With Love... from Batman

Happy Belated Valentine's Day!

The pre-school Valentine's mailbox...Batman with a little pink and red. Thanks to Dad who does the work, with the help of Mom and Ryan's ideas. Ryan had to miss the actual Valentine's Party and Mom's day at school... but he still had a fun Valentine's Day in California. Pictures of that to come if Blogger allows.... I really have been trying, Erin!!!

F-f-f-frozen

Well, we may not have a lot of snow, but we got ICE!!! A friend asked me the other day while we were running to our cars in the negative teens(before the wind chill factor), "are people really suppose to live here?" I wonder! We have the heat wave today in the 20's and we are thankful.

The annual Winterfest brings about the "so-called" caste and sledding slide every year, if there is enough ice and cold weather. I think we had it all covered this year. We grabbed the sleds one day during Steve's lunch hour, despite it only being zero degrees. We managed to have some good sledding, snapped a few pictures, left the car running, and enjoyed its warmth after a short 15 minutes. Maybe we'll hit it one of these days during the heat wave before it melts!

The back side of the slide (complete with the "moved in trees")

Ready to slide

The boys

The Mama with Ryan "on deck"

Flying Ryan

The castle

A view to give a better perspective on the size

Now I'm hooked!

OK... slide show # 2 for the day. When she blogs, she blogs :)! OK... I'm not really blogging... just picture posting, I guess! Anyway, here is the weekend when Ryan turned five. January 6, 2008. And he's so excited to be the big 5. We had a kid party on Saturday with 13 kiddos from 3-6 yrs old. We were a little nervous, but we did it. Two accountants entertaining little bundles of energy for 2 1/2 hours. It really went well and was fun for us. Who knows how much fun they had, but we enjoyed it. Complete with pass the kryptonite(aka hot potato), pin Spider man's mask on the wall, and a safe "pull string" :) pinata. Unfinished basements are a great thing for this occasion! Again, Ryan is a blessed little guy! Thanks to all of you who have contributed to his spoiling!

Ryan's FIVE!!!!

Technically Challenged

Below is what I thought would be the easy way to show lots of pictures at once? I think my impatience with the uploading was the main obstacle. The pictures try to capture our week of Christmas travels to Rushville, IN and then on to Grand Rapdis, MI via Chicago area, too. We are truly blessed, not just because of the presents under that tree!!... but because God loves us and graciously gives much to us each day!

Week of Christmas

Early December in Review

Happy New Year to you all! We hope your 2008 is off to a great start. Thought we'd try to get back at this blogging thing. It was a New Year's resolution, and it's the 10th already? Why am I not surprised? The pics below are just a peak at what the beginning of December was like. It was a fun month, but it sure seemed to fly by.

Here is a not so good picture of Ryan's Sunday School class up on stage for their part of the Christmas program. I was videotaping and Steve was home in bed barely moving after his little fall from the rock wall. I pulled this one off of the church's website. Ryan is seated and is playing the part of Joseph. He was so proud to have that role:)!Here's a close up of little Joe! I was very thankful for a mature performance.:) Two years ago, the story was a little different. Here was a close runner up in the millions of pictures we attempted for a Christmas card. He is a handsome fellow, if I do say so myself!
Playing in the snow for me would mean sledding, building a snowman, maybe some snow balls? Nope, not for Ryan. For him, it means jumping and throwing yourself on the snow covered cement driveway!!!Even at nearly five, he still has such an awe of the Fisher Price Nativity scene. I love the admiration he gives that plastic baby Jesus. It was a battle to not leave the plastic scene up on the mantle. Maybe I shouldn't have been so mean? And while Ryan and I are attempting to get all the Christmas decor in just the right place, Steve is determined to make this year's gingerbread house a little more complicated than the last one? I know he'd hoped it would be a family tradition, but Ryan and I just don't seem to have the same level of determination, perseverance and patience as our hubby/daddy! Does that surprise any of you?
Next year we may have to move up to the professional grade Kitchen Aid mixer. This one was humming and not smelling so great after all that batter! Voila.... it didn't make it to the fully decorated stage this year. But the construction, in and of itself, is pretty impressive! Great job, Honey!
And these last 2 are actually in November. It's amazing that there is no line for Santa if you stop by on his first day at the mall... November 17th!!! Yikes that's early, but hey.. it was well worth the (lack of) wait! He even had to make sure Mrs. Claus had a few requests.... we all know behind every good Santa there is an even better Mrs. Claus, right :)?
We treasure the innocence of this picture. I'm sure we won't have too many more years of "believing" in the fun. Ryan did say himself that he loves Jesus the most and Santa is just for fun!

Marathon posting again...

Maybe I should stop this blogging thing? I'm obviously not very regular. It goes hand in hand with any other "hobby" I start :). I stick with it for awhile... then months go by before I revisit it. Does that mean I have some disorder? or does it just mean I'm easily distracted with the rest of life? Regardless... if you are a regular visitor to our page.. see below for some pictures/updates of the last month or so. I'll keep adding to them tomorrow when Blogger lets me upload pictures :(!
Thanks for stopping by!

One Day at a Time

Thanks to Pa Paw Choo Choo, Ryan has this great magnetic calendar that we can personalize and build each month. Several months ago it was a challenge to get him to do it. Now he does it completely by himself and takes off the square each day. We are so proud of him and of all he grasps as an almost 5 year old. He gets the days of the week and the concept of time and months... and is counting down in his own mind to December 25... that is his favorite day... so he says for now:)!
In a sermon, last month we were challenged to fill our squares...meaning our days on the calendar...with meaningful, Kingdom purposes. I know that some days I wonder if I'm doing anything Kingdom worthy.. but then the knowledge and faith I see developing in this little guy... that is satisfaction enough for me. I'm so grateful to be his Mom.

Batman to the Rescue

Batman was it this year... We had a fun Halloween evening with some friends as we headed to our church's carnival and "Trunk or Treat" in the parking lot. On the way home, Ryan said this was the best Halloween ever. We then thought we'd hit our neighborhood. Third house into it some older kids, not from our neighborhood, wander by with blood oozing down their mask. That was it. Night over. Hysterical screaming from them on. Then the comments change to ... "this was the worst Halloween ever" and "are our walls strong enough to keep the scary kids out?"... thankfully we didn't have nightmares that woke us up in the night.


Target 90% off clearance... gotta love it. Now we have 3 super hero costumes. They will get some good use from this very imaginative kid. Here he poses as Robin with 2 of his friends sporting the other 2 costumes.

Grandparents Travel North

We were so happy to have my folks come up over Mom's fall break. We know the drive stinks, but we were glad they made it. We had fun just hanging out and playing at home together, eating out some and getting that pumpkin ready for Halloween. Here are just a few pictures from that late October weekend. I think the "southerners" were frozen from just a cool breeze, as we Minnesotans would call it :)!

Of course we had to take them to the good 'ole Spicer park, too. It was a cool day and the lake was a beautiful blue and the leaves were crunchy under our feet.

Have to throw a picture of us in here every now and then, too!

Ryan had been to the pumpkin patch at a farm about 30 miles away with his preschool class, so we opted not to make Grandma and Grandpa drive any more. Parking lot pumpkin picking is just as fun, huh?

If we are with Pa Paw Putty during pumpkin carving time, he does the drawing and then Steve does the carving... but here he takes the honorary official stab. Look out pumpkin!

PaPaw Putty takes on Ryan with some boy energy...

The True Judge

Well, I was so fortunate to be chosen to do my duty this month of October... JURY DUTY!! Yay! Actually, I've only been called in a few times, and no trials yet. They seem to settle while we wait or get rescheduled due to new evidence or various reasons. It's been more of an inconvenience making arrangements for the day for Ryan and then changing it all when I get to leave than it has been an interesting learning experience. But, the the first day as I'm taking him to someone's home...
"Mom, what's jury duty?"
Well, try to explain that in four-year-old terms. I did my best and said some things like it's where we help decide if someone(big people, usually) did somthing wrong and what their punishment should be.

"But, Mom, only God can punish big people... He's in charge." Oh, how true. Yes, we can do our best here for a better world, but God has the final say. I hope Ryan and we, too, will live each day by the True Judge's rules!