Southern California Part 2

Brooke and I enjoying the babies....right before a HUGE dog came over and knocked Kensie over causing mass chaos and my "mommy bear syndrome" to come out and go crazy all over that dog!
All those babies! I love watching my kids be friends with the kiddos of someone I've been friends with since I was a kid! :)
Brooke and I, friends for 27 years!
Does this picture need any explination!
Caleb's favorite part, chocolate ice cream with sprinkles!
Did we go to New York too? NO! It's an entire New York City made out of Lego!
Bob the Builder in Lego!
A Darth Vader made out of Lego!
And here's where the boys could've stayed all day a little Lego town! So Fun!

Here's the first installment of pictures from Southern California. It was a whirlwind week of family, friends and fun. We had a great time getting to see Brooke and Mark if only for a short time the day after Christmas.

On our last day in So. California we headed to Lego Land a great Christmas present from Oma! THANK YOU! The boys (all 3 of them) had a BLAST! Kensington and I just kind of hung back and took it all in. :) If you never been (or heard of Lego land) just imagine Lego everything...buildings, mini cities, cars, animals, rides...yep just about everything. Lots of fun memories.

We were so glad to get home yesterday and get the house set back in order so that we could do our family Christmas today! :) The fun never ends. :) We are so thankful to the Lord for all of His provision and for the gift of Jesus. Thank you Lord for all that you bless us with, may we live each day as a gift for You and for Your glory!

Headed down to Southern California for Christmas with the family so until the new year... Love to you all and MERRY CHRISTMAS! May you know that Love of God in your life and know His Son as your Savior. Jesus loves you!

8 Months

Family picture
Sibling Love
Kisses for the Princess
All those toes

Well, Kensington has turned 8 months old amongst all the craziness of this month so here is a quick update.

I Like:

Eating...especially food I can pick up by myself.

Eating/Playing with paper

Sucking my thumb

My brothers...I REALLY like them

Playing with my toys

Pulling things out of baskets or bags.

Still love bath time

Random strangers that stop to make friends with me in the store

I don't Like:

Having my nose sucked out

Driving around in the car while we run brothers around

Random:

Still no teeth

Very very smiley but not much of a laugher

Loves to touch and feel things.

Enjoys a good game of peek a boo

Can make her own "Indian" sound

Party Pictures!

I think Kensington is excited about the balloons. :)

Matt's birthday creation centerpiece. I'm pretty impressed he can make a 3-D Happy Birthday sign.
The Lego cake. It was supposed to be red...but I ran our of food coloring...so it just looked pink and we couldn't have a pink lego cake...so we added a WHOLE bottle of blue and this is the color we got...we're calling it grey. :) We just made a 9 x 13 and six little cupcakes. Matt provided all the lego toys. :)
Our 3 ft. Lego Pirate pre Pin the Sword on the Pirate game.
Pirate after having swords pinned on him. :)
Surprise guest appearance by Captain Jack Sparrow
Just love this happy little face
Lego and pirates what else could a little boy want!

Just wanted to post a few party pictures. We had a great day and were so blessed by everyone who came to help us celebrate Kaden. He is such a special boy. I am so excited to see what God is going to teach him in this next year.

And now...it's time for Mommy to focus on Christmas. :)

Kaden is 6!!!

Both of my precious boys. I can't get over how young Matt looks! :)
A brand new mommy
Content in his daddy's arms
How we used to bundle Kaden when we took him out...in North Dakota
One of my favorite Kaden baby pictures!
Happy in the bath
Loving the lake in Del Rio.
First time on the beach at the Hotel Del in California
He still makes this face!
I'm 1...and I love his hair!

So my intention was to get on here and put up one baby picture and say Happy Birthday to my Precious son...but I couldn't pick just one! :) So here's his first year in review. :) Brings so much warmth, love, and gratitude to my heart as I look back and remember that year full of joy and trials. Thank you Lord for the 6 most amazing years. Thank you for letting me be the Mommy of this amazing boy. I love him with all my heart and promise with your help to raise him up to love and honor you. Happy Birthday KADEN!

Before it begins...

Kaden as quite the cute pilgrim! He did great in his Thanksgiving program. Not that I'm biased at all. :)

Just thought I'd post one more Thanksgiving picture before we get to far into the Christmas season. Hope everyone had a blessed Thanksgiving. I'm continually overwhelmed by all that I have to be Thankful for, but especially today for God's grace and mercy. I am so unworthy and yet He continually gives me love undeserved and good gifts beyond measure. Lord, teach me to be thankful each and every day and especially as we celebrate the gift of our salvation through your Son.

Thanksgiving Turkey

Caleb in his Indian hat and holding his Turkey
Our Turkeys :)

Yes, these are the Turkeys that took me over an hour and a half to make! Yep....I'm just not that crafty, but I am pretty proud of how these two turned out, since I came up with the idea all by myself (Well, I'm sure somewhere in the world people have used paper plates and feathers to make turkeys, but I wasn't following a pattern or anything. :) Anyways, Happy Thanksgiving! May the Lord bless and keep you in His might and grace.

New Blogger

Wanted to let everyone know that my Father-in-law has started blogging. His address is

coachkvh.blogspot.com . It's called Coach's Corner. He's focusing on posting some really neat devotional blogs twice a week. They are really encouraging and challenging, as we all seek to walk this life in Honor of our Lord. Enjoy!

All Done

All done with the race

Look What God Did!

I am so thankful for God's blessing and help on the half-marathon today! I was blown away with a 1:58:08 finish time, which breaks down to a 9 min mile! I know that's not fast by most standards but I have NEVER run that fast for that long. I was number 1293...not bad out of 7000 runners! :)

It was a cold (in the low 40s) but gorgeous morning that warmed up very nicely. There was a brilliant cloudless blue sky and an even more gorgeous blue ocean. The sight of the swelling, breaking ocean was breathtaking. This run started runners in corrals based on your estimated finishing time. I had guessed that my finish time would be around 2 hours 30 min so I started WAY after the gun went off, but that turned out to be such a blessing as it was great motivation to run past people and feel like you were gaining ground. I was astounded by the sound of 7000 people running, the falling footsteps sounded like the constant pitter patter of rain. It was awesome. The course took us through an underground tunnel and what did this group of very serious adult runners start doing...honking like cars to hear the echo! :) I felt great until about mile 7 or 8 but then we hit the turn around and that was a huge boost. I felt strained again at about 10 but from there on out your just pushing to be done. It's so cool to have your name printed on your bib and random people calling out encouragement. So thankful for random people. The last .5 miles I tried to just push it out...maybe to well as I ran past Matt and the kiddos and never saw them and they didn't see me :( That was the only downer of the morning. I was ecstatic and shaky after the finish, and so grateful to see Matt and my babies, and my sweet friend Melissa and her kiddos who came out to show support. We hung out for a while and heard the winning time of 1:03!!! Unbelievable. It was amazing to watch that guy fly past us heading back to the finish while we were still headed out to the turn around! He was amazing. What I love about runners is the support they show each other. All the runners still running were screaming for the elites running past us. So fun. It was a GREAT run and such a blessing to my heart...what's next....hopefully another half soon...and a marathon, maybe once Kensington is weened. We'll see, but for today I'm so grateful for God's grace and provision in this gift that He has given me. Not a gift that makes me first so that the world will notice, but just a gift for me that blesses my heart. And also SO thankful for a husband who lets me run and train in the wee hours of the morning, who brings 3 children out to support me, and who loves me unconditionally, and who right now is out building a boat with Kaden for AWANA. So thankful for him. :) Thanks for all the prayers, may God be praised.

PS. We didn't have time to come home and shower before church so I just went stinky! So glad God cares about what's on the inside! :)

3K

Getting excited and pumped for the start of the race
Posing with the strawberries...we were a little leery of posing with the other fruits and veggies...celery was a little scary!
Almost time to run! So proud of my boy!

Kaden and I completed our first race today with a 38. 31 time! It was so much fun! Well...I had a blast. Kaden swore off of ever racing again. :) It was a long way for a first go, but he did great and really pushed it to the end. I love what cheering fans do to your ego! Monterey did a great job making it fun. There was a live band, Bubba Gumps sponsored the race so of course Forest was there and lots of food for after the race (but really who wants macaroni and cheese and hot dogs at 9 a.m.! Gross!), and the local children's museum had play stations set up, oh and lots of people dressed up like veggies and fruit. :) Such a fun way to start off race weekend. Pray for me tomorrow! Thank you Lord for the gift of running.

7 Months Old

We are happy when we eat!
Sweet messy baby face!
If I grab a fist full I might get one in my mouth!
Nope, I'll just suck my thumb :)
Kensington turned 7 months old yesterday! At the risk of sounding redundent, I can't believe how fast it's gone! She is a beauty and we fall more in love with her and her warm personality every day. Nothing brightens up the room like a Kensie smile. She is weighing in at 15 lbs and .o5 oz. she's our smallest baby but she's still got the Van Hook rolls. :)

I Like:

To Eat!

I LOVE cheerios!

I love all my veggies but green beans

I LOVE to suck my thumb

To touch hair...I think this may be an issue as we grow older since she likes to reach out and touch anyones hair...not a real respecter of personal space!

To feel things (she's very tactile)

Bath time with Daddy

To sit by myself and pull all my toys out of my basket

To help mommy do the laundry by pulling all the clothes out of the basket...and sucking on them.

Swing at the park

Talk with mommy

I love Kaden and Caleb (Caleb gets her to laugh just by making silly faces)

I Don't Like:

Being tired

Being Hungry

Being ignored

Being without Mommy

Bananas (who doesn't like bananas!)

Falling over

Being on my tummy to long

Firsts:

Sitting all by myself

Saying "da da da da"

Staring in my first pirate movie

Has this every happened to you...

So here's an odd story for you....today at school I had to stop by the office to turn something in. While there, a mom that I've met but don't know well (don't even know her name) was there as well. She is...well we'll call her "organic" :) not really a hippie but very natural. Anyways, she's talking to Kensington and Kensie grabs her finger and pulls it to her mouth. Now most people say, 'no, no baby ' and pull it away. Not today. So Kensie's chewing not only on her finger but her glove...which is dirty...She starts talking about how she hasn't had a baby chew on her finger in 7 years etc. then starts saying, "oh, it's so dirty but I guess she's just building up her immunity one bite at a time!" WHAT! Then she starts letting her chew on the other hand. At this point I don't know what to say so I babble something about she's very tactile she must like the feel of the fabric (I'm in shock a bit at this point) THEN she pulls off her gloves and says here she can have them to play with! WHAT! I don't want your gloves!!! So I try to give them back, but she's like, "no, no I'll just see you later and get them!" WHAT! So now I'm left standing in the office with a pair of dirty gloves that don't belong to me and a baby that wants to chew on them! :) Weird. So not knowing what to do I ask the secretary if I could just leave them there so they could be picked back up. I don't know if that was the best thing to do. I don't want her to think that I was rude...but I don't want them in my car for the next 3 weeks driving me crazy until I see her! So I guess the next time I see her I'll just check to see if she got them back and tell her Thank you? I guess that's what you say in this situation!

That was just a really weird way to start off Monday!

What you do...

Making the fishies "swim"

ummmm....

So this is what Caleb does when it's warm outside and doesn't have a pool...you just pretend you do! :)

Dress Up

I think he looks like Fivel the little mouse from American Tail :)
Our Israeli and Russian!

Sweet Face
A Teen, A Cowgirl, A Knight, A Superhero, and A Butterfly :)

We had a great fun filled weekend with lots of dress up opportunities. Wednesday was International night at AWANA so the boys went as an Israeli and a Russian. I just loved that they got so into it. Kaden was so proud to be where Jesus was from and Caleb was so adorable in his hat. When we got home after club, he burst through the door, stripped off his costume and said, "Look I'm still Caleb!" :)

Saturday was Kaden's last Soccer game! WooHoo! :) He did great but I think we're all looking forward to the break in our schedule. Kensie got to model her pink fuzzy hat at the game to ward of the morning fog. And the hat doubled as part of her butterfly outfit at the Harvest Festival. Kaden's school put on a Harvest Festival Saturday night. I was in charge of the K/1st grade booth. We called it the Pumpkin Toss which was just a fancy name for Bozo Buckets...which no one knew who Bozo was...they all just looked at me with very strange expressions. They OBVIOUSLY didn't grow up near Chicago! Anyways, it was a fun chaotic 3 hours but still a good way to spend the evening. This was the best family picture we got. I wish we'd gotten a better one of Kensington all dressed up...but not getting one will just give me an excuse to dress her up in her wings and tutu again! :)

So glad it's November and starting to look forward to the Holidays. Thank you Lord for your blessings each day.

A few more pictures...

Mighty Knights...very creative Knights
I just love how Kensie is gazing at Thad...hmmmm...maybe there's a future there. :)
A car full of silly kids....but where is Caleb?

He's getting the donuts with Aunt Anna! :)

Here's a few pictures of the kids in New Jersey. Each of the kids took turn being sick so we didn't really take them out a whole lot. However, we did manage to get donuts just about every day thanks to Aunt Anna's desire to spoil Caleb completely! :) Despite being sick the kids LOVED being together. It was like the never ending playdate!