Snow, Snow and More Snow

Well, we had a few days with no snow, but it's back again. The news was forecasting a lot of snow for today, so we had the children at school take all of their books home just in case the weather was too bad to have school. This morning when we got up, the weather wasn't too bad, but when Jeff looked at Intellicast, he could see the major snow was on its way. He decided to cancel school for the day. So we are all sitting here at our dining room table looking out at the huge amount of snow falling down and the children are hard at work on their Math work.

The boys are very excited because Jeff got tickets (at an amazing price) to go to a monster truck show in Buffalo on Saturday night. They all love monster trucks and were so surprised when Jeff told them that he'd gotten tickets for them.

Looking out our window right now, I am so thankful for a nice warm house to keep me out of all that cold. The only bad thing about being in the house all day is that I am more tempted by all the yummy food in the house. At Temple Keepers last night, I was less than half a pound (.4) away from my goal!!! It is SO close. Hopefully a whole day at home won't mess me up! :-)

Baby Lily

Lily is adjusting well and we're getting on a schedule, so that's good. We've had fun taking lots of pictures of little cutie pie!

We're back on schedule at school, too, and the children are doing well back in the swing of things. We just finished our second week back from Christmas vacation.

The weather has been very snowy this winter. A lady in our church said that she heard on the news that we have only had 5 days since the middle of November that it hasn't snowed. Today it is a little warm outside, but it's supposed to be really cold again this weekend. Jeff is outside right now knocking all the ice out of the eavestroughs while it's a bit mild out.

We still haven't been able to do our school Christmas play, but we're still planning on it. Maybe if we can't get our schedules together, we might have "Christmas in July"! :-)

A quick update

With Jeff pastoring full-time and me teaching full-time at our Christian school, needless to say, we're pretty busy. After three days with Mason in our home, we realized that we simply did not have the time that this precious little guy needed. We were working on arranging day care, but we really didn't feel that would be the best for him. He would thrive much better in a home where he would be cared for by the same person for the most part. Though only 2 years old, Mason has really been through a lot in his life and just needed a little more T.L.C. than some kids.

Though Jeff and I both felt like we had failed and let folks down, with tears streaming down our face, we made the very difficult decision to request that Mason be placed somewhere else. There was a family member that was willing to take him and we thought that might work out, but that ended up not being possible. Mason was placed in a foster home on Wednesday. I don't know how parents handle having their children taken from them. As Mason took his afternoon nap, Jeff and I just held each other and wept and wept knowing that he would soon be leaving our home.

An excellent Christian foster home was found for Mason. What a huge answer to prayer! This is a family who has experience and is well-equipped to care for a little boy with the needs that Mason has. They go to church every Sunday and are very involved.

Lily-Bug is still with us and we are all adapting well and getting on a schedule. She has slept through the night for the past two nights and we're all catching up on some sleep. Please continue to pray for our family as well as the family of Mason & Lily!

Luke, AJ & Victoria are all doing well with the many changes that have happened this week. They are happy kids who seem to be pretty flexible. It has been a very emotional week for all of us. I mentioned to Jeff that sometimes God just squeezes our hearts a little. It's not always fun or comfortable, but the end result is a softer heart. God has been so good to our family and we are very grateful for the happy home we have because of Him!

Have a great day!

Excitement!

On Monday, we had two children placed temporarily in our home. They are the children of one of our church couples. Mason is 2 years old and Lily is 5 months old. They are cute little munchkins. We're not sure how long we'll have them. Here's Mason with his duckey and Luke and even a bit of Buckeye in the first picture. And then, of course, sweet baby Lily sleeping away!

This was not a planned thing, so we had made no preparations of any kind for them coming to our home. It has been a fine balance between pandamonium and insanity for the last couple of daysbin our home while we get everything necessary for these two precious children. Jeff and I both agree that we didn't realize how easy our kids, ages 6,7 and 9 really are! So we're back to bottles and diapers for the time being! Luke, AJ and Victoria are enjoying the sleepover so far. Victoria is being such a good little mommy to Lily. She's enjoying having a real live baby doll in the house.

If you'd pray about this situation, we'd all appreciate it. Like I said, we're not sure how long we'll have them, but the family involved as well as our family would greatly appreciate your prayers. Jeff and I are feeling a bit sleep deprived having a baby in the house again. I'm sure as Lily settles in and we get used to the new schedule, things will feel much more normal soon. With me teaching at our Christian school full-time and Jeff pastoring full-time, we're trying to jostle things around. Again, we do appreciate your prayers!

Skating Day that turned into Sledding Day!

My friend, Angela Wellard, and I had planned to spend the day together with our kids. We were going to go to the ice skating rink that is at our City Hall. It's a nice little rink (just right for our kiddos.) Well, we got there and just as Luke, AJ and Victoria were getting ready to take off their boots, a man came out and said that the rink was closed! The hours on the sign say 9am - 10pm. When I asked him why the rink was closed, he said that the outdoor city workers had gone on strike as of midnight. Therefore, the rink had to be closed to avoid any kind of liability!! Politics!!! Ugghhhh!

We decided to try another couple of park rinks that we knew of....both of them were too covered with snow to skate! :-( We have the BEST sledding hill in our neighbourhood. It's so close to our house that we can see from our diningroom window, so we all decided to go sledding instead. Luke, AJ and Victoria were very disappointed that they couldn't go skating, but were having fun sledding in no time!

After taking tons of picture (me) and having lots of fun sledding (everyone else), we were all cold and came home for hot chocolate and tea! A fun day of fresh air and exercise was had by all and the day was largely a success.

Angela had a great idea to get the children to all pile on top of each other and take their picture in a "pig pile". We tried to get a picture like that at the sledding hill, but it didn't turn out very good. We tried again as soon as we got home and it turned out GREAT!

AJ's blog about Christmas

I got some really nice presents for Christmas. One of them was a little tiny lunchbox and I am going to be using it for my Webkinz dog. Her name is Christmas Carol. I got her at my Oma and Opa's house and as well, I got a bookmark that it looks like it has Christmas Carol on it. At the adoption centre in Webkinz World Miss Birdy is the one who tells us if we have the right code. So Miss Birdy is reading to one of the Webkinz pets.
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I got a big remote control truck that I will be using a week from next Saturday down in the basement at Opa's house. The concrete floor will be poured by then. So Luke and I will be playing with our remote control trucks most of the day.
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Now that we know a little bit how to play chess, maybe we will play for an hour. Sometimes it takes an hour and a half to get the whole game down. We have already done two games and both of the time I lost! Right after the game of chess we will be playing with my remote control truck. (me and Luke).
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Well, that's all I can do for today.

At Oma & Opa's House for the Weekend!

Well, the kids just got home from a weekend at my parent's (Oma & Opa's) house. Every second weekend my parents pick up the kids some time on Friday and they get to spend the night. They come home at bedtime on Saturday having already had their baths, in their pj's and ready for bed. It is a wonderful time for all.....kids get time with Oma and Opa and have a great time out in the country doing exciting things, Jeff and I get usually 27-30 hours of time to spend together, just the two of us, and my parents get to spoil the kids without Mom and Dad around!!! It's great for everyone involved.

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Victoria is getting a bit sick, though. My mom said that she was up with her for a couple of hours in the early morning hours trying to get her fever down. She was successful, but Tori just wasn't feeling herself - kind of lethargic and not hungry. Anyone who knows Tor', knows that she MUST have been sick. She was doing some better this afternoon, but is starting to feel a bit peaked. Hopefully it's just a cold!

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I fell again yesterday. That was the third time since we started getting snow this fall/winter. The first time was in our driveway. I was wearing shoes with smooth soles and my good foot just slipped. I didn't really get hurt. My prosthetic knee took the brunt of the fall, though. It seems to be okay. Then I fell once a few weeks ago in the house -- tripped over a carpet that had been pushed up to a doorway! That time I got a HUGE bruise all over my knee. The good knee got the worst of that fall. Then yesterday (I was wearing those same shoes! Tsk. Tsk!) I slid on some snow on the sidewalk and went down hard on my prosthetic knee. I didn't think I was hurt. My tailbone was a bit sore from the socket of my prosthesis banging into hard, but it wasn't too bad. Well, all day it just seems to be getting worse. Hopefully it will start to feel better tomorrow! As soon as I told Jeff about it, he made me change my shoes right away. These ones aren't so pretty, but they have great soles on them. I shouldn't slip anymore. Anyway....enough about me!

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The kids are in bed and it's time for me to finish some laundry and head to bed myself. Looking forward to a wonderful Lord's Day tomorrow!

New Year's Day with the Feere's!

This is Tor-Tor with her "best friend, Bethany". When we first really got to know the Feere's (a couple of years ago), that's how Victoria and Bethany referred to each other. They wouldn't just say their name, but the whole "best friend Victoria/Bethany".

The kids were excited to make the 45 minute drive to Hamilton to visit their friends. Since school has started they haven't had much time together.

The roads were dry and it was a pretty nice trip. I had put pork tenderloin and saurkraut in the crock pot for supper, but it wasn't ready. Jeff said that his mom always made that on New Year's Day, so I thought I'd continue the tradition. Well, it wasn't ready, so the kids had macaroni and cheese and we all had meatballs in salsa and Jeff and I had sandwiches and salad. Oh, well. I did try.

We had a nice day for the first day of 2009! Hope you have a very happy, healthy and prosperous 2009!

New Year's Eve

Last night we started our New Year's Eve out by a really nice service at church. We sang a lot of favourite hymns and observed the Lord's Supper. It was great to spend some time with our church family.

This is a picture of AJ and me right before the service - Luke was making good use of his new camera. I'm getting lots of great pictures now that Luke has a camera.

After church, we came home and my parents came over for snacks and movies. We watched a couple of movies basically geared for the kids, but the adults enjoyed them, too. Our second movie ended 5 minutes before midnight and we switched to the tv and watched the ball drop in NYC -- a family tradition.

That reminds me of our first New Year's Eve after we got married. We were living in Indiana and so right before midnight I switched on the tv and looked and looked for Dick Clark ringing in the New Year, but, alas, I had forgotten about the time change and we were an hour behind NYC and I had missed it. I'm afraid my attitude ringing in 1999 wasn't the best!

After we all wished each other "Happy New Year", my parents left for home and we all went straight to bed. I think each one of us was asleep almost before our head hit the pillow! All in all (though we ate WAY too many calories) the evening was a lot of fun!