Happy Isaac?

This looks like Isaac and sounds kind of like Isaac, but this baby seems to be happy. Huh. Could it be? Could he really be happy? OK, OK I digress. We have more and more of these moments and he is getting to be a better baby. I could do without the 5am wake-up call, but otherwise most days aren't too bad.

Micah Day at MOA

AJ has a wonderful Grandma ("Gram") who enjoys spoiling others. Recently she decided that Micah should have a "Micah Day" at the Mall of America and he would get to do whatever he wanted to do. Of course, Micah thought that was a great idea. We all got to tag along and we all equally enjoyed his day. We started off at Underwater Adventures, which is a fun place to go. The kids loved the cool fish and all of the huge turtles. They each got to pick out something from the gift store. Micah chose a stuffed dolphin that he named "Swimmer" and Ellie chose a stuffed octopus that she named "Coco". Then we headed to Nickelodeon Universe to ride the rides. Our family has been there before, but just to look and not to actually go on the rides. It was a great treat to ride the rides and the kids had a great time. They stuck to the tame ones and AJ ended up riding most of them with the kids. The kids got face painting done except it was on their arms. We had lunch together in the food court where we could go wherever we wanted to get our food. The kids of course chose McDonalds with Gram, AJ had hot dogs, and I had chinese. After a short stop at LegoLand, it was back for a few more rides, some cotton candy, and then back AGAIN to Underwater Adventures. The passes were good for all day, so Micah thought we should go through it again. It was fun to see what different things the fish did in the afternoon (not much, they were pretty lazy compared to the morning activity!). We finally convinced Micah that we were worn out and it was time to go home. He had a great time and I'm sure it will be a memory he will talk about often. Thanks Gram!

Kid pics

Again, I have been an unfaithful blogger. How can it be a whole month since the last post? Anyway, I don't have much to say but I do have some pics of the kids to post. So here goes:


Mmmmmm....green beans

Micah with a mohawk and a mean face.
Ellie boycotted a nap in her bed, so later fell
asleep on the couch.

Yippee! We have finally found something that our littlest one seems to enjoy. He likes to bounce in the johnny jump-up! And I mean he REALLY likes it. And he doesn't REALLY like much of anything (unless, of course, you count crying).

A big shout-out to Mimi for taking him for the entire weekend. She offered to have our sweet (OK very crabby) little boy for the whole weekend to give us a break and enjoy some focused time with Micah and Ellie. It was much appreciated and very refreshing.

Baby giggles

This one is for grandma and grandpa who are missing out on all these giggles...

Micah's 5th birthday cake

Here are the pics of Micah's "Candyland" cake. AJ and my mom usually do the cake decorating, but since mom and dad weren't able to make it (and were greatly missed!) I helped out AJ. He's still the main man and did a great job. We tried not to overwhelm the cake with candy, but there was plenty of it and it was awfully sweet. Micah loved it!

Ring bearer

Micah was the ring bearer for AJ's cousin's wedding. He did so great and we were so proud of him!
He and Olivia, the flower girl, enjoyed some time on the dance floor:


This was their first dance...


Dance lessons from Olivia's dad...



How sweet is that? Then they went back to swinging around in circles!

Micah is 5!

Our firstborn is officially 5 years old! How did that happen so fast? He had a great birthday last week filled with many of his favorite things: preschool in the morning with donuts for snacktime, Caribou smoothie and a game of Go Fish with dad in the afternoon, and supper at Chuck-e-Cheese with Amara in the evening. It was a 5-year-old's dream day! He enjoyed every minute of it. We will be celebrating with extended family this weekend.
He had his 5-year doctor check-up this morning and was declared healthy and quite normal. He is 44 in tall and weighs in at 42lbs.
Here are a few pics of his day.

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!