popcorn game and had snacks. I stayed in Ashlyn's party most of the time, but went to Joshua's party a few times to see the fun. Here are a few pics of his party...

Sweet Scarecrows

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This year for FCA's Harvest party, I decided to try a new family fun recipe. In the past, I have made the Turkey Cupcakes and the Pilgrim Hats , both of which were huge hits. This year, I tried the Sweet Scarecrows even though fall is pretty much done around here. I think the kids appreciated the hard work it took to make them. These ones were a little less messy to eat too, minus the frosting. We really wanted to make the Corny Cookies , but we had a hard time finding green fruit roll-ups at any of the grocery stores around here. If we find those by next year, I think we will try that one for 5 th grade! If you haven't checked out Family Fun lately, you should. They have added some more really fun desserts and they are so easy to make. Our kids really enjoy helping out too.

On our family movie radar

We are looking forward to THREE exciting movies the next few months. First, the Voyage of the Dawn Treader comes out Dec 10 th . We are going to see that one in 3D together (our first time seeing one in 3D). We are also looking forward to the Cars II movie that comes out next summer. Well last night on our date night, John and I learned of another Pirates of the Caribbean movie coming out in May. We are all very excited for that too. Here is the only trailer I could find...do you know of any other good ones coming out? Uploaded by teasertrailer . - Watch feature films and entire TV shows.

Sniff, sniff

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I wish today that our blog had scratch and sniff capability. That way you could scratch the picture above and smell what this bottle smells like. It is a bottle of gun cleaner. It's primary ingredient is kerosene, and it is very strong. I bet you are wondering why I would want you to smell this horrible smell. You see, I was kinda hoping to share with you what we have been smelling the past couple days....it is burned into my nose. This bottle above is actually empty. It's empty because I dropped it from the top of our master closet a couple days ago and watched it spray all over our closet. Since then, John and I have been seen smelling all of our clothes and shoes before we put them on. We have already done a few loads of laundry and have lit numerous scented candles in our closet and room. We keep thinking we have gotten all of the culprits out of the closet, but then we find another one! We fear this smell might be engraved on our noses, clothes, and bedroom for ...

November Chapel

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Both Ashlyn and Joshua performed today at FCA's chapel service. Ashlyn played her recorded and Joshua's 1st grade class performed "All Things Bright and Beautiful." They both did a great job! Joshua is on the top row, the 3rd from the right. He is usually very animated in class (not so much on the stage though)

Jonathanism

Jonathan has really been making me laugh lately. He will say such funny things! I need to start sharing them more often. Today he slept in until almost 10 so I was able to get alot done this morning after Caleb left for school at 8:15. I usually have the Maids change my sheets on my bed when they come, but I decided to do it with some of my extra time. I suppose Jonathan is not used to seeing all the covers off my bed. Because this morning when he came out of his bedroom door and looked into my room the first thing he said was, "Mommy, did you wet in your bed last night?"

Another Park Hill Blessing

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Once again, we are so excited for Caleb to be in the public school district we are in! This morning when we were getting him ready for school, I noticed he was lacking some long sleeve shirts and pants. Joshua hands down most of his clothes to Caleb (while he is still a little bigger than him) which has been wonderful being so close in age. But they are in different seasons. So sometimes I overlook that Caleb is missing something because his closet is so full - full of summer stuff right now. So after I left the school today, I noticed there was an email about the Park Hill clothes closet. The entire school district has a donation center where families can donate old clothes. Then a huge amount of volunteer organizes them by size, category, etc and twice a month open the doors of the "clothing center". Any student enrolled in the district can take advantage of the center - it doesn't matter your income, age, etc. So this morning, I stopped by to see what they had...