Here are some pictures of the kids this Christmas. Logan and Avery sang with their Sunday School classes in church this past Sunday, and Darin was a Wiseguy, I mean Wiseman in the Children's Christmas Program. It was fun! Tyson and I enjoyed watching them. As for the Christmas pictures in front of the tree..... I tried to get some cute pictures, but as you will see this is what I got. Oh well. Memories none the less.

Halloween Pictures

Here are some pictures of the kids on Halloween. Tyson was Spiderman, Logan was The Incredible Hulk, and Avery was a Scarecrow. We went trick-or-treating in our neighborhood and had a great time. We came home with way too much candy though. Darin had a great suggestion. We decided to put some of their candy in a ziplock bag and hide it away until Christmas and use it in their Christmas stockings.

Good-bye Carlos

Well, last weekend Carlos headed back to Yakima. After being with us for six weeks he felt like he was ready to get back to Yakima and evangelize his neighborhood for Christ. In the week he has been gone he has already been hired for a job and is getting ready to take his driving test for his license. We will greatly miss him. Our kids say that it isn't the same around here without him.

My parents are here visiting this week and we are having lots of fun with them. The kids helped me and Grandma make some yummy applesauce. The other night after dinner we were watching the farmer next door harvest his field. He stopped when he saw the boys outside watching him and invited them to ride the tractor with him while he finished his field. That made their day!

Yesterday Darin (single handedly) helped all three kids carve their pumpkins. He is braver than I am. They had a lot of fun creating their own scary faces and carving them out.

Starting up again

School has started again and we are into a new schedule. Avery has started her gym class on Tues. mornings while the boys are in school. I originally thought it was going to be more like a gymnastics class, but it has turned out to be just a gym class. She loves it.





On the first day of school I took Tyson to find his line. I wanted to take a picture of him but he wouldn't look at me or at the camera. I asked him if he was o.k. and if he wanted me to stay with him until the bell rang. Still looking at the ground he said, "Mom, you're embarrassing me." I got the hint and left. I told Darin that I thought I had at least until middle school before I embarrassed my children, but I guess not. He likes his class and we all love his teacher.

Logan is doing great in Kindergarten! On the first day of school I picked him up and asked him how his first day went.
He said, "Well Mom, Kindergarten is just like Preschool. I don't learn anything." He does seem to really enjoy going everyday and has a great teacher.

Life is different around here with two in school. I am trying to get used to the change.

Carlos is doing well here. Still looking for a job, but he did pass the written driver's test so he has his permit. That was a blessing! It was so much fun to see him so excited about that. He is growing in the Lord and making some huge progress with learning responsibility and maturity. We are excited to help him through this process.

The three kids start AWANA next week and Darin and I will begin a new small group with the leadership students at our house. We are both really excited about this as this will be the first time in our married lives that we are able to co-lead a bible study together.

I have also just started co-leading a Beth Moore study on the book of Daniel at our church. I am a little bit nervous about this because the group is large with about 25 women coming. I know that God has some great things planned and once again I am stepping out of my comfort zone to do this.

Two years ago my personal theme for the year was being amazed at what God is doing. This thought started after a sermon series by Pastor Pietsch that really stuck with me. Last year my theme was trusting God. I felt like I walked through some hard times and God kept asking me, "Do you trust me?" This year I really feel like God is showing me how to love him more by loving people.

Home Again

So, we are home again after a month long vacation in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. We had a great time, but of course, it went by way too fast! The weather here has been nice. Not too hot like I remember last August being. The kids have reconnected with their toys and some of their friends here so that is nice. They're happy! This next week I need to start thinking about getting all those much needed school supplies. Avery is going to start gymnastics while the boys are in school this Fall. She is very excited about this. I debated whether or not to enrole her in gymnastics or dance, but for now she just loves to jump, so gymnastics it is!

This week we should have our friend, Carlos, here from WA. He was in Darin's youth group a few years back. He will be staying with us for awhile so that he can get a fresh start in a new place. Yesterday Darin and I were out and about with the kids so we had our eyes out for some places who are hiring. Hopefully Carlos will find a job quickly. You can be in prayer with us about that. We are really excited about him coming. We've (I've) cleanned out our guest room for him. I moved the queen bed into the craft room for guests and put a single bed in the old guest room along with a dresser for Carlos to use. At least he will have his own space when he needs to get away from the chaos of our family.

Yesterday Darin took the boys on a long bike ride. Darin called about 45min. into the bike ride for me to come pick them up. Logan was tired and couldn't make it back. I was proud of him for lasting that long. I think that's longer than I could have lasted. Avery is just learning to ride her trycicle so she and I took a walk to the park and played instead.

Will write more and post pictures soon! I know what some of you are thinking right now. :)

An update.....finally!

Here's what we've been up to for the past few months. For Easter the kids each got a dwarf hampster. They were very surprised! They've really enjoyed playing with them and helping to take care of them. I think they're rather cute myself.

I found a great deal on bunkbeds for the boys on craigslist. Darin drove to the Cities (Minneapolis) to pick them up on Mother's Day. Of course we had to put them together that night, so needless to say, the boys didn't get to bed until around 9:30pm. Avery has her new big girl bed which she loves. It makes her room look so mature now.

Logan graduated from preschool last week. He didn't want to be on stage in front of everyone, so he looked rather sad as his class was singing, "I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart". Poor guy.

Last night we had a hail storm. Luckily it didn't last very long. We let the kids play in the rain before the hail came. They loved it.

We are getting ready for summer. Tyson will be done with first grade this week. They have finished AWANA, and now we are looking forward to VBS, Avery's birthday, and flying out to the Northwest!! Exciting things!

I painted....and yes, it is red!

Well, last week Friday I woke up and told Darin that I wanted to paint. I was originally going to wait until Spring when it warms up (yeah, right) so that I could open windows when I paint. I quickly learned that many people here paint in the middle of winter. Fumes....who cares! It's not that bad they tell me. You can hardly smell it. So, last Friday I decided that day that I was going to paint. I wrote down the paint colors and Darin took off to Home Depot to purchase the paint. I went with a Khaki green color (same color we used in our living room in Yakima) for the living room/kitchen because there is not ending point between the two rooms. I did paint the walls around the bay windows in the kitchen a brick red color along with one wall in the living room. I wasn't sure about it at first, but now I love it. Darin really likes it too. Anyway, here's a couple pictures of the red. I would post pictures of the living room wall color, but you can't really tell what color it is in the picture. I do have to say though that they were right. You hardly smell the paint. It at least gave me something to do to fill these long winter days.

Surviving Winter

We have been having very cold temperatures here lately. It has been below zero with a wind chill factor of -25 to -30. I've been told that Spring does come. I don't think it comes until May, but nevertheless it comes. Today has been the first day in two weeks that it is 30 degrees and we are loving it. It is nice and sunny outside.

Darin has been gone this weekend with the highschool students to a place called Timber Bay. They will return later today. While he was gone it snowed and I had to shovel the driveway in
-10 degree weather. I thought I did a pretty good job until this morning when we were on our way to church I commented on how nicely shoveled the driveway looked and Tyson said, "It doesn't look as nice as when dad does it." Oh well.

Logan has turned five already. He had his first friend birthday party. We had it at the RAC (Rochester Athletic Club). He invited nine of his friends and they were entertained by the staff there. Darin and I didn't have to do anything except show up. It was great!! They even wrote down which child gave what present for me. No set up, no figuring out games to play, no 4-5yr. olds running around in my house, and no clean-up. It was the best party ever......and I think Logan had a good time too. :) He is also loving preschool this year and making tons of friends.

Tyson is doing very well in school. He plays with his classmates (although he doesn't have a set group of kids he plays with all of the time, we are just happy that he plays with other kids). He still loves to learn and is doing well academically. He told me that science is his favorite subject.

Avery loves jumping and dancing all over the house. Her favorite song is, "Go Tell It On The Mountain" which she sings everyday, and she has learned to count to 10 in spanish (thanks to our Ecuador friends). We are working on potty training, and I hope she is a lot quicker at catching on then her brothers were.

Darin has had the opportunity to learn a little bit about hockey which is huge here. He has gone to some of the highschool games to watch some of his students play. He also has done some scoring for the high school volleyball teams this past Fall. His most recent adventure has been to play soccer at the RAC (Rochester Athletic Club) at lunch time with some other professionals in the community as a chance to get to know people outside the church.

I have been trying to keep busy with these cold winter days. Sometimes I get gloomy, but then the sun comes out and I feel much better (as long as I stay inside of course). My friend, Vickie, who is a christian writer and motivational speaker has asked me along with five other women to be in a focus group for her new book coming out called Holy Enthusiasm. I am very excited to be a part of this process. She sent me the first three chapters of her book to read and it has been very encouraging and uplifting. I am reminded often of all the great opportunities that God has provided our family here, and when it gets hard to be so far away from so many of our loved ones it's as if God pulls me around again and tells me to press on. He is always good!