a blessed February 2011...

At L & J's wedding reception

February was about all things love and wedding!  My brother L got married to his wife J on February 12.  It was a fabulous wedding and everyone had such a nice time and a lot of fun!  The best part was seeing how relaxed L & J were about everything, how wonderfully the wedding and reception reflected their personalities, and how excited they were to be married to each other.  When S and I got engaged 11.5 years ago, one of my cousins wisely told us to plan as much for the marriage as for the wedding.  We took this great advice to heart and have treasured the gift that God has given us in our marriage.  It is not always easy, but that is why we work at it and rest in God's hands.  And we can see that L & J are going to treasure this gift of marriage as well.    I love L to bits and am so happy he has found someone to love and spend the rest of his life with.  And I couldn't be happier to have J as a sister-in-law as well!  And excuse me for getting a little (more!) mushy, but weddings are also such a great time to reflect on how thankful for and how much I love my husband!  So cheers to L & J, may God bless them and their marriage!  (and we would like a niece or nephew sometime soon, too - the wedding is done so we can start bugging you about kids, right? =)

At Calvin's Fun Fest

G notes:

• Her reading is continuing to improve.  She has brought home sets of phonics books from school and has been flying through them.  She is finally starting to enjoy reading out loud rather than whining and asking us to just read it.
• was SOOOOO excited about Uncle L and Auntie J's wedding.  She loved the dress we found her, and loved seeing everyone else dressed up too - especially Auntie J in her beautiful dress.  And by far her favorite part of the wedding was dancing at the reception.
• when getting ready for the school carnival, G told us "I am going to meet up with O & K tonight at Fun Fest, k?"  Umm....when did she turn 13?

W notes:

• LOVES kids books on CD. We got a number of them for our trip to Edgerton for the wedding and W could turn the pages at the right times and often asks to listen to them at home as well.
• has started waking up in the middle of the night and coming to ask Dadda to sleep with him because he is "lonely!"
• is very into the disney movie Cars.  He asks to watch "Race Cars!" every Sunday night.  I think G went through this phase and we know other kids that have too, but W has got it pretty bad.  He comes up with all sorts of imaginary play with the characters, sings race car songs, pretends to be a race car and zooms through the house, and of course pretends he is Lightning McQueen, G is Sally, and C is Mater.

C notes:

• is starting to sing songs!  His first one was "Holy, Holy, Holy" and you can hardly stand the cuteness when he sings this in his own way.  He can also sing the doxology, almost all of the ABC song, and "Cows" from Philadelphia Chickens (don't own this or know what it is?  if you have kids or know kids go and buy it - Boynton and friends are fabulous!)
• C is starting to be more stubborn with toys.  He is not as easily distracted anymore and if he wants something he intends to get it no matter who is holding it, and the same thing if he has something he won't give it up for anything.  This has led to a lot more fights between him and W... I know they are brothers and brothers fight, but do they really have to?
• has graduated to eating at the table without the tray on his high chair.  He still uses the seat, but it is just butted up against the table now and he eats off the table like everyone else.  He is pretty proud of this, especially how he has figured out how to climb in and out of the high chair and "skootch" it to the table himself too.

G's half birthday...

Birthdays are special days in kindergarten.  The birthday kid passes out a special treat during circle time an of course gets sung to.  They also get to sit in a special old fashioned desk that Mrs B has in the room for a Birthday Desk.  And for all the summer birthdays they celebrate half birthdays so that those kids don't get left out of the fun.  G's birthday is Aug 29, which would put her half birthday on Feb 29...of which there is no such date this year.  G realized this when looking at the calendar and had a small meltdown before I explained to her that we could celebrate her half birthday on Feb 28 and it would still be special.    We were looking at the Valentine clearance at Target earlier in the month, and they had big bags of tiny containers of play dough.  G thought this was great and wanted to use this as her treat, but then was torn because you couldn't eat it and most kids pass out candy or other sweet treats.  Thankfully right next to the play dough bag was a bag of Hershey's kisses - problem solved!  G handed out a small tub of play dough and 1 Hershey's kiss to each kid (and gave big envelopes of kisses to the teachers =).

G was excited about sitting at the Birthday Desk, but told me that she couldn't talk to anyone like she can do at their normal tables that have 4-5 kids at them.  I smiled at this because I knew that would be her reaction.

 

To make her day extra special, I came to eat lunch with her (parents are invited to do this anytime during the year), and I brought her her favorite "hot lunch" (she doesn't get school hot lunch and feels left out at times) - macaroni and cheese and peas.  It was a lot of fun to eat lunch with G and I stayed to help out with a craft project after lunch too.  Both Mrs. B and Mrs. Pf told me that they had fun watching G's excitement and delight at everything that day - doesn't take much to bring her joy and that is a wonderful thing!

G's fun day at school was topped off by tiny blueberry muffins at Mrs. L's house after school and sloppy joes for supper.  We were so glad she had a special and happy day!

say cheese...

this morning...

L & J's wedding! (part four)

So now wedding fun was over, right?  Oh, no!  On Sunday the newlyweds had a gift opening party at my parents' farm.  Everyone came for dinner (wedding leftovers, yay!) and then visited and watched L & J open all their presents.  We left around 3:30pm so that we could get home since G had school the next day (she already had to miss a class trip since we took her out of school on Friday, we weren't going to make her miss Valentine's Day in kindergarten!).  We had a really fabulous time and loved celebrating L & J and their wedding.  Thanks for everything you two, we love you!

Uncle K giving the kids a ride to the shed on the new sled he bought them

The party!

L & J were good kids and opened their cards first =)

Fun aprons from J's mom...too bad L doesn't like John Deere (kidding!)

beautiful quilt from Grandma K

L & J's wedding! (part three)

After the ceremony, we all drove to the reception.  What a fun time!  There was the announcing the newly married couple and wedding party, the meal (great food!), the kissing (had to pay $1 per second), the toasts, the thanks from the couple, the cutting of the chocolate cake and the eating of the cheesecake...and then the part of the night which was by far my daughter's favorite, the dancing.  (She obviously must have inherited this from her father because S will tell you the reason we didn't have a dance at our wedding is because C can't dance! =)  It was great to have so many people who love L & J gathered to celebrate them...what a good day!

* The reception hall

* G

* W

* little C

* S and I (thanks M & A for taking great pics of our family at the reception!)

the R cousins that were at the wedding (it has been a long time since this many of us were in one place!)

My grandma, my mom and her siblings

L & J's first dance (J's dress is just beautiful)

Aunt M dancing with W (so cute!!!)

G enjoying dancing...she loved the dancing so much it was really hard to tear her away to go home!

* During the dollar dance my Uncle H ponied up his dollar...not for a dance with J, but with L!  By far the best laugh of the night!  (video here - love it Aunt K!)

* my siblings...=)

Welcome to the family, J!  We love you!

L & J's wedding! (part two)

And then it was wedding day!!!!  YAY!!!  It was an absolutely beautiful winter day...sunny, (cold, yes), blue skies, and gorgeous snow everywhere.  The morning was spent getting everyone ready.  My fabulous, lovely, wonderful, talented, gorgeous, beautifully pregnant sister-in-law A agreed to help me do my hair, which I will be forever grateful!  She curled it all and then we pinned some of it back - turned out great.  Then brother M and I were off for pictures for the wedding party.  A also helped S get the kids ready and curled G's hair too (which G just loved).  

The kids in their wedding adorableness (ok this picture is not from wedding day, but no one got a good picture of the kids together so this is a picture of them trying on their wedding clothes at home)

hanging out at church between pictures and the wedding

L looking good!  ("do you really have to take a picture of me eating a sandwich?"  "yes, yes I do.")

The beautiful bride!!!! (wearing the shawl that Mom knit for her...she looked like a winter wonderland princess!)

My dad and his siblings

The wedding started at 4:30pm, and everything went so smoothly and was so beautiful.  They had a lot of music in the wedding, which fits both of them so well, including a number of pieces sung by a quartet from Brookings that J knows.  The fun thing was that S & I know this quartet too, but completely independently if J so it was neat to find out they were singing at the wedding.

* L seating Mom and Dad

* me walking in with J's brother, C

* L & J saying vows

Their Bible passage was Ecclesiastes 4:12 which says "Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves.  A cord of three strands is not quickly broken."  The pastor had a beautiful message about the role of the man, the woman, and God in marriage.  And after L & J lit the unity candle, they braded a cord with 3 strands, which fit so well in the ceremony.

* braiding the cord of 3 strands

* Mr. and Mrs. Lucas Roskamp!!!

L & J's wedding! (part one)

The much anticipated weekend finally arrived!  Wedding time for my brother L and his fiance J!!!  We had been looking forward to this for a long time, and I know they had too.  In the past couple months whenever I have gotten together with L, he has been happier than I have ever seen him before.  And the wedding weekend was no exception!  Both of them were so happy - not stressed and crabby and running around trying to get a million things done...oh wait, not that last one.  They did have a million things to do, but that is the nature of weddings and that is why we were all there a couple days before so that we could help!  We left after school on Wednesday so that we could be there all day Thursday and Friday to do whatever job was assigned.

(quick side note...thanks for sharing your pictures with me M&A!  their totally awesome ones in the next few blog posts are marked by *)

 

kids had to feed the pheasants in Boppa's yard first

big job for Thursday was getting the shed cleaned out and polished up for rehearsal dinner on Friday night

Dad worked hard to finish his office in the shed before the wedding.  Including refinishing this door which was from our old farmhouse.  Looks awesome here and I couldn't believe what memories rushed back when I saw it!

Part of the fun of weddings is getting to see all sorts of family.  All my mom and dad's siblings were able to come as well as some of my cousins.  So the few days before the wedding were not only spent getting ready, but spending time catching up with everyone too.

Friday's big job was decorating the reception hall.  Here are Aunt J and Uncle R helping out!

* L & J were so organized and had everything ready to go for us.  Here the kids had fun helping put tea lights in their holders.

The only off thing that happened for us over the weekend was that Carsten got sick.  He ran a fever pretty much all weekend and had bad cold symptoms too.  Nothing that kept us home from anything, but it meant a lot of holding and cuddling by momma and dadda, but also by others who braved the germs.

Aunt M got little C to sit and snuggle with her for quite a while

Friday night was the rehearsal!  Probably one of the smoothest rehearsals that we have been to as well.  As far as our jobs in the wedding, Mom and Dad got to be the proud parents, I was honored to be a bridesmaid for J and my brother M was a groomsman for L.  Very pregnant sister-in-law A took a lot of photos with their new camera, and S watched the kids, which was twice as hard since C wanted to be held all the time. 

* L & J rehearsing going down the isle!

After rehearsal, we all went back to the farm for the rehearsal dinner, which was in Dad's new shed.  It was a great place for this!  They had the meal catered by friends from Edgerton and everything was delicious.  Mom and Dad invited all of the family that was in town already to come too so it was great to be able to sit and talk with everyone. 

shed and tables nicely decorated for the dinner

Aunt J got some snuggle time with little C too!

testing...

valentine cards!

Valentine's Day is a huge day in kindergarten.  Their big unit in February is on the post office, so they all make shoebox mailboxes with the purpose of delivering Valentine cards for each kid in class.  G came home at the beginning of the month with "address labels" for each of her classmates, and was supposed to make a Valentine card for each and label each envelope.  This was a great project for G because #1, she loves crafts and making cards and things, #2, she got a lot of great writing practice writing everyone's names on the back, and #3, she was very excited about giving to others.  I stepped in to help her find a card that she could make 23 of them without getting bored and me ending up finishing them.  We decided to go with a simple version of print-making with a cookie sheet, paint, q-tips and card stock.

 

They turned out great and G was so proud of them!  And what were the boys doing while G was making cards?

 

It was baths for all after that...