Thursday, January 27, 2011

Snow Day

Since we had a little bit of snow we went over to the Deweys to borrow one of their hillls.






Who is this masked man?

Noah is enjoying the snow board that we got last year.

He even remembers to fall before you hit the "HOT" fence at the bottom of the hill.

I just want to squeeze those cheeks.


Look at these cuties

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Did You Say "Ball"

Noah is playing on a fourth grade team this year.  His whole team is 3rd graders and they are doing very well playing against mostly fourth graders.  He practices twice a week and he has a game every Saturday. 



Wednesday, January 19, 2011

One Tooth Down



Andrew finally lost his first tooth.  He is six years and five months old.  He was super excited and called both set of grandparents to tell them about the big event.

I know the picture is not good but really how can you take a good picture of someone's lower teeth.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Trying to Follow

For a while we had been discussing whether our family was complete.  We just weren't for sure.  We had discussed adoption and foster care but we just didn't know if this was for us.  Then a few months ago I read the following verse.

James 2:19 My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, 20 for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. 21 Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you. 22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. 23 Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror 24 and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. 25 But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it--he will be blessed in what he does. 26 If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. 27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

This was my Bible reading literally one of the mornings after Tim and I had discussed it.  I put the bold emphasis on the words that stuck out to me.  I am very bad about skimming over the words because I have read them before and  I do not actually comprehended that God is talking to me.  He wrote this book for me to know what I am suppose to be doing.  It would be nice if we could just skip over the parts we don't like but that is just not how it works.  ( you know that part "slow to speak"...do you think he really meant that one lol)

So anyway when I was reading these verses I kept on thinking....I can say I am a christian but talk really means nothing unless I have actions behind my words.  Who wants to listen to someone just talk, my actions can speak much louder than my words. 

Two weeks later we had a whole service about foster and adoption at church.  A few different couples who are in the process or have finished the adoption process from our church discussed the process and what all is involved. 

Tonight we went to our first meeting  for the C.A.L.L.  This group is a nonprofit that is suppose to help ease the process of getting qualified to be foster parents.  We filled out a bunch of paper work to start getting our approval started.  They even had someone there for fingerprinting.  We did not have this done since it was already so late and we had the two youngest boys with us.  Needless to say we were about to pull our hair out with Ti.

By the way some total stranger left their little girl in the nursery with Tim.  Tim had went back there with Ti and the father and daughter came back a  little while later and the father just left their little girl.  WEIRD  Not for sure they would be good foster parents.  When we were going to leave Tim had to go find the dad to come get his daughter because we didn't think they would want her left back there by herself.  The guy told Tim and he could just bring her to him and then Tim politely told him "I don't work here... I was just back there with my son"    Totally weird situation.  I would never just drop my kid off for someone else to watch.  Especially my daughter with a man I didn't know.  I know this was totally off the subject but I was sure you would want to hear this story.

Our next step is to take our CPR training and our two weekend of classes.  My goodness you have to train a lot.  I sure didn't go through this much training before I had my own kids.  Maybe I should have.

Some things I want to remember...
Andrew "Let's make sure we don't get a girl"
Dad "Andrew, we are getting a girl"
Andrew "Well, lets not let her see a barbie doll so she won't want to play with one"
Mom "We will have to buy some girl toys"

Andrew "Let's name her trawlalala"
Mom "No"

Mom "What would you think if she was black"
Noah "That wouldn't matter"
Andrew "Well that would just be weird, we couldn't see her in the dark"
Noah "Andrew, You can't see us in the dark either"
Mom & Dad ....trying not to laugh.

 Andrew took notice tonight when they said that we could have up to eight kids in our home counting our own.  He went to the meeting with us.  He was hoping we would get a child tonight.  He was disappointed when we told him that wasn't how it worked.  At some points we will have to decide for sure what we are capable of taking care of.  Currently we will probably only take a child under the age of two and probably we would prefer a girl.  Of course as soon as I say this God might decide something different for us.  It will probably be around May before we will even be approved.

This whole thing of course kind of makes me nervous.  One of the quotes that stuck out to me tonight was the question "what does a family look like to you?"  I am not for sure what our family looks like in the future but something I do know that if God has called us to do it he will make us capable.

We realize that this is not for everyone and some will think we are crazy but if God wants us to do this we must follow.  Please continue to pray for us on this journey that we will be open to what the Lord has planned for our family.

Saturday, January 15, 2011

He loves Puzzles

One of things that Ti is really loving these days is puzzles.  Of course a tractor must be near by.  What can I say he is super smart.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

What to Do????

I have a dilemma.  I have a little extra cash burning a hole in my pocket.....with all this extra work I have been doing. Hence the lack of blogging. 
Anyway we have had this coffee table for about ten years.


There are some things I love about this coffee table.  Things like the top raises so you can sit on the couch and play a board game on it and not get a back ache.  Can I get an AMEN.   I also love that it has wheels and can be moved around easily.


But there are also some things I hate about this coffee table.  These pictures are not good but can you see all the marks on the top.  This is caused by my lovely children and various other children and adults alike.  Anything will make a mark.  The rolling of a toy car over the top of it or doing one's homework on it.  The wood is extremely soft


So here is the deal.  I need for you to look at some coffee tables and give me a suggestion of what you think would work best for our family.


I am thinking that something like this would be cool.  But the corners look really sharp for us that have toddlers running around.  I wonder how many stitches it would take after your kids head hit one of those corners.  I will need to weigh the cost of stitches and the convenience of game playing for this table.




I also kind of like this style that is an ottoman and a coffee tables.

Choices....Choices

So be a sweet heart and go to this web site and give me some suggestions.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Getting Connected

Last Sunday we started another semester of small groups.  This was suppose to be a fellowship so the kids stayed with us instead of going to Kids connection.  We had 25 people in all.

Tim made the chili and I made the Pioneer Woman's cinnamon rolls.  The chili was great but the cinnamon rolls were just OK.  They didn't rise like I though they should have.  I am definitely going to try it again.  I think I might have killed the yeast by either mixing it to much or maybe the mixtures was to warm when I put it in and therefore killed it.  Either way I don't like not to succeed at something so I am just going to do it again to prove that I can.  Any suggestions would be welcome from those of you that might really how to do this whole bread thing.




 The adults played a game of Spoons and Taboo.  Devonna was the proud winner of spoons and of course the girls won at Taboo.  The guys weren't even close.  WE RULE!!!!

We haven't decided what we will be studying this semester but we are leaning toward a study on knowing what we believe and why we believe it and how to defend our faith.

Everyone is welcome to come join us.  The food is usually pretty good (as long as I stay away from the bread making) and the fellowship is great. 

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Christmas 2010


This working thing has got me a little behind on blogging.

We did Christmas a little early this year because we were going to the grandparents on Christmas eve and didn't want to hall the presents around.  The boys slept till about 8 which is late for them.  When they finally did get up we talked them into snuggling in bed with us for a while.  I am afraid these days will not last very much longer. 

Mom "Boys I think Santa knew we were not going to be here on Christmas morning so I think he stopped by early"
Dad "Did you guys notice their were more presents under the tree"
Andrew "Mom, you guys are Santa"  with a big sigh after this statement.

We have never made a big deal about Santa.  We kinda mention him a little but we want them to really believe in the true meaning of Christmas.  A Saviour was born so that we might have eternal life with him one day in heaven.

Noah has been the reader of the Christmas story for the last few years.  Maybe next year Andrew will help out in this area.

 After the story was read out of the Bible.  Andrew retold the story with our nativity set.  Ti helped in his own way. 
 Ti is SO SO SO into reading books these days.  Seriously he looks at books for hours during the day.  He absolutely loooooovvvvveeeesss "TWAAAAAIINS and TWUCKS"
 One of Andrew's favorite gifts was his paper jam.

Noah played with his yo yo so much it is already broken.  We are going to have to get him another one.  He was using it constantly after Christmas.  Well that is until it broke.  That is what I get for buying cheap toys.

 Will Andrew learn how to train his dragon??????

This was one of those gifts that you know won't work but because they wanted it you go ahead and buy it.  Needless to say now I think they believe us.
 Did I mention that Ti loves books.


Ti wasn't really into opening presents.  He wanted to play with what had already been opened.  He would have been perfectly satisfied to just have one box to open.

We had a great time celebrating Christ's birth with the kids.

P.S. By the way I am the coolest wife ever because I bought Tim an Ipod touch for his present.  Just ask him.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Traditions



Every Christmas we make cut out cookies.
This year, Noah even helped make the dough.


Andrew wore his Dad's apron.  I am sure that it was because he didn't want to get anything on him.  He such a neat and clean child.....


 We really didn't let Ti help much.  He was more into eating the dough than actually cutting out a cookie.

The cookie recipe I used was not very good.  We didn't really like how they tasted. 

 But you know if you put enough icing on something you really can't taste the cookie. 
HURRAY FOR ICING AND SPRINKLES.