New Year's Eve

Driving down to Lansing, IL to spend the evening with friends from college and playing with my new camera!

Emma was hanging out in the backseat with Lucas!

This is one of a few pictures that Lucas is actually smiling in!

At Portillo's waiting for all of our friends.

Yes, that's 6 kids in a booth together and yes food was actually eaten!




Two peas in a pod! After dinner we went to the Brookfield Zoo to see the lights!

Then we have the three musketeers!

There are 7 kids in this boat! Luckily we had 8 adults!

Thanks again Nick and Jackie for hosting this year! We had a great time with great friends!

Back to School Pics

Here they are on Emma's first day of kindergarten. Those large things Emma is carrying are the kids lunchboxes. I love filling these things with yummy goodness every night for the next day and they love eating it all up! They come home almost or completely empty every night!

Labor Day Weekend

We have survived the first few weeks of school. Everyone is back into the swing of things. This weekend we were blessed with cool fall-like weather. We really enjoyed our three day weekend and now are preparing for a short week. Lucas will return to school (he was at a parent from school's house this week), Emma has snack this week (and can't decide between grapes with dip or apples from the farmer's market), Tim has finished all of his graduate classes, and Sarah is heading up the church's financial peace university class starting on Wednesday. To say that life is slow here would not be the truth, but we are enjoying our lives and try to remember on a daily basis that God has blessed us with many things that other's only long and pray to have.

This weekend we spent time relaxing, sleeping late, eating well, cleaning hous, and much much more. Friday night we watched Lutheran play football for the first half then it was bedtime. Saturday we spent the day cleaning and grocery shopping. Sunday was another day spent relaxing since we went to church on Thursday night. Monday we were blessed to go to the Brewer's game with friends from work. Here are a few pics from the event.

Emma pushing up her shades to see the field better.

Lucas relaxing while tailgating before the game.

No, the game wasn't boring, Lucas was just that worn out that he fell asleep during the 8th inning! He slept through screaming, loud music, and even fireworks!!

A wonderful summer!

This summer has been filled with many joys and sorrows, but we have been blessed to see God's hand at work in everything! The summer started with the normal chaos of ending the school year. Right around this time, Sarah's folks accepted Calls to teach at Christ Lutheran in Little Rock, Arkansas! This was a huge leap of faith! The summer was then filled with many family parties, saying good-bye to friends, family, and then finally each other. We have discovered a few things about Little Rock: 1: It's really hot! 2: It's kinda far away from our house in Wisconsin. We went to Little Rock this summer to check it out with Mom and Dad. We had a great time, but hated saying good-bye in the parking lot of Mimi's! (Side note: don't ever go there for a quick lunch! It took us 2 hours, after being seated!) We then traveled on to see Peter and Emily in Kansas City. Once again, it's very warm there as well. Anyways, we had a great time exploring both places, seeing the zoo's, meeting new people, and having some great family time. As the trip ended we drove home. Once we were home, we realized that August had crept up upon us while we were gone. This meant the end of summer! We have crammed in a few more fun outings with the kids and will continue to squeeze these things in as time permits, but alas school is starting. Tim has just finished his first week of school and Lucas has finished his first week on daycare. Lucas did not do so well with the transition into leaving a couple of days this week, but will hopefully improve. He does love being there and we've seen him grow in his language development and social skills in a week's time! Emma and I will start come Monday morning! I will have my lovely 5th graders and science students. Emma on the other hand is embarking on the world on kindergarten! How did that happen? She used to be this little baby that I carried around, now she's preparing to read and write like the "Big kids!" All in all, God continues to bless us as we continue to serve Him as best as we can. Enjoy the pictures from our trips. I plan to do better about updating during the school year as well!

Summer is Here!

Emma woke up to this on her birthday! Our neighbors are wonderful.

Opening up her lemonade stand.

Yes, Lucas wanted to jump off the diving board.

If you click on the picture, you can actually see the joy in his face!