I'm caught up...it is still DECEMBER!!

 December has seemed to fly by in a blink of an eye, just where did the time go?  I think I may have to detail it out for you so you don't think I'm kidding.  It starts out with a weekend away with a lovely friend, to be followed by a partial tonsillectomy/ear tube insertion for little missy sue.  Following that is the middle school band concert, preschool Christmas concert, violin recital, a few Christmas parties, cleaning the house for Christmas, Christmas shopping, dog sitting, stomach flu....you get the picture.  Did you hear I won mother of the year award?  That's right, I set aside an entire afternoon to bake Christmas cookies with B-rocket.  I didn't grow up making cookies for the holiday season, so I typically don't feel the need on an annual basis to do so either.  This year, however, I was asked and I relinquished.  It is after all my son's love language-quality time.  We made some lovely cookies and I gained a little more of B's heart.

As I sit here at 3pm in my jammies on the eve of the eve of Christmas, I have everything DONE.  Ok, there is that load of laundry that still needs to be dried, but most of everything else is done.  I look forward to tonight when we will go to the Christmas Eve Service and listen to amazing music and light the traditional candle while singing Silent Night.  It is THE most favorite thing for me to watch my sons become entranced by the flame of that simple candle.  In that moment of having the flame light up their faces with wonder and awe, I see them growing and growing.  I have this sinking feeling that before I know it, I will be seeing those same faces watching that light with their little ones.  I'm grateful for those glimpses that God gives us of His greatness.

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas.  I pray that you too are entranced by the Reason for the Season-JESUS!

Tis the season.  Putting up the Christmas tree.

My family...

I HAD to add this one...that's what he gets for taking such a goofy self-portrait!

Cookie making

Concerts:

G-man

B-rocket

Missy Sue doing the reindeer pokey.  

What is not captured, is the dance she did when they did 'the reindeer pokey and you turn yourself around'.  She turned in a complete circle while slapping her back-end.  Where did she learn that from??

 ps.  look at the boy in the background...HA!

Catching Up- NOVEMBER

What happened in November?  A few things that you might be interested in reading about.

 G shot his first deer under the complete supervision of Adam.  But, ultimately, he had to line it up and pull the trigger.  Way to go G-man!

 Upon my request (it only took a few months) to build some sort of locker system for all the backpacks, jackets, hats, and mittens that we accumulate around here, Adam got to work and this is what we came up with.  We took the doors off an existing closet, placed and pained some bead board, added a shelf with some fancy hooks and some baskets to hold stuff.  This has been working great and I love my husband even more for putting up with all my requests!!

 The morning of Thanksgiving, the boys and I, along with thousands of others, took to the streets to run the 2 mile run.  This was the boys first race and they finished it with flying colors.  Can't wait to run some more races with them this summer.

Woo-hoo!  We did it!!

One more thing that happened in November, but I don't have a picture to show for it.  I had a birthday.  I am now an old lady.  Ok, not really, but I am closer to age 50 than as many years as I've been out of high school.  Thanks Amber for pointing that out!!

Catching Up- OCTOBER

How come I feel like I am always "catching up" on my blog posts?  Well, I could give you a few honest reasons to why, but I think both you and I know the answer....HA!
What a great way to start the month...going to the first game in the NL Championship Series.  Adam and I decided last minute to take the boys to the game, and what a great game it was!  They won...as we know now, it didn't end so well for the Brewers, but it was fun while it lasted!  

 One happy momma...

to be at the game with all her boys!

 What fun is going to the game without partaking in a plastic Brewer hat full of cheesy fries?  Oh, one of the small joys in life!!

I wonder what he is thinking about me right now....

"really mom, what in the world are you doing?"

I was able to go on a field trip with the preschool to a local farm.  We went on a hay ride, picked apples and pulled our own pumpkins, what a fun day!

TRICK OR TREAT

Let me introduce you to....

Harry Potter

A barbershop singer

Chris from Wild Kratts (a PBS show)

Super woman

The bubble above her head would read-

"Just a typical day saving people around the world..."

We were blessed to meet a fantastic guy from Switzerland this month!  Only God could have orchestrated our meeting.  He came to the US because he wanted to learn English, but he also wanted to come to church on Sundays, so he picked up the phone book and picked a church.  Adam met him on the first Sunday and offered him a meal afterwards.  We continued to have him over for the month and exposed him to American Football, small group bible study and Halloween (trick or treating)!  By the end of our time together, we were very proud of his English skills.  My boys also got a few lessons in German.

 

Here are our goods from trick or treating!

Catching Up- SEPTEMBER

 Yes, we are a busy crew, but I do want to display for the faithful readers out there what exactly has been going on on the home front.  September was the start of the school year and I had one of my darling children enter middle school-YIKES!  Am I really old enough to have a child in middle school?  After all, it wasn't all that long ago that I walked the halls of Omro Middle School.  To start the school year off with a bang, Melia also had another surgery to repair a hole in her upper gum line.  She did great and is becoming a pro at recovery from surgery.  As long as she has her Elmo show, nothing can go wrong!

A quick shout out to our friend Zach, who stayed with us while he was in town for a few days...thanks Zach for hangin' with the kids!  You are a great example to them of how to live your life out for Christ!

SCHOOL STARTS!

Yeah baby, middle school here I come...

4th grade

 1st grade

Preschool

With all of the school stuff starting, we almost forgot to get into health care mode...but, here she sits, ready to go under the knife.  If you notice closely, she is using the stethoscope from one of the doctors to check out her baby's heart.  Yes, I think she has seen this done a few times...

A few hours after surgery....and in her room for the night to recover.

And as if all this activity and newness wasn't enough, later in September we decided she was ready to go into a big girl bed!! (We left the crib up for a couple of weeks just in case the transition didn't go so well)

She sleeps happily in her new bed now!

Catching Up-AUGUST

Right on the heals of the Outer Banks trip, Adam took the boys on a fishing trip to Canada.  Of course, we did other things this summer besides vacation, but these were just the BIG highlights.

O Canada, you are beautiful

That is exactly how I would fish too...

Can you tell that Mom wasn't there to tell them to wash their feet before they got into bed???

My response to this picture...

You let my children jump from what???

Catching Up-JULY

July was a month that our family was looking forward to for months as we planned a trip to the Outer Banks in North Carolina.  Yes, we were CrAzY for taking 4 kids on a 20+ hour road trip, but we kept telling ourselves that what didn't kill us would make us stronger (you should see it now when we flex, HA!)  In all honesty, the trip was not horrible and we ourselves, especially once we got there.  The beach was awesome!  The very best part was meeting up with a family we traveled to China with to get our girls.  The meimei's (little sisters in Chinese) enjoyed each other and got reacquainted and the rest of us had fun hangin' together too.

Who can resist this view?

 

We did a little playing in the sand...

Adam helped the kids build this awesome sand castle

Swimming...

and some boogie boarding.

fishing...

and nighttime sand crabbing.

 This is one way to keep the boys in one place for longer than a minute!

Mr. Pilot man got to visit 'the' exact spot where the Wright brothers made their first flight.

We celebrated our 15th Anniversary on the beach

...and 4 kids later...

We love this family!! 

The beautiful girls that brought us together.

And to end it all...

how can you resist this face?