coloring

i think winter is here. we didn't meet our deadline of having the garage ready.
oh well.

the girls just got done with a "sharing bean" party. this is a brilliant idea from kotter... i put a sheet down in the living room, move the tea party table and chairs onto the sheet and then give the girls a bag of pinto beans to pour back and forth in their cups, plates and saucers.
we are calling them "sharing beans" cuz we desperately need to work on sharing.
the girls are not allow to say "mine" - yes, daisy has learned how to say that already from sal. =)
and if the beans are fought over... they get cleaned up and are put away.
we'll see... and i think it will be a great winter activity.

it's a grey sky... and i can already see that is affecting my mood. i am blah.

today sally declared that she wanted to visit Chika. our dear friends that moved to tokoyo in sept. sigh... i wish we could visit them also. aya, if you are reading this- we miss you guys!

k. over and out.

windy, warm, windy, cooler, windy.... winter?

60 miles/hour winds and crazy weather. it has been super warm lately, then a bit of cold, then back to warm again. i keep thinking- this is the last of it - bring on the winter! then it gets warm and wonderful again. who knows!

today i started jungle painting at my Auntie Karen's art class. i am excited about it. as i drew banana leaves, a waterfall and a macaw.... i could just feel myself back in la selva. la jungla. el oriente.... the jungle. i have some super vivid memories of the adventures God blessed me with in the jungle..... i can feel the humidity. i can see the purity/simplicity of the people there. and my heart is so light - absolutely loving what He had for me.

i am about 1/2 into the painting- i left class today thinking about Ecuador and hoping that i don't screw up my painting. =)

k- need to sleep... put first a few pix.

a peek at our house with the augs over... blurring- cuz there is always action. benton is on sarah's lap here.. we have 4 under the age of 2 1/2 between our 2 fams. and we have celebrated that sally and ela can/have now played downstairs BY THEMSELVES for about 10 minute chunks of time! woot woot! MASSIVE maturity on our two year old's parts! =)


'
we discovered that ben is holding daisy's hand !! he is already making his moves!


ready for a walk to camp and then a lil boat ride to say goodbye to our wonderful warm weather

a

sarah and ela... soaking up the lake together


both ben and daisy are snoozin...
and brad's drivin....

buenas nochas a todos.......

marieke's weddin

here are some pix of our buddies' wedding that happened the weekend we moved. Andrew used to do worship and youth group with us at Anchor... and that is how i got to know his beautiful bride Marieke!
they are two good friends that live only about 5 minutes from us.... and really enjoying hanging out with.
as you can see... the wedding and Marieke were BEAUTIFUL!
and Noah, 4, is one of Sally's lil buds!

today gow took off of work.
SOOOO FANTASTIC!
he worked crazy hours last week and so decided to take some time today to hang out, take care of a few more house items and rest a bit.
he is currently working on a STACK and i mean a STACK of reciepts from all of the contsruction supplies that we bought before and after our move.... yucko.

he also put a few more thing up in the house... towel rack, mirror etc... we are making progress! slowly - but surely! woot woot!

i am blogging to avoid the stack of dirty dishes waiting for me in the kitchen. =) ugh. sometimes it seems like the dishes NEVER end. you know, i had friends in Arkansas that ate off of paper plates for years after they got married simply cuz they didn't want to have to do the dishes! sounding pretty good to me about now! =)

we are planning to hit the park after the girls wake up and maybe coldstone. yummers! it is still being warm and wondering here in the great north- no complaints from me! =)

happy monday to ya'll.

warm and rainy

i should have just snapped a pix of the girls in their rain gear.
sally with her froggy boots from koto and her dora "underbrella" from grandma/pa and daisy wearing all of sally's last year rain gear that is too big for her... a big rain jacket and her pink polka dotted hello kitty boots. ADORABLE.

we walked up the street in a "river" -the water runs down the curb as our house in on a hill. daisy bent to touch the water and just about did a somersault as her boots didn't allow her lil knees to bend.


a few weeks back- having a snack on the porch

s



teri , keith and issac newburn stopped for lunch! our buddies from quito and their sweet new one!


tio "choo choo" and auntie diane stayed with a for an evening. sally was in awe of tio choo choo who each time she pulled on his pinky he would make a train noise! =) in this pix auntie diane is reading sally's bedtime book in english and then tio choo choo is reading the other page in spanish!



NO more holes in the kitchen!
gow and grandpa finished the cupboard and microwave hood so we have more counter space adn the holes in our kitch are gone! woot woot!

yesterday we hung around the house doing some projects and for the first time in a long while just had a day at home together. it was wonderful.

then after naps we headed to a potluck bbq at some friends' from church's farm.
it was fun to hang out and catch up a bit with some friends we haven't seen much over the summer and it was a wonderful WARM night.

the girls are both a bit clingy these days-- not sure why or how to help them out of that. but it does make for a bit of a tiring evening.

i am still not feeling great. . i woke up to the clink clink clink sound of our gerbil guests running their wheel and discovered that my throat was on fire. (which by the way, the gerbils and their activity is quite mesmerizing- gow and i watched them a bit last night and saw them actually go around the entire wheel several times!) but am feeling a bit better today. =) will lay low today cept for church and yg tonight.

a rainy saturday morn

ot


hey all.
it's drippy and cold looking outside.

i am not feelin 100%.

gow has more worship to work on today

i have a load of youth group stuff to work on.

we have house guests!
3 fuzzy lil black fur balls - my niece emma's gerbils and nephew tim's 3 gold fish have come to stay!
sally ran around this morning saying "GOOD MORNING GERBILS! GOOD MORNING FISHIES!" then she said something to gow about the gold fish not obeying her. hee hee.

today we will hang out as a fam- and head to a church wide bonfire, potluck dealio at a family barn. should be fun to just hang out and be with our church body!

some pix of the girls in the home depot race car - yup, we have spent ALOT of time in that place in the past few months.




and then this is us being stoked that pres. obama sent us our 1st time home owner check! woot woot!

have a good sat. ya'll

friday. woot woot

our play fort and ship (the bottom level is our where we fish) =)




picnic-ing one FINE fall day a few weeks back


a big huge blessing of having gow work from home- he can pop up to the play fort for a 20 minute lunch in the middle of the work week.

on that front- gow has been working like nutso this week. he had 3 10+ days and then yesterday worked from like 5:30am-1:30am last night. he had deadlines- met them, got some great feedback/approval and just finished! woot woot!
now on for his worship planning and working some on the house with my dad this afternoon.

ah blessed weekend.


our first fam jackolatern


ta-da


the girls getting ready to get messy!


they HATED the feel of the seeds- would shake all over in disgust- until i put them in water to be washed.... so funny.


sally is back on track with using the potty. for some strange reason she almost always wants to wear two pairs of underwear... so we let her. =) she is doing pull ups for night and naps - but is dry about 78% of naps .

today she was wearing a mini wedding dress all day- saying that she is cinderella. then while watching the movie cinderella today- she proceeded to lick all the lace on the skirt. ?! i have no idea. =)

on a pony at the lake geneva oktoberfest- buela, remember how FREEZIN it was last year? this year it was like 85 degrees!

daisy is hysterical. she played tea party today at our lil tea table (my grandpa's when he was a kid) for about 35 minutes. she busied herself by setting the little cups on the plates just right. then she would get frustrated - shriek and then knock them all off just to pick them up and do it all over again.

she is really busy these days. she waddles when she walks, talks like a parrot and is a smarty. she says ball, hi, mmmmmmmmmmmmelk (milk) "bop" (up) go go, and ga ga ( i think this is grandpa- but she also uses it in another circumstances)

i have been busy with mops- (mothers of preschoolers ministry), youth group and laundry this week. i seem to have a love/hate relationship with mops- sometimes i love it, sometimes it drives me nutso.

sally went back to awanas this week and came home with a "verse" memorized "God made all things" she was very proud of herself. and we are proud too.

k. that's it for today- i am not feeling super great. would like to just watch 3 chick flicks this afternoon and go to bed at 8 with the girls. think that sally and daisy will go along wiht that plan?

gows

need i say more?

my husband is all that i have ever dreamed of and so much more.

happy birthday to you baby!

all my love - forever...

thursday happenigs.

so..its been forever.
hi.

ive got no pix today - i am sitting on our comfy couch with some HGTV show on in the back ground and looking out our big doors to a grey fall-ish day. it's colder today and i am thinking that fall has arrived.

i watched an hour and a half of the chili miners' rescue last night on line. incredible.
i wonder how the men are doing today... i wonder how their outlook on God, life, their families, their purposes.... have all been changed. perspective. it is a huge thing.

a week ago i went on a "kotter retreat". i left my sweet girls, amazing hubby and all responsibility behind and met my friend kotter for a 26 hour retreat. it was so super fun. the freedom of tossing it all to the wind.... was sooo refreshing.

and coming back to the never ending demands of mommihood.... was rough. i did some processing with another dear friend, mulks.... she reminded me that every "demand" on me- is usually something that i do in love. it is an action of love. a way to love my family... is to respond to and provide for the many many MANY needs that they have thru out the day.

that is a total different prespective... to look at my mommihood as an action of love instead of wipin hineys and noses - wiping up and pickin up and responding to shrieks of glee and gloom.

its such a journey... this thing we call life.

on the home front-

daisy is a total crack up. she is a waddler, not a toddler. today she carried around 6 diapers.... hugging and patting them. any time they would slip out of her grasp - she would shriek out like someone was causing her physical pain. i would restack them, put them back in her arms and she would giggle, coo and rock her diapers back and forth. seriously. she is a crack up.

she has also been endearingly carried around our goonies movie. i have no clue why- if you have looked at the front of that movie... it is not exactly a snuggly item- but it has fun a sweet spot in her heart. =)

sally is big time into dollies. she brushes their hair, carries them around, feeds them. she currently has 4 favorites... raspberry torte (pink hair and purple clothes- of course) and lemon merengue (this one she lets daisy play with each time)-- these two are happy meal toys. and then the other two are polly pockets that were gifts from her cousin sarah. (sally named one of them "banana" to go with her other fruit-named dollies).

she told gow today that he was a girl because of the way he walks.
(we have no clue what she meant by that- but we thought it was funny)

last night was a double celebration for us... 1) thanking my folks for all their work, support, help, labor and investment that they have done/given for us to make our new home our home and 2) a celebration for gow's 27th bday - which is on friday. we had a FEAST and just had a nice evening of being together.

gow has been working from home for the past 2 months. it's been great.

and.... we almost have one room in our house completely done... will keep ya posted!

monday

hi all.

it's a purty fall day here... sun is shinin' and it's a nice crisp 50 or 60... leaves are changing and it's just plain pretty.

gow and sally are belting out Oh Mc Donald in the kitchen over a snack of milk, m & ms, pretzels, nuts and raisins while daisy just giggles and kicks her feet with them-- and gives an occassional sway back n forth.

i sort of have the Monday blahs. i am not sure what that means other than it's monday and i feel blah.

we had a super fun weekend with Mark and Kora and then my uncle John and auntie Diane....

also had coffee shop ( our community group) - fun and full.

sal is attempting to sleep without diapers.... this is an interesting process as each time she naps or sleeps i am trying to race in and get her to the potty after she wakes up....

oh the joys of toilet training- it's crazy.

daisy's working on her 5th tooth and eats like we never feed her. =)

i think we will mow and maybe attack more of the vine tonight.

toodles.