2009: a Christmas letter...

Well, I've decided to try something new and high tech with my Christmas letter this year. I'm posting it right to my blog. I know it probably isn't the same as getting a typed and copied letter in the mail but so many friends and family keep up with what our family is doing right here - it seems appropriate.

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I have to say that this has been an ordinary year and that is just extraordinary! I am so thankful for simple moments and calm happenings (well, as calm as three kids under the age of six, ever is. :) ).

We did try to sell our house this year. But the listing has expired now and while many people were viewing the listing online, we didn't really have any showings and that's okay. We don't plan to live here forever but here IS really great and we feel sure that God knows best. We trust He was watching over the listing and if it had been supposed to sell, it would have. So for now, Jace continues to make plans for the things he still wants to do to this house. He loves to have a project. He also continues to work at the Home Depot and plumbs when jobs come along. We are so thankful for his job!

Ella is a first grader in school this year. She is doing well and reading, reading. Her brothers are enjoying having another person in the house to read stories to them - especially Lincoln. She received a Peace Maker award from her school this past spring. Read more about it here. Last evening she was in her first real Christmas program at church. The first through sixth grades do a program with drama and dance and songs each year. Ella sang in the choir and danced and said one line. She was really great and she had a lot of fun doing it. We are really proud of her and are loving watching her grow.

Jack continues to make us smile. He is always saying funny things. Read one of my favorites here. He is a details person, and he is always working at making his daily costumes more authentic. He is a sweet boy who will tell you if he loves what you are wearing or if your earrings are kind of weird. :) We just love him.

Lincoln is getting so big! I just cannot believe how the time flies. I know I marvel at that each year but really time seems to be in fast forward. He learned to walk this year and he is talking up a storm now. He works hard at keeping up with all that Jack and Ella are doing. He, too, keeps us smiling. What a joy he is!

I continue to be very involved at church and am so thankful for the opportunities I have to serve there. I had a unique opportunity to be a part of cardboard testimonies this spring and was even able to share a bit more of our story on a following Sunday. God has indeed blessed us. I am thankful for the journey that we have walked and for opportunities each day to continue to learn more about leaning on Him and knowing Him more even in the midst of the ordinary. I look forward to a new year and a new decade filled with all the things He has for us.

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"I pray that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite Him in... that you'll be able to take in with all Christians the extravagant dimensions of Christ's love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its lengths! Plumb the depths! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God. God can do anything, you know -- far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams!"

Ephesians 3:17 to 20 from the Message paraphrase

May you and your family experience Christ's love in the new year and find yourselves living full lives, lives you could have never imagined!!!!

Merry Christmas and love to you all,
Kate and family

Welcome Christmas

I love decorating for Christmas. Especially when I don't have a new baby and I have a little more energy. :)

The kids ran circles around the house the day we got the tree out.

Of course it had to first be put together and then the lights put on. Then we didn't have enough lights... Etc., etc. So they had to wait even longer. And run around a little crazier.

We did decorate the small tree in the basement family room that night; to help take the edge off their excitement and help them to wait for the big tree. Now both are decorated and things are looking festive!





This is decorating the family room tree - it is my snowflake ornament tree. It's the first year I've had enough ornaments to do it. I've been collecting them for the past couple of years, inspired to do a tree all in them by a wonderful friend who has a rocking horse tree.





Our dining room table after all the boxes of decorations were put away.



The finished product!

A Thanksgiving Recipe...

"A simple recipe for practicing the habit of THANKSGIVING...

-A little lifting up of the heart suffices
-A little remembrance of God
-One act of inward worship, repeated often in the day."

-Brother Lawrence

So, a little different recipe. Of course, there were large amounts of FOOD recipes consumed today by our family. All lovely. But after a several day run of practicing the habit of thanksgiving on my facebook statuses, I was reminded of this recipe that is posted on my refrigerator.

I hope you had a lovely Thanksgiving where you were today. And that you were able to take a moment to count your many blessings. I have been in awe of mine this month. I have so much to be thankful for.

Jack says...

"Too late. He's already dead."

Jack says while playing with finger "guns" with his dad.

I have just said, "Stop playing like that you two." While Jace pretends to die and falls off our bed.

Yes, too late, Dad does seem to have died.

Silly boys. :)

2009 Pumpkin Heads

Here are our traditional pumpkin head pictures from this Halloween.

Can't believe Thanksgiving and Christmas are right around the corner!

Lincoln did...

Stomp on worms today. Both with his shoes on, after coming home from town and without his shoes on, while waiting for Ella's bus.

Lincoln did throw almost an entire box of tissues in the half bath toilet. Thankfully, he didn't flush it...

Lincoln did put both the salt and the pepper shakers in his mouth.

Lincoln did climb up to the tv and take out many dvd's and rubbed them on the carpet and the edges of their dvd cases.

Oh, Lincoln. What am I going to do with you?????

Jack says...

"Mom, beat that truck!!!!!"

As I am slowing the van down to turn and head north on the other side of a boulevard in town.

I say,

"Jack, it is not a race - that truck isn't going where we are going."

"Yes, it is a race. I can tell."

How can you tell that????? :)

A New Look...

for Linc.
He is getting so big!!!!



Ella said he looks like a little Amish boy. I guess he kind of does. So cute!

Shopping with Children...

Dear local Target employees,

I am quite sure that you must not have any children, or certainly not more than one, or maybe you have only one, very sweet, always loves to shop child each.

Whatever the case may be, I would really love it, if you would stop acting like I am a very negligent mother who wants to put her children in harms way.

I do not think that lying under the cart for my four year old is a life and death situation nor does it pose one for my year and a half year old who is riding in the cart above. If laying there is keeping my four year old quiet and occupied while I shop, I am very happy with him laying there while the cart is not even moving.

And do not be surprised if I do tell my four year old that he must move because Target is worried that I will sue them. Because that is exactly why he most move...

If I lived some where with lots more shopping options and if I didn't like Target merchandise so much and if your prices were not even sometimes better than Walmart, you would need to be worried that I might never take my children shopping, or myself for that matter, at your store again.

-Kate

(There, I feel better now, having vented about that annoying thing that happened today and yes, this picture is totally unrelated but fun none the less. :) )

Jack says...

Jack says,

"Mom, someone stamped on the toilet."

"Someone, or you?"

"hmmm... Me."

"Why are you using the address stamp on the toilet? It is for paper only!!!!"

Ugh.

Catching Up...

Oh, my.

Where have I been? Not blogging that's for sure. :)

We had a whirl-wind summer this summer. It seemed we want from thing to thing with little down time. Any time at home was spent doing laundry, repacking, grocery shopping, and on and on...

But school has started.



Here is Ella on her first day.

And school seems to be in full swing. We are fast approaching the end of September. How can that be?????






These are pictures from a recent trip to DOW Gardens in Midland - they have a fantastic children's garden complete with a bubble table.

I am glad for time to catch up. And take a breath.



Here's Linc when he was sick a couple weeks ago. :( He's feeling much better now!!!

Lake Michigan

Our family has always loved spending time at Lake Michigan. And we are getting a little more time there then usual this year. My parent's little fixer upper is just a 15 minute walk from the beautiful lake. Here are some photos taken in May, June and July. It has slowly gotten warm enough to wear a bathing suit. :) At least almost warm enough most days; what a cool summer!

Visiting the lake in early May. Ella didn't let the cold temps keep her from putting her toes in the water.



On the play ground at the beach in early June. Still really not "beach" weather.



Beautiful.



You can see from Jack's face; they might be wearing bathing suits but it is far from warm in the water. This was taken just last week. :)



Ella really doesn't let cool water slow her down. She loves the beach!!!

pie for dinner???

There has been so much going on here lately with no time to blog about it all. I have had some good ideas for posts and then a few days pass and I never blogged about it and I think, "too late now." But I will try to catch you up on some of the happenings around here lately... And who knows, maybe my post brainstorms will make it onto the blog someday.

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Our family went to Florida for a bit of a vacation a couple of weeks ago. We visited with Jace's sisters and their families. We had a really great time and got lots of great beach time in. It was a lot of fun. The drive was a bit long. Especially for Linc but we all made it - we just won't be doing it again any time too soon. :)

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We also had VBS at our church the week after our Florida trip. I helped organize the kindergarten group. We had an amazing 744 different children involved this year. 621 kids all in one day. We even had 117 different kindergarteners!!!! It was a lot of fun. There was a western theme this year and Jack has of course spent a lot of his time since as a cowboy! :)

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And in other interesting tid bits... I have made two strawberry rhubarb pies in just 4 days. The one I made on Friday, I seriously considered serving for dinner. I had made it just before dinner time and it looked so good and I didn't feel like making anything else. :) I fought the urge and we did eat something else for dinner, I just don't remember what. And the pie was so good, I had to make another today!

Jack says...

Jack says, "Where will we put our house?"

I say, "Oh, no honey, do you think we move our house? We don't move our house, if someone buys our house, then we will find a new place to live."

Jack says, "Will there be cars there?"

"Yes, Jack, all of your things will be there. We will pack them up in boxes and take them with us."

"Oh. I want to take my friends, Pig (a Webkinz pig) and Mason (a stuffed Fox in Sox)."

"Yes, Jack, we will take all of your things if we move..."

Wanna buy a house????

So in spite of difficult economic situations all around and a terrible housing market, Jace and I have decided to try to sell our house. We realize that it just might not sell, and we would be fine with that. We are having a hard time finding a Realtor that we want to work with and that is willing to negotiate on their commission. But we will keep working at it...

And for now I thought I would put out a few pics of our 3 bedroom, 3.5 bath home. Let me know if you know anyone who might be interested. It's a great house. I wouldn't be sad if we had to stay right here. :)



Living spaces, kitchen, dining, living.



Finished walkout basement with the cement patio beyond the slider.



Master Bedroom with it's own bath and walk-in closet.
It is about 1500 square feet with extra insulation and a two plus car garage with boiler ready in floor heat and a workshop and even a urinal. It has lots of extras!!! Let me know if you know of anyone who might be interested... :) Especially, before we list it with a Realtor.

And I just had to post the pics to prove how clean it was right now. :) Maybe it will last until bedtime tonight...

Gardening with Grandma...

A couple of weeks ago, we took a short trip to my parents beach house. They recently purchased this fixer upper and now that it is spring my great gardener of a mother will be adding her touches to it's small yard. My Ella has inherited her green thumb; she really loves to garden with Grandma.

I was not so lucky. Any plant that is going to survive in my care has to be hardy and able to survive on little to no water for long periods. :) Maybe Ella and Linc will help me garden and keep our plants alive this summer...