He's growing up...

I catch myself thinking this on a very regular basis lately when I watch Isaac do or say something that seems too old for him. I notice he is getting closer to being six years old with all the things he is able to do or think through these days. He suddenly seems so grown up.

One of his newest accomplishments is that he can snap his fingers. I think he is pretty proud of himself because he is constantly snapping. (I am not sure that he even is aware of it at times, and I am afraid that his teacher is going to have the talk with us about helping him drop the habit!) Here is a video of his snapping in action (and you can hear Caleb's "are you serious?!?" line that we have been hearing regularly these days):



The other new thing Isaac is doing is riding his bike with no training wheels. Now, I realize that a lot of kids are doing this much earlier, but our boys just love their scooters and have gravitated towards them more than bikes. Last week he finally asked Paul to take the wheels off the little bike, and he took off. The bigger challenge is pedaling and trying to keep his balance on his regular-sized bike with no training wheels, but he is doing it. He has informed me that he likes riding in the street better because there is more room than in the back yard.





I was talking to our neighbor lady while Isaac was riding on the street, and before I knew it he had ridden almost to the end of the block. As I called him back, I saw Caleb at the top of the hill by the pool starting down the hill on his scooter. Nobody crashed or left the neighborhood, but they do keep us on our toes!

Football!

Caleb is a football fanatic. And that is putting it mildly. Each Sunday during football season he would set up his little football guys and moved them to match the plays happening on the tv, and it was so fun to see his joy as he recognized the different teams playing. (I am not sure who was more excited to turn on the football when we got home from church this year--Paul or Caleb!) He usually knew which teams were matched up against each other each week. His favorite teams were the Vikings, Chargers and the Crusaders (our school team) though he seemed to really like the "G's" (Packers--his name for them changed by the time the Superbowl came around). Now that the season is over, he is still asking who will be playing and when, and his little guys are still busy playing games each day.

Today was a good day for Caleb since Paul came home with some NFL stickers. Somebody asked Sandy if she knew of anybody who might like football stickers, and she thought of Caleb right away so she sent them home with Paul. Below is the video of Caleb and Isaac getting the stickers.


And here is one of Caleb telling Paul the names of each team according to their logos (got most of them):

I love my job(s)!

Yesterday Paul and I spent the day at a worship workshop with 18 other members of our worship team and people from a few other churches. The day was a wonderful day spent worshiping and learning about worship and what it means to be a worship leader. It was such a treat to be part of such a neat day that not only gave our teams a chance to "jam" with other worship teams but also validated what we are doing at our church which was a great source of encouragement!

I am thankful for the members of my team who were able to spend the day at this conference (a long one for us since we left at 7:30 a.m. and did not return until after 4:00 p.m.). My volunteers are a blessing to me and to our church.

One thing we took away from the day and got to use in our service this a.m. was "be prepared for anything." Our service stretched a bit long so our pastor switched how we took communion which meant we had to adjust a few songs being played including the new doxology we were introducing. The team did a great job pulling it together with very little communication! Our pastor is going through the entire Bible in the next 12 weeks, and today was creation. We watched this video during worship today--a fantastic reminder of how great our Creator is: http://www.andiesisle.com/creation/magnificent.html

A special thanks to Baby Anna and her parents for taking the boys all day and spending hours playing with them. The boys had as good of a time as we had at the conference!

I am so thankful that God has given me the opportunity to be a wife and mom yet still be able to "work" for our church as youth leader and worship director! I love the jobs to which God has called me at this point in my life!

New Year...We're still here!

You would think that with Christmas vacation and time off we would have had some time to share Christmas pix and details of what has been happening to us the last few weeks...I am just happy to report that we are still here and have started our 2011 differently than I would have liked. You see, Christmas is my busiest time for "work" at church since we have extra services and a lot of my regular worship team members are gone or just need a break. That would be one excuse for lack of postings. My other excuse is that I got sick right before the new year hit, and it was one of those cold-congestion types of sick that just seemed to hang on for a while. I am not saying this to make you feel sorry for me (but feel free to if you want ;-) but just to clarify why we have been "silent" on here for a month.

Although I started off the year with a cold, it has been a reminder to me of all the blessings in our lives. I am soooooooo thankful for our health and for good doctors. For all the people who serve at church in worship--they really make my "job" easy and so rewarding. For family--all three of my boys (that includes Paul!) and the joy they bring to my life, our parents (three of whom visited us in the last month), our siblings and nieces and nephews, and extended family. For friends and the family they are to us on this side of the country.

I am also thankful for the weather here...we had a lot of rain before and after Christmas, but this week is beautiful (sunny and in the 80s the last couple days already) so we are enjoying being outside playing and going for walks again.

We enjoyed a visit with Paul's parents right around his birthday--celebrating Paul's birthday, eating at Red Robin and playing the games there, making donuts, playing Sorry, reading books, opening presents, and trying to stay dry.

We spent lots of time over Christmas and New Year's with Jill and Mark and the girls--presents, puzzles, games, Guitar Hero, and lots of giggling and screaming.

We just spent a week and a half with my mom who gave us the gift of getting away--an entire weekend of movies, a play, dinner out, shopping, and lots of relaxing with no kids!!! (I know it sounds pathetic, but it was so nice to just sleep whenever and however long we wanted! Ahhhh, we are well-rested!)

We ended our long weekend visiting with my great-aunt and my cousin and his family who all came up for Sunday afternoon and evening to just catch up while Mom is visiting.

Now the house is quiet, and we are looking ahead to a "normal" week--just the four of us and a regular week of school and the daily routines of work (incluing having to wash the dishes again since I don't think I did any while Mom was here). I still have a tickle in my throat and an occasional cough to clear the tickle but am finally feeling almost normal again. I think my voice is almost back to normal which is good since I have had three Sundays off from singing--THANK YOU to everyone who filled in for me (especially my hubby) and took leadership while I was MIA.

Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

As I write this, I hear the boys talking to Grandpa and Grandma N. Now that they are here, our snowman Christmas countdown is counting the days until Christmas rather than Gpa & Gma's arrival. We also look forward to spending time with Jill and her family over Christmas and New Years. What a joy it is to have family around us at the holidays! To the rest of our family members celebrating this season, we will miss you!

I know the traditional Christmas letter includes looking back over the year, but since you are reading this post, you have a pretty good idea of what we have been up to in 2010. In case you don't want to go back over all the entries, here's a quick recap of this year's highlights:

January: basketball coaching for Paul and many games attended by the boys and me; worship symposium in Grand Rapids (yep, I stepped onto Calvin's campus which I admit was beautiful); visit from Gma B. who watched the boys while I was gone

February: more basketball for all of us; a visit from D's sister and nephew

March: visit to the emergency room for Isaac to get a staple in his head; visit from Gpa and Vicki

April: nothing too exciting to report besides regular life

May: birthdays for both boys; playing violin in the high school musical for D

June: basketball camp for P; quick midwest trip for D to deliver the boys for their extended stay with the grandparents; Hawaii for D & P with friends

July: quick midwest trip for P to pick up the boys; Camp Dunamis and Hollywood Bowl for D; camping with friends; and a road trip to the midwest to vacation

August: vacation with family; B & W's wedding; study skills class for D; preparing for and starting school for P

September: the start of preschool for Isaac

October: youth workers' convention for D; visit from Beav & Denise; Ephesians life group (through December)

November: Thanksgiving with D's cousin and family; baking holiday goodies with the boys

December: a weekend with the girls; learning about Jesus' birth and what that means for our lives today through Bible readings, picture books, and reviewing the story of the first Christmas with our Advent calendar each day with the boys; visit from Gpa & Gma N.; Christmas with Jill and all

Once again it is a joy to see the evidence of God's working in our lives this past year. We are blessed to have wonderful families whom we love, and we have been blessed richly with good friends in our lives. We pray that God will be foremost in our hearts this Christmas season and that we will continue to grow in him on a daily basis in 2011.

Girls--3, Boys--3

Maddie and Mackenzie spent a weekend with us while Mark and Jill got a couple days away as our thanks for the great pix Mark took of the boys around their birthdays. (Thanks, Mark, for doing such a great job--I smile every time I pass their smiling mugs hanging on our wall.) It was chaotic at times, but it was so fun to have all of them under one roof and an even number of boys and girls as well!

If you look at the date on this, you will see that I did start writing this while they were still here, but I must have been needed since I never got back to this post until more than a week later.

A few things learned:
1. Four kids really are not that much louder than two. (Notice only two kids looking quite crazy in the picture below...this was the end of the week, and they were showing how much fun they had.)

2. I do a better job of making my boys' hair look nice than two little girls with fine longer hair!!! (As you can see from the pix, that last one deserved three exclamation points since the bow from my wrapping box improved the look of Mac's hair!)

3. I'm glad the boys are old enough to feed themselves and use the toilet. I had to remind myself to check the li'l one's diaper (no worries, Mark and Jill--I don't think she got a diaper rash on my watch).

4. Have all the food on plates and drinks in cups with plenty of napkins handy before even letting the kids know that food is coming.

5. Even boys like playing with a princess or Barbie-type doll--though she turned into quite the superhero in the boys' hands.

Like father, like son

When I picked up Isaac from preschool this past week, his teacher greeted me with, "So, the other teachers and I were talking about Isaac today."

As a former teacher and now parent, that is not usually music to one's ears so I asked, "Is that good or bad?" And this is how our conversation continued from there:

Mrs. Michelle: "Oh, no, it's good. We were just saying that Isaac is quite the ladies' man." (Again not necessarily something a mother wants to hear though a dad might be proud of that one. ;-)

Me: "Oh?!?"

Mrs. Michelle: "Yeah, at recess all the girls yell for him to come and play with them. He just kinda looks at them with that 'silly girls' look on his face, ignores them and goes back to playing with the other boys."

We continued chatting for a bit, and I was reasurred that he is playing okay with others and is being nice. (I was concerned when she mentioned that he is pretty "popular" since that word conjures up images of kids with power who don't necessarily treat others very well.) Paul and I had a good laugh over this teacher chat and were thankful it was nothing too serious.

Isaac with Mrs. Michelle

We also got his first "report card" which gives a summary of Pre-K things that he can or cannot do. He was able to complete all types of things (i.e. recognizing letters, shapes, colors, etc.) except for one--he has not mastered clapping and marching in rhythm. We really laughed when we saw that since he is so surrounded by music and should have no issues with that. Oh, the things that will keep us on our toes.

Oh, the title to this post refers to Mrs. Michelle's description of Isaac at the beginning...not the marching and clapping in rhythm. (Paul has mastered that!)