Time is ticking away...from me too fast!

Wow has a month really almost gone by since my last post. Goes to show just how crazy busy things have been around here…and how my mind has NOT been on writing. I do enjoy writing about our adventures but lately I have been in a funk and just haven’t wanted to put it on paper let alone into cyberspace. So I will just update with some pictures. In the last month we have celebrated Easter, my 40th birthday (ok so that wasn’t all that fun) and then today we have been celebrating Kristofer’s 8th birthday.
I have been busy with work. Yep I am working now…on a temp job during April and May. It’s an online job scoring the ISAT which is our state aptitude testing for the schools. I cannot share all that much about it but let’s just say my brain goes to mush after reading hundreds of 5th grade essays. It is nice to get a paycheck again,  which is always a nice thing. We are hoping to use what I make to go towards our trip to Florida to see my nephew graduate from High School. We can’t wait to get to Florida…all we want to do is completely veg out on the beach and just play in the sand and soak in some rays! Now that will be a nice vacation after our very cold winter. Counting down the days I think at this point we have 6 Mondays till the kids get out of school and the next week we are Florida bound…YAY!!!
Easter was a great family day. We bypassed the traditional Easter baskets and just filled a big bowl with candy and eggs for the kids to find. We decided to get a family gift this year…croquet. The kids have been having so much fun playing this together and we have enjoyed it as a family as well. Next family gift for the summer is going to be a volleyball/badminton set. This is going to be a very fun summer…

Sean and the boys checking out the stars. The boys truly enjoy spending time with their daddy!

Another day of bounding with nature and Daddy :)

No fish this day just lots of weeds, oh and a few frogs!

Kristofer's Lego robot. He got up at 6 AM to build this just for Eli...all before school started. What a great big brother he is becoming to Eli.

Well if you have made it this far then you must really be a fan. But seriously, I do hope to get better with posting on a weekly basis at least...and then back to daily if possible. We shall see. I can say please pray with us that our desires for our family will match up with God's timing!

We've gone to the rats...

Meet "Skunk" and "George". Yes they look alike but if you look at their tales they are different. Skunk has black that goes straight down his back unto his tail. George has the same black stripe but stops and has white and then a few patches of black on the tale. Their personalities are a bit different too. Skunk is calmer and George is more high energy. Both are boys so we wont have any issues with breeding more! (Goodness I think I would have a heart attack if that happened!)

Yes I think I have totally lost my mind. But a promise is a promise! You see when Kristofer was 3 years old a one of the teens in our church had a pet rat. Kristofer fell in love with it and has been asking ever since to have one. When he was 4 or so I told him that when he turned 8 yrs old that I would get him one then. Well the boy has a memory that is astounding and he remembered the conversation word for word!

So we have gotten him (George) and Jaron (Skunk) one each for their birthdays. They are sweet little things. Ok did I just say that? Uhm, yea I did! Why is it when we get a field mouse in the house I freak out and when we go to the pet store I fall in love with the little things like they are puppies or something. There is something wrong with that...I know there is!

As you can see from the smiles on their faces these two little guys are a hit in our house! Now the problem is is that Eli and Sara now want one too. Uhm...no I think 2 are enough for now.

So let's see what have we had as pets in the ten years that we have had children:

dogs

cats

fish

turtles

crawdads (aka crayfish)

guinea pigs

ferrets

lizards

a rabbit

salamanders

birds (cockatiel and parakeet)

and

now rats.

Goodness what in the world are we thinking?!

"This Is The Life"...my special project for Sean

These are a few pages from the book I made for Sean's 50th birthday to celebrate all that God has done in and through him in his life. I love you Sean!

City Museum

So Friday March 12th on Sean's 50th birthday we tookt he kids for a day adventure and headed to St Louis. Destination: City Museum Let me just say...that place ROCKS! Seriously the kids had a blast! Every floor had something fun to do and was some how connected to the next floor by a secret passage way or a tunnel or slide or something. I have never gone up and down so many flights of stairs in my life and PRAISE BE TO GOD my knees held up. A little sore but not terrible! We had a lot of fun watching the kids run from one thing to another. Well here just check out these wonderful pictures of the days events...
We never knew where these tunnels would lead so we were constantly running up and down the stairs to follow the kids.
Inside the many caves the kids went exploring...remind you this is all inside of a 4 story building!

Climbing up into the wire tunnels.

This was the human hampster wheel...the little guy was pulling the brake and as soon as he let go my four when rolling backwards. It was really funny to watch!

Here we have Jaron the dragon, Kristofer the snake, Eli the tiger and Sara the bunny all getting ready to eat a fantastic pizza!

one of many tunnels to climb through

Sara loved the sea turtles.

This was on the first floor and behind the whale were the caves. Above the whale and the pteridactyl (sp?) werw a bunch of tubes made from cage iron and other tubing that the kids could climb through.

Kris loved this area! When he looked up he freaked and asked if we could PLEASE take it home with us :) My little dinosaur lover!

Judas Asparagus & more...

ok yea so it;s been quiet a while. But like I said I have been working on this project for Sean's 50th birthday! Now that he has it I can tell you what I have been up to. I have been making a scrap book so to speak of pictures and special letters and stories from family and friends. I preached on Sunday morning and presented the book to him. He was so shocked! What even greater is that I have caught him reading through it over and over :). I know he was blessed with it. The church blessed him with a wonderful dinner and many gifts as well. I plan to take picture of the book and place some of them on here so keep coming back to check.
We took him to City Museum in St Louis on Friday as well. The kids loved it! It was like this HUGE sensory stimulating place that was fantastic for Kris. I will post those pictures as well. Right now I have two sick kids. Sara is getting over a sinus infection and bronchitis and Eli came home with a 103 temp. Poor little guy!
A friend sent this little story to me via email today and I wanted to share. Hope you enjoy!

Judas Asparagus

If you need a laugh today, then this should do it !!!

A child was asked to write a book report on the entire Bible. This is amazing and brought tears of laughter to my eyes. I wonder how often we take for granted that children understand what we are teaching ???

Through the eyes of a child:

The Children's Bible in a Nutshell

In the beginning, which occurred near the start, there was nothing but God, darkness, and some gas. The Bible says, 'The Lord thy God is one, but I think He must be a lot older than that.

Anyway, God said, 'Give me a light!' and someone did.

Then God made the world.

He split the Adam and made Eve. Adam and Eve were naked, but they weren't embarrassed because mirrors hadn't been invented yet.

Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating one bad apple, so they were driven from the Garden of Eden.....Not sure what they were driven in though, because they didn't have cars.

Adam and Eve had a son, Cain, who hated his brother as long as he was Abel.

Pretty soon all of the early people died off, except for Methuselah, who lived to be like a million or something.

One of the next important people was Noah, who was a good guy, but one of his kids was kind of a Ham. Noah built a large boat and put his family and some animals on it. He asked some other people to join him, but they said they would have to take a rain check.

After Noah came Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jacob was more famous than his brother, Esau, because Esau sold Jacob his birthmark in exchange for some pot roast. Jacob had a son named Joseph who wore a really loud sports coat.

Another important Bible guy is Moses, whose real name was Charlton Heston. Moses led the Israel Lights out of Egypt and away from the evil Pharaoh after God sent ten plagues on Pharaoh's people. These plagues included frogs, mice, lice, bowels, and no cable.

God fed the Israel Lights every day with manicotti. Then he gave them His Top Ten Commandments. These include: don't lie, cheat, smoke, dance, or covet your neighbor's stuff.

Oh, yeah, I just thought of one more: Humor thy father and thy mother.

One of Moses' best helpers was Joshua who was the first Bible guy to use spies. Joshua fought the battle of Geritol and the fence fell over on the town..

After Joshua came David. He got to be king by killing a giant with a slingshot. He had a son named Solomon who had about 300 wives and 500 porcupines. My teacher says he was wise, but that doesn't sound very wise to me..

After Solomon there were a bunch of major league prophets. One of these was Jonah, who was swallowed by a big whale and then barfed up on the shore.

There were also some minor league prophets, but I guess we don't have to worry about them.

After the Old Testament came the New Testament. Jesus is the star of The New. He was born in Bethlehem in a barn. (I wish I had been born in a barn too, because my mom is always saying to me, 'Close the door! Were you born in a barn?' It would be nice to say, 'As a matter of fact, I was.')

During His life, Jesus had many arguments with sinners like the Pharisees and the Democrats.

Jesus also had twelve opossums.

The worst one was Judas Asparagus. Judas was so evil that they named a terrible vegetable after him.

Jesus was a great man. He heled many leopards and even preached to some Germans on the Mount.

But the Democrats and all those guys put Jesus on trial before Pontius the Pilot. Pilot didn't stick up for Jesus. He just washed his hands instead..

Anyways, Jesus died for our sins, then came back to life again. He went up to Heaven but will be back at the end of the Aluminum. His return is foretold in the book of Revolution.

So what is going on...

...is that I have been so busy working on a special project for my main man that I haven't had the time or the energy to write anything. in under 2 weeks my loving and wonderful husband is turning the BIG 5 0 ! Yeppers 50 and yes he is 10 years older than me. But I don't want to talk about the fact that I am turning 40 in a couple of months. UGH! That doesn't excite me one bit! Honestly things have been going well. Kristofer has made some remarkable strides. This past week he brought home a report on dinosaurs that he got a 100% on. YAY! He is doing well, making small advancements with reading. We have found that if we read his work to him he does 100% better on it than if we ask him to read and figure it out. So he is getting help with comprehending what he is reading. YAY!
The kids are all growing so fast. Right now Jaron is going through the state achievement testing called I-SAT. He has testing every morning this week and half the next. Spring break is coming up soon. We would love to be heading to Florida it has been so stinkin' cold here!But we are saving that trip for June when my nephew Kurtis will be graduating from High School. If all goes well we will go to Disney while we are there.
I guess the biggest announcement is that I got a job! Yes I got a job in this economy. Although I am only a temp and will probably only work for 6-8 weeks that time and pay is what God is using to allow us to take the kids to Disney!
It's been a while since I worked and thankfully I will be doing this from home. It's an online job. Scoring the I-SAT! Yep the same testing that Jaron is doing at school I will be scoring. Not his test but other children in other schools. Sean did it last year and I applied and so we both will be scoring the I-SAT. I am excited about doing this!
The only other news I have is that have been diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes. :( Something I dreaded. I am on a pill called metformin. So far I haven't seen much improvements. I am seeing lower glucose levels but nothing close to normal ranges. So I am sure in a few weeks that the doc may up the dosage. I hope not. I am doing my best to exercise daily and have cut the carbs drastically and have even gone to all sugar free products. Which the kids are hating but they don't need all the extra sugar either!
SO that is what is going on. Once I am done with this secret surprise project for Sean I will post some pictures of what I am making as well as the celebration we have at church for him :)

Amazing Breakfast