Delicious light!

I was drinking my coffee (yes, unfortunately since you have left, I have taken to the habit again), and noticing the light on the kitchen table and I just couldn't resist!! It won't be much longer and that bright clean white light that reflects off of the snow will be gone! And so I captured a few of P for you, she is starting to take some steps and so I tried to capture a few of those for you too! I love it when little ones start walking, they are so cute and proud of themselves!!

Initially she was not so sure about this lamb because it made it's own sounds :)



Love this one, I just wish I had more room in the kitchen so it did not cut off the top of her head! Also for some reason they look very grainy on here!

All alone with the crows...

I titled this about crows because this is the title J made up for the poem she wrote. I love it when our children are creative and deep! J has always been known for that and this poem shows it real well. We went out in the yard and took a picture of what she saw when she wrote the poem, the only thing missing is the crows, she definitely wants the crows in the picture.

Before I get to the poem though, I would like to tell you who has been helping us out this week! We had a real treat with homemade pizza, a delicious salad and garlic bread on Sunday from Jim and Deb Bowers. It was so yummy! Thank you too Deb for the weekly call, it means so much! On Monday Becky Bierce brought over a yummy taco bake, my absolute favorite type of food is Mexican, soo good! Thank you for coming all the way out here and bringing the meal, again I wish I had not missed you!! We also had received a meal from J Elfelt called Polka Dot pie, a clever name for a very healthy meal! Of course it was delicious, you know J Elfelt, she is the queen of homemaking with style! Thank you Julie!

Now on to J's poem..


All Alone With the Crows

All alone in the blank white,
what a personal sight,
feeling deep thought,
cannot be bought.

Alone with black birds,
alone with white snow,
My thoughts, who heard?
My thoughts, who knows?

No one knows, no one knows but God and the crows.

Embarrassing...

O.k., it is getting to the point that I am embarrassed to let people know there has been more sickness in the house. Honestly, people must wonder if my house is that dirty or something. For the last two weeks my youngest two have been dealing with Roto virus. I wasn't sure what it was until my youngest got it, it is sooooo nasty!!! Needless to say it has been a good week of staying put at home and doing a lot of holding P. I have however made a huge dent on spring cleaning since being home so much and that feels great!

During this sickness the meals and help has been very much appreciated!! I truly needed the help with not being able to get out much!

First of all a big thank you to our neighbor Didier for keeping an eye out on the ice situation and plowing us out. I love the days when I can get the children in the van at the top of the driveway!

O.K. doing it once was understandable, but twice? I was so embarrassed to say that I got the van stuck again on the driveway again. This time I was going to pick up the children from school and proceeded to back out of my ice skating rink driveway, when I literally slid backwards three- quarters of the way down the driveway until I was sideways and very stuck in a snowbank! I had tried to turn around at the top, but with the ice it was impossible to do and then I could not get straightened out again. Oh well, thank goodness for our good neighbor Al again! He came and pulled me out no problem, thank goodness for that! He and his son also surprised us with a wonderful meal! They came over with it steaming hot, how comfy!!

I was not able to get out to get groceries and so my neighbors, the Schoepke's, went out and did the shopping for me! I am so grateful to them for what they did for our family, it was such a huge help!

We had a wonderful meal of Sloppy Joes from Barb Burton. The children had just been asking when we could have sloppy joes and so it worked out perfectly! We loved it Barb, thank you!

Our good friend Jennifer Collins made her way out here during the sickness to visit and drop off a meal. What a good time I had, even though it was short! She has been offering to do so much for our family and I appreciate it so much! She brought our goddaughter with her and the only thing I wish I had done was take some pictures, she is so adorable!! Maybe this summer I will get one to show you!

I truly appreciated the meal Pat McQuade brought over and the only sadness I had was not being there to meet her!! Because of the driveway I had to put the cooler at the bottom of the driveway and when I came home it was filled! Thank you so much Pat, we loved every bit especially the yummy chocolate muffins!

We also were blessed by Michelle Croegert bringing us a meal of KFC (we love that stuff!). She has been the one who drops off Joe Henne's meal on Thursdays, but Joe was out of town. Thank you so much Michelle!

Our good friend Carrie Jensen brought us a yummy meal and again it was so appreciated!! Thank you so much Carrie, I know that is a far drive. When are we going to do another coffee night?


A big thank you goes out to Jim Bowers for running out and bringing me salt! It is hard to find in the stores right now!

And last but not least, a neighbor Ron Schmidt, saw us walking down the icy driveway the other day. He turned around and asked if he could put some salt at the bottom of the driveway. When I came home I found he had completely shoveled the driveway and put down salt. Such a huge, huge help, THANK YOU!!

I truly am being spoiled and I never could have imagined such an outpouring of love and care. I am not sure that I will even know what to do with food when you come home, do you realize I have hardly had to cook since you have left? This is so helpful! It not only allows more time for me with the children, but it also has decreased my time at the grocery store, this is a very big help! Thank you, thank you, thank you everyone!!!

Your new nephew!

He is so adorable and I was so excited to get some pictures of him!! Isn't he scrumptious? I made an announcement for him and have included some parts of it below. He is a strong little boy! Click on photos to see larger.

Remember this?

I absolutely love this, it says what you are all about as a father! That skirt is so silly looking! Click on it to see larger.

P's 10 month portrait

Again you can click on the picture to see our baby bigger!





Shh! Don't tell her the bear is upside down, she's loving it just the same!

M

M has been having a difficult time with you being gone, it is really starting to hit him hard. I would say I did not notice any problems until this week, so he definitely could use some prayers. I had asked for some for J and really it was like a miracle how she changed! I am so grateful for all of the prayers, I know that is what is holding me up! So at this point M is the one who could use a boost. Here is a picture he drew today. He came home and started working on it right away, it says so much! It is a picture of you leaving on a plane and down in the right hand corner is our family. I am holding P on the far left and we are all crying with tears on our face. I really think it is interesting how large he made the heart balloon, I'm no psychologist or anything, but could that symbolize his love for you? Click on it to see it larger.

Our Valentine's Day

We had a wonderful Valentine's Day, although we definitely felt your absence. My day started out real well because our neighbor Didie came and scraped off the ice on the driveway. He then drove the van up the driveway for us, what a relief!! We had a red dinner complete with Joe's Spaghetti dinner, kid wine (sparkling grape juice)salad, chocolate covered strawberries and some cookies that Mary Forecki brought us. This woman is a wonder when it comes to baking!! She has come over with wonderful pies, cakes and meals since you left, all of it being very delicious! She has been such a wonderful help to us on our busy night. The younger ones look forward to her coming to read stories and the older ones enjoy the help with studying their homework. It allows me to get the kitchen somewhat in order before it gets so late. I really appreciate her help, and the children and I have grown very fond of her! Thank you so much Mary for giving of your time and opening your heart to our family!

Mary Forecki made these wonderful Valentine cookies for us (below) with the children's names on them. YOu and I had one with both of our names on it together :) Want to hear something so sweet? B decided that she wanted to mail her cookie to you so you could have it, then M thought that would be a good idea too.
All of a sudden A had this look of horror and he ran up to me and hugged me while crying. He was so upset that he had eaten his cookie and now it was too late to give it to you. Yes, my heart melted... We decided we could give you one of the other cookies with the heart on it, since he is so good at coloring hearts. He was so relieved when I told him that!



our yummy strawberries

I promised I would get some up of B and I had to dig up some from last fall. I don't believe you saw these. You can click on the picture to see it larger.



For some reason this one catches my eye, I love how mysterious and unposed it is. I was having fun with the processing of this one.



Added texture to this one, it was taken in late fall when the sun was so golden! M is missing you very, very much.



What a hair doo! Taken at the cabin, added some texture and bordering, again just practicing.

Happy Valentine's Day!!!!!!!!

The children did this for you, G wanted you to know that he colored the heart all by himself! Taken in the kitchen at night, we love you!

Aren't you jealous?

I have had so many people say they feel bad for me about not being able to get up my extremely long, steep driveway because of the snow and ice. Lately I pretty much have had to park at the bottom and walk up everyday. It is very kind of them, but what they are missing is what a benefit it really is! I mean who else has a Bally's right out their front door? All I need to stay fit and trim is right out my front door. Let's think about that, with the groceries I carry up, that must take care of at least one package of Oreos I have in one of those bags. Hmmm.. yes, lugging P up and down at least six or seven times a day has got to amount to a half an hour of weight lifting. Oh yes, and running the incredible amount of garbage our family produces down the driveway once a week before the garbage men come has got to amount to an early morning run. There you see, I am lucky! Who knows maybe I should try and capitalize on it and start charging a fee for anyone who wishes to utilize my wonderful driveway, it could be the next new thing, everyone would begin to envy my long steep driveway...yeah, right, I sure hope spring comes soon!

Yum, Yum!

We had some generous souls brave the cold and snow to bring us meals in the last week and I am so grateful!!

Lori Harrell brought an amazing meal of pot roast and all of the fixings! I have to figure out what she did to it, because it was soooo goood! (Are you willing to share?) She also came out in subzero temperatures, thank you so much Lori!

Christy Cool, (isn't that the coolest name ever?, yeah, I am sure you hear that all of the time :)) brought a wonderful meal with very yummy chocolate chip cookies. She also was kind enough to check up on me later after seeing I had succeeded in getting my van stuck in a snowbank at the end of the driveway. Thank you Christy!

On to getting my van stuck in a snowbank, I am embarrassed to say that I did. In 6 years I don't think I have ever done that, but of course when I was supposed to be somewhere on Mon night I got the van stuck instead. It's just that with groceries in the car, I REALLY wanted to make it to the top for the unloading factor, let's just say I have learned my lesson.

Our neighbor Al had just offered the day before to help us out in any way that we needed, how timely :)! I am so glad he did because it took nothing for him to pull me out with his cable hooked up to his four wheeler. I am so grateful for his help and support of us!

We had some other helpful neighbors this week that came to try and chip the ice off of the driveway on Sun. Tom and Beth worked hard and long, but in the end I believe it will have to be a warm day that helps us out!

A big thank you to Julia Westphal for having our crew over and making me laugh harder than I have since Mark left! She and her family welcomed us in and made us feel right at home! We had pizza, made cupcakes and made some very "special" cookies that even the dogs would not eat after having a taste! We had used some "wrong" ingredients and well let's just say that I laughed so hard I was crying watching people (and the dogs) eat them! Thank you Julia for not only organizing such an incredible group of help for us, but opening your heart to us. I am so inspired by your kindness and gratful to God for our friendship! You keep me going with a positive attitude girl!

Remembering...

As I promised, here are a couple of scenes from our relaxing times this summer..
Again can be clicked on to see larger.

Can you say "BLIZZARD!"

Well, we got socked!! It was nice having the children home for a snow day and as I woke up on Wed. I was excited thinking about how much I was NOT going to do that day. Then the opportunity to take J in to the doctor's presented itself and I figured I should take advantage of it while I could. So with J and the younger two (I left the middle three with Rita) I proceeded to go out in the storm. It was no problem until my battery light flashed on, then very quickly I could not steer. NOT GOOD! I was lucky enough to make it into the parking lot. I guess I just said lucky, but I really believe it has nothing to do with luck. I was not able to get towed due to the storm and so our pediatrician Dr. Andrew Swietlik ended up lending us his Suburban (with four wheel drive) for as long as we will need it. He actually had called a couple of times this past weekend offering us the vehicle after he heard we cannot get up our driveway many days. The driveway just gets so slick and even a little bit of snow is too much for our van to handle. Can you believe it!!! What an incredible friend he is! I keep on thinking about what would have happened if that belt (that is what it ended up being) fell off anywhere else on the road. It would have been really difficult.And so our friend Dave came and fixed it on the spot in the parking lot for us, we are so blessed by generous friends!

The next morning I wanted to get out to be at school for J's presentation of her report. Needless to say, there was so much snow I wasn't sure how I was going to get out of the driveway, much less get out the front door with the snow drift in front of it. I was upstairs thinking to myself that I would call one of the Wichgers to help me out and no more than five minutes later the children yelled out that someone was shoveling us out! It was good ol' Chuckie Wichgers!! He was such a godsend! By the time I got back from school, he had shoveled the whole top of the driveway and walkway and cleaned up some garbage that some animals had gotten into!! Now that is a true friend! When I came home and saw it all cleared up it brought me to tears! Thank you so much Chuck!

Well, as you can imagine I felt a little fried today. I was looking at my long list of things to do and then I looked at G and C and wondered to myself "what is a mother to do?" Well, build a snow fort of course!!! I really had NO time for this, but I had to have the time for this. It meant the world to G and C and it ended up being a great stress reliever for me. We had fun and the children wanted to show you in a picture. I really did not get the fort because I was enjoying G's happy look on his face too much that I focused on that!

So on to a couple of pictures, all of these can be clicked on to view them larger:

Jacinta giving her report, she made some really neat Indian figuirines out of clay that I should post up here, they were really well done.



and a couple of them outside







and one of P watching the children outside (later in the day)



Sometime I have to get B in front of the camera, that is a challenge, she has become 'camera shy' since the start of the blog! I will get her yet!

Some thank yous!

The meals keep coming!!! Thank goodness, it truly is a great help, however I do believe I am getting very spoiled!!

Jill Lukic, brought over a wonderful Italian meal that we all enjoyed very much! Her husband was kind enough to go all the way to the back of the house and put it in the cooler because I forgot to set it out! Thank you so much for all of the great effort and please know that not one bit went to waste! :)

Carrie Kohloff came over looking cute as can be pregnant and all! She made a wonderful meal for us (including cupcakes!) and was very kind about checking up on us later to make sure we were o.k. with our driveway and all. I appreciate what she did for us, I know how tiring it can be to be pregnant.:)

That wonderful Karen Albers came over with a meal again!! This time around it was homeade fruit salad and cookies with Kentucky Fried Chicken and all of the fixings. Definitely one of the children's favorites so far! Thank you Karen!

A big thank you goes out to Michelle Croegert who has offered to bring Joe Hennes restaurant meal home to us once a week! This a great help as that is our very busy day!

The Daddy Doll

Shelly Matthison was kind enough to get us this Daddy Doll. On the tag it says, "Hug a Hero". It basically is Mark shrunk down to 18 1/2 inches, ha!

M has really taken to it and loves to hug it/you and just to prove it here is a picture of how he sleeps now. He sleeps on his Dad. Underneath his head is the Daddy doll and he sleeps this way every night. I don't use flash so he did not wake up while I took this, we love you hon!!

Remember this?

Each time I blog I have decided I would post a "remember this" picture. It will be a picture most likely of one of our great cabin vacations from last summer. I love our simple vacations that consist of nothing more than our family, simple traditions,no outside noise and the great outdoors..

Remember this beautiful hike we took?

enlarge to see bigger

My photography

I am spending a lot of time studying my technique with photography while you are gone. I always feel like there is so much more to learn. My goals this year are to get some technical issues down, work on my composition and using the rule of thirds, but most of all I want to work on capturing pictures that tell a story and capture emotion. I love this picture of a friend of mine and her baby below, I need to train myself to sit back and wait for the moment, not try and make it happen. It is a different approach. So no more telling the children to sit down and pose, I want to capture them for who they are and what they are doing this year. I want you to feel as if you have shared in the moment...

The WGA meet

M did awesome at his last meet!! He came away with six medals and an all around medal! I was so proud of him, he was so focused and worked hard. He can't wait for you to come home and see his medals! There are no pictures because I took the youngest two with me and there was no way I was going to try and handle a camera and them at the same time. We had a great time watching him!

A whole week!!

I can't believe it has been a whole week since I wrote my last post, shame on me... My plan with this blog is to eventually have it printed up as a blog book. I just found out about a company (will have to get the name later) that prints up your blog posts into a book! What a great idea! With that in mind I had better do a better job of keeping track of the events that happen here. As you can imagine things have been busy and we are still adjusting to your absence. I sometimes wonder if we will ever really settle into a routine completely. Over all I would say everyone is doing well with the exception of the oldest. She could use some prayers. I think it is difficult on the older children because they understand completely and yet they do not have the tools to deal with it properly yet. I took this picture this past Fall, love this one because of her natural smile!