Friends

A friend, grandma to my children, mentor, mom to some wonderful youth group kids that grew up and became great friends and parents themselves, fellow pastor's wife.
Its great when life says you are too busy to stay in touch, much time has passed, and when you meet, you sit down and talk for hours as though nothing has changed. It had been years since we had seen each other, even more since we had actually carried on a conversation.
Thanks for taking the time to visit!
My favorite part - we went into school so that Brandon could say 'Hi'. He wasn't coming home right away with us, he had to stay at school for basketball practice.  We found him in his room cleaning up. He immediately stopped what he was doing and ran to her to give her a hug. He took a step back and looked up. The wheels were spinning. You could see that he knew he loved this lady but just couldn't figure out who she was or why he knew he loved her. Finally he came up with 'Aunt Winnie' to which we corrected him with 'Grandma Winnie' and then all was right with him. It was so precious!

Birthdays and Christmas AGAIN

With three birthdays in two weeks (besides Jesus),  there is lots of celebrating.  Grandpa and Grandma stopped by for round 3.

Best jammies EVER

I didn't even take pictures of round 4.  The kids received one last present from Matt and I.  Brandon got stuff for his soccer uniform, Anika a desk chair, Maria shoes, and Jessica a Webkinz.  I think the world can go on now!

Anika is 13!

We are officially the parents of a teenager - and so begins the next twelve years of our lives.

Anika is growing into a beautiful young lady, both inside and out. She has always felt deeply -  empathy for pretty much anyone. I remember when she was little she wanted to stop and help the snow plow driver that had slid into the ditch. She continues to feel deeply. I often wonder if she'll end up in some type of art of music therapy.
She is an incredible help - doing almost anything around the house I need accomplished.
She plays the flute and sings beautifully and loves art classes.
She still loves to play soccer, basketball, and do her own fashion design which usually manifests itself by making her own dresses for barbies, and loves finally having her own room. She enjoys school and still gets overwhelmed when there is too much to do. She often thinks of others and brings enough snacks so everyone can have some.
She laughs, plays with the dog, works on puzzles and plays games with the family.  She loves to sleep in and play outside. She'll tell you winter is her favorite time of year.
We are very proud of our new teenager and love having her for our daughter.
Happy 13th birthday Anika!

For her birthday she chose donuts for breakfast (took me three stops through closed roads and not the right donuts, but I got them), enjoyed a snow day at home, mashed potatoes and chicken gravy for lunch, and baked potatoes for supper. Her special dessert treat was candy cane pie!

The following Friday Anika and I and a friend of hers and her mom went out for supper for burgers and then to the movie 'Frozen.' GREAT movie - easily makes it into my top 10 favs and a definite must buy!

New Year's Goodies

We spent all of New Years Day baking. And wow, do we have some goodies!
We then made 20 plates of these goodies and gave them to helpers at church, neighbors, and of course - the mail lady.  The best part...... LEFTOVERS!

candy cane oreo poppers

plain oreo poppers

white dipped oreos

chocolate dipped oreos

chocolate dipped candy cane oreos

peanut butter balls (A Judy!)

cut out cookies

sugar cookies (supposed to be for kid's parties but they had a snow day!)

pretzel kiss cookies

scotcheroos

marshmallow brownies

ritz peanut butter cookies

cream cheese spritz cookies

fudge

mint melt away cookies

white chocolate chow

Jessica is 9

9 years ago a bright eyed and bushy tailed little girl bounced into our lives. Oh, if we had known just how bright, blue eyed and ever so bushy that tail would bounce!

Jessica's eyes sparkle. She can move her body to any beat she hears (and sometimes its in her own head). She loves to sing. She loves to be on stage. She loves to be up front and center and she isn't so keen on sharing said spotlight. She makes us laugh, shake our heads, and cringe with all the drama that comes in her life. She generally has one volume - loud. She is our middle child - our middle girl - and we are very thankful for all her fun and life.

For her birthday she chose donuts for breakfast, chicken noodle hotdish for lunch, and baked potatoes for supper. We had a scavenger hunt for her presents and went across the street to the neighbors to ring in the new year where we all had marshmallow brownies - her treat of choice - to celebrate. She wanted to set off 9 chinese lanterns at midnight, so we gave it a whirl.  We ended up getting 7 of them to take off. Interestingly, Jessica was freaking out the whole time that something was going to set on fire, so, now we know not to try that again!

Happy Birthday sweet girl!

Christmas In IL

We spent a few days in IL and IN to celebrate Christmas with Matt's brother and parents. Good times were had by all.

This crazy life we lead

We were in the van discussing the finer points of life the other day. Jessica, our salt - aholic, was eating some popcorn.  She pipes up 'If there isn't popcorn in heaven, there has to be olives.'  Funny how dill pickles never entered the options.  I suggested that maybe there would be olive flavored popcorn - like the shaker flavors they can put on popcorn now.
Then we started to discuss ice cream in heaven - because - of course, that will be in heaven.  First, it was which flavors will be there.  But, finally, we came up with there will only be one flavor, and whatever flavor of ice cream each person wants at that time, is what the ice cream will taste like to them.  Now wouldn't that be cool.
I've been reading two books off and on - primarily because I only get so far and it has to be returned to the library, so I start to read the other one while I wait for the first one to come back and so on!
Anyway, I have been challenged to be thankful every day as well as to do a better job of controlling my emotions. If something upsets me, will it matter in a few hours, a few days? I find the basics of life to be stressful, so these two books, written by real women, have been an encouragement to me.
One is call 'One Thousand Gifts' and the other is called 'Unglued'. They are both written by women from within the Proverbs 31 ministry - and they both tell stories that make me laugh, only because I can relate oh so well to them.  The one book is written because she was challenged to write down 1000 things she was thankful for and to find one thing each day to truly be in awe over. This may sound dumb, but the things I have stopped to be in awe over lately are - snow on trees after a snowfall; clean, hot water that comes out of a faucet (after a few minutes in my house, but its still HOT); really, think about that, how cool is it and we take it for granted.
Anyway, here's hoping your favorite flavor of popcorn and ice cream can be enjoyed this side of heaven. I for one am going to get a candy cane blizzard from Dairy Queen!