Verse of the day

I came across this verse this morning in my devotions:
John 16:33 "These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have trouble..."

So that's been the verse of the day, week, last four months or so, but there's more to that verse that I have neglected and am going to start repeating more often. Here it comes...

"...but take courage, I have overcome the world."

Cool. I need to stop focusing on the trouble and start focusing on the peace, courage, and overcoming parts.
I've been a bit grouchy lately and was encouraged by this today.

The best pick-up line by a 5-yr-old

Overheard on the way to preschool the other day:

Micah: Amara, what does your tongue taste like?
Amara: I don't know.
Micah: We should touch our tongues together and see what they taste like.
Elisabeth (Amara's mom, thinking quickly and with a straight face): There's lots of germs on our tongues that we don't want to share so let's not do that.

First kiss averted. Whew!

Happy kids

Kids

Micah and Ellie enjoy entertaining Isaac, and he seems to like it as well. Here they are reading to him!

The kids made marshmallow/apple igloos today. They had fun making them, but ate them as soon as they finished them. Colored marshmallows are just too irresistible, I guess.

Random things

It has been a very busy Christmas season and I have to admit that, while it was fun while it lasted, I'm kind of glad to see it go. We are very blessed to have wonderful extended families and we get to celebrate Christmas many times over at several different places. The kids love every minute of it and enjoy all the family gatherings. However, it gets a little hectic for mom and dad with three kids and mixed-up schedules and mealtimes and sweets and an abundance of gifts. I'm trying to figure out how to cut back on the chaos next year. I'm thinking it will get a bit easier as the kids get older.
We are excited to see 2009 come and to see what all it will bring. As we look back at 2008 we praise God for His many blessings: His protection, His provision, His grace, and His forgiveness, just to name a few. We are so grateful that when things around us are uncertain He alone remains steadfast, trustworthy, & sovereign.

One of our 2008 blessings is Isaac. He is officially 3 months old and we are enjoying him more and more every day. He has his ups & downs, and loves to coo and gurgle during the happy times. He is very ticklish and giggles and squirms and kicks a ton. He still isn't a great sleeper, so our nights are very unpredictable. We get some good ones and some not-so-good ones. Overall, we are all adjusting quite well and are starting to find somewhat of a groove. Now if we can just survive Jan and Feb, we'll be just fine!

Cookie time

Great-grandma Mugs brought over cookies and all the fixins to do some decorating. The kids had a blast and enjoyed the decorating and the eating!

Can you tell?

Here are the 3 kiddos at about the same age, I think. It's the same sleeper on each of them, so they all have to be in that 3 month and under range. The bottom two look pretty similar. They go in order of birth: top is Micah, middle is Ellie, and bottom is Isaac.

Can you believe it?

Can you believe that some company would pay me $200 to bake cookies? I can't, but it is true! AJ and I are signed up with many different agencies to do taste test and market research focus groups. We get calls every now and then and most studies pay somewhere between $20-$40. However, we recently have had several calls for studies paying over $100! It's a total God-thing as we have been feeling the pinch of the rough economy and Christmas is coming. We are pretty diligent at finding deals and doing great bargain shopping (lots of coupons, etc), but this extra cash has been an answer to prayer.
Anyway, back to the cookies. There have been 3 steps to this study and total compensation will be $200. I had to do a phone interview, a homework assignment of baking cookies at home and uploading photos of the process, and an in-home visit while they watch me bake cookies. Total time is about 3hrs and about $10 out-of-pocket. And I don't even have to make cookies from scratch...it's all about refrigerated cookies! It's a great way to make a little extra cash and eat some cookies!

Three Musketeers

Just a recent pic of the three kiddos. I can hardly get any pics of Isaac alone as the other two are always jumping in. Oh the woes of being a third child! Little Isaac is doing pretty well and it is so hard to believe that he has only been with us for 9 weeks. It seems hard to remember life without him. We have LOTS of ups and downs, good and bad days, but overall we are settling in pretty well. He is starting to smile much more and be a bit more content during the day. Our nights have actually gotten worse instead of better, so that has been challenging. I am a much happier person when I'm not up 4 times during the night! We are trying to enjoy this time of him being little, but I find myself often looking forward to a year from now (even 6 mths from now) when he is out of my not-so-favorite baby stage!

Micah & Ellie

Just a couple of new pics of the older two kids. They are typical siblings, playing together great a lot of the time, but also bugging each and fighting over toys. I can't wait until Isaac can get into the mix!




Cowboy Micah and Ellie in her "Minnie House" dress, as she calls it. These were their "costumes" for Halloween. We spent the evening at the Family Fiesta at church and had a great time.

One reason I hate kool-aid...

Miss Independent wanted blue kool-aid instead of water. It was everywhere! Good excuse to clean out the fridge, I guess.

Ellie turns 2!

Ellie is now 2 years old! And what a bundle of joy she is! She is generally a pretty happy little girl, although we have our moments. I found it funny that the morning of her birthday she was upset about something and rolled around on the living room floor throwing a little fit. I thought to myself, "Welcome terrible two's!" I'm hoping she won't do that too often! She is actually a very good little helper and loves to follow her big brother around and do whatever he is doing. For all you older siblings out there, you know how annoying that can be. But most times they get along pretty well.
We had a birthday celebration last weekend with our extended family. Ellie was the star of the party and had fun entertaining the crowd. There are a couple of pictures below of the birthday girl in her birthday shirt and with her cake. Two of Ellie's favorite foods are hot dogs and pizza. So we grilled hot dogs for lunch and ate a pizza cake for dessert. Thanks to dad for decorating the cake, with some help from grandma. It was a fun party and Ellie had a great time!

Bowels?

While riding in the van the other day AJ was talking with Micah about which letters were vowels. Micah came home to tell me that A, E, I, O, & U were "bowels". I don't think that's what AJ was teaching him, but sometimes things get lost in translation!

Lots of pics

Here is an overload of pics of our first two weeks. Isaac is a great baby and we have all settled in pretty well. This next week will be the real test as I (Amy) am on my own without AJ or grandma here all day. Pray for us!!
Isaac had his 2 week visit yesterday and his weight is at 8lbs 7.5oz! Yea! We are so excited that he is eating well and growing just as he is supposed to. Praise the Lord!

Isaac Jonathan has arrived!

Isaac Jonathan joined Team King on Friday, September 26th at 2:07pm. He was 7lbs 15oz and 20 inches long. That makes him our heaviest baby, and also our shortest! We brought him home on Sunday and everyone is settling in quite nicely. Micah and Ellie really are taken with him. This morning one of the first things that Micah did was go put Purell on his hands and sit next to me on the couch and ask to hold Isaac. Micah watched cartoons with Isaac in his lap. Occasionally we would catch him just watching Isaac. It's fun to see that he is such a proud big brother. Ellie doesn't pay too much attention to him unless he is crying. Then she gets a very concerned look on her face. She's pretty sympathetic and doesn't like to hear him cry. Also, if someone asks what the baby's name is, she answers "Baby Jesus". Pretty cute. All in all, we are doing well and have enjoyed our first 3 days as a family of five. It amazes us that no matter how much we love Micah and Ellie, we still have room to love little Isaac just as much. We feel so blessed to have him here!

Micah-ism

I could fill a page (or even a book) with funny things that the kids say, but here is one that Micah told Miss Elisabeth this morning on the way to preschool: "Did you know that all Targets have popcorn and that all churches have crosses on them?" The important things in life, I guess.

Micah's sleep-over

I forgot my camera! Arrgh! I realized this when I was in the car on the way to pick up Micah from a sleepover at his great-grandma's house. So I have no pictures to post, just stories to tell. Micah got to have a very special sleepover at great-grandma's (Mugs) house last night. Just for the fun of it! Mugs wanted to have him stay over and she had all sorts of fun activities for them to do. She bought Micah his very own tennis racket and new tennis balls and they got to play tennis last night and again this morning. Micah told me on the phone last night, "You know mom, I'm a pretty good tennis player." I watched him play this morning and he did a great job hitting the ball. And he had fun. They also watched a kids' football game last night and got to play at the park. As they were headed back inside they saw a snapping turtle, which Micah was very excited about. I was also told that "the water sparkled like jewels" referring to the creek that runs by the park at Mugs. This morning Micah got to have donuts, sausage, and a juice box for breakfast. They played hide-the-button (just what it sounds like, a game that AJ used to play with Mugs when he was a kid). They played tennis some more and when Ellie and I got there we played at the park for a while. Micah also got his choice of lunch and chose to pick up McDonald's and eat it back at Mugs' house. Then we headed home and he took a long nap! It was fun for AJ and I to see how much fun he had and to see that he was ready to go with no hesitation. Just a wave and a "see you later". He's growing up so fast!

Preschool

So we have done a few things since going to the state fair. Obviously I have not been very good at updating this blog. We are busy preparing for baby #3 scheduled to arrive two weeks from tomorrow. At times I am wondering about the wisdom of having 3 children, but as AJ reminds me, it's too late to turn back now. We are slowly getting things ready...it seems that with baby #1 everything is ready and waiting months in advance, and with #3 we aren't quite as worried about having things all set to go. I have washed baby clothes and bottles and have the car seat ready (not in the car yet!). Believe it or not, we are still trying to figure out a name for this baby. We have a short list for both boys and girls names, but have not settled on anything just yet. We really want to have our minds made up before the time comes, otherwise I'm the type to settle for something just to have it done with. We've got two weeks, right? We are not quite out of time, just down to the wire!
Anyway, as you can tell from the title of this post, this is supposed to be about Micah's first day of preschool. He started his second year at Crossroads Preschool today and was ready to go. He has a new teacher, Mrs. Suderman, and the same assistant teacher as last year, Miss Ortmann. One of his best friends, Amara, is in his class this year and he is VERY excited about that. Hopefully they will find a good mix of playing together and also making new friends. He has school Tues and Thurs mornings, which should work out well since I have MOPS on Thurs mornings 3 times each month. We are looking forward to the year ahead and all of the fun things he will learn! Here are some pics from the morning.

The MN State Fair

It's the end of summer and that means it is time for the State Fair. That is big news around our house and we really love heading out to the fair for a day and enjoying the sights, sounds, and mostly, the tastes! It worked out this year for us to go on opening day. The weather was great, although a little on the hot side, and the crowds weren't too bad. We were quite surprised to pull up to the park and ride at about 8:45am and see a very long line of people waiting for the free bus to the fair. We waited about 20 minutes until we were able to get on a bus (at least they had several running back and forth) and made it to the fairgrounds by about 9:30am. We started off at the Little Farm Hands exhibit where Micah was able to be a farmer for a short while. He milked the cows, fed the chickens, planted & harvested carrots, rode the tractor, and sold his goods at the market. With his proceeds he was able to buy a snack-size box of Golden Grahams. It is a fun exhibit to see the farming process from start to finish.
I can't tell you our exact route from there, but we explored several of the buildings and exhibits, saw a baby pig being born at the Miracle of Birth Center, rode the giant slide twice, found the bees, watched the end of the parade, saw fish, turtles, & snakes, watched robots, and ate several times. It was Thrifty Thursday so there were some deals going on and we had a state fair coupon book. Both helped us keep our costs down for the day. Plus Micah has been saving ALL YEAR for the state fair and he covered the costs for the giant slide rides. Seriously, every time he found a penny or was given any money, he would put it into his "state fair fund". It was a good lesson in saving and we hope to expand it to other areas.
All in all, it was a great day. We were at the fair for 5 1/2 hrs, which is longer than we thought any of us would last. But the kids were great and had lots of fun. It will have to last us until next year!

Swimming!

We have loved the last couple of weeks and the warm weather that we have had. The kids and I have spent lots and lots of time at the Crystal Pool and both the kids are getting to be quite the water lovers. Micah recently finished two weeks of swimming lessons. It was his first year and he was in Level 1. I was a little worried that 10 days of lessons would get to be too much for him and that he would get bored, but he LOVED every minute of it. His teacher was fabulous and she kept the kids having so much fun. They did have a lesson and a half of bad weather, so they learned about water safety in the locker rooms. Micah did pass to Level 2 and he is convinced that he can swim in the kiddie pool (for about 3 seconds). He has become much more brave in the water and spends a lot of time with his head underneath the water. Unfortunately, he has a brave little sister who likes to do everything big brother does. At the beginning of the summer she would sit contentedly next to me at the edge of the pool and play. Now she is off and running and will keep walking until water is coming in her mouth.
Here is a video clip of Micah going off the diving board.