May 2016

May was a Super Fun and BUSY month for us!

Mom and I always start May off with May Day on May 1st! We love to make adorable little bouquets and surprise friends with them.

Here is our family enjoying a wonderful brunch that the kids made for my Mom and I for Mother's Day. They did such a wonderful job making everything yummy and pretty. Mom and I felt very special and honored.

We gave Mom a giant frisbee as part of her Mother's Day gift. We had so much fun playing with it!

Jesse and I visit our friends, Kat, Anna, and Thomas one day and picked wild leeks with them in their woods.

My little sweetie likes to pick flowers to give his sisters.

Clara finished her 2nd year of Track. She competed in the Discus throw and Shotput.

Clara and Daddy the morning of her graduation

Mommy and Clara before graduation

Our second child, all graduated!

This was after Clara's Band Banquet. 

April 2016

In April, Jesse really needed a haircut...

Here he is after the haircut, so handsome!

Jesse loves his sandbox that Daddy made for him.

My sweet friend, Susie, crocheted this adorable Captain Americorn for Jesse.

In February I began the Trim Healthy Mama eating plan. In April I achieved 20 pounds lost!

My encouraging friend, Charity, had 20 carnations delivered to me the day I reached 20 pounds lost!

Tim and I had so much fun leading Cubbies at AWANA at Temple Hill Baptist.  Here we are with our own precious Cubbie, Jesse Bear who earned his first Cubbie award.

Here is our beautiful daughter, Clara all ready to head to Prom.

March 2016

In March we celebrated Ben and Emily's 12th Birthday!

I made Ben his favorite Jello Poke Cake decorated with Skittles and Emily her favorite Chocolate Cake covered in M&Ms. They each had a few friends over as well as our family to celebrate.

Allison and Clara repainted our walkway railing. It looks so much better now. I wish I had a before photo to show the difference.

Our Church, Temple Hill Baptist hosts an Easter event every year. Here are Clara and Jesse with the Easter Bunny.

Instead of buying baskets this year, we made cute decorated bags.

 Jesse had fun finding eggs and candy.

Our handsome Jesse with his chocolate bunny

Yummy deviled eggs for Easter dinner

In March we bought baby chicks and baby turkeys. Jesse really liked the baby birds.

Emily with a baby chick

Chicks on the left and turkeys on the right

February 2016

Here's an adorable Snow Face that Emily made.

Clara, our Snowfest Queen with Jesse

Jesse, Mommy, Clara, Ben, and Allison

God has created so many beautiful and amazing creatures. It was fun to see this Pileated Woodpecker in our back yard.

We had so much fun doing the Cubbie Matchbox Grand Prix at AWANA!

We had popcorn, candy, and lots of goodies for our Cubbies and their families.

I wish I could show you all of our cute Cubbies racing their cars, but I don't like to post photos of other people's kiddos without permission. Everyone had a great time though! Here are the prizes we gave away to the winners.

In February we got a new to us van. It even has heated seats! Nice!

For Valentine's Day we went out to eat with our CMA (Christian Motorcyclists Association) at the Chase Creek Smoke House. (SO YUMMY!)  Here I am with Emily, Jesse, and my Mama before we left.

Just an Update :)

It's been so long since I've posted anything. Just thought I should give a little update. 

Of course we have been busy! We have 5 growing wonderful children. 2 of them are actually pretty much grown up now, Allison and Clara.

Allison's in her 2nd year of college and doing really well there. She is on the President's List for her wonderful grades.

Clara is going to graduate High school soon and then will begin with college too. She's in track (discus and shot put) and very much into band, where she's been playing the quints (5 drums). She also plays guitar and banjo.

Ben and Emily are 6th graders this year.  All the kids do great in school. Emily likes to read and make art. Ben enjoys hunting, fishing, and playing basketball. This past year, Ben shot his first BEAR!!! :) That was a good amount of meat for the family. Ben and Emily are also in band this year. Ben plays trombone and Emily plays clarinet.

Little Jesse Bear is 3 now and so adorable, funny, and smart. He is such a joy to all of us. He loves legos, super heroes, and drawing wonderful pictures.

Recently, Clara was voted Queen of the Snowfest, a formal winter dance at school. She and her friend, Kristopher won together and went to the dance together with a group of friends. They had a great time and looked so nice. :)

We're very involved with Church still. Tim and I are AWANA Cubbie leaders. We lead the youngest group of students at our Church AWANA program, the preschoolers.  Jesse is in Cubbies and loves it! He loves playing with his friends and singing and is great at memorizing his verses each week.  Clara, Ben, and Emily are all in Youth group and they enjoy that. Tim and I are in a small group Bible study that meets a couple of times a month. Right now we're studying Romans 12.  Tim is a Deacon at Church and a member of the Men's prayer group.  I teach Children's Church, which we call Club 631 on rotation with other teachers. That group is Kindergarten through 5th grade. 

We are also still involved in the C.M.A (Christian Motorcyclists Association) We have a lot of fun with that group and do some neat things. One of our favorite things is visiting a local Assisted Living/Nursing Home where we help out with an annual Pig Roast.

I also do a Mom Bible study with some ladies in my neighborhood. Those women have become such treasures and friends to me. It's nice to have a group like that. We study together, but also have fun and enjoy being with each other. We are finishing up a book called "Longing for Paris" by Sarah Mae and are soon going to be working on a study book based on the Christian movie, "War Room". I'm looking forward to that as my Mom and Dad have been doing it and have said it's a good one. Hoping to grow in my prayer life.

God has truly Blessed us and I honestly do question why at times. I know we are "good" people, but why does God love us so much?  He is so so Good and we are so so Loved. We always have everything we Need and usually have so much more beyond that! I truly want to use what's He's given us to make a difference in the world, even if it's just the world of our own little community.

I try to keep up with the duty of housecleaning and such. It can be rough with so many mess makers, but I love it! (Most of the time) I enjoy folding laundry and washing dishes, but not so much putting them away. :) Some of the children are better helpers than others, but the work gets done when it needs to I guess and we are pretty happy and comfortable most of the time.

This past October, my Mom, my sisters, and our sis-in-law all got to get away for a weekend together. We used to do that every year, but it's gotten harder as a couple sisters have moved farther away. Do you know how far apart Michigan and Arizona are???? Seems like a world away!  Anyway we enjoyed our time together so much! I do hope we can do it more often, at least every couple of years.

Tim's health is pretty good. His lungs are really no better, but no worse than they have been the past few years. He's had a lot more problems and pain though with arthritis, trigger thumb, and possible carpal tunnel syndrome. He's still able to hunt, fish, mow the grass, and snow blow which I am thankful for. He does a great job keeping up with his "jobs" around the house.

All in All things are really going well for us. We have definitely had struggles and sorrow, such as losing both of Tim's parents in the past 2 years, but God Always carries us through. We comfort and support each other and know that God has good plans for us! He LOVES us and we feel it daily!