Changes Underway!

Just getting started
OH LOVELY!!!!
Border is down!
My great helper
The new color!

OK, so it has been forever since I last posted. We have had a lot of sickness and yuck going around and I just haven't thought much about posting, nor has there been much that was blog worthy! We are in the beginning stages of making our small house better accomodate our family of six. The first step is to swap rooms with the boys. Our new room is going to be pretty small, but SO much better for the boys and their toys!!! I started to tear off the border in the boys' current room on Tuesday. Of course, it wouldn't come off as easily as I would have liked, but it wasn't too bad. I have already chosen the paint so the plan is to do that on Friday. We'll see....those kind of tasks are always quite challenging with a toddler and a preschooler around and into everything. So, here are the before pictures and hopefully soon I can post "after" pictures!!!=)

Serious Bling!

Emilee got a lot of fun girly toys for Christmas-purses, jewelry, dress up shoes, babies etc. She added to her loot the other day when she went for an echocardiogram at the hospital. The tech gave her lots of goodies to keep her still and happy. She actually did very well laying there for 45 minutes!!! The results of the test are my real reason for posting today...to praise the Lord for His healing hand upon Emilee's heart. She was born with a small hole in her heart and had an echo done shortly after birth. At that time, our pediatrician told us it would most likely heal over time and she should have no complications. Over the past two years at routine checkups he has felt it was healed but wanted to repeat the echo to confirm this to be true. We knew she would have to be very still for the test so waited until she was two. I was very nervous whether or not she would cooperate. I drugged her with Benadryl (Dr. told me to!) and went at nap time when she was tired. The next day, I recieved the call that her test came back normal. We praise the Lord that it healed without any intervention or medicine! Thank you to those who prayed.

Our Colts Date

Our view of the dome-double click to get a better view!



Our Christmas gifts-Colts jersies



Super Bowl Champs 2006



Great view, eh??



Thanks, Lon!!


Scott and I, along with our good friends Mark and Lisa, went to the Colts' Divisional playoff game today. We had a blast!!! Unfortunately they lost, but win or lose it was awesome!! The volume in that place was incredible! Scott had talked to a guy in our Sunday school class who has season tickets and said we would be interested in tickets to a regular season game sometime. Little did we know we would end up getting to go to the playoff game. It was a neat opportunity to do something extra special! Next time I will probably be fighting off three sons to be the one going with Scott!=)

The Great Magician

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books
This is the video that I have been wanting to post for some time but couldn't get dropshots to work right. Ben and Dayna helped us out with it, so here is the famous magician, Luke. The funniest part of it was that he thought he was being so sneaky!!!=) I put it up today in honor of the poor sick boy laying on the couch for the third day in a row with the stomach flu!!=(

Sarah and Jonathan's Wedding

It was a full week of planning and getting ready, but it was all worth it yesterday when we saw it all come together!! Sarah (Scott's sister) was a beautiful bride and everything about the day was completely her!!! The wedding was so Christ centered and we are thrilled at what God will accomplish through this awesome couple as he uses them in China together. God brought the perfect man for Sarah in Jonathan. Though we don't know him well yet, we are impressed by everything about him! Congrats, guys, enjoy your honeymoon!!:)

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

Another December Birthday!!!

Emilee turns 2 on the 19th but our evenings this week are so crazy that we had to celebrate last night. What were we thinking having two children in December???? Plus my birthday and Christmas?!?!?! It is nuts! Oh well....no planning is the answer to that!:) I was so excited about her gifts! I told Scott that just like he lives vicariously through some of the boys gifts, I too am through Emilee's gifts. She got a kitchen and food from the grandparents and we got her more babies! She was so pumped she kept running from her bedroom (where the kitchen was) up and down the hall getting her food and babies and showing everybody her new things. She has figured out what is going on with gift opening after watching Luke open his gifts and me opening mine!:) I am looking forward to today being a day full of quiet playing and pretending??? We'll see.... a day of not sharing and fighting is probably more realistic!:( All part of learning, right? Happy birthday, sweet girl, we love you!!!

Living Christmas Tree

This weekend is the Living Christmas Tree at Grace. It is called "The Wonder of Christmas." If you have never seen it before it is hard to describe a tree that holds so many people and stands forty feet high!! It is quite a structure and it takes quite a church effort to assemble, decorate, light, etc. this massive thing!! It is really neat! We have prayed for weeks about this weekend and its outreach to our community. With the big snow storm on its way, we are praying it won't have a tremendous impact on the turnout. Andrew is in the HHCS elem. children's choir so he is singing a few songs. He is also part of the pagentry. When the three kings come to see Jesus, he is the train bearer for one of the kings. Some of you know the Proctor's. They play Mary and Joseph and their new baby, Grace, is baby Jesus. Their son Geoffrey plays Jesus as a little boy. Here are a few pictures from this afternoon's performance.

Luke turns 4

Here are a few pictures from Luke's birthday on Friday night. He decided he wanted a tractor party, hence the John Deere cake. I had originally planned on doing a Bob the Builder theme because he was going to get some tools and a new tool bench, but he decided on tractors instead. The tool bench was from Nana and Papa and we had to laugh because it occupied all 4 kids for the evening with all the "projects" you can make with these foam fake wood pieces. It really is very cool! Luke still keeps asking, "Am I four?" When we say yes he says, "but I thought in a few weeks!!!" He can't figure out that the few weeks leading up to the big day have come and gone and that the party means you have turned the next number!!:)

Madame Blueberry

Blue little tongue Blue little hands
Blue little teeth

This is the result of giving a 2yr old a blueberry sweet tart candy cane!!!! The boys have begged for these after trying one at the neighbor's house!!!:) She continued to drool blue from the leftovers on her tongue-BIG mess!! Word of warning to all you moms reading this who have little kiddos....skip the sweet tart candy canes if you can!!!:)

The First Snow!!

Yes, we are still alive!! It has been crazy busy around here and I haven't had any great pictures lately either!:) I also have been consumed with trying to get a video put on of Luke and I can't get it to load. I think it is just way too big. Oh well! So this morning we woke to our first snow of the season and it was just beautiful!! I snapped a few quick pictures of the kids playing with friends. It takes so much time to get everyone bundled and in just a few minutes it seems everyone is back inside and mom is left with a big wet mess!!!:) Oh the joy of winter!!!:)

The only good PLACE and WAY to see a mouse!

Assessing the situation! The dead critter!
The burial
The silly boy

Luke's photography

Emilee and Luke and I were outside playing this afternoon and Luke discovered a dead mouse in the driveway across the street from us. (One of the joys of living in the middle of corn fields!) I quickly ran over and kicked it into the grass thinking they would forget about it. Oh no!! They did the big scope out trying to get as close as I would let them. I HAD to get a picture of them...it was hilarious!:) It quickly reminded me of the scene a few years ago when Luke came running down the road with a dead mouse in each hand, smiling like he had won the grand prize. I freaked out and Scott kinda did too!:) We have two cats across from us that are great mousers! I was just thinking last night it was about time for us to have another critter in the house this year:( I even thought I heard one last night while I was folding clothes. I kept hearing a weird noise, but it ended up being a ladybug on the inside of the lamp shade!!!:) Anyways, back to today....After getting my pictures, Luke thought he needed to cover the mouse up with leaves. They left it alone once the camera came out. Hence the last picture of me and Emilee. Luke took that one so he wanted it on here!:)

Storytime with Daddy

These are the moments I treasure and know are going to be gone in a flash! With the busyness of school they don't happen as much as we would like!! I cannot believe Emilee is soon to be two and Luke four!! I just told mom last night that we no longer have a baby in our home!!! She is a big girl and "gets" everything taking place around her. That sounds silly to say aloud, but it makes me a little sad to know this time is flying past us! OK, enough of my boo hoos. Just sharing what I thought were two really sweet pictures of my kiddos!:)

Where there's a will, there's a.....

....little girl named Emilee. As I have said before, Emilee is a climber. It seems every day she does something that shocks me that she could even manage. Her new way of gaining height and thereby the ability to reach something on the countertop, is to wedge her toes in the bottom panel of the dishwasher. Then with the other hand, she swipes what she wants on the counter. On this day, she was determined to get all of the spoons in the drawer!!:)

Fun at the Russell's

Our li'l punkin

Thomas the Tank engine

Dash-one of the Incredibles

The friendly pirate

Mrs. Russell, Emilee and me on the hayride

Saturday evening was our annual Sunday school activity at the Russell's. They are a couple from church who host our activity at their farm each fall. It is a fun time for the kids to dress up, hayrides, bonfire, visiting, football games, treat bags, etc. We had beautiful weather and a great time of fellowship. Definitely an activity we all look forward to each year.