Solo

Tonight the kids and I are flying solo at home for the first time ever. It is kind of a weird feeling, not having Kevin here. I am always the one who leaves and goes camping with the kids and Kevin stays home to work. This time he left to go work and left us at home. I am so thankful that I have Romeo to keep me company. He adds a level of security that I wouldn't have if he wasn't here.

So....what does a wife do while her husband is gone??? I DIDN'T CLEAN ANYTHING IN THE HOUSE TODAY!! It was so freeing! We went out for lunch with the kids' cousins. Then I took 4 little ones (my three + 1) to see a movie. After that we came home, played outside for a few hours (woo hoo for no rain today), then came in, had bath/showers, ate dinner at 8pm, let the kids play the wii for a little while and then put the kids to bed at 9pm. How is that for a play by play.

Tomorrow, I am going to be sleeping in........yeah right. I will be up early doing everything I should have done today.

I am leaving you with a picture of my three butterflies. It was taken at Frederick Meijer Gardens, on a trip we took there a few weeks ago with Ama and Poppop (Kev's parents).

Thank you my little butterflies, I had so much fun with you today!

Blessings!!

Baptism

Here are a few pictures from Sunday. This is Pastor Dean baptising Donal.Receiving a Blessing.Donal getting loved on by his Poppop and Nana. This is the cake that Paul made and decorated.
The tradition continues on. Paul had decorated all of my children's dedication cakes. He does such a beautful job.
Blessings!

Lady

I woke up this morning with a Word on my heart and didn't know how much is was going to be relevant to my morning.


Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. James 1:2-4


I was still in bed listening to my children laughing and playing together. Kevin had just left a little earlier and I was contemplating getting out of my nice warm cocoon and facing my day. Then I hear Jillian start to cry and calling my name. Now, these last few days..weeks..months, Jillian has been showing her true girl colors. Laughing one minute and crying the next, so I didn't go running because...well...she cries a lot and I usually discover it is just her emotions and nothing that I need to worry about.


Well......she really did have something to cry about.
Lady is a motorized train. The kids were all playing with their trains this morning and well, Lady decided to try and ride up Jillian's head. The boys do it, why can't Jillian.




At first glance, I thought that I would have to get out the scissors, then make the 45 min trip down to Aunt Kelli's tonight and have her "fix/hide" what I had to cut out. Jilli's hair was so tightly wound around Lady's wheels I thought that cutting was the only way.
Then the Lord whispered to me the word he had laid on my heart earlier..PERSERVERANCE..so I started trying to unravel the mess. Slowly I started to free one wheel, then the next. Soon I had one wheel left to go. It was the wheel that I deemed the hardest to release. I again thought about just grabbing the scissors and calling it a day, but I really didn't want my daughter to have spikes in the back of her head like her Momma. So I persevered and praise God, I got it out without having to cut her hair.



There were numerous pieces of hair that got ripped out in the battle to release Jilli's hair from Lady's clutches. But all in all, things turned out much better than I could have hoped.



What is the lesson in all of this?? Well, it was a great lesson of cause and effect for Jillian (yes, I am going to count this as part of school :-) It was also a great lesson for all of us how to persevere.



So often it is easier to pack your bags and run (or grab the scissors and just cut out, what is in the way) then it is to sit and work to fix the problem. It was a great visual explanation to what perseverance is. The good news, is that if we work hard and not give up, God promises us that we will be mature and complete, not lacking anything. What a great promise, in this world of brokenness!



So there you have it. It is wonderful for me to know that God can create a teaching moment out of nothing....but isn't that how we all came to be, formed out of nothing?...the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. Gen 2:7

I am seriously amazed how God places teaching moments in my lap, ALL THE TIME. There are times that I have to scrap my lesson plans for the day and move over to let God teach his lessons. I am starting to think of myself as a substitute teacher....I just fill in for our Master, when he decides to let me or when I am not listening to his voice.

Thank you Father for your Word to me today and thank you that I was listening!

Blessings!

Running.....

Filled out, signed, check written, envelope addressed, envelope stamped....off in the mail it went today.

Not sure if I am ready to run over 6 miles....but regardless, I am signed up and will be at the starting line on May 9th. Ready or not here I come!

The good thing is that I will be running this with a friend...the bad thing is that I will be running this. Have mercy! You can all say a prayer for me on the 9th!

Blessings!

Pinch of Russian and a Pinch of Dutch...God's Masterpiece

I apologize for my lack of blogging this past week. It has been very busy around here and I came down with my first sickness this '08-'09 season. A nasty cold.... I also have a "blog posting" that God has been speaking to me, but I know it will take some time to pull it all together, so I wanted to post something quickly, while I finish writing it in my head.

My beautiful nephew was baptized yesterday. I will have to share some pictures of that, Tim and Melissa came home for the occasion, which is ALWAYS a treat. It was really a beautiful day yesterday, in spite of the cold and rain.

I sat in the front row, camera in hand, ready to snap away at the "moment" and I was struck again, at how Good God really is. This little boy, part Russian, part Dutch (American) completely whole and completely God's. What a great testimony to God's faithfulness and love to us. Who would have thought that two people from two different countries could meet, marry and now have a precious baby boy. Only God!

I had a hard time seeing through my view finder because of the tears that were in my eyes. I still don't know if the pictures came out OK or if they are all blurry....they looked blurry to me at the time, but it's hard to see through tears. Yes, I am sentimental.

Kevin kind of laughs at me for that, it seems that God has given me this gift....not sure what it's called, my parents could probably help me out with the name....but I have feelings about EVERYTHING. I just don't have memories, but I feel what I was feeling when I relive those memories. I hate to get rid of certain things, because of the memories that they hold... and for any of you that know Kevin, know that that just doesn't work in this house. I would be a pack rat if it weren't for him. Anyway, back to what I was talking about....

Yesterday was very special to me. I am so thankful for my very beautiful nephew who giggles when Poppop kisses him on the neck. Who has these eyes that are like deep pools of blue water. He truly is a masterpiece of
God.

Blessings!

Goin' Curly...

I had a photography job at Noto's Old World Italian Dining last night. I had to be there by 5:45pm...let me just say that is a really hard time to be looking good. I had been cleaning all day, my hair that had once been done, was now all over the place. I had been wearing comfy clothes all day, and had to change into dress clothes. Anyway, I told the kids that I was going upstairs to get ready. Only Jillian ventured upstairs to see the transformation that was happening.
(Jilli, loves to put makeup on and lip gloss, so anytime that I am upstairs "getting ready" she usually finds her way up by me to try and sample some of my "pretties")

Since, my hair was all over and I didn't have time to take another shower, I thought I would just curl it all (at least the part that is long enough to curl) and just go for a totally different look. It took me just a few minutes and I was done. Quickly threw on some makeup, got dressed and ran downstairs to get the kids something to eat. I reached the bottom of the stairs and Tyler takes one look and me and says "Mommy, you look weird". I asked him if he thought I looked weird because I had curly hair instead of straight hair and he said "Yeah, it looks weird". Then he came over to give me a kiss...I think that was a peace offering for telling me I looked weird.

Micah told me that he liked my straight hair better, but thought that I still looked beautiful...he is going to be a great husband someday. He loves to tell me that I look beautiful and that he loves me (I love hearing it, and even though he is only 7, I think he has a great eye for beauty...HAHA).

Kevin and I flew out of the house (he was my assistant :-) and I did my job looking "weird". I would show you a picture, but....I am the one with the cameras, so no pictures of me looking weird (and you can bet, I will not be sporting curly hair for a LONG time)! Oh well, you can't look good everyday right??!!

Blessing!

Last weekend we took a little trip to my Mom's hometown. Racine Wisconsin. We had a mini-family reunion. My parents and sister went, Tim and Melissa drove up Saturday evening to spend some time with all of us too.

My cousin Carey was the "host" of our weekend. We didn't stay with her family because she already had a house full, but we spent a lot of our time there. Carey is the one pointing giving directions to the herds of people moving threw her house.

As the crowds were upstairs enjoying their time together, the "boys" were downstairs watching the "big game". Andy (Carey's husband) is the one on the right and Jacob (Andy and Carey's son) is the one on the left.

The kids had so much fun together. Emily (who is Tyler's age) and Jilli became fast friends. The last time they had seen eachother Jilli was 8 wks old and Emily was 20 months. Most of the time Emily and Jilli could be found in Emily's bed with her reading Jilli books, or on the floor in a sleeping bag reading books.
Being that this is a primarily boy's home, my boys were not lacking in fun toys for them to play with. Tyler, being Tyler, of course enjoyed playing with the nerf guns.Here is a picture of the boys playing together in the basement.Jilli was priceless with the remainder of her ice cream cone still on her lips...These next two are pictures of all of the cousins together.

And I have to throw this in here just because I think he is so cute.....my little bro, posing for a quick pic :-)

Blessings!

April Fools!!

OK, so I didn't put a hole in my nose............Are you crazy??? Have you ever seen how they do that on You Tube? Click HERE if you care to see it...It looks PAINFUL!


So Today feels like it might be the first day of spring. I say this because for the first time since last November there is no snow in the forecast and the temps seem to be starting to moderate. No really warm weather in sight, but as long as there is no snow and temps in the 50's, I am good.

Here are some pictures of the kids cruising on their new bikes.


You can click on these pictures to see them big....make sure you click on Jilli's.....look at her sweet face....

Blessings!

I Finally Did It!

Can you see what I did?? Click on the picture to see it bigger....

Work Continues

Kevin has been working hard on our remodel. It has been hard to find time to work on it though. When Kevin gets home from work he wants to spend time with his kids, not work. Then he has a wife who is always asking him "whats next?"....I need to cool my jets and let Kevin do his thing:-) I know that Kev always works hard and he doesn't leave a job unfinished...especially in his own home.

Two weeks ago he started installing the cabinets that are going along the wall in the dining room. There is still one more cabinet that needs to be installed, but we have to wait to do that until there is some drywall work done.

Then last week he removed some upper cabinets thinking that it would be the easiest to be replace...Now we think it was the hardest. (The white part on the wall is where the old cabinet was...Micah was doing his schoolwork at the time of the picture) So what was the hard part? The wall had a bow in it. So when Kevin went to hang the new cabinets, they didn't fit tight to the wall. It was very frustrating. The funny thing is, when the house was being framed (9 yrs ago) Kevin went through and put an "X" on all the studs that needed to be replaced for one reason or another...I guess we missed a couple of bad ones.

This past Friday night, Kevin worked very hard making the wall that had the curve in it straight. He worked and worked and finally got the wall to a point where he could hang the cabinets without them pulling away from the wall. They look beautiful! It has been so inspiring to watch him work. I am amazed at the gifts that God has given him. For most people they would have just hung the cabinets on the wall and let them be how they were...Not my Kevin, he strives for perfection.

Saturday he was back at it again. This time trying to figure out the electrical, we had to move a plug to make way for my new floor to ceiling pantry :-) The plug we had to move was a GFI plug. While we were trying to figure out what to do, Kevin's Dad walks in with all his electrical stuff...I call that God timing! The funny thing is that the plugs that are all on the same line are not in order. They are all over the kitchen and dining room (example, one line has three plugs on it in the kitchen, but not three next to each other, and another line has two plugs in the kitchen, not next to each other, and three from the dining room...confusing I know). It was so cute to watch two men who's brains work in a systematic order try to comprehend what the electrician did. It was a great example of how two different brains work. I would be like the electrician....this plug looks good on this line and these plugs look good on this line....Kevin and his Dad are like....you start at one end and work your way to the other end. It all worked out in the end, and that is the most important thing!

This picture below is of my rag-a-muffin, positioning herself in the line of fire when I was trying to take pictures of the cabinets...Blessings!