A new year...another attempt

So somewhere in the spring of last year I got busy with life and stopped blogging. After realizing how long it had been since I had last updated, sometime in the fall I added a picture update to try and catch up. Sadly, I again got caught up with life (and reading everyone else's wonderful blogs!!!) and never got back into the swing of things. However, I hope to make another attempt at keeping up with this blog and since I'm telling you all (whoever it might be that still reads this!) about it at least now I have some accountability, right? :) Until next time!

Summer Fun

Just to give you all a taste of what we've been up to!

Meet Fresco

For a while now Kaleia has been asking us for a pet. At first she asked for a puppy, but considering the fact that we live in a small place with no yard, that was out of the question. She thought about things for a while (after repeated "no's" on getting a dog) and took into account that her little brother is still terrified of dogs. By her reasoning "a fish would be a good pet because Brodie is afraid of dogs." We figured this would be a rather easy pet to have as it requires very little care and if it died, we could replace it quickly and inexpensively (perhaps even without the kids noticing...is that bad?). Anyway, we talked it over and decided that we would get one after the Shepherd's Conference. Young took a day off to recover and we headed over to the pet store after lunch. The look on Kaleia's face was great when we asked her if she knew where we were and what we were going to do. Here's her reaction:

Me: "Kaleia, do you know where we are?"
K: "Umm, the pet store?"
Me: "Do you know why we are here?"
K: "No."
Me: "To get a fish."

K: "YAY!!!" (and much applause!)

So into the store we went with two VERY excited kiddo's! Once inside we found the beta fish and began to choose which one would be our new pet. (I think we looked at every male beta fish they had before deciding which one would come home with us.) After we'd picked him out I asked Kaleia what a good name for our fish would be and she said, "I want to name him Fresco." (Go figure she'd pick a name that means "cool" or "fresh"!) And here he is!

Meet Fresco the fish:




He's a feisty little guy and seems to be happy in our home. The kids enjoy having him here and frequently stop at the counter throughout the day to say "hi" and watch him swim around. Kaleia makes a point of introducing him to everyone that comes to our house as well. (It's been really cute to watch.) Hopefully the next time you come by for a visit she'll introduce you to Fresco!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Hope you all have a wonderful time keeping all those holiday traditions today! Here's a picture of Kaleia with her leprechaun trap that she made for her homework last week. She had lots of fun designing it and was really excited to share it with her class. Unfortunately, she didn't catch any leprechaun's in it. She said "they are way too sneaky", but the leprechaun's did leave lots of green glitter behind.

We are watching our friends girls tonight, so Kaleia and I planned a green dinner to help celebrate the holiday. She planned green mac and cheese, green grapes, peas, and green apple juice. When I was confirming the menu with her after I picked her up from school today she axed the green apple juice. I thought maybe it was because she had thought of something better, so I suggested green milk. She again gave that a "no", so I asked her what she wanted to drink and she said, "just regular milk". Upon further conversation I figured out that the leprechaun who visited school last night left a green drink for her teacher which evidently turned her teacher's feet green. Kaleia was afraid that if we had a green drink tonight it would turn her feet green and she didn't want that to happen! Gotta love kids logic!

Portraits For Missions

We have a friend who is a photographer. His name is Lukas VanDyke. When he started taking pictures about a decade ago it was for simple church events and such. As of late he is a highly sought after photographer for weddings, engagements, portraits, conferences and the like. I have always admired his work, so when he announced that he was doing "Portraits for Missions" this year I jumped to get signed up! For the last couple of years he has chosen a few days to schedule 15 minute mini-sessions with as many people as he can in order to raise money for missions trip(s) that he plans to take during the summer. He doesn't set a price for these sessions, but rather does them for a suggested donation amount. Needless to say, his prices are higher than we could normally afford, but with the money going to missions and the ability to pay what we could afford we were so pleased to be able to take part in the event. While we are thrilled with the images that he was able to capture, it was even more thrilling to hear that he was able to raise almost all the money he needed for his trip to Malawi!!! God is so good!

Rainy Day Fun Comments

(Couldn't get this to post with my slideshow for some reason that I do not understand, so here it is.)

When Kaleia was about this age I took pictures of her having fun out in the rain. They are some of our favorite pictures of her and I wanted to capture some of Brodie at this age as well. Knowing how few and far between our rainy days can be I thought I'd better get them while I could! The slideshow is a little long, but I couldn't narrow it down any more than I did. Needless to say, Brodie had a blast and a few days later when it was raining again (quite hard at the moment that my conversation with him took place) he looked at me with a glimmer in his eye and said, "SPLASH!" :)

Rainy Day Fun