Ready to travel!

Sometime later this year (dates TBD), we are taking Aaron on a mission trip with us to Honduras. The Good Shepherd Children's Home is a home for children in Honduras who don't have family or whose family cannot care for them. We are friends with the associate directors of the home, and we are going to visit them for a week to help around the home. Neither of us has ever been to the children's home, but we know many people who have and we cannot wait to see what God is going to do through our trip! We are also very excited about giving Aaron a global vision.

We have our passports, and we are ready to travel!


Aaron is most excited right now about flying on an airplane. I'm looking forward to teaching him more about what the home is all about and what we can do to help.

Aaron's Wild Ride

I took a few minutes this evening to make a video of Aaron's riding on Saturday.  Enjoy!

Random memories

One day during Christmas break, we got home from the library and Aaron got immersed in a book about machines. I walked throuh the living room and found him like this:



Claire loves her Squinkies that she got from Uncle Andy for Christmas. If you can't tell from this picture, she shares a room (and toys) with her older brother.

A perfect day

We had spring-like weather today, around 75 and sunny, and it was such a tease because I know it's going to get cold again.  But it was surely a nice break from the cold, and so great that it happened on a Saturday when we had nothing planned!

First on the agenda...Aaron needed to get off the training wheels.  We took the bikes to the church parking lot and he learned how to do it!  It helped that his classmate who lives down the street said yesterday, "Isn't Aaron a little OLD for training wheels?"  I said, "Yes, he is!" 





By the time we finished, he was riding across the entire parking lot by himself, and he even figured out how to get himself started. I got some video but have no idea when I'll have time to piece it together.

The girls got to ride, too.




And run around like crazy! We've been cooped up too long!


Next on the agenda was painting Mammaw's new door, but that was for Chris to do, so we just played outside at home for a while. Hannah got so filthy she needed a mid-day bath. That's a sure sign of a good time! Later in the afternoon we met friends for a short trip to the zoo. We actually took Aaron's friend with us, too.







And I got my new favorite picture.


A fun time was had by all!

Gingerbread houses and Santa!

Making our gingerbread house...




Then on to the Enchanted Forest with good friends! We go every year to see Santa there, because I always get a great picture and it's just good fun. We all piled in my van and had a blast!  Conner, Sydney, and Aaron in the way back...


Claire and Hannah in the middle, and me and Stacy up front, trying to have grown-up talk while ignoring the noise in the rear!










We got to see how gingerbread houses are REALLY done!


The train is a crowd favorite.


Hannah loved this little white bridge. If I let her out of her stroller she would run like mad over to the bridge. Once I even lost her for a minute and found her over at the bridge!




Loved this gingerbread "church".  I think it's supposed to be Bellevue.


The kids with Santa...real picture to follow. It was a GREAT Santa pic!


Aaron had taken his list but Claire never finished hers so she didn't bring it. That morning Aaron put "Wii" at the top of his list. He had never mentioned getting one prior to that morning, and I was shocked he even thought to ask for it! Thankfully, Santa already knew he would love one and had already bought it!



After the Enchanted Forest we went to a fun yogurt bar for dessert. It was so fun hanging out with our friends!

2nd Tooth Pulled

Aaron's 2nd tooth has been pretty wiggly, and Friday afternoon he got it in his head that he would pull it with a piece of dental floss tied to the tooth and a door knob.  I made him wait until Daddy got home to help with this project, and here's how it turned out...

Christmas Programs

Claire and Aaron had little Christmas programs at church one Sunday night. Claire's little choir, led by me and the other Little Kids Time Workers, sang Away in a Manger and Joy to the World.

Claire looked beautiful in her pretty new dress and braids!


Aaron had fallen at Kohl's the day before and got a HUGE cut and bump on his head, hence the band-aid...


My pictures during the program are not great because I gave my camera to a middle-schooler since I was directing and couldn't take pictures. I should have specified which child to photograph since very few of the pictures even included Claire. Ha!


Aaron's choir sang a few little songs, but I don't remember what they were!


Later in the month Claire and Hannah had their program at Mother's Day Out. How cute is Hannah with her little class?


I labeled Claire for you...


Singing Twinkle Twinkle...


And Jingle Bells!


They were all so cute!

Fall Program for 1st grade

(I am bound and determined to catch this blog up!!!)

In November Aaron's music teacher put on a Thanksgiving program for the parents.  The kids had worked very hard during music class each week, and even put in some extra practices in the days before the program.  It was so cute and Aaron was super-proud of himself.

Aaron is on the front row in this picture, yawning really big:








Any maybe one day I'll get the video uploaded!