Welcome to our World

Beginning on November 1st, my children missed being able to play outside every day, but we've had some good things divert us. For one thing, I am very grateful we finished off our basement this summer! Having that nice, cozy place to romp & play & read books is like having a whole 'nother home to call your own. One day after library story time it was pretty obvious the children needed some lunch & a place to exercise, so my parents helped me take them to Chick-fil-A. It was a hit & I'm sure we'll be there more & more as winter goes by. One day Grandpa helped me take all of them swimming at the Rec. Center. To our pleasant surprise, the girls enjoyed themselves much more than the last time we were at an indoor pool (Danny loves water no matter what). In fact, Michelle had such a great time, I signed her up for Aquababies, a 3 session class for her & I to attend after we get back from Florida. On 11/11/11 I wanted to do something special to ce...

These pictures represent moments of pure joy for me. Don't know exactly why, but it struck me while I watched my husband jump in with the children and the dog that I'm lucky to be me... and had a little taste of how much our Father in Heaven loves all of us. God's love really does blow me away sometimes. It cracks me up these pictures were taken AFTER the snow.

We had a great time this Halloween, thanks to Disney and our wonderful friends & neighbors. It all started when Dan asked our 2-year-old what he was going to be for Halloween. We had gotten the box of costumes out & had played in them while Dan was at work. To my great surprise, since we didn't have anything Disney in that box, Danny very confidently replied he was going to be Buzz Lightyear. What?!? He's obsessed with Buzz after having been obsessed with Lightning McQueen. I guess if the word 'light' is in the name, he's a fan! After many failed attempts to find him a Buzz costume in the right size, Dan's cousin, Christy, bailed us out by mailing us the Buzz costume her son had worn the year before. (And she even sent us Vermont maple syrup & cheese too. Yum! Dan has the nicest family.) After hearing Danny was going to get to be Buzz, the generic pink princess costume in the basement wasn't going to be good enough for Kaelah anymore. ...

Once again we journeyed to the museum when Ethan had a day off of school due to parent-teacher conferences. I wish I could have taken videos in the traveling exhibit, but I think these give a pretty good idea. You'll also notice an astronaut -- obviously that is part of the permanent space exhibit, but I have a funny story to go with that one. At the end of the presentation, Ethan told the woman pretending to be on Mars he wanted to be an astronaut. Then Kaelah made me tell her she wanted to be a hair dresser. The woman got the funniest look on her face & finally managed to say that was a good thing too. I take it usually only space enthusiasts sit through the whole thing. lol. Before we left we tried to line all the children up in age order for a photo. I guess Kaelah didn't understand why I wanted her to stand in between Ethan & Joseph, so the ages are a little messed up, but they are ages 4, 5, 3, 2, 1 & zero right now. Yup, we're ultra excited Lisa ...

I had heard it was going to snow. It began to snow on Oct. 25 after the children were in bed & I didn't think much of it, other than how beautiful it was. In the morning, we all got quite the surprise when we looked out our windows. None of the trees around here were ready. We lost a couple branches, but they'll be okay. Our neighbor, Dave, was nice enough to know snow off our front tree at midnight & help me do that again first thing in the morning. My 3 all bundled up for fun! I got such a kick out of watching them, especially Michelle trying to figure out what snow was (below). I loved the comment my mom's cousin, Lee, left on Facebook about that picture: " There is somebody in that pink outfit correct?" Yeah, it's too big! I assumed Michelle would grow more since I bought this at a consignment sale in August. And the boots were way too big. After this snow I ended up going to 5 different stores to buy all 3 of them new snow boots. Danny...

October means many wonderful things, but it also means our last opportunity to play out in nice weather regularly for a long time. We take advantage, and this year, we got to spend some time at both our beloved park (I had to include how adept Michelle is getting on the swings) and somewhere new. My parents moved here in 2006 (2 years after we did) and bought a home this summer. There are several reasons they didn't do this 5 years ago, among the top being how much higher housing is here than in Kansas, & not wanting to have to sell 2 homes if Dan got a job elsewhere. Well, after Dan switched jobs to even closer to home, several years to get over sticker shock, and rising rental prices my parents found a ranch-style foreclosure in need of some major TLC. Dan & I agreed we would help with the play set in the back yard & you can see how cute the children were with the project. We weren't able to finish the job before cold weather set in, but at least we have a p...

We were blessed to have family come visit again in October... can't believe that was only a month ago. Mark & Kendra & Sloan are wonderful! I sincerely hope they move to Colorado after Mark graduates. I can dream, can't I? Since I'm a month behind on our blog I'm totally stealing Kendra's post about the trip. She's the one that took pictures anyway. (: Tuesday, October 18, 2011 Visiting our Colorado family We had the chance last week to go to Colorado to visit Mark's brother Dan, his wife Sarah and their cute kids Kaelah, Danny and Michelle. It was a quick trip but we did so many fun things. The first day we went to the zoo. Can you tell how excited I was to see the polar bear? We spent some time at the park and went to Dan's softball game. Mark even got to play with their team. We even went to the pumpkin patch! The kids got to paint pumpkins and Sloan was literally scooping the paint onto the pumpkin. It took all day to dry. They LOVED the...

We had a cold snap the first week of October that made it necessary for us to harvest what was left in the garden while Kaelah was at preschool one morning. Make me wonder once again why I even tried to have one this year with the church calling I received in January. But Danny & Michelle were so funny about it I had to take pictures. As you can tell, the raspberry plants Christine Myers gave us before she moved away were the biggest hit. I've decided having a north-facing garden surrounded on 3 sides by either fencing or the house wasn't the greatest idea. Don't really have a place for a garden anywhere else, though....