A First and a a Third....

First, a first....Luke received his first haircut, from Marc, at 10 1/2 months.  Since that time, he's received a haircut, from Marc or myself, on average of once a month.

A couple of weeks ago, Marc was at the barber getting his monthly haircut.  The kiddos & I were out running errands so I took Luke to the barber to hang out with his dad.

When my two guys showed up at home, Luke had received a haircut at the barber.  And, in my opinion, he looked even more like his dad than he already did.

Marc said Luke did really well EXCEPT the barber found a bunch of sand in his hair.  Luke, as he frequently does, had been out in his sandbox that day; however, I have no idea how he got all of the sand in his hair!  Boys!  That's all I can say.  That evening, Marc spent quite a bit of time helping Luke get the sand out of his hair in the shower.

Second, a third....Today, Luke had an eye appointment.  It was not his first eye appointment, but rather it was his third.  We've known since his first appointment that he was far-sighted.  But, we were told it wasn't that bad; that he could possibly outgrow it.

Well today, we were told Luke needs glasses to help his farsightedness.  So, we picked a pair out, and they're ordered.  He should receive them next week.

Luke is actually seemingly ok with having them.  Hopefully, his awesome attitude sticks.  (And, he wouldn't smile for this pic -- it was well BEFORE we were told he needed glasses)....

A HOT and windy zoo day....

"Now The Lord God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air.  He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature that was its name.  So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field".  Genesis 2:19-20

I took the kiddos to the zoo today.  We have a membership; therefore, we go often.  Luke LOVES going to the zoo, and Kate is now starting to like going as well -- as opposed to merely being the tag-a-long little sister in the stroller.  But, since I've done a rather poopy job of keeping up on this blog, how about a documentation of at least one of our visits (which happened today)????

First, a little caveat -- Luke took along binoculars.  You will notice in the following pics they were well used -- Ha!

The flamingos...Yes, the binoculars were immediately in use (if you aren't local and haven't been to this zoo, the flamingos are the first animal one sees)....

We made our way (making a few stops first) back to the wolves.  Luke has been very fascinated with wolves lately (I think it comes from a specific video he's been watching about the Old Testament story of Joseph and his coat of many colors).

Fortunately, he was able to spot a wolf seeking shade underneath some trees.  Kate observed with probably not a clue as to what she was looking at -- Ha!

Kate's one of those children who explain why there are so many barriers & boundaries at places like the zoo.  She would've crawled right down in there, had it been accessible.

You see what I mean about the binoculars???  In this next pic, if you look closely, you can see Luke in the glass (behind the tiger) looking through his binoculars to see the tiger already up close -- Ha!

Oops....I caught one where Luke is not using binoculars.

If this next pic were in a museum, I would title it, "The Obligatory Tiger Pic With Both Kiddos".  It's one of those pics I take EACH time we go to the zoo & text to Marc.

And, on the way home, Luke took this sweet pic of his little sister who was simply pooped out!

Kate Turns 2...

Obviously, I've messed up again in that I haven't blogged in awhile.  I realize it's not a crime.  I realize it won't get me fired from any job.  And, I'm guessing that absolutely nobody will chastise me about my negligence on this blog.  But, it boils down to my not following through with what I said I would do.  And, right now, that bugs me a lot!  So, here goes a post....

Kate turned the big TWO on June 6?!?!?!  Seriously!!!!!  But, we had a party for her on Memorial Day for several valid (at least in my mind) reasons.  Now, if you're wanting to see a blog post with cute decorations, a creative theme, etc....just shut down this blog page.  Nope -- this Mama doesn't do that (and believe me when I say I am NOT putting myself down for that reason).

My valid reasons for a Memorial Day party included the facts of a) Emma (our lovely foreign exchange student who'd been living with us since last August) was still here. b) One of our niece has a birthday on June 10.  This spread out the celebrations a bit. c) Our family is patriotic and all.  We combined the two days of the important Memorial Day and the important day of Kate's birthday (and, if you are not patriotic and do not like our flag shirts, kindly keep comments to yourself.  No argument you could give me will change our minds).....

Going on -- we had Kate's party/Memorial Day at our church.  There was more space.  A gym for play was available. An awesome playground was available for Kate & her youngest cousin.

First -- here's a Memorial Day/Kate's birthday pic of our family (Emma most definitely included).

Second -- Here's Kate's AWESOME cake.  Nope -- I most certainly didn't make it!  The lovely & talented Julie made it (Julie is a fellow mom friend who has a son in Luke's Sunday School class).

It was a fun & wild party!

Our girl, Kate, has been an interesting one to figure out!  She challenges me.  She makes me nutty if I don't get out of the house each day.  She's loud -- especially if her older brother does something to antagonize her.  She's sharp as a whip in that she figures out ways to make messes that her brother never did figure out.  AND, I figure Kate being Kate (simply put) is only at the beginning of her "ways".  I think we're in for a wild ride with raising her.  BUT, I'm grateful beyond words for her.  I think (and know) she's going to teach me a lot about God's unconditional love for humanity as well as God's wanting of love & obedience from us.  She will probably teach me a lot about grace (heck -- she already has)....And, I'm pretty sure I better continuously work on getting enough sleep and taking good care of myself so I can have the patience to raise her.  Again, our love for her & her brother is too much to describe.

Happenings Around Here....

With my active participation on Facebook, I sometimes wonder if blogging is necessary. Then, I think, "Yes, it is...people read this blog who are not friended with me on Facebook. PLUS, not everybody is on Facebook." Also, with blogging, I can expand descriptions of pics a bit....SO, here goes....

I took a six-week (3 times/week) childcare job here at home. It's for some friends of our's. SO, it's all good...BUT, 4 kids is my limit. I know it will challenge me. I know I need to be organized in my facets of this job. Luke & Lily (one of the children I'm watching) are a bit like siblings in that they tend to fight and sometimes make me want to pull my hair out. Because of the snow this past week, it only ended up being one day to have the extra kids. SO, that wasn't bad at all.

Most of you know that we're a family of 5 this year. We have a French foreign exchange student, Emma, living with us. She's been delightful to have here. Kate especially has really taken to her. This week, Kate did something super cute. She walked up to Emma and pointed at her hair. Kate wanted Emma to fix her hair. Emma did, and Kate sat really nice for her to do it.

If you're local, this is obvious, but if you're not, we received a bunch of snow this week (relative to where we live). Schools were cancelled for 3 days. It's been abnormally cold as well....so, everything is frozen. Our limited road crews have had a hard time getting the streets cleaned. I'm not complaining about the road crews; I'm GRATEFUL for them. I just know this winter storm was unusual enough that quite frankly, we're not equipped to handle.

Probably about a year ago, someone older and wiser than me commented on a Facebook post of mine (probably griping about the weather) that "complaining about the weather is ultimately complaining to the One who created it (God)." For some reason, that statement was really convicting. SO, though I'm not perfect at this, for the last year, I've been really striving to not complain about the weather. After all, God did give it to us. (AND, admittedly, I really struggle with this in the summer because I struggle with 100-degree heat day after day). And seriously, if you think about it, we all, at least in this country, for the most part, choose where we live. If we truly don't like it, we do have the ability to move. SO, if we're going to live where we live, we need to expect the climate that goes with it. ANYWAYS, off of my soapbox now -- With all of that in mind, God also gives us the change in seasons. SO, this week with all of the snow, I made a "spring" cake to keep us plowing through the winter. We were thinking good thoughts. This cake turned out quite lovely -- thank you very much! It was tasty to all five of us in this household.

Over the last week to 10 days, Kate has had a runny nose -- nothing too unusual with a young kid in the middle of winter. And, for the most part, it didn't seem to bother her. BUT, in the middle of this winter storm this week, she developed a nice barking cough -- many of you know this as croup. The croupy cough didn't concern me too much. I know it's not terribly uncommon. My mom reminds me I had it as a kid. I know plenty of other people who have had kids with it. BUT, yesterday (Thursday), her breathing seemed a bit labored. SO, to be on the safe side, Marc & I decided I should at least call the doctor to see what he thought. Well, he wanted to see her, and we were able to get in very quickly (which surprised me since it is cold and flu season). He ended up prescribing her a steroid for the cough (which has drastically helped already). To top it off -- I'm glad I took her in -- she had an ear infection with which she was showing no symptoms. SO, she's on an antibiotic. I know ear infections are very common with kids. I personally feel fortunate that neither of our kids have had them very bad nor very often.

What a difference 24 hours makes! Today, Kate's been fine. She still has a little bit of a barking cough, but overall, she's much better. I even took her out this evening to an event we had planned on attending for over a month.

Luke has pretty much always been really good at entertaining himself -- so good, in fact, that I sometimes (O.K. -- many times) take it for granted. I've recently realized just how much more time I probably could've spent with him doing activities instead of leaving him to his own devices. BUT, he's just always been that way. Now, however, we're preparing to send him to kindergarten in August....so, this Mama's going through the stage of "I'm really going to miss him." In the pics above, he was doing quite a bit of work with his tools -- between working with his little workbench inside to being in the cold garage, fixing his lawnmower and weed-eater.

Tired of reading yet? One more description (which wasn't on Facebook)...Back on Monday evening, one of our local TV stations broadcasted, LIVE, a naturalization ceremony in Wichita. (By broadcasted, I mean "streamed LIVE" online). The actual ceremony was open to the public; however, that was the evening the snow was to move in. I wasn't going to drive in it for the ceremony. PLUS, it was good to simply be home with everybody for the evening. ANYWAYS, Emma & I watched it stream LIVE. While we couldn't see any of the 88 people who were becoming US citizens, we did hear the oath being read. We did watch the "official" part of the ceremony where the judge declared them US citizens. AND, we watched a video of others who had previously become US citizens. Being a US citizen is most definitely something I have taken for granted. While I was taught to be a little bit patriotic, I definitely can say I wasn't taught completely what it meant to be a US citizen. Like I said, it's something I've taken for granted. As a college student and as an adult, I have been exposed to Americans who like to "bash" the USA. Admittedly sometimes, it's easy to get "sucked in" (if only for a bit) into thinking that things are just terrible and non-progressive here. Then, and fortunately, I come to later realize just how good we have it here. Watching something like a naturalization ceremony compounds my thoughts as to how wonderful we really do have it. Nope -- we're not perfect. Nobody in the human race is (other than when God himself came to earth a little over 2,000 years ago). BUT, to listen to some of these naturalized citizens talk about the freedoms and liberty they have by being a US citizen -- WOW! It was powerful....tearfully powerful. That evening, in the comforts of our warm home, on my iPad, I witnessed 88 people from 30-some countries denounce their own citizenship and become US citizens. When you really stop and think about that, it's pretty amazing!

Christmas Happenings....

Christmas was over a month ago. Marc & I were just talking the other night about how January is such a dark month. It's dark because all of the Christmas lights are down; the days are short; it's cold. Right after Christmas, I was just reading somewhere that Christmas should be celebrated all year long -- NOPE, not the Santa stuff, obnoxious gift giving, etc... -- BUT, the birth of Christ, our Savior in this world. I couldn't agree more, but I'm not completely sure how that looks from a practical standpoint other than keeping Christ as the center of our home -- something Marc & I strive to do but fully realize we fall short. BUT, since Christmas is so completely & utterly important AND I do like the idea of celebrating it all year AND I honestly haven't done well at keeping up on this blog, how about some belated Christmas pics? These are pics from our official two weeks of celebrating (a.k.a. school was out; Marc was home). (AND, I fully realize that was a complete run-on sentence for all of you grammar nerds out there -- of which I am one some of the time).

If you don't know, this year, we have Emma living with us. Emma is a foreign exchange student from France. It's been completely awesome having her with us, and it's been equally as fun teaching her some "American things." Emma had never experienced making sugar cut-out cookies. AND, my mom is the QUEEN of cookie cutter collecting. AND, my mom does a much better job with sugar cookies than I do. So, when my mom suggested we all make cookies with Emma, we took her up on the offer (Marc took her up on the offer of supper since he really doesn't care much about making sugar cookies). So, there was an American tradition we all did together (only had to postpone one day because of poor weather/driving conditions).

If you aren't around us regularly, you need to know that in December, Kate decided, at the ripe ol' age of 18 months, that it was ok to finally start walking. I had seriously held off on putting shoes on her until she learned to walk -- which meant having her in no shoes several times when it was quite cold. Before she started walking, my mom had told me she wanted to buy Kate her first good pair of shoes once she started walking. SO, two days before Christmas, my mom & I took Kate to a good shoe store to have her feet properly fitted for a good pair of shoes. Kate's a hard one to figure out...SO, needless to say, she didn't like having a stranger measure her feet (something that her brother has always let us do, despite his disdain for strangers as well). But, we succeeded in finding a CUTE pair of shoes for her that are properly fitted. BUT, she let us know, in a cute and sad way, that getting her feet properly fitted wasn't exactly her cup of tea.

Shortly before Christmas, our small group had a white elephant gift exchange -- which is ALWAYS a funny and good time, EVERY year. (Trust me -- a lot of laughs occur having a white elephant exchange with close friends). Anyways, Marc received a bowling ball complete with the Kansas City Chiefs logo on it. It just so happened that we had a host family/foreign exchange student party two days before Christmas -- with bowling as the activity. So, he got to use this precious gift!

Up until this year, I always thought everybody here in town knew about our little donut shop, Druber's, on Christmas Eve. BUT, in case you live here and don't know this, Druber's gives away ONE free donut and one FREE drink to each person in Druber's on Christmas Eve. Santa Claus is there for the kiddos, and kiddos even receive a little gift sack. It's very busy AND very fun. We wanted to make sure Emma experienced this phenomenon -- donuts on Christmas Eve at Druber's. Neither one of our kiddos wanted to sit on Santa's lap, and quite frankly, I don't care if they ever do....not something extremely important to me. (AND, I emphasize the ONE free donut because Christmas Eve is Marc's "Three Donut Day" -- in other words, we had to pay for two donuts for him).

I know many already have this tradition, but for some reason, I hadn't started it until this year. That tradition would be to have a "Happy Birthday Jesus" cake. SO, I made a triple layer, yes, triple layer, chocolate cake for Jesus' birthday (I figure Jesus deserves the very best since He is the Savior of the world). Since Luke's one sibling is too young to blow out candles, he got to by himself (we'll see about next year -- Ha). If you look closely at the pic, you might notice a large crack in the cake. Yes, the cake didn't stay together as well as I had hoped (and I had made triple layer cakes before). After we cut into it and were eating our cake, Emma suddenly said, "Oh no, the cake." Yep, it fell over. BUT, it still tasted good!

This last pic is rather comical. Here's a little background: Marc worked at our local hospital for about 1 1/2 years (right before Luke was born). Their cafeteria, every other Thursday, has what is affectionately called "Taco Salad Thursday" (at least by the hospital employees). Basically, they sell taco salad, which one builds him or her self, by the weight of the salad. During Marc's tenure at the hospital, he really enjoyed this taco salad (as I think many of the hospital employees do). Since he left the hospital, shortly before Luke's birth, if he's off work and we're around that week of the taco salad, we actually make the trek into the hospital to eat this taco salad. WELL, Marc has now rounded up quite a crew of our friends to eat this taco salad with us. Last year, another family (some very good friends) joined us. This year, Marc managed to round up a total of 18 people for this event the day after Christmas. A 19th person joined us once we were there. Two more people had originally planned on coming and then had a change of plans at the last minute. It's quirky, yes, we know. BUT, it's a fun thing to do with good friends. And admittedly, the taco salad's pretty good. It just seems odd to go in the hospital with perfectly healthy kids when there are quite a few sick people in the hospital this time of year. We'll see about next year -- Ha! "Taco Salad Thursday" falls on Christmas Day!

Canned Cheese....

We have some good friends who live up in eastern Washington state. The wife's parents live here in the same town as we do. So, we do get to sometimes see our friends when they are visiting. We do exchange Christmas gifts with them. This year, Marc was given some homemade sausage from Washington as well as some canned cheese -- made at Washington State University. It's called "Cougar Gold" sharp cheddar cheese. I can honestly say I've personally never had cheese out of a can -- which sounds hilarious. Even Emma (who is from France -- where there is a lot of good cheese) had never had cheese out of a can.

Let's just say it was a task to open this can of cheese. It was one strong can. I worked on it for awhile. Emma worked on it for awhile. She was able to get it open enough for us to eat some for supper (with our sausage). But ultimately, Marc had to finish opening it after supper for us to be able to properly store the remainder of the cheese. Goodness....

Yes, it was good cheese. And fortunately, we still have some left!

Recipe #4 -- "Pizza Sloppy Joes"....

Originally, my meal plan for the week had "Pizza Taco Soup" on it for this evening. Last night, I was re-looking at the recipe, and I simply didn't find the recipe exciting like I did last weekend. SO, I decided I'd make a family favorite of our's and share it. BUT, Marc has a simple requirement for this family favorite -- pepperoni. Since I needed to go to the grocery store today anyways (to replenish our ongoing banana supply -- we go through a lot of bananas in this household), I did indeed pick up pepperoni for this family favorite. I forgot to take pics until the very end....SO, this one pic I have isn't the most appealing as it's our skillet after we've picked through it. BUT, Marc reminded me that it's a great pic because it shows just how much we like it. The recipe for tonight was "Pizza Sloppy Joes." (This isn't an official slow cooker recipe; however, there's absolutely no reason you couldn't throw it together in the slow cooker for a more peaceful time before supper -- which never is the case here, in my opinion).

1 lb. ground beef, browned; 1/2 C. chopped onion (browned with ground beef); 1 - 14 oz. jar of pizza sauce (we really like the $1 jar of "Great Value" sauce at Wal-Mart); 1/2 - 1 tsp. basil; 1/2 - 1 tsp. oregano; Pepper; Onion Powder; Pepperoni -- however much you think you need; Mix all ingredients together. Serve on buns with shredded mozzarella cheese (or whatever you have on hand). Tonight, I served with tater tots and a salad. YUM-O!