sunny.

 

This.

is.

summer.

Have I mentioned lately how adorable my niece, Tegan is??

my husband, the farmer.

Those of you who know my husband know that he would definitely not make a good farmer. His degree is in vocal music performance. He enjoys more indoor type activities   Joe definitely falls into the category of geek, dork, nerd and techie.  He is a far cry from the type of man my Grandfathers were.

Or is he?

A farmer works hours and hours to provide for his family. If a farmer gets sick during harvest, no matter, there is work to be done. We are not talking 9-5 work or even 9-7 kind of work. We are talking 15 hour days or more sometimes!

My modern day, techie husband is just like that. Yes, his job is a desk job, but he puts in so many hours and even at his sickest, he will still work.  It doesn’t hurt that he absolutely loves his job, but I admire greatly his desire to work hard and provide for his family. Oh, and did I mention that he never complains about the long hours?  I pray every day that his hard work will pay off and for him to be blessed greatly.

Happy Birthday!

To my hardworking, sweet husband.

May this year bring you a little more relaxation

amazing indeed.

Yesterday at church, I had a small solo during the song, “Amazing Grace”. Let me just say that it is a huge privilege to sing on the worship team at our church.  It is also one of my favorite parts of life on this earth. Worshiping our Creator with my wonderful church family is truly a taste of heaven. Our church family is not just a group of people who meet on Sunday and keep to themselves the rest of the week. We are a family in every sense of the word.  We share a bond that goes beyond this earth. Today, one of those lovely people did something that really touched my heart.

We had a bunch of errands to run today after nap time; stop by Daddy’s work, pick up a prescription at Walgreens, get groceries, drop groceries off back at home, and pick up CSA veggies. When we pulled into the driveway, I noticed something different about our porch…

I cannot tell you how much this meant to me.

There are a lot of awful things in this world, but there are still people who do incredible, thoughtful, beautiful things.

Now, off to find the perfect place for it!

Mother’s Day.

Mother’s Day 2011 started out a little rough. Miles had not slept well the night before and has a nasty cold. I knew that bringing him to the church nursery was a recipe for disaster, so instead of going to church on Mother’s Day, the kids and I stayed home. Daddy had to play guitar for both services, so while Greta and I spent some quality time together, Miles took a nice long nap. Then Miles really woke up on the wrong side of the bed, but we continued with our plans to visit my parents after church. At about 3pm, Miles must have started feeling better. He was back to his cuddly, happy,  but boogery self!

The kids playing with one of my favorite childhood toys.

My Dad making the Lamb.

It was a beautiful day!

My gorgeous Mother and her “baby”.

Our little sunshine

Do you see them? Mimi, Papa and their Grandkids

And finished with a fabulous dessert!

A fine end to what turned out to be a lovely day.

Happy Mother’s Day!

He is Risen!

What a great Easter weekend we had!

Our dyed eggs.

Greta and Tegan

Egg Hunt #1.

(no, I did not give her the idea for this pose)

The cuties together.

An Easter first.

Egg Hunt #2

(Check out my tan!)

Happy Easter! We are so very grateful to be able to celebrate this day!

just a thursday night.

…at the Lee’s.

Just thought I’d mention that we don’t usually let our children play with their food. I also thought I’d mention that it is, in fact, proper etiquette to use your fingers when eating asparagus

And if you’re bored, there’s more!

Max and Sherri’s Swiss Adventure.

On the 6th, my Mother and I returned from our wonderful week in Switzerland with my sister Jill and her husband, Christian. A couple days later, I got sick and so now I am finally getting around to posting some photos from our trip! We had so much fun. My mother and I both agreed that hiking to the top of the Rigi (a mountain) and just visiting with Jill and Christian in their apartment were our favorite parts of the adventure.

Here are some of the over 400 photos I took:

Zug, the city they live in:

Luzern:

Fasnacht costumes:

My Mom, Sister and I.

On the Rigi:

Bellinzona:

Jill and Christian were glowing!

Thank you, Jill and Christian for your hospitality and for all the amazing memories!

The year of the dinosaur.

Details from Miles’ 3rd Birthday party.

His awesome and delicious dinosaur cake!

Being a ham.

Greta playing with “stinky”.

Dinosaurs with Papa.

More dinosaur play. I can’t even count how many times he must have said “It’s dinosaurs, Mama!”

It was a great party

About a year ago, Miles was saying “roar-saurs” for dinosaurs. Now he is saying things like “Mom, I want to watch Dinosaur Train”. Incredible. Here’s to another great year!

Christmas 2010.

I actually wrote a long post detailing our Christmas weekend. Then, I deleted it.

The important thing to know is- Miles had a fever all weekend. He had a bad seizure. We had 2 ER trips. He’s still not quite himself, but fever free and doing much better.

While the hospital trips were neither fun nor a part of the Christmas we wanted to have, the time spent with our families between the drama was wonderful.

We are truly blessed with great families! Not sure which family members will read this, but- thank you to my Daddy who tenderly stood by us at the ER.  I love you SO much! Thank you to my brother, Eric- for taking good care of us and giving a hug at just the right time. Thank you to Mom, Jill, Christian and Uncle Greggy for making Greta’s Christmas special and fun. Thank you to Co-K and Papa K, for giving us a lovely Christmas Day. Thank you to Dennis and Becky for always opening your home to us. And for bringing us dinner in the ER! Finally, thank you to my wonderful husband who knew just what to do with his grumpy, sobbing wife in the ER (2nd trip). I love you.

Hopefully, Miles is on his way to being completely back to normal. The important thing is…

“…a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.” -Luke 2:11

Keeping Christ in Christmas.

The Christmas season is here! We’ve got our tree up and have been busy making Christmas presents. We will do some shopping in the coming weeks as well.  There is so much to do and these weeks go by so quickly every year. It is very easy to lose sight of why we even celebrate this holiday. This is why our family has set aside certain new traditions that we stick by each year. Traditions that help us to really focus on the birth of Jesus.

*We don’t do Santa. This is a big one.  Growing up with Santa, Joe and I both were way more excited about Santa and the prospect of toys than we were about the birth of a Savior. While having Santa visit is great fun, we feel that it clouds the real reason for Christmas. I have no desire to bribe my children into behaving well so they can earn presents.  I can assure you that our children do not miss out one bit because of this. After all, we still have decorating the tree, cookie making, Christmas music, visiting with family, wrapping gifts, and most importantly the anticipation and excitement of the birth of Baby Jesus.

*We only do 3 gifts per child. We totally ripped off this idea from a Pastor at church Each child receives 3 gifts to symbolize the gifts from the 3 Wisemen.  What we do is purchase one “gold” gift (the big, exciting present), one “frankincense” gift (something that can be shared with the family) and one “myrrh” gift (a smaller gift). We also purchase a few stocking stuffers.  It is so easy to go overboard with gifts and regret it for months to follow. This is both good for our budget and we hope it is a good way of teaching our kiddos that more stuff is not more.

*We have a Christmas Bible reading plan. I have the book of Luke pre-marked in my Bible with what to read on which date. We start on 12/21 and read about half a chapter each night until Christmas Eve, when we finish the story. This is an exciting time to sit around and read God’s word together. The best part is that each year, the kids understand it a little more! It is really a special and rich time together.

If your Christmas season is anything like ours it flies by! While I realize these ideas are not for everyone, I hope they might help you to take a pause and reflect on why it is that we make such a BIG deal about Christmas each year.