Loving the Little Ones

1st Day of School

2009-08-20T17:31:00.003-05:00

Today was the first day of school so, of course, I had to take my yearly pictures at the end of our sidewalk. There's a little bug going through our home so Benji was sick earlier this week but feeling better now, Jacob woke up with a headache, Clara has a sore throat, Debra is begging for medicine even thought there's nothing wrong with her, and Chris felt just plain lousy this morning. Everybody was well enough to go to school.......except for poor Chris. He got dressed, took our annual pictures, got in the van........and then lost steam and thought he was going to throw up. By the time we got to school all he wanted to do was lay down in the back seat. He ended up sleeping from 10:00 until 2:00. Now he's jumping around and I'm sure will be raring to go to school tomorrow.

Here are the grades for this year:
Jacob - 5th
Clara - 4th
Chris - 2nd
Benji - 2nd
Debra - Preschool

Here's the crew from last year.

2008 Here they are in 2007.
They look so little and cute here!!!! Chris and Benji were in preschool.

2006

My Baby

2009-07-16T20:08:00.004-05:00

Debra is now four years old. She is growing so fast. Yesterday the two of us had a little photo shoot.......she loves doing that! Here are a few of my favorites.

The kitty is a new addition to our farm.

Here's an extra picture that I thought I would throw in here.........the other day Jacob and Debra were arguing and picking on each other. Finally, I had had enough!!!!! I had her sit on his lap and they had to hold hands. And I made them sit there for about 10 minutes. You know what......it kind of worked! After that we talked, they hugged, told each other "I love you"........and then got along for awhile.

My #1 Tip For Taking Kids to WDW

2009-07-11T21:03:00.005-05:00

I got this idea somewhere, although I can't really remember where, and thought I should try it out. Here it is:

Write your cell # on your children's arm in permanent marker.

Does this really work, you may ask. YES!!!!! IT DOES!!!!! I made sure to do this and.......sure enough...........in the middle of a downpour while at Hollywood Studios............one of my kiddos was no longer with us. Panic!!!! It was pouring and I was missing a kid. I frantically made my way back to the last place we had seen him. On my way there..........my cell phone rang........and it was a number I didn't recognize. Chris.....my little lost one....had stopped to put the hood up on his poncho and when he looked up, we were gone. He right away looked around for somebody who worked there, went to them and showed them his arm. I had him back within 5 minutes. I shudder to think how long it would have taken us to find him if he would not have had my # on his arm.

Here are a couple pictures of the whole bunch of us at Magic Kingdom. This was so cool!

The Highlight of Disney World

2009-07-10T14:02:00.006-05:00

I figured it was about time I posted some about our trip to Orlando. We spent 9 days there and had a very awesome time. About 1/2 of the time was spent at the Church of the Nazarene General Assembly. This was a wonderful thing to go to. I'm thinking I'm going to write a separate post about that. The other 1/2 of our time was spent at Walt Disney World. We spent a day at Blizzard Beach Water Park, Hollywood Studios, and, of course, Magic Kingdom! It was fun.....expensive....but very fun! So......here is the highlight of what we did there.....the kids all got to get a "makeover". The boys got to become pirates and the girls turned into princesses.

The boys went to the Pirates League and were made over as pirates. They had a great time with this! Everybody in the place talked like pirates and each of the boys got their own pirate name. Here are some of the pictures from this..........................

Here is Joseph Gunskull, previously know as Benji........

Each of the boys got to pick what pirate face they wanted and I was SOOO hoping that none of them picked the skeleton one because I was dreading having to deal with the white makeup all day long. But.......of course.............Chris picked it. He looked great and was so excited to be a skeleton that I happily dealt with the smudged white makeup all day.

Roger Raidrage........or Chris

Here's Jacob.....I mean Thomas Wavewrecker.......

And here are my 3 fierce pirates all together.

Now for the girls.......they had been looking forward to this for months!!!! I had purchased their dresses months before at disneyoutlet.com and they had been hanging in the closet....taunting my poor little girls. Then the day finally came...........

Here are the girls.....sitting perfectly still as they are transformed into beautiful princesses.....

And here's the picture of Clara seeing what she looks like for the first time. Needless to say.....she was pleased.......

And here's my Little Debbie when she first saw herself all beautified......

And here they are together..............

And here are a couple of my whole crew all together. This was so fun!!!!!

2009-06-09T12:56:00.002-05:00

Last week a bunch of my family went to Rapid City and had a fun time checking out Mount Rushmore and some of the other things in the area. One of the things we did was get some old time photos taken. They were fun to take and came out great! Here are some of them........

Here's my sister, my dad and me.

Here are my three boys, along with their cousin, shooting up the place.
This turned out to be pretty hilarious of my dad and stepmom. We were all laughing while this was being taken.

Ryan has his mom just where he wants her!

Here's the whole group of us.

Here are the three piano men of the group. My dad is a piano tuner, but laughed when I asked if her could tune up that piano!

Another one of the bunch of us.

Ha! Funny! My dad is liking this way too much!

I LOVE, Love, love how this picture came out! This was a fun one to take!

Chris and the Camera

2009-04-28T16:40:00.005-05:00

The other day we were all outside riding a couple of our horses. I had my camera with me and while I was brushing down one of the horses I gave the camera to Chris to hold on to. Later that night I put my card in the computer to check out the pictures I had taken..........and.............there was about 100 extra pictures of that Chris had taken. Most of them were of his face. LOL! Here are a few of them...........please ignore the ucky crusty nose he has..........there's no stopping that with him............

Chris also took some pictures that weren't too bad. Here are a few of these ones......

Easter 2009 Pictures

2009-04-18T15:45:00.003-05:00

Like every Easter morning.........sometime between scrambling to get ready for church and actually leaving for church I remembered to grab my camera and line the kids up for our yearly Easter picture. I love dressing all the kids up in new clothes for Easter. I always look for cute dresses for the girls and shirts for the boys late in the summer when all that kind of stuff is on clearance. Then I put them all together in a closet and hope I don't forget where I put them. By doing this I can actually afford to have everybody wear new clothes at the same time. The girls' dresses I bought for $6 a piece and the boys' shirts were.......get this.........$1 each!!!! So the grand total for the kids' Easter clothes cost me $15 dollars! Can't beat that! The day before Easter the girls couldn't wait any longer to put on their new dresses. So I let them put them on for a little while. Then they wanted me to take pictures with the dresses on. So we had a good time playing "photo shoot". Here are some of the pictures I got..........

I think this one is probably my favorite. There's just something about it that I think is so cute.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas.....

2009-03-31T16:41:00.004-05:00

......and it MARCH 31!!!!!!

We are in the middle of a huge snowstorm right now. The kids got out of school at 11:00 yesterday and didn't have it today. And I'm guessing it'll be cancelled again tomorrow. I would also guess that we have gotten at least a foot of snow so far and it's still snowing. UGH!!!!

Here are some pictures of the kids and me playing outside. It was kind of fun.....even though we SHOULD NOT have snow right now!!!

StinkerBell

2009-03-28T09:19:00.002-05:00

I have so many pictures that I want to share here. I have some great ones that I took on the first day of spring of the kids playing in the mud. But...............I don't know the time right now to do that. Soon.......

So.......for right now I will post one of my favorite pictures I've taken recently. It makes me giggle. It's one of those that I'll have to keep and show her boyfriend years from now. I love it!

More Deer Pictures

2009-03-11T08:54:00.002-05:00

As of a couple days ago "our" deer were still hanging around. In fact when Dave came home on Monday the whole herd was nestled down right on the south side of the trees surrounding our house. He came in to get my camera and went out to see if he could get a picture of them. Here's what he got............(pretty cool huh?)...................

Here are a couple more pictures that I took on my way to town last weekend. I am loving watching these guys! It is fascinating to see them all together. We have been snowed into the farm for a couple of days so I'm hoping the deer are still here when we finally get to go to town.

Our Newest Neighbors

2009-03-06T19:07:00.003-06:00

For the last several days there has been a huge herd of deer in the fields surrounding our house. It has been very cool to watch them! I've been carrying my camera around hoping to catch them. Yesterday they were really close but so was the fog. This afternoon I looked out the window and...........they were walking along my driveway!!! So I grabbed my camera, threw on a coat and ran out the door......too bad I forgot to get my gloves.........I just about froze my fingers off! Here are some of the pictures I took. They were all taken from my driveway, which is about 1/2 mile long. I would get in my van, drive a little ways, jump out and shoot some pictures, then drive a little ways more.

Mom's Birthday

2009-02-06T17:57:00.007-06:00

So....today would have been my Mom's birthday. It makes me miss her. I figured I write a quick thing here on my blog in memory of her. Several years ago I stopped by her house and was visiting with her. She told me that it had been a hard day for her and that it was her Dad's birthday. Her dad unexpectedly passed away when Mom was in her early 20's. And this day I stopped by was around 45 years later. At the time I didn't think too much about what Mom was going through. I felt bad that she felt bad and we talked about him for a little while. Today......that conversation is precious to me. I know that the feelings I'm having today, on her birthday, were feelings that she went through and struggled with. And........somehow.......that makes me feel somewhat better. I won't write too much about her today.........I'll save that for another time..........but know that she was an amazing lady. Now, that doesn't mean she was perfect........I have many memories of her.......well........not being perfect..........she lived her life in a way that what you saw was what she was. Anyway.........enough of my ramblings about this.

This was taken a couple years before she passed away at a Mother's Day Tea.

This is one of my favorite pictures. I was in college and home for Christmas break. Before bed one night, we started dancing. It was a fun time.

Here is one of my Grandma, Mom and me. I love this picture. I sure do wish though that Mom's eyes were open. Oh well.....

Here are the 4 of us.

Scrapping Weekend

2009-01-25T18:30:00.005-06:00

Last weekend I was able to go to a camp I worked at during college and scrapbook the whole weekend. There were 8 of us there, 4 of us who worked at NeSoDak way back when. Here are some of the pages I got done:

The Christmas pictures are from Christmas 2007.

Happy New Year......a little late

2009-01-25T16:45:00.005-06:00

So........I haven't posted to my blog like.........in..........forever! I skipped over Christmas and New Year's and am now coming up on the end of January. Time flies!

Let's talk a little about Christmas........

I love the whole Christmas season. Here are a few of the things I really love about it........

1. Jesus - Think about it...........an imaculate conception. I often think of what Mary must have went through when she was pregnant. I would guess that people were not nice to her when they found out she was pregnant. I wonder how many people really believed that Mary's unborn child was truly the son of God. If we would have been one of her peers, would we have believed? Unfortunately, I think not.

It's amazing to think that God would send his son to the earth. Especially when he knew that the ultimate plan was that son dying a very painful death. I guess what I'm saying is that it's impossible for me to celebrate a little baby lying in a manger without thinking of the whole plan. And thinking of the whole plan makes the babe in the manger all the more meaningful.

2. Tradition - I absolutely love all of the traditions that are woven into celebrating Christmas! Growing up my family had many traditions and they became very meaningful to me. I remember sobbing at my sister's wedding when I had the thought that my family's Christmas morning traditions would forever be changed. Now that I am the mom I enjoy seeing my children looking forward to and asking about the traditions we have; our advent calendar (which after about the first week and a half is driving me crazy because I'm not good at remembering to do it every night), picking out and decorating the Christmas tree, going through stocking on Christmas morning (which has always, always been one of my favorite traditions), and, of course, opening presents on Christmas morning. I love Christmas traditions!

3. Gift giving - I am pretty pathetic at remembering Birthdays and Anniversarys. But when it comes to Christmas, I love to give gifts! When my mom was alive she gave Christmas gifts to everybody........us girls (of course!), Dad, every family member, people who worked with her or my dad, the ladies in her Bible Study group, the pastor at church, Sunday School teachers......the list goes on and on. Her gifts were not elaborate or expensive and I know that she shopped the sales and gathered things all year. But they were from her heart. I don't give gifts to everybody like she did, but I try to hit the important ones.

So.......there you have it.........my top three reasons on why I love Christmas! Below are some of my favorite pictures from this past Christmas.

This was the boys' "big" present this year. A fuseball table! They were excited when they opened it. The screech that Jacob let out hurt my ears!

Here is the girls' "big" present......a doll house. It was kind of funny to see my 7 year old boys playing in it with their rescue heros and transformers.

Jacob looks a little too excited here and Debra looks a little too terrified.

Here is our tree. It always has a little bit of everything on it. I love it!

This was taken with the timer on my camera right before we left the house on Christmas eve. We were running behind and I didn't look at the picture until everybody was 1/2 way out the door. It's too bad Jacob and Chris are lost in the back. Next year's picture will be better. =)

This is the picture we used on our non-professional Christmas cards. Five kids and a horse...........I felt lucky to get this one that was "good enough".

This is my favorite picture from Christas 08! Here the kids are showing off some of their stocking goodies.

The World Has Disappeared!

2008-12-14T11:31:00.002-06:00

What a strange feeling it is to have the rest of the world "whited out". We are in the middle of a huge winter storm right now. It's snowing, -11 degrees (yes....that's below zero!), way windy, and.....basically.....just very yucky out! Welcome winter! Yesterday Dave went and picked up a new-to-us pickup. It's a 4-wheel drive, has 2 bench seats in it (a must for our family!), and.......Dave's favorite thing........came with a snow blade on the front. Poor Dave.....he gets this pick up.......and then it snows. =( The poor guy just had to go outside this morning and play around with his new pickup....with this blade on it. Don't you feel sorry for him?

Here is a picture of our white-out and the white pickup.

Last of the Thankful Pictures

2008-12-14T11:26:00.004-06:00

Oh my........I forgot all about posting my last 2 Thankful pictures from November. I cannot believe how quickly we are speeding through December! Christmas will be here before we know it!

Nov. 29

Clara picked the picture for today and decided that she was thankful for MOM and DAD. So she got to take a picture of us.

Nov. 30

Dave was the last person to get to choose what to take a Thankful picture of. He thought for a few seconds and said that he was thankful for God. Hmmmm......awesome idea......but how do you take a picture of it? This is the best we could come up with.

Some More Thankful Pictures

2008-11-28T16:33:00.004-06:00

I've gotten really lax on posting my pictures each day, but I am taking them.........and having a really fun time doing it! I am looking forward to compiling our 31 Thankful Pictures into some type of book. This has been a great thing to do!

Friday, Nov 28

Chris picked today's picture and he wanted a picture of our van. He's been really good at picking out the basics of what God has given to us.......food, house, furniture, van.......what a great thing to be so thankful for the "simple" things He has given us.

Thursday, Nov. 27

Thanksgiving day! SOOOOO much to be thankful for! Nobody picked today's picture. We all decided we are most thankful for our family! So here is a picture of the whole bunch of us who gathered yesterday. It was interesting taking a picture of everybody there. I gave the job of figuring it all out to my brother-in-law Jeff. He like taking pictures and I knew he's know what to do. My new little camera has a self timer, I used (for probably the 3rd or 4th time) my little grippy tripod that bends and supposedly can be used anywhere. Jeff put it on the kitchen table, on top of a globe.......and it worked really good! Then everybody piled in and sat somewhat still while Jeff got everything worked out. Then he pressed the button and ran for the back of the group. I discovered that the kids think the flashing red timer light is fascinating. They stared at it and we ended up getting 3 pictures that had EVERYBODY looking at the camera. I'm thinking that when I take pictures of the kids from now on I might use the timer, just so they can watch the red light and be looking at the camera. Anyway.........I'm excited about this picture!

Wed. Nov. 26

Debbie's day.......and she was going to Grandma's house for the day. So guess what she chose to take Thankful picture of????? It is fitting to have a picture of Grandma's house. We are all very thankful for them, and also for the 2 other sets of grandparents we have all in the same town. We are blessed.

Tuesday, Nov. 25

Benji thought for quite awhile about what to take his last Thankful picture of. He came up with taking it of the American flag. He is proud to be an American.

Monday, Nov. 24

Jacob had been thinking of what to take his last Thankful picture of and he had decided to take it of him and his dog Brownie.

Sunday, Nov. 23

Clara really likes our pastor and his wife. She named 2 of her Webkinz after them and wanted to take a picture of them. We are all thankful for them. They are great!

Saturday, Nov. 22

Today was Dave's day. Of course, I forgot to tell him this until it was almost dark out. He told me to take a picture of the "swamp box". This is what him and his brother call a Model T that they just throw together and don't really restore. They have been doing this and then selling them on ebay. This one Dave decided to bring out to the farm and said I'm going to learn to drive a T on this one. I had one other lesson last summer and discovered that's it's quite difficult. But Dave wanted his picture of this Model T. He's thankful that they are so involved in putting them together and restoring them.

Catching Up on Thankful Pictures

2008-11-22T13:42:00.005-06:00

Even though I haven't been posting our Thankful pictures this past week I have been taking them. So.........here they are.............

Sat. Nov. 15

This was my day to pick and I was thankful for my girls. This afternoon us girls had a "Girls Only, No Boys Allowed" afternoon. We went shopping and to a movie. It was a fun time. So here's me and the girls.

Sun. Nov. 16

To go along with yesterday's thankful picture, Dave chose to have his picture for today be of him and the boys. Yesterday afternoon they had a "Boy Only, No Girls Allowed" time. I'm not quite sure what all they did but I know it ended with them going out to eat and having ice cream for dessert. The boys had fun!

Mon. Nov 17

Debbie chose what to take a picture of today. She wanted to take a picture of her Strawberry Shortcake, Barbies, and horses. So that's what we did..........

Tue. Nov 18

Benji decided that he was thankful for chothes. Here is his stack of clothes that is begging to be put away. At our house, the clothes seem to get stuck in piles in our laundry room.Wed. Nov 19

For today's picture Jacob wanted to take a picture of the school. For all of his complaining about homework he really does like school. So here it is.........Thur. Nov. 20

Chris's day today...........and after much thought...........he decided that he was thankful for furniture. So he told me to take a picture of the couch.

Fri. Nov. 21

My day today. I am combining 2 thankfuls into one picture. I am very thankful for my job as Preschool Director! This is our 5th year and I love it! We have 34 students this year and I love the 2 teachers who I work with. Tonight was our first Preschool Program of the year. Debbie was in it and looked so cute in her pink dress. Too bad she didn't sing a single word and didn't look too happy to be up there. So my second thankful thing for today is having a little girl to dress up in pink dresses. =)

Friday, Nov 14 Thankfulness

2008-11-14T11:42:00.004-06:00

As a reminder, our family is taking a Thankful picture everyday in the month of November. We are taking turns deciding what to take pictures of. This has been a wonderful thing so far. I am amazed at what things are important to the kids. And they all have such different things they want to take pictures of.

Today is Clara's day. Before school I asked her what she thanked God for. She decided that she is thankful for the "angels" her Grandma gave her. She calls them her angels, but they aren't angels, they are little girls. One of her birth-grandmas' have been collecting these for Clara since she turned one. For her 10th birthday she gave them to her. Clara has a special shelf near her bunkbed for them, along with some other special treasures. While taking the picture I noticed how dirty it is up there. UGH!

Thursday, Nov. 13 Thankful Picture

2008-11-14T11:36:00.003-06:00

Today was Debbie's day. She said that she was thankful for "Ruby". This, translated into non-3 year old talk, is Reuben, our cat. Debbie loves the cat! And the poor thing is soooo dumb! The cat lets Debbie maul her, then when Debbie looses her grip on the cat and drops her, the cat stands there and waits for it to all happen again. I would think that as soon as she had a milisecond of a chance the cat would run, but.........nope. Oh well...........

About this picture.........I'm thankful for the new comforter the cat it laying on. But........shhhh.........don't tell Dave Rueben was on the bed.

Nov. 12 Thankfulness

2008-11-14T11:33:00.002-06:00

So..........for today's Thankful picture Benji got to decide what to take a picture of. He choose his Dad. So sweet.............

Nov. 11 Thankful Picture

2008-11-14T11:27:00.002-06:00

Today was Dave's day. I told him about it first thing in the morning and TRACTOR and the WINDMILL. I didn't get too technical with him and tell him that was 2 things. I just glad to have gotten an answer out of him. This is tractor that he uses to do all sorts of things around the farm, feeding the cows, moving bales, moving snow, moving manure (uck!) and moving.....well....all sorts of things. The windmill is pretty cool because it's the windmill from the homestead of Dave's great-great grandpa, the first in the family to move to the "new country" and homestead in South Dakota. Several years ago Dave's dad arranged to buy the windmill from the guy who now owns that land and they went down to get it. It's now up at our farm. Kinda cool......

Nov. 10 Thankful Picture

2008-11-14T11:22:00.004-06:00

Chris picked out today's Thankful picture and he choose our HOUSE. I am with Chris in being thankful for our house, especially with the weather turning colder. Sometimes we forget to thank God for basic things. Chris is good at remembering to do this. His last picture was of eating and now it's our house. This is his photography so the picture is a little crooked, but he sure liked taking the picture!

November 9 Thankful Picture

2008-11-09T18:50:00.002-06:00

OK.......so I think this is one of my favorite Thankful Pictures so far. Jacob has been waiting all week to do this. He is thankful that our family goes to church together. I love that he is thankful for that! And it's my prayer that as he grows into a man, he is remember that and raise his family in the same way.

This was kind of funny.........the guy who was taking our picture this morning........Shawn........kept saying that the camera wasn't working..........HA..........there were a few pictures like this..........he's funny..........

Thankful Picture for Nov 8

2008-11-09T18:44:00.003-06:00

Today was my day to decide what to take a picture of. This weekend is Deer Hunting opening and as Dave and a couple of the kids were getting ready to go out looking for deer I snapped a picture. I chose this for a couple of reasons. First of all, because it is always cute to see how exciting it is for the boys to do things with their dad. They get excited about doing "manly" things with him, whether it's checking the cows, hauling in wood, or going deer hunting. Another reason I choose this for my thankful picture is because I'm thankful for the right to bear arms and go hunting. Deer are the only thing we hunt so we are not all gung-ho with the hunting thing, but I'm thankful for the right to do it.

Nov. 7 Picture

2008-11-09T18:39:00.002-06:00

Today was Clara's day to choose what to take a Thankful Picture of. She decided to take a picture of her ADOPTION SCRAPBOOK. This is where there are all sorts of pictures and info about her when she was little and all about her adoption. She must be really thankful for this. Here are the pages she wanted me to take the picture of.

Nov 6 Thankful Picture

2008-11-07T10:17:00.002-06:00

So....today was Debbie's turn to decide what to take a picture of. When I asked her what she thanked God for she said........."Clara and me". What a precious way for a three year old to say how much they appreciate her big sister. So here is the picture of my girls...........

Thankful Picture of Nov. 5

2008-11-05T22:21:00.004-06:00

Today I let Jacob decide what to we were going to take a picture of. His first choice was to take one of the whole family dressed up and attending church together, but he wants to do that on Sunday. So we're going to wait a few days for that one. I was touched that he is so thankful for that! The second idea he had was that he was thankful for baseball. But.......it was raining out and he didn't want to take the picture in the rain. So then he decided he was thankful for the rain. But........it was dark out and raining.......how do you get a picture of that? I tried but it just didn't work. So............then he thought for a little while and said that he was thankful for SPECIAL THINGS. Huh? So he pointed to one of my most prized possessions and one of the most "special things" in the house that has a bunch of "special things" on top of it. He was thankful for my hutch. This is a piece of furniture that my Grampy built for my parents shortly after they were married. It is beautiful! When my parents moved into the house my dad lives in now there was no room for the hutch. So.......bummer........I had to sacrifice and put it in my house. I was so excited! And on it are plates, pictures, and other "special things" that are very........well..........special. I was amazed that this is what Jacob chose (even though it wasn't one of his first choices) for today's picture.

Nov 4 Picture

2008-11-05T08:01:00.002-06:00

Dave picked what to take for today's picture. He told me while we were on our way to vote. He wanted me to take a picture from our driveway looking over the valley. This was to symbolize the free country we live in. So here it is.......

Nov. 3 Picture

2008-11-03T18:30:00.005-06:00

Today was Benji's day to decide what Thankful picture to take. After being asked what he really thanked God for he said..............."you Mommy".............gosh, I love that kid! My heart melted! So he took a picture of me. He got to decide where to take it and all that. He decided to do a close up. So.........here's the picture for today.

Nov. 2 Thankful Picture

2008-11-02T17:13:00.003-06:00

For today's picture I asked Chris to tell me something he's thankful to God for. He said......after much thought.......EATING. So I took a picture of my food cabinet in the kitchen to represent the food that God supplies for us.

We're Thankful For.....

2008-11-02T08:11:00.004-06:00

I am now in a new challenge to take a picture every day in November of something I am thankful for. I am getting the kids involved in this and we're all going to take turns deciding what to take a picture of each day. For Nov. 1 I let them all decide together what to take it of. And this being the day after our Harvest Party.....and them each having a big bag of candy......they choose CANDY. So..........even though it is a bit superficial.........yesterday's picture is of candy.

Pictures from College

2008-10-20T10:21:00.004-05:00

Oh my goodness! I have recently connected with a bunch of people I knew in college. Some of them have been posting pictures from way back then. We're talking the early 90's. It's bringing back a slew of memories and I've spent lots of time giggling over the pictures. I thought I would put a few of them up here.

I was, as Dave puts it, a "drama person" and loved every minute of it! This is a picture of me and Jennifer dressed up for some play. I don't even remember which one it was.

Here is another one of Jennifer and me. We shared an apartment our Junior year and had lots of fun times. I was shocked at how long and curly my hair is in this picture! I was also shocked at how huge my glasses are! What was the deal with big frames back then? Did it make us see better?

This was taken on the last day of my Sophmore year. There were several of us messing around together. Jennifer and I were so very excited because we had just found an apartment for the next year. The other gal is Denita, one of my bestest friends. =) Our clothes are adorable, aren't they?

This last one is.......obviously...........of when I graduated from college. Again........look at the super long hair and outlandishly huge glasses. With me is Trayc. The two of us lived right next to each other our Senior year. It was a good time!Well..........thanks for taking a trip down Memory Lane with me. Seeing all these pictures makes me somewhat miss those days. But then I am reminded of all that God has given me since then. Back then, I would never have guessed how my life is turning out. But I love it! I praise God for my wonderful hubby and for my the kids He has given to us.

My Last Scrap Off Layouts

2008-10-12T19:44:00.004-05:00

I have liked being in this Scrap Off and I've gotten several pages done because of it, but it's now coming to an end. This was the last week of it. Here are my last 2 LO's for it. Just to warn you......I took these pictures at night and the lighting just wasn't working for pictures. And the layouts need to be posted by midnight tonight. So the pictures don't look good at all. But.......they are done and posted. So I guess that's what counts.

The first challenge of the week was to "scraplift" a layout from one of the other ladies in the group. I choose a LO that my good friend Becky had done. This is what I came up with. I used pictures of Debbie learning to ice skate last winter. I love these pictures! Or maybe it's the memories behind the pictures. =)

The other challenge was to use ribbon, chipboard, and metal. This is what I did.

ScrapOff Challenges For the Week

2008-10-03T07:50:00.003-05:00

Here are my LO's for this week. I think there is only one more week of this challenge. I'm going to miss it.

The first challenge was to make a monocramatic layout. I couldn't use pattern paper and all the cardstock I used had to be in the same color "family". I could use different colored embellishments. I did a LO with some pictures Clara and Chris took when we were picking up bales a couple of weeks ago.
The next challenge was to do a LO with 25 of the same embellishment on it. I used pictures of Jacob driving our ancient 3 wheeler and giving the other kids rides. I put more than 25 square brads on it.

Glasses

2008-10-02T07:49:00.003-05:00

Yesterday afternoon I had to go and pick up TWO pairs of new glasses for TWO different kids. Last Wed. I brought Jacob and Clara to the eye-guy because they had failed the vision test at school. Sure enough........they both needed glasses......Jacob for all the time and Clara for when she's reading. Yesterday we got to pick them up and......ohhhhhh......there was SOOOO much excitement at our house last night. Here they are showing their glasses off.

This Week's Layouts

2008-09-26T16:41:00.003-05:00

The first of this week's scrapoff challenges was to do a layout with "I Wish for you...." I changed it around a little (after seeing that my friend Kathea did something similar) and did "My Prayer For You...." I used a picture of Jacob that was takend on Labor Day. Dave had just started a fire in the firepit at the lake when it started to pour. Jacob decided to use his body as a shield to protect the fire and he didn't give up until he was completely soaked and I yelled at him to come to the shelter.

This is the journaling I used:
When it started to rain right after Daddy started this fire, you were determined to protect it with your body. I pray that you will always persever...always do what you think is right...always put others needs above your own. Just like you did with that fire.

I also wrote the Bible vers 2 Peter 1:5-7 on it:
Make every effor to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, persevereance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love...this will keep you from being ineffective and unprductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The second challenge was to use an old tool with new supplies. For this I used some older pictures of Debbie and made a simple LO us my Fascinator, which I've had for a couple years but have used maybe twice. The I used some new Fancy Pants rubons.

This Weeks Scrap-Off Challenges

2008-09-19T17:02:00.002-05:00

The first challenge was to create a layout using only paper and one embellishment. That one embellishment could be used more than once. The other day I was outside with my camera and all of a sudden Chris started making the craziest faces. Then, when I started taking pictures he stepped it up a notch. I love these pictures of him!

The next challenge was to make a layout of a favorite thing. My favorite is kind of a stretch but I've been wanting to use Debbie's song in a layout and so I decided to say she was my favorite musician. The story behind this is that a couple weeks ago we were driving home from town, just the two of us. All of a sudden she starts singing. The song she was making up was absolutely adorable! I grabbed some paper and wrote down the words she was singing. Don't ask me how I did that while I was driving..........

Scrap Off - Week 2

2008-09-12T16:39:00.005-05:00

Like I said last week......I am in a little challenge. Every week there are 2 challenges I have to do. Here are this week's pages for the challenge.

For this first one I had to have a border on all 4 sides of the page and embellish them. Here's my take on that challenge:

This next page was a pretty quick one........and you can tell. I'm thinking that I will probably redo this at some point in the future. But for now.....it's done. For this challenge, I had to use a certain sketch as a guide.

A Couple Pages

2008-09-05T11:20:00.004-05:00

Today I completed two scrapbook pages for a challenge I am in. I need to do 2 pages a week for the month of September.

This first challenge I needed to use stamping (on the white paper), paint (around the circles), and 3 circles (I used 4).

For the second challenge I needed to embellish some brads (I used Stickles on them) and put them in a shape (I did a circle).

Labor Day

2008-09-02T14:09:00.007-05:00

For Labor Day we decided to do something we had never done before and planned a family picnic at the lake. We rarely go to the lake, although we should! So we got out there about 4:00 and the kids headed for the water right away. The rest of Dave's family was going to show up about 5:00 for the picnic. About 4:30 the kids were mostly done swimming and we unloaded all of the food from the van into the picnic shelter. About 4:45 Dave lighted the charcoal so we could grill hamburgers and hotdogs. About 5:00 it started to downpoor! Jacob tried to use his body to protect the fire from the rain, until he realized that was obviously not going to work. About 5:15 the rain somewhat stopped and we quickly packed everything up. By 5:30 we resumed our Labor Day picnic in my in-law's house. So much for trying something different this year.

Here are some pictures of my kids enjoying the water.

Benji wasn't too sure of the water so he stayed nice and safe on shore. Clara got this water squirter thingy for her birthday and thought it would be fun to bring it to the lake with us. Little did she know how NOT FUN this would actually be for her.

Chris thought this water squirter was great fun also. He liked to squirt it into the air and have it rain down on him.

Here's Clara looking around and checking things out.

Here are my 2 little fish. Jacob and Debbie loved swimming in the lake! Debbie was a little too comfortable in the water! As long as she had her arm floaties on she thought she was invincable. It's funny to watch her swim along and then all of a sudden flop over and float on her back. Her and Jacob had fun playing together.

Here's Jacob dragging Debbie back to shore when she would get out farther than I thought she should go. Left alone, she probably would have ended up in the middle of the lake.....and not minded at all! Notice that it's the end of the swimming season and we can't seem to find a matching set of arm floaties.

New School Year

2008-08-21T10:20:00.003-05:00

Well.....it is very quiet in my house right now. Debbie is watching Wonder Pets and all the rest are.........gone! Today is the first day of school and it is so quiet in the house! Not that I'm complaining.......it's just going to take some getting used to. Of course I took the standard pictures this morning. Here are what grades they are all in:

Jacob - 4th

Clara - 3rd

Chris - 1st

Benji - 1st

Debra - Preschool

Have you ever wondered how many school supplies you would need to get if you had 5 kids? Well, this is what all those supplies would look like:

Here is the bunch of them this morning. Debbie doesn't start preschool until Sept. 2 but she HAD to be wearing her backpack this morning so we let her be in the picture.

Here's another one that shows Jacob's cowboy boots. In 3rd grade he refused to wear jeans to school. He didn't like them at all. Now......he's all into the cowboy thing. I think it has to do with the belt buckle he just HAD to have this summer while we were on vacation.

This last picture was taken last year on the first day of school. My.....my babies are growing up.

25 Little Piggies

2008-08-11T14:43:00.003-05:00

It was July 0f 2007 when I thought to take a picture of my kids' hands all together and I love how that came out. A few weeks ago the idea came to me to take a picture like that of their feet. So here it is.

Home From Model T Tour

2008-07-31T14:27:00.005-05:00

A few days ago we got back from our family vacation. We attended the 100th Anniversary Celebration of the Model T Ford. This big event went on last week in Richmond, Indiana. There were just under 1000 Model T's there and it was a great time!!!! We went with Dave's parents, and his brother and his family. There were 13 of us altogether. We drove a Suburban and pickup, both pulling big trailers with our 3 Model T's in them. Dave, along with his dad and brother, own a body shop and restored these T's for us to bring. The one that we drove is, in my opinion, the best one! We drove a 1926 Depot Hack and it is very awesome looking. The guys started restoring this about the beginning of this year and worked with a carpenter friend to do the wood work. While at the celebration we went on a different tour everyday. One day it was a nature lover's tour, another day we visited Amish country and went to a house that used to be part of the underground railroad. Yet another day we visited Annie Oakley's hometown and a museum there. We traveled anywhere from 40-100 miles a day in the Depot Hack. It was lots of fun! One of the greatest things is that when the Associated Press wrote an article about this bige event, they used a picture of our Depot in their story!!!! Our picture have been in countless newspapers throughout the county, along with online. Here is a link to the article on MSNBC: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25786751/wid/18298287/

These are 2 of the 3 T's that we brought on the tour. The one on the left is a 1927 Roadster, the other one is our 1926 Depot Hack. We also brought a 1919 Touring.

This is the whole family next to our Depot. We were all very hot and tired for this picture, but managed to hide it somewhat well for the picture.

This is a line-up of a bunch of T's. One day all almost-1000 of us lined up for a picture. I can't wait to see what the picture looks like!

If you ignore the paved road this kind of takes you back in time, doesn't it.

Here are my 5 kids looking out the "window" of the Depot.

Here are my 2 girls and my neice in their vintage dresses I found on ebay. They looked adorable!

Another picture of the girls in their pretty dresses with me and my attempt at looking like I lived in the 20's or 30's. Good thing you can't see my Birkenstocks or the girls' Crocs!

3 Years Old

2008-07-16T13:09:00.004-05:00

Debbie is now 3 years old. I took this picture of her yesterday and thought I would post it. It's shows a sweet, angelic type girl. I won't tell you any different than that but if you read the post previous to this you might know different. LOL!

Debbie....

2008-07-12T11:14:00.004-05:00

Here is a picture that I happened to grab while Debbie was playing outside this morning. Now......I know all about the controversy of letting kids play with guns. I try to limit the violent type of play that the kids do. But.....come on...........there are 3 boys in our house! As long as they are not shooting at people........the guns are OK. Debbie must have gotten ahold of one of Benji's guns and brought it outside. Not the best of toys for a little girl. But..........isn't this just the cutest picture?????

Don't Eat Batteries!

2008-07-03T11:38:00.002-05:00

Yesterday turned out to be way more excited that I had expected. I had expected to have a fun afternoon swimming in the pool and then going to church after supper. All of that changed when everybody came downstairs after rest time and the first thing Benji said was "Mom, Chris swallowed a battery." Eeek!!!!

Within about 15 minutes I was on my way to Dave's grandma's house to drop off the other kids so Chris and I could make the 45 minute trip to the closest x-ray machine. The x-ray was actually kind of cool. A perfect picture of Chris's neck area, with a perfect circle right in the middle. It looked like there was a hole in the x-ray. At this point I still wasn't too concerned. I was thinking "Give the kid something to make him throw up, we'll get it out and go home." Little did I know.........

So...."Scott" (a doctor? a PA? I'm not sure) came in and said "It needs to come out." Duh???? Getting it out would not be so easy. They needed to put a scope down Chris's throat to get the battery. BTW, the battery was from a toy and was about the size of a quarter.

The town we were in has a new small town type hospital. There was a problem..........the only doctor that could do surgical procedures was on vacation. UGH! This meant that we would have to take him to a bigger hospital, over 2 hours from where we were. And......they had to take him by ambulance.

I guess there was a lot of concern because if the battery moved it could cover the opening of the windpipe and he wouldn't be able to breathe. So in the ambulance we went. The medic in the ambulance warned me that if anything happened I would have to move to the front of the ambulance while he worked on Chris. If Chris started throwing up there was a good chance he would start choking.

About 20 minutes from our destination, Chris started throwing up. Instant panic!!!! But....praise God....the battery came flying out of his mouth. Relief! I now thought......good, we'll get the hospital, meet up with Dave and go home. Nope!

Once at the hospital, the doctor who saw him was very concerned because the battery was very coreded (and it was!). I guess that the stomach acid, when mixed with the battery, causes electrical charges to happen. The doctor was very concerned that this may have done some serious burning to Chris's throat.

After another x-ray to tell us that there was not a hole burnt through his throat the doctor felt a little better. He said that kids often die from those little batteries. He had Chris eat some toast and peanut butter and while it was a little painful for Chris, he ate it all. We were then free to go.

Today Chris's throat is very sore but I don't know if that's from some burning or from just having a big thing stuck in his throat for a few hours.

I'm very thankful that the battery came out safely but please pray that his throat heals quickly and feels better soon.

Give a Kid a Camera.....

2008-07-02T14:55:00.008-05:00

........and this is what you get.

The boys got a hold of my camera yesterday after we had gone swimming and this is the result. Remember.....these pictures of me are after I was in the pool for a couple hours and then got attacked while relaxing on a towel. Please forgive me if I look like I'm not all made up.

My CSS Friends

2008-07-01T19:25:00.006-05:00

As I said in a post earlier today, I got to visit with some of my great online pals in Chicago a couple weeks ago. This is the third year I've done this and it's always great! My first year I was really nervous about meeting these people. It just seemed so strange. But it's been wonderful getting to know them in real life as well as online. I thought I would share some of the pictures of this wacky group of ladies.

To begin with, this is one of my bestest friends. Karin and I have known each other since 2000 when we worked on the 2000 Census together. Last year I talked her into going with me to the retreat and she was hooked! So we loaded up my van this year and drove the 13 hours to Chicago. We had lots of goofy, zany moments along the way. Her 17 year old daughter came with us and I think she is conviced we are both nuts!

The lady in the middle is our CSS list mom. She is also the lady who puts together this whole weekend for us. Marybeth is an amazing woman of God and she is the perfect person to lead our group. Over the past 6 years I have come to love and respect her very much. The other one is Becky. The two of us have a "thing" going. We kind of like to pick on each other, although I think she starts is most of the time! I just have to defend myself! We sat on opposite sides of the room this year and we were throwing comments across the poor gals in the middle. Becky once threatened to throw a paper piercer at me! Can you believe that???? Check out our shirts........they were a prize from Marybeth..........and they both say "Anything you can scrap I can scrap better." When we saw these we just knew that the two of us had to have them! Seriously.........I think Becky is wonderful! Just don't tell her I said that.

This is Marybeth with the chef for the weekend.........her husband Paul. Their daughter Steffi also cooked lots for us and was constantly bringing us good things to munch on.
This was a challenge over the weekend. It was a 4 Product Challenge. Everybody received the same 4 products and had to make a layout using them. You could only use those 4 products, plus some cardstock. I loved how everybody created totally different layouts using the same products!
These are the gals who attended from our CSS group. There were also come local Chicago scrappers there. These CSS ladies are: Marybeth, Becky, Denise, Kate, Karin, Judy, Heidi, and Julie (in front). This was the best part of the weekend..........getting to know all these great ladies in real life! We are already planning our retreat for next year! I can't wait! It's just too bad that Chicago is sooooooo far away! What a looooong drive! But so worth it!

57 Pages Done

2008-07-01T14:47:00.006-05:00

A couple of weeks ago I traveled to Chicago for the weekend. I went all the way to Chicago.......about a 13 hour drive............to do a very important thing............scrapbook! This was my third yearly get together with an amazing group of online friends. We belong to a group called Christian Scrapbooking Sister (CSS). There were 12 of us that scrapped for the weekend. I ended up getting 57 pages done. I was hoping for more as I had completed almost 80 the years before, but I was pleased with how much I did get done. I won't bore you by showing you all of the pages but here are some of my favorites.

Hay Bales Fun

2008-05-31T09:44:00.008-05:00

Last night the kids and I were playing on what's left of the hay bale pile, which is about 30 bales. For some reason the kids always think this is great fun. I don't really get it. Have itchy hay all over my body just isn't too great to me. But.....the kids love it! Here are some pictures I took of them:

This first one is so typical of Chris and Benji. When I get out the camera they both instantly start making goofy faces. Benji acts up and tries to make me laugh. Chris does quiet, but silly things.

Here is Clara being brave at the top of the bales.

While playing on the bales we found 2 arrows from Jacob's bow & arrow set. We have him shoot the arrows onto a target on the bales and they often get lost. So he was excited to find these lost arrows. He was throwing them off of the top of the bales and wanted me to get a picture of one of them flying through the air and....surprise, surprise.....I managed to do it!

Here's the last kid, Debbie giving me a "HUH?" look. Or is that a look that says "I've said cheese enough, can't I be done yet?"

My Favorite Things

2008-05-21T14:43:00.007-05:00

Yea, yea.......I know that kids are not "things". But I decided to use the title anyway. This is one of my assignments for May I had to do for The Wishblading Well. The squares in the back are files of theirs.

Losing Weight

2008-05-14T07:56:00.004-05:00

UGH! This is such a hard thing to do! And I get tired of the struggle! But.........since the beginning of the year I have actually been doing it!!!! On January 1 I decided that I needed to "just do it". I am a huge fan of the show The Biggest Loser, so I decided to go with what they do............minus the hours and hours and hours of working out. LOL! So I have been counting calories. I try to eat around 1300 calories a day. Sadly, many days I am over that. I find myself always reading the nutritional info on things. One of the biggest shockers is comparing the calories in a box of something with how many servings in the box. They really trick us there! Did you know that there are 2.5 servings in a 20 ounce bottle of pop? I shudder to think of how many calories I've downed drinking my favorites, Mountain Dew and Root Beer. One of my favorite foods has always been cereal. Since I was a kid I loved my bowl of cereal in the morning!!! I would sit there, eating my cereal and reading a book. In the last years I would usually have more than one bowl...........yum, yum! Serving sizes for cereal are SO small and you can't forget the calories in the milk you pour over the top. I'm sure that there were many days I would eat 750-1000 calories........just at breakfast!!! No wonder I was gaining weight!

For the last 5 1/2 months I have been watching my calories and trying to put some miles on the treadmill. And, surprisingly, it's been working!!!! Wohoooo! As of this morning, I have lost 33.6 pounds! To get to my goal weight I need to lose another 28.4. I am over 1/2 way there!!!! So I keep plugging away.......counting my calories........working on smaller portions........trying to excercise.......not eating cereal.......drinking a diet root beer every once in a while.

I'm doing it!

BTW, I'm adding a weight loss ticker to the sway bottom of the page so you can keep up with my weight loss progress. I'll be updating it once a week.

2008-05-05T14:16:00.005-05:00

This past Saturday was National Scrapbook Day. This may not mean too much to most of you, but to a scrapper it's a big deal. LOL! I scrapped as much as I could on Fri, Sat, and Sun in between laundry, kids, a soccer tournament, kids, church, and kids. Here are some of the pages I got done. The first one is of Dave and Jacob playing Battleship. Jacob is amazing at this and I have to try as hard as I can to not have him beat me! The next one is of Debbie on the day she was officially placed with us for adoption.
I love this picture of Dave on the tractor. He was giving us a hay ride when I took it and it so sums up how he is! Yesterday was the 2nd anniversary of my Mom passing away. Kind of in honor of that, and because I've been meaning to for awhile, I did a scrapbook page about my dad. My dad is awesome!!!
Here's Jacob in his favorite position in the whole world, all crouched down and perched on his feet. This looks horribly uncomfortable to me but he loved it. In Kindergarten and 1st grade he would do this on the chair at his desk. He was constantly falling out of his seat! In this picture he is perched like this on top of a porch railing at a cabin we were staying at. He obviously has amazing balance while "sitting" like this.

In a Magazine

2008-04-25T10:31:00.003-05:00

I received the newest Adoptive Families magazine yesterday and.....just as promised.....my picture was in it!!!!! So here the page that my kiddos are on. It says that they are country-comfy in North Dakota. =)

Life is Precious

2008-04-22T08:05:00.002-05:00

I recently had to write a Reflections article for The Wishblading Well. I chose to do it using the theme that Life is Precious. In it I talked about how all areas of life are precious and we need to be thankful to God for that and to appreciate it. I also shared a variety of scrapbook pages that went along with the various themes. It is now up on their site. You can check it out here: Kate's Reflections.

My Girls

2008-04-14T09:10:00.002-05:00

I recently got Becky Fleck's new Pagemap book and it has lots of great ideas in it! Yesterday I decided to use one of her sketches with some pictures I had of the girls. The pictures were taken a couple months ago on a night that we were kind of sitting around the living room not doing too much. I took out my camera and right away the girls starting posing. They loved it! The boys also got into it, especially Chris, but I'll save those photos for another day. Anyway....I also decided to use some bella images on my layout. It was fun coloring the bellas to match the pattern paper. Here's the layout I came up with.

For the birds....

2008-04-13T17:19:00.003-05:00

For this months design team assignment I had to choose from some bird files that the ladies from The Wishblading Well had recently put together. There were some really cute files to choose from......but I am not much of a bird person. I know that birds are popular in decorating and scrapbooking and crafting and all that sort of stuff.....but I just don't get it. So it took me a few days to figure out what I was going to do. Then I was in Micheals...which is very rare because I never get a chance to go there when we are in the big city. But I happened to be there and I found some great unfinished wooden frames.......for $1. Wow! So I got 2 of them. At home I came accross some Tim Holtz crackle paint I had but had never used. Then I picked out one of the bird files, decorated the frame, printed off a picture from our Model T tour last summer and...tada....I had a cute frame to put on the shelf above my computer. I might not have been too excited about the bird files but I sure was impressed with how it came out. Maybe birds aren't so bad after all. =)

A Little Late

2008-04-08T15:00:00.003-05:00

I'm kinda behind in putting these pictures of the kids at Easter up on the blog. But here they are..........

Some Easter Thoughts

2008-03-22T15:01:00.002-05:00

Easter......what an amazing time this is! The whole reason behind this holiday is almost more than my mind can comprehend. There are so many things about it that just don't seem posible, yet they all happened.
*God really DID love mankind enough to send His son to earth
*Jesus really DID do amazing things - healed people, raised people from the dead, lived a sinless life (sinless=NEVER sinned...how can that be??? He must have been God!)
*He really DID die. Not because of anything he did but because people wanted to shut him up and stop all of the excitement that was happening around him. So he died, as in dead, as in never to breathe again, as in no heartbeat. Dead, dead, dead. I think that sometimes we fail to really comprehend that he really was dead!
*After 3 days (THREE DAYS....not just a few hours or minutes or anything like that!) Jesus really DID..........COME TO LIFE AGAIN!!!!Can you tell that this really awes me? When I really stop and think of what happened I am completely struck by all that REALLY DID happen! Wow! It reminds me of some words from my favorite hymn, And Can It Be?:

And can it be that I should gain
An interest in the Savior’s blood?
Died He for me, who caused His pain—
For me, who Him to death pursued?
Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?

I guess what I'm trying to say is......be thankful! God has given us a tremendous opportunity.....to share eternity with Him. This was so important to Him that He sacrificed His son to make it possible. Let's not take that precious gift for granted. It is so easy to receive this gift. I mean.....come on.....all He asks is that we strive to live as Jesus did. And to ask him to forvige our sins (and for me....there are so many!). I think it all comes down to love. What (or who) do we love most? God or the earthly things around us? What have all the earthly things done for us? What has God done for us? Duh?

Anyway.........enough of the preaching.........have a wonderful Easter!

Easter Eggs

2008-03-22T14:45:00.003-05:00

Here are some pictures of the kids with the easter eggs that we colored the other night.

Webkinz

2008-03-18T14:30:00.002-05:00

These little animals are popular at my house! My kids love, love, LOVE their webkinz! And we have a few of them around the house. Yea...just a few. A few days ago I did something I've been meaning to do: I took a picture of all of our webkinz so I could do a scrapbook page about them. So here is the page I did. In case you don't really know what these little things are, they are little stuffed animals that you buy. Each one comes with a special code. You go online to webkinz.com and then you can "adopt" your animal. You give it a name and decide if it's a girl or a boy. Each animal has their own little likes and dislikes. Then you can go on the site and do many many things. They have games, trivia, a "virtual" store selling food and clothes for your online webkinz. Each animal has their own room that you can decorate. Needless to say, the kids have a blast on the site! And it's all kid friendly. My kids also really love their actual stufties. They sleep with them, play with them, bring them to show and tell.....and so on. Dave thinks that we have an absurd number of webkinz and we probably do. But the kids love them and play with them and think they are pretty cool!

Winter Pages

2008-03-10T11:31:00.007-05:00

My March assignment as part of The Wishblading Well's design team was to use some files from their new Winter Bucket. Hmmmm.....winter pictures......I didn't have to dig too deep to find plenty of those! We've been spending lots of time ice skating so I had lots of those pictures to choose from. I also had some of Jacob that I had been wanting to use. So here they are.

My Country Kids Picture

2008-03-06T09:45:00.002-06:00

I took this picture last fall because I wanted a country-ish picture to send out as Christmas cards. Yesterday I got an email from Adoptive Families magazine asking if they could publish it in their magazine. Cool! Of course I emailed back instantly saying "Ummm....YEA!!!!" OK, so not exactly in those words, but I did give them permission. It's going to be in the next issue they publish and will be in a brothers and sisters section.

My Tough Wrestlers

2008-02-28T15:49:00.002-06:00

So.....the other day there was Elementary Wrestling practice. Jacob, who's in 3rd grade, has been in it for a few years so he knew what to expect. The other two boys, Benji and Chris, who are both in Kindergarten were very excited, but didn't really know what was it was going to like. Dave went to practice to help out and then brought them home after. It was about the cutest thing ever when they got home and all three boys came bursting into the kitchen wearing their singlets! I had to tell Jacob how tough he looked but I kept thinking about how dang cute the two little boys looked! So, like any good scrapbooker, I got the camera out.

This picture here is of my three very tough wrestlers looking as tough as they possible can. Think their opponents will be scared?

SoopDebbie

2008-02-26T08:12:00.003-06:00

Debbie has quite an imagination! A few weeks ago she put on Chris's superman outfit and Benji's batman mask and..........tadaaaa..........became SuperDebbie! Or as Debbie repeatedly yelled through the house.....SoopDebbie! Jacob insists that the correct name is SuperBatDebbie. Whatever name you choose to call her......I call it adorable!

Here is my scrapbook page about it.

Some Great Ladies

2008-02-23T16:19:00.002-06:00

So.........I pick up my mail today and there is a package from a member of the Christian Scrapbooking Sisters group I belong to, Becky. I said to Jacob, who was sitting next to me, "What did I get from Becky?". He, of course, has no idea who Becky is, let alone what she is sending me. Then I get to the house and throw everything on the table and open Becky's package..................and there's a bunch of scrapping kits. I am clueless about what these can be. I start wracking my brain trying to remember what swap Becky is hosting. And I'm pretty sure whatever she is hosting I'm not signed up for as I am only in one swap right now. So then I think that maybe Becky is RAKing me some old kits of hers. I see a card on top so I open it and read Becky's note................................OH MY GOODNESS!!!!! My wonderful friends at CSS have surprised me!!!!!!! To celebrate Clara's adoption they made kits, sent them to Becky, who then sent them to me. A HUGE smile then appears on my face! I call Clara over so she can look through the kits with me. She, although she is clueless about how special this gift is, is so excited that the kits were made for her scrapbook. She has such a great time looking through them. I barely have time to look at one kit and she's on to the next. How exciting! It makes me want to drop everything I'm doing and go scrap Clara pictures!

This is a wonderful group of ladies and I was totally surprised by this! And it means so much to me! I took a picture of all the kits they sent to me and decided to share it here!

Thanks to all my CSS pals!!!!

Winter Fun

2008-02-21T08:41:00.004-06:00

Winter is not my favorite season! Especially the last couple days when it has been WAY cold! Yesterday morning it was -33 degrees. Yes.....that's BELOW zero. Brrrrr! Right now the temperature has risen to a whole -8. Luckily we are supposed to be up to the mid 30's (above zero!) by the weekend.

One good thing about winter is that there are lots of things to do outside that the kids love! One of their favorite things is to have Dave hook all the sleds up behind the 3 wheeler and get pulled around the yard. The beg to be able to do this! Something new to our farm this winter is an ice skating rink. Dave has worked hard to get the ice as smooth and even as possible. So we are in the process of teaching the kids how to ice skate. This has been quite funny. Out of all of them, Chris seems to be doing the best. Even Debbie gave it a try with the double bladed skates we have. Jacob and Benji love to play hockey. Jacob has had some pretty impressive wipe-outs. Benji has yet to try skating with a pair of skates with only one blade, but he's wanting to try it later today. Clara is doing really good also, but gets really tired of falling. They think that Dave and I are the coolest things ever because we can skate.....without falling. They were really impressed when I showed them that I could even skate backwards. It's fun to be cool every once in a while.

I Have a Stepmom

2008-02-11T14:02:00.000-06:00

On January 30 my dad got married. He married a wonderful lady named Nancy who has been a good friend of the family since forever. They have had a long-distance thingy going and on Dec. 23 she accepted his proposal. They waited almost a whole month to get married. Those crazy kids! I am very pleased that Nancy has graciously agreed to move here with my dad. I look forward to the middle of March when they will get here. Until then they are going to be gallivanting all over the eastern part of the country. I gave Dad some very specific instructions to send me pictures of the wedding. I thought I was being generous when I told him I could wait a couple of days to get them. After almost 2 weeks I still haven't received any from him yet. Come on Dad! In his defense, I think he has tried but has had some troubles emailing them to me. Luckily Nancy's sister took mercy on me and sent me one! I scanned it in so I could email it to my sister but I wasn't quick enough. Sometime in the hour it was sitting on the table Debbie got a hold of it with her peanut butter slimed hands. So the picture is a little crusty.

Anyway...........congrats Dad and Nancy!

My Quiver

2008-02-01T13:08:00.000-06:00

This page is an another assignment from The Wishblading Well. The heart pocket and hearts I used on the page are from their new Lil' Romance Bucket. I wanted to kind of summarize each of my kids on the hearts and so I thought of one character trait that each of them have. Here's what I came up with for each of them:

Jacob - My adventurous one.

Clara - My hardworking one.

Chris - My observant one.

Benji - My sensitive one.

Debbie - My inquisitive one.

When I saw the heart pocket file the word "quiver" jumped into my mind and I thought of that verse in the Bible so that's what I used as the theme of this page. The verses I used come from Psalm 127:3-5. "Sons are a heritage from the LORD, children a reward from him. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one's youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them."

I am anxiously awaiting some pictures of a big event that took place on Wed. When I get some of these promised pictures I will post them! I can't wait!

Design Team Assignment

2008-01-27T20:18:00.000-06:00

I recently completed my first assignment for The Wishblading Well design team. I had to do something with some bread files that are from thier new Recipe Card Lil' Bucket. I knew right away what I was going to do. Dave thought I was nuts when I was taking the picture for the page. I explained what I was doing and what I had planned, but he just didn't grasp the concept. Undeterred, I continued on. This is the page I came up with.

Eye Problems

2008-01-25T11:00:00.000-06:00

This morning when I first got up I was having some serious eye problems! For the first hour everything was blurry. I had my glasses on but they weren't helping at all! I kept complaining to Dave that something was wrong with my eyes, especially my left one. It was blurry. That type of thing has never happened before. When I sat down at my computer it was SO hard to read the words on the screen. I eventually took off my glasses because that made everything easier to see. I was totally confused about why this was happening and what was causing it. Even Dave seemed kind of concerned. It was so strange!

When I was done on the computer I decided to put in my contacts and see if that helped. By this time I was kind of scared and concerned. When I got to the bathroom all of a sudden it hit me what was going on! Why I was having such problems with my eyes and why everything was so blurry............

I had slept with my contacts in.

(nobody ever accused me of being brilliant)

Welcome Debbie!

2008-01-21T10:37:00.001-06:00

I am pretty excited to annouce that we are adopting Debbie! She has been with our family since Sept. 2006. She was offically placed in our home for adoption last Tuesday. We are expecting to finalize the adoption within the next 6-8 weeks. The paperwork is flying all around the state right now. When it finally ends up on our lawyers desk he will set a court date for us to finalize. This picture was taken last Tuesday, the day we got to change her last name to ours!

This will be our 4th adoption. Dave and I joke around some about this. I tell him that all of our children have different dads. He then reminds me that they all have different moms too. I am so blessed that God has put us all together. In the first years of our marriage, after Jacob was born, we struggled with infertility. Such a painful time! We then felt God leading us into adoption. I never would have guessed what my family would look like today! Thank you God!

Nana

2008-01-17T11:29:00.000-06:00

Here is another LO I did using files from The Wishblading Well. In May of 2005 Dave and I flew to NJ to finalize Chris's adoption. Since we were already on the East coast we rented a car and drove to Maine so that I could visit Nana. We spent a couple hours with her and it was wonderful to talk with her. I had not seen her since 1999 when my Grampy passed away. She talked a lot about my Mom and my other Grandma. These were things I had never heard before. I had Dave take a few pictures while we were there. When we were leaving I had a hard time because I felt that it would be the last time I would see Nana. And I was right. I did not get to see Nana again. She passed away in May of 2007. This LO is for my Album About Me and is titled "Nana".

Playing with my Craft Robo

2008-01-17T11:09:00.000-06:00

In the last week or so I have been having fun playing with my Craft Robo. I love this new toy! It can do amazing things so I have been trying to see what I can do. Last month I was pleased to be selected to be on the design team for The Wishblading Well, which sells files to be used with digital cutters. Their files are easy to use and I have been having lots of fun trying out some of my favorites from their site. So here are some of the LO's I have done using their files.

I Took a Shower!

2008-01-15T07:50:00.000-06:00

Yay! I have water again!!!!! Wohoooo! So I'm nice an clean! We found out yesterday afternoon that the well was not dry, but some of the pipes were frozen. So Dave dealt with that and.....presto......water again. I was so thankful that we got it going. Thank you God!

No Water!

2008-01-14T14:10:00.000-06:00

Oh my! It was around -10 degrees this morning and all of a sudden...........we had NO water in our house! Dave did some checking around and he thinks that our well might be dry! Oh my goodness! A little while ago we pulled up our pump and everything that goes with it and it did look like one of the ends was frozen so hopefully that's the problem. It'll be interesting tonight with all the kids home from school and not having water. I've been thinking today, or noticing when I need to do something, of all the things I can't do with water. Here are some of them:
-flush the toilet (uck)
-do the laundry (oh darn!)
-refill my water bottle
-take a shower or bath (not a big problem today but tommorow.......)
-make broth for soup (supposed to be supper tonight)
-clean the bathroom (needs it but not getting done)
-wash dishes
-wash my hands
-wash Debbie's face after eating chocolate pudding

The list could go on and on. We are lucky that we have another well over by the barn. So I can haul 5 gallon buckets of water in. But I haven't gotten that desperate........yet. We have a gallon pitcher of water in the fridge that Dave just refilled so I was able to refill my water bottle. This all makes me appreciate the modern age that we live in. As bad as not having water is, it would be worse if we had no electricity! Brrrr! At least I have heat!

Anyway, be thankful today for your water!

Bella Cards

2008-01-12T09:28:00.000-06:00

I've finished my first two Bella cards. I loved using these stamps! I had seen lots of people using these and thought they were cute. I finally broke down and got a couple. Wow! I think I might need to get more. =) Remember, these are my first attempts so there is lots of room for improvement.

My First Bella Stamps

2008-01-08T21:57:00.000-06:00

It seems like everywhere I look I'm seeing these stamps being used. I finally broke down and ordered two of them and.........the came today and............I love them! I played around with them some tonight but didn't actually make anything. Tomorrow I am hoping to. So then I will have to post what I make. If you don't know what bella stamps are check them out here: http://www.stampingbella.com So cute!

First Pages of 2008

2008-01-07T09:24:00.001-06:00

This LO was a hard one to do and took me WAY too much time! I got the idea from one of my scrapbooking magazines. It's about my favorite pictures of 2007. It was WAY hard to narrow the pictures down to this many. I originally wanted to do a 1 page LO but soon found out that was going to be impossible. Way to many pictures! So this is what I came up with.

A Step Back

2008-01-07T09:20:00.000-06:00

This page is from the Model T Tour we went on last July. Over 4 days we traveled about 500 miles in a 1926 Model T Touring. It was tons of fun! There were about 250 cars on the tour. All of the products used for this page came from the December kit at Lifetime Moments. I entered it their monthly contest. We'll see how I do.

Just Starting Out

2008-01-07T08:50:00.000-06:00

Well.....let's give blogging at try. I've been thinking of doing this for awhile and just recently decided to give it a try. So here it is! Enjoy!