Walk'n in a Winterland...

For it being as close to Christmas as it was, the weather was exceptionally nice. We desired snow, but kept getting sunshine mixed with rain. We decided to decorate our house for the holidays, even though it seemed too soon.
Upon Josiah's request, we set out the deer that he had asked for on his 3rd birthday, yes the lawn ornaments that we affectionately know as "Teek" and "Tank". Michael had to develop a way to rig up the lights as we have no outdoor outlets, but he was up to the task.






Then, the snow came and so did the play outside. Papa helped build a home for Elise and a bomb shelter for Josiah.


Luckily for Josiah the walls were firm, because Papa didn't hold any of his throwing force back! The dugout wasn't fail proof though!



Josiah took a few in the noggin like this one! But he survived and was out for more.

This war ended peacefully.



Elise wanted to modify her 'home' and then invited Mimi in for a tea party! Girls are so different than boys!


Lastly, Michael and Biscuit share a good wrestle in the snow. This is truly Man's Best Friend. :)

Two days later is rained some more resulting in the over-use of rain boots this year, but we are thankful for the brief time in the snow. Hopefully we will have a little more snow in these next few months, we have to take out our Tube-boggin for its maiden run of the year! Love to you all.

Birthday Time!!

December is a great month to celebrate a birthday, and our family would surely know! We started off with Josiah's 5Th birthday! Phase 1 of the 2007 celebrations began with a visit from Grandma and Grandpa Zeigler. Ziah's special request was cheesecake and we went to an established bakery dedicated to cheesecakes to select choose his favorite. After much debate, and desire to try them all, we walked home with a White Chocolate Raspberry Cake baked on a Chocolate Cookie crust. Quite refined taste for someone so young, but I definitely enjoyed his selection. He also had an Indian themed birthday party, but those pictures will be presented another day, as I forgot my camera and relied on Mimi's photography.

Next in the line-up of births was Mimi's. She and Papa traveled over hill and over dale to get to us, but once they arrived we had a wonderful time together. We made her choice of Fried Catfish and coleslaw for dinner and finished the meal with a "Hazelnut Angel" cake topped with a raspberry glaze and torn mint leaves. It was magnificent. Elise was delighted with the whipping cream. To complete the night, Michael rented the first 4 Episodes of 24, the 6Th season...a show that all of us watched snuggled in together on our one basement couch!

I just thought I would add this picture in there to show where some of Josiah's 'personality' stems from...

Tim's birthday was on the 21st of December, and mine follows on the 22nd. Sorry, no pictures for this either as my day was recorded by Mimi and I forgot to steal the fotos before they traveled back. A memorable time was having Dad make my choice dessert: Homemade Doughnuts! He used to make them a lot when we were kids and he enlisted Elise to help make them for my birthday, mmmmm......

And on to the most well known birthday of the month, CHRISTMAS! We found ourselves in Springfield this year having a great time with the paternal side of the family this year. Michael preached at our home church, and then we came home as a family and opened gifts. Stockings were the first to be investigated.

If the stocking fits....

Michael taught Elise how to power the train that Grandpa had gotten Josiah for his first Christmas oh so long ago.

Uncle Matt deciphered who the gifts were for, Josiah and Elise passed them out.

There was even something special for Biscuit under the Christmas Tree...what a treat! I think this is why she always greets Grandma first!

Lastly, we have reading time...Elise's new favorite book: Pinkalicous! For girls who love everything pink! Even Josiah enjoyed this one.

Life with Little Ones...

Recently we have had the privileged to hang out with some of our favorite kiddos. It seems that when the nanny's are sick (or have children that are) we get the opportunity to enjoy some of the cutest kids at our home! Elise and Josiah are always more than willing to help our and look forward to the next visit from our guests.

Here, Elise and Olivia are being "Supergirls" helping out baby Anna with all of her reading needs.

The weather was ideal for some playtime outside, so the kids and I enjoyed the backyard...Grady was all smiles as usual. He and Elise would race the cars down the slide.

Some more reading time for Miss Anna, and just some good old fashioned cuddle time with Elise. How could we not have another baby? The kids are so thrilled to take part in the lives of little ones, but it may be different when they are around ours 24 hours a day!

And when our company left, we had a little fun on our own to finish the day.

Our Family of Elves

I couldn't help but do this, I think it is so funny! Put the url in the box to enjoy this one! Amy

www.elfyourself.com/?id=9605645739

Mission Completion....Fall Photos

My goal is to post the rest of the cute pictures taken in the last few months here, but it seems like an unending battle at times, the kids are just more precious every day and their habits endearing! Here we go for an assortment of pictures!

We went on a family boat ride in Forest Park for Elise's baptism birthday. This started out as a twilight outing and ended as a pitch black darkness adventure. I am so proud of my strong armed man! He rowed us back to the dock in safety, only a few ducks nesting were disturbed! With the home school group we took a trip to the pumpkin farm, this place was quite incredible! There were pumpkins, hay ride, mazes constructed out of hay bales that freaked me out as I crawled through to 'comfort' Elise (yet could not see her even though I was grasping her leg) and a host of animals all with names from Harry Potter. My favorite was the llama named Firenze.

Josiah's favorite part by far was the zip-line, where Elise preferred the tractor bikes. It was a good time enjoyed with friends. The best part was that we got to pick a pumpkin at the end which the kids painted enthusiastically.

There were a few opportunities for us to dress up this fall, of which I take full advantage! We had a trunk or treat at our church the Sunday before Halloween and our friends from the Seminary hosted a trunk with a super-hero theme. Josiah was Spiderman and Elise Super-girl. They are with friends Aiden as Superman and Brody as Dash.

The children also participated as peasants in the Sem Home school's production of Reformation Day. It was a very well done program which the kids performed in front of the chapel immediately after worship, they gathered quite the audience and were encouraged by the boo's and cheering of the crowd.

This collection of photos is not complete without the inclusion of Michael's favorite intramural sport, Ultimate Frisbee! This is the championship game of which he has had the honor of being champion two seasons in a row! (Just don't ask about football!) The guys really enjoy this time together, and it is fun to see the artistic game played. My favorite part is seeing Michael leap into the air above the other guys' heads and snag the Frisbee down....or maybe the best part is the bag of popcorn the kids and I share at each game!

Our family was blessed with the arrival of good friends Miriam and Alex, along with their two delightful twin girls Addison and Jasmine. Elise was enthralled with the thought of these babies to play with, and Josiah is a true baby holder. Between these girls and the Maddry twins, my children think that a double birth is common, and therefore have been praying for twins! I am not discouraging this talk as I have always prayed for that myself, I just hope they are not disappointed if God's answer is no!

After having visitors, we got to visit some friends and family up north before the cool weather hit. The kids and I drove up to Michigan to visit my Grandparents, cousins and Aunts. Michael was working out at the base and finishing up the dry wall in the basement. As we headed up to Michigan we stopped in IL near Chicago to visit some of our friends the Robarges who are out on their vicarage year of seminary. It was good to spend 4 hours together, roaming around a convenient meeting point ~ IKEA! We continued on further in to the windy city and stayed the evening with good friends the Shirley family. They are in a lovely home and sweet boy Kaleb is a lovable cuddle boy, and loved running into the guest bed set up in his playroom. Katrina is also pregnant, about 2 months ahead of me, and she reminded me that the tiredness will go away in a very short while!

At Grandma's, we had fun going on a bike ride, having a tea party, and the boys played a little basement golf. It was wonderful to enjoy the intimate time there, see my Aunts, go to the amazing market of Nino's and enjoy my Grandma's wonderful soups and Grandpa's wonderful stories.

Lastly, I have the photos that were just taken yesterday!!! Wow, I am impressed with myself right now! We have gymnastics every week for the kids. They are in the same class and love to do this together. Elise and Josiah have both learned an assortment of new things and love the running and jumping involved. Their teacher is very patient and enjoys having them in there.

And with this I will close tonight. Love to all, until next time.

Parties and Purchases...

I am thrilled to share that I just purchased flossine sugar on e-bay!! This is so exciting because I will now have the one item that all of my parties have lacked.....cotton candy! For only a few simple dollars we will have 9 flavors to choose from. I must say, I am disappointed that this didn't come to fruition before my daughter's "PINK" birthday party, but I will involve it someway, somehow for my son's "Indian" birthday.

Well, enough about my future tooth decay, what I really wanted to share are the photos from the before mentioned pink birthday party. Elise was so excited that her turn for a party had finally arrived. She loved making the invites and thinking of all the people she wanted to invite. We had the party at a park so that friends could run around or play the variety of 'pink' themed games we had. Michael did a good job of hiding random pink items for the 'I spy something pink' game we played, and as always the pinata was truly a 'hit'. This year the pinata was filled with candy from Guatemala. I wouldn't recommend the mango flavored gum, not quite for my palette anyways!

Elise was elated to see her favorite teacher Miss Lisa!

Let the games begin! Grandma helps them list pink things that could be found in a store. Elise strikes a pose by her ice cream cone pinata. She was both the first and last batter up. Josiah ran for the candy, but after his descent on the sugar strewn area, he realized he would prefer the cone for hat, as noted in the second picture with Elise eating a most tasty piece of cake, goes down smoothly as it was covered by pink frosting! Is there any other way to enjoy cake? The group sings as Elise attempts to distinguish her candles.

It's About Time!!

Ok, so it has been a while....a long while since I have blogged at all. Sorry fan club (or SabMad) for this lack in time and fulfillment of expectations, but we are ready to go, at least today! I have 26 minutes and counting before the children are allowed out of their playroom/bedroom for the day! I am going to post our favorite pics from the last 2 or so months of absence. Love to all, Amy

In the last few days of being in Colorado, we spent time with the Brossetts. We had a blast with the kids, ate a huge Fondue House style dinner, and Elise especially enjoyed dessert.

We also made sure to take the children to the Air Force Academy and saw the monumental chapel where Michael and I shared our first kiss as man and wife!

On our way home we visited the Strahm Family, Micheal's cousins whom own a dairy farm! We actually saw one calf moments after it was born, and the following morning we got to help feed some that were just days old! Josiah loved it, Elise didn't like the mud, and Micheal as always was the clean-up guy for another one of my proposed "experiences." Josiah also named 3 of the boy calves. His choices were Josiah, Joseph, and Joe.

On coming back to the sem, we encountered the Family Park day. This has to be one of my favorite events of the year as the children have a blast. It was really well done this year. Elise liked the small pool and played in the water the whole time, Josiah preferred the fire engine's spray of water! A good day to be a PK in training.

Another exciting event in our lives was going to the Cardinals Baseball game. Granted they did not have the season that they had last year, but we had a blast and stayed to see the last pitch! The kids had both won 2 tickets to the game through a summer reading program, they were both so proud to "take us out to the ballgame." It was an evening game, which is just magical under those lights. While the kids and Michael were searching for the mascot, I got to see a home run to which they set of a series of fireworks! It was a fantastic night.

Lastly, though out of order, I will include our Halloween picture. We went as the characters from Shrek. Josiah was the knight, Elise a Pink Dragon, I was Fiona, Biscuit was Donkey and I hope that you can tell who Michael is! He modernized the character by adding the blackberry to the waistline!