a polar vortex day...

School was called off today, not because of snow, but because of the "polar vortex."  Yep crazy weather patterns have given us super cold temps and dangerous wind chills...enough to call off school.

There were LOTS of complaints everywhere about the "polar vortex" but I didn't mind one bit because we got to stay in our pajamas all day and spend our Thursday...

 doing this...

and this...

and this...

and this...

(side note, because it was a "polar vortex day" and not a snow day, I felt it was alright to play Cars Monopoly versus the regular version.  hope my brothers will be ok with that.)

and this...

and this...

(normally I am all about not leaving the house if school is called off, but I was easily persuaded with a late afternoon invite: I mean, how can you say no to a cozy warm home with cousins and cookies and hot chocolate and books and hex bugs?!  And a puppy!  And Auntie Christy let us come over in our jammies. =)

and this...

(Grace had to write a haiku about her day:

I had a snow day

I wore my pj's all day

We played games at home

Aahma R loves haikus and wrote one back for her too:

I had a snow day

I dressed in my clothes and crocs

I knit for Grace)

and this.

AND, just so you don't think that things were only sunshine and cookies and puppies all day, we had no less than 11 meltdowns, 18 bonks, 9 fights, 2 band-aids, 3 bookshelves emptied, 1 big momma meltdown, 37 complaints about chores, 1 bag of frozen chicken explode all over the floor, and 85 whiny/fussy "Momma!"'s. 

When it all weighs out though...a great day.

fun friday, 1.17.14...

Boppa and Aahma R came to visit!!!  Bakery treats, learning about electricity while fixing a baby monitor, reading books, the hand game, new games on Aahma's ipad, and lots of hugs and giggles made for a great fun friday!

a rough patch...

(Auntie Christy, these baskets are PERFECT - thanks!!!)

smelling the flowers Mom and Dad R sent Steve

Dad B worked from the "Coon Rapids office" while they were here

After a lovely Christmas / New Year's / Carsten's birthday celebration with Steve's family, we were looking forward to enjoying the last few days of break and gearing up for getting back into the routine.  We were then issued a rough week that we only made it through by the grace of God and the help of others and are now standing on the other side of it feeling very blessed.  Tired.  But very blessed.

It started Thursday evening with a broken toilet and a flood that I have only seen the likes of on TV shows, spanning multiple levels.  This of course happened on the busiest day of the year at work for Steve, who I couldn't get a hold of, and I literally had no clue what to do, so I called the neighbors and Dan quickly came over with a wet-vac and a dehumidifier and a calm, "it will be ok!" attitude that I very much needed.  Lots of time was spent that night sopping up water with every towel and cloth diaper in the house.

Then Steve got sick.  It started out as a cold and moved into what we thought was full blown influenza, and for 3 days was the sickest I had ever seen him before.  The kids were troopers and kept themselves happy and busy upstairs with new Legos from Christmas and games while we quarantined Dadda downstairs.  He got worse and I was going to take him in, and then his fever broke and he slept and got better.  Or so we thought.  The next day ended with him not being able to move and having a hard time breathing and his chest hurt and I had to call 911 for an ambulance ride to the hospital.  It is all surreal yet to me that I actually did that and that actually happened, but it did (thanks again to Lynne for coming over in the middle of the night to sit with the kids!).  After a long night in ER, it turns out it was not influenza, but strep pneumonia, which is a particularly nasty form of pnuemonia and it knocked Steve out good.  His heart was fine, and they got him hooked up to IV fluids and meds, but it still took him 2 days in the hospital to even be at the point where he could walk out the door to come home (and that was a slow walk - he laughs that he got seriously lapped by an 80 yr old couple).  And then it was 5 days of resting and more meds at home before he was in any shape to go back to work.  And it will be another week yet before he is truly back to normal.  Having sick kids is the worst, but having a seriously sick husband is also the worst.

We are so thankful for all the help we got through this rough patch.  To our neighbors who came quickly to help, to J&C who also came as soon as they could the next day, to Steve's parents who moved in for 4 days to help with kids and the house and getting back to normal, to friends who brought meals right away, to church friends who brought meals later after Steve went back to work, and to everyone who lifted Steve and us all up in prayer. The Lord is good and Steve continues to improve each day, despite a very busy week for him.  It has not been the easiest for Steve to transition slowly back into work this week as there was a consistory meeting this past Tuesday in which he had a lot of end of the year reporting and budget preparing and such to do as he is church treasurer, and it is also their semi-annual inventory day at work tomorrow which requires a lot of work the week before and day of.  Steve has been taking a lot of little naps, taking it very easy at home, and getting to bed as early as possible which has helped.  My mom and dad are on their way now to spend the weekend with us which will be so nice - not only for us, but for Steve too as he won't fret too much about us at home while he is so busy at work if Aahma and Boppa are taking good care of us. =)

This has made us all a little more thankful for each other, a little more thankful for health, a little more thankful for the care and love of others, and a lot more thankful for the continued blessings that God grants us all.

fun friday, 1.10.14...

Goodness knows we all needed a fun friday this week, but still needed to be very low key, so Legos it was!  Fun snacks and lots of building things with Aahma B and Dadda and Momma made for some happy kiddos...

fun friday, 1.3.14...

After a week of family celebration and friend get-togethers, and with colds settling in for everyone, AND since there was a major flood in the kids bathroom upstairs that we had to clean up late into the night, our Fun Friday was very low-key.

Chocolate chip muffins for breakfast (recipe out of my new Cooks Illustrated Baking Book that Steve gave me for Christmas)

While Henry napped, the big kids got to go outside to play for the first time all week.  They had to take advantage of the heat wave that we were having (20F!!  windchill was still hovering around 0F though...and after 30 min outside, Willem's cheeks were already starting to show frostbite.  It is CRAZY cold around here).

Carsten also got to go over to Mrs. Lynne's all by himself to celebrate his birthday with her which he was pretty stoked about.  He had saved the last pieces of his birthday cake for her, and she gave him a new game, Cars Monopoly.  Super fun!  We love our neighbors...

It is going to go back into the deep freeze over the weekend (school has already been cancelled on Monday because of the cold), so we went out and ran errands - "new" ice skates for Grace and Willem in prep for skating in January at school, new tennis shoes for Grace, and groceries.  Steve was working late so we picked up chicken nuggets and mozzarella sticks and had a total TV supper.  We threw in apples and carrots to try to healthify things...=)

I was very proud of the kids for not whining about our low-key day, and for getting ready for bed by themselves without complaining...it's the little things, right?

a merryhappy christmasnewyearsCbirthday...

As our extended family has grown, our holiday celebrations have had to evolve with the addition of new sisters and brothers by marriage and their family celebrations, new children and the challenges of traveling, and the overall desire to spend time with all our loved ones without a ton of pressure or stress on multiple parties.  This is such a great process because it means there are more people to love in our family!  So this is what our holiday plans have looked like for the past couple of years and they have seemed to work really well.  My brother's wife Amy's family lives in Washington state, so their family flies there to celebrate one holiday per year, switching between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  So on the opposite holiday, we celebrate with the my family.  That means on the holiday that Marcus and Amy are in WA, we celebrate with Steve's family.  But his sister-in-law Christy's family is always able to be together on Christmas, as well as his brother-in-law Colyn's family.  So we celebrate Thanksgiving with Steve's family on Thanksgiving, but we celebrate Christmas on New Year's to allow Christy & Colyn to be with their families.  And long store short (!!), since we celebrated Thanksgiving with the my family on the farm, we had Christmas Day at home with just the 6 of us, and then celebrated Christmas with the Steve's family over New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.

Christy and I offered to host the festivities this year - with New Year's Eve at her house and New Year's Day at our house since that is also Carsten's birthday.

We all arrived at Jeff and Christy's warm and cozy home around suppertime, and had delicious chili with all the fixings (corn bread, noodles, cheese, sour cream, onions, etc).  The kids ate first...

...then they ran off to play while the adults ate and visited.

Pretty soon though, the kids were bugging us: "WHEN IS CHRISTMAS!"  So we gathered in the living room around the pile of presents.  Kaatje sorted them into piles for all the cousins, and then each kid took a turn opening one presesnt.

Shields and swords for each of the kids made by Uncle Jeff were a big hit, as well as lots of legos from Papa and Aahma and Uncle Colyn and Auntie Melanie.

After the kids' presents were all opened, the adults took a turn.  We each brought a game that we thought looked great and didn't own and then took turns picking one of the wrapped gifts for a round, then went around again and could choose to "steal" one of the opened games, including the one that you brought!  Very fun and bonus, we had a lot of new games to play together for the next couple of days!

We did not stay until midnight to ring in the 2014 with everyone.  As you can see, by 9:30 our kids were starting to turn into pumpkins. =)

Our table the next morning, holding some of the handmade lovlies from Melanie, Christy and Mom B - these little things were some of my favorite gifts for all the kids!

When the kids woke up, C first told me "I am a whole hand now, Momma!", then they asked for their shields and swords.

Ready for combat!  (full disclosure, while Jeff and Christy usually like to surprise us with the gifts they make for the kids, they did ask beforehand whether or not they could give us short swords with the shields.  We said yes, they will just get taken away if not used properly!)

Our kids had a full night of sleep so they were up bright and early, but the rest of us slowly got up and ready and arrived at our house for a late brunch of egg dishes, fruit, and Christy's cinnamon rolls.  Pippin got to come and celebrate with us too! (he didn't get any cinnamon rolls though)

After a late breakfast, the kids ran off to play and we got out the games!  Here is Jeff and Christy's new game, 7 Wonders.  We also played Mom and Dad's new game, the infamous Horse Racing Game made by Colyn, and Melanie and Colyn's new game Roll through the Ages.  And got New Year's dinner of ham and mashed potatoes and squash ready there too.  I wanted to get a photo of us all at the dinner table together, but alas, did not.  Didn't get a group family photo either, but trust me, we were all there, we all ate well, and had a lot of fun together!

After dinner there was legos to be put together, knitting to be done, cars to be watched out the window, visiting and laughing to enjoy...

piano to be played...(the kids played too)

video games to be played/watched (these boys LOVE their big cousin!)

ball to be played with Papa...

AND A BIRTHDAY TO CELEBRATE!  I can't believe this sweet boy is "one whole hand."  He is our peaceful patient boy who loves his siblings, loves to play games, and loves nature - we are excited to see what FIVE brings for him (although the thought of him going off to school already?  crazy.)  He picked a chocolate cake with white frosting and blue letters.  We made it together, and while I am no cake decorator like my lovely sister-in-law Jessica, we did pretty good (thankfully putting the candles at the top hid my mistake of starting too low on the cake!)

Before we ate cake though, we opened presents!  He loved his gifts...

...especially his Scaredy Squirrel books!  This was from Papa and Aahma along with a card game, he got legos from Kaatje and Greta, and a new big box of colors from Melanie and Colyn, and our gifts for him this year were skateboarding and sports guys (want - he kept asking for a real skateboard, but that will have to wait a few years), a play cash register (need - ok, this really wasn't a need, but it will be so much fun for him and all the kids), an orange VW bug shirt (wear), and Saredy Squirrel has a birthday party (read).

I know this is blurry, but I have to show you - look at this sweet boy just two years ago...

And look at him now on the same stool!  Oh we love you, big boy! 
We all enjoyed cake and ice cream, then snacks, popcorn, apples, a movie for the kids and a round of Pandemic (our new game!) before everyone left to head home.

(Henry thought he should go too.)  

Merry Happy Christmas New Year's Carsten's Birthday EVERYONE!!!!!

PS.  If you are intrigued, give us a call and read this sentence outloud:  "Oh no, they cancelled the boat show!"  =)

happy new year's...

Happy 2014 to all!  I love the beginning of the year, as it can be such a nice demarcation for a fresh start on things.  We don't do well with Resolutions, but it is always good to rethink how we are doing things in our household, in our family, in our parenting, and make some new goals.  This space is always a goal for me as you may have seen in the past 2 years!  I would like to blame it all on that 4th child and the new level of busy that brought to our house, but really, I think my problem was getting behind and then not knowing where to start again.  Do I start posts from 2 months back?  5 months back?  Do I just write about this child's birthday when I haven't posted about the one that was a month ago?  It was honestly easier to just stop.  But the two blogs that I enjoy reading the most are both of my sister-in-laws' blogs, and love seeing their families basically grow up in those spaces and the wonderful record that they have of it.  So I really don't want to call it quits.  I want to keep taking photos and capturing moments and memories and writing about them so that we can share them with all of you, and look back on them and have fun seeing how little everyone was then.  (Although I can't imagine thinking how little they are now, because they all are SO BIG! =)  So new goals need to be set.  Again.  =)

1.  Hoping to post more present events and activities right after they happen (like about Carsten's birthday yesterday). 
2.  Not to get bogged down by what I wanted to but didn't post (like Henry's birthday 2 months ago). 
3.  Not forget those events past (oh Henry will get a birthday post!), just come back to them when I can - don't stress, just enjoy posting. 
4.  FUN FRIDAYS need to come back!  We still have them, I still have pictures of them all, they just haven't made it to here.  (Why I stopped posting them is a perfect example of how things have gotten out of control for me.  We had a Fun Friday with Marcus and Amy, and rather than post about just that day, I wanted to post about the rest of their time here first, but that didn't happen and pretty soon another Friday and another Friday and another Friday went by and then I just stopped because that was easier.  sigh.) 

I will start here with these ideas, and see where we go.  Hopefully when I look back here in a couple of months I will be happier with this space, rather than just sighing and skipping on to the next thing on the list. =)  Because through all that happens, I have this wonderful family and a full life and the grace of God.  We are so, so blessed.