a blessed January 2011...

We were all too sick in January for a family photo.  The puppets stood in for us nicely.

January...cold...snowy...sick...sick...sick.  It has been a tough winter for being sick all over the country, but it has hit our family particularly hard.  We have seemed to go from one cold to another to a stomach thing back to another cold virus.  That combined with extended family members spending time in hospitals and it being so cold and snowy outside did not lift the spirits very much.  But still we were blessed.  We were together, we have a warm house, we had good food (even when the momma didn't want to cook it!), we have loving friends and family, we had lots of laughs and cuddles, and all the time together this past month has been a bright spot through all the ick.  We worked at getting back into the routine of school after a lovely Christmas break, and were back into the swing of things by the end of the month.  We had a wedding to look forward to in February and it was fun to shop for clothes for almost all of us (and score incredible deals!!!) and travel to Edgerton to help throw a wedding shower for J.  We went to the library quite a few times and read a lot.  And we were reminded of God's goodness and faithfulness every day.

New books from the library didn't make it past the front steps!

G notes:

• She finally admitted she can read.  We have known this for a number of months, but whenever you would ask her to read part of a book she would reply "I can't read yet!" or stop after a couple of sentences because she wanted us to read the rest.  She still tells us that she can only read 'I can read' books, but we have seen her reading other books outloud to her brothers too...=)
• Learned to ice skate
• Is learning to like different foods including baby carrots, sloppy joes, some soups, and is starting to fuss less when we ask her to try something.
• Has been a big helper.  Not that she doesn't still fuss at us way more than we would like, but you know...

W notes:

• Got the brunt of the stomach bug.  Has never been that sick for that long before!  Made it through though and was a trooper through it all.  (helped that he figured out he got to watch PBS kids pretty much all day when he wasn't feeling good)
• Loves his magazine Ladybug, and also G's magazine Click
• Won the best grandson prize of the month...we happened to be in Trader Joe's on the day that Aahma B was coming later in the afternoon, and as we walk by all the flowers, he excitedly taps my leg and asks "Can I buy some flowers for my Aahma?" 
• is getting more interested in coloring and drawing

C notes:

• He gets the brunt of all the cold viruses we have had.  That combined with molars coming in have made for some crabby days.
• Learned how to jump!  His feet actually left the floor, and he was so proud of himself.  Now we can't get the boy to stop jumping!
• Had his 2 yr well check this month.  36" tall and 32 pounds - 97th percentile for both!  Dr. Tammy was impressed with his speech and vocab, and C also showed off his new jumping skill for her. =)
• Has really turned into a toddler.  There is not much baby left at all!  (sniff, sniff!)

ice skating...

 

I did not grow up ice skating.  I think I went once on a youth group outing?  And it was not pretty.  S grew up with an ice rink (lake) in his backyard and is fairly good at ice skating.  But since it is something that I never did and didn't care to do, we never have gone together in our 13.5 years of knowing each other.  

So we were both excited when we found out that Calvin does ice skating for their PE classes in January (S was excited she would start learning how to skate, I was excited that she would learn and I wouldn't have to try to teach her!).  All kids are required to have skates and participate...even the kindergarteners!  We got G a used pair of skates and sent her off with hopes for the best on that first day!

She came home in tears.  "I fell down...like a MILLION times, momma!  And I cried so hard even Mr. S (the principal) asked me what was wrong."  Turns out that about 90% of her class could skate pretty well (having older brothers and sisters), and the gym teacher didn't have time to give individual help to the few that couldn't skate being that she had to keep the rest going.  It would be up to us to help her.  S went out and bought skates and took G out to the free rink at our park to teach her how to skate.  It didn't come on the first time, obviously, so they visited that rink quite a few times in the next month.

G was mostly concerned with staying up on her feet and not falling so she didn't want to try to move her feet, so S brought out a lawn chair and had her hold on to that, which gave her enough steadiness to learn how to move her feet.  And that really helped.  Before she knew it, she could go around the rink without holding on to the chair!  It gave her a lot more confidence with skating at school too.  She never got up to the speed where she could play games with the other kids, but she could skate around the rink or back and forth and was excited to come home and tell us how few time she fell and how far she had skated.  S and I were able to go and watch her a few times as they asked for parent volunteers to come help put on and tie 21 kindergarteners skates each time they were out...talk about semi-organized chaos!

I think it was a good learning experience for G.  Not only just learning to do something new, but sticking with something that she wasn't very good at.  Up until now, if she hasn't been good at an activity, she just wouldn't play that at all.  I think she learned a lot both physically and mentally with ice skating.  Who knows, we may end up with a girl who plays hockey or figure-skates (although with my lack of coordination, the genes aren't in her favor for figure skating!)!

a wedding shower for J...

The happy and beautiful bride-to-be outshines the awful quality of this picture! (forgot my camera at home so this is from my cell phone)  

There were not a terrible lot of free weekends after the holidays before L & J's wedding, so s.i.l. A and I got together with J's dear friend, sister, and other bridesmaids to throw her one big shower rather than her having to go to 2 or 3 of them.  S had inventory the same weekend as the shower, so the kids and I headed off to the farm by ourselves.

Saturday was the shower and unfortunately there were some icky roads and also it was on a long weekend (Martin Luther King Jr day), so there weren't as many people that came as we had hoped.  But we had a blast nonetheless.  J's friend sent out the invites and brought all the food, L&J helped us take care of renting their church fellowship hall, and A and I came up with devotions and a shower game.  Dear A found the shower game and it went perfectly with the invites which asked everyone to bring a recipe for J.  We gave everyone sheets of paper, and then J came out and modeled the lovely apron and kitchen utensils as pictured above for just a minute or so.  Then she hid again and we gave everyone 3 minutes to write down as many of them as they could remember.  What A and I didn't think was that 5 people got 11 out of 12 right!  If we ever used it again we said we would add more things.

J got some very nice gifts (quite a few people dropped gifts off at the church ahead of time), and we had a good time getting to know the other bridesmaids, and J's friends and family.  G went along with me (thanks Dad and uncle M for watching the boys!) and had a lot of fun too.

The only thing that went wrong was after the shower and only affected me, really.  I slipped on a patch of ice and went down hard whacking my head harder than I have ever done before.  Wasn't knocked out, but definitely discombobulated.  G ran to get my brother L who helped get me on my feet and then drove us to Mom and Dad's.  I had a lump the size of a baked potato by the time we got there!  But no signs of a concussion, just really sore and a major headache for the rest of the weekend.  Felt much better by Monday when we drove home.

We had a great time over the weekend - so much fun to celebrate with the wedding shower, but also fun to get to spend time with family again.  We are so excited to have J as an official part of our family and are looking forward to the wedding!

a belated gift for my birthday boy...

 

In thinking about gifts for this past Christmas, I got the crazy idea in my head that I needed to make handmade gifts for everyone.  There are days that I just need to make something, or want to make something!  But the reality sets in and I realize that the timing is just not right with the ages of the kids right now.  It is better than it was a year ago, and will be better in another year, but I just can't do everything that I want to right now.  

But I held on to this project.  I found this idea for fabric nesting dolls on the blog, Made By Joel.  I adjusted the sized so I could make our whole family and drew the patterns on cardstock.  The pattern for the largest puppet I made 10.5 inches tall and 6.75 inches wide, and then I stepped down 1 inch in height and 3/4 inches in width for each consecutive puppet so they would nest. 

I used natural colored denim for the fronts of the puppets, and different colored fleece for the backs (so nice and soft to play with!).  I hemmed the bottom edge of the denim so it had a nice finished look, but didn't need to with the fleece.

After I had all the pieces cut out, I drew the people onto the denim with a black sharpie.  Now I don't draw free-handed very well, so I copied the people from this paper city (also Made By Joel) and sized them accordingly and printed them out.  I then taped them to one of our sunroom windows and was able to see through the denim to draw.  I wanted our family to look like us, so I used the paper city figures for their shapes only, and then added my own clothing design touches. =)

After that it was only a matter of sewing the fronts and backs together and then getting them wrapped up for my birthday boy (he didn't mind receiving the present a little late!).  I think all the kids (and maybe even the momma and dadda) are having fun with these.  And that they nest is not only neat for storage, but part of the fun for playing!

happy 2nd birthday little C!

Can my baby really be 2?  Our sweet one who entered the world so dramatically yet so peacefully on New Year's Day '09?  These past 2 years have flown by and like it or not he is growing up...and into a wonderful little boy.  Yes, he does share a birthday with a national holiday right after we see all sorts of family on Christmas...so there is not much chance for extended family birthday parties.  But on the bright side his dadda will always have the day off so we can definitely make it a special one with just our family!

happy birthday "pa-takes!!"

lego birthday cake built lovingly and presented with a flourish by his big sister and brother

fun tearing into presents

seriously, this shirt was on W like last week it seems

  (although being in the 97% for everything that isn't too much of a stretch for Little C!)

fun trip to underwater adventures to see...

"fishies!"

too much fun for one day, so his banana chocolate chip cake waited until the next day

I can blow them out myself

who needs a fork?

yum!

We love you "BIG" little C!  Happy Happy Birthday!!!