Grant, With Our Boxes For Operation Christmas Child

My little guy with our boxes. I forgot to mention in the previous post that often when you write a letter and give a return address you hear from the family that got your box. It depends on where it ends up and if there is someone to translate the letter. We always send a letter telling them that we are praying for them and telling them how much Jesus loves them. I have heard of people getting letters from some of the most remote places in the world. It is awesome to have this opportunity to reach people for Christ who are so far away!

Operation Christmas Child

This afternoon Grant, Alex and I went shopping to fill our boxes for Operation Christmas Child. For those of you not familiar, this is a program through Samaritan's Purse which is an organization started by Franklin Graham. What you do is you get a shoe box and fill it with small gifts. Toys, toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap, candy whatever you like. They give you tags that specify (you pick) boy or girl and the age ranges. So you wrap your box (you don't have to wrap it but we like doing it), fill it up and if you want, you can write a letter and include a picture of your family in it. You then take the box to a specifc drop off location (many churches and Christian bookstores are drop off locations) and the boxes are collected from all over the United States and sent out to numerous impoverished countires throughout the world. It is an awesome way to teach children about showing God's love and compassion to others. Grant loved doing it! And I am so proud of him, he did the sweetest thing! I was explaining where the boxes go and that in many places in the world there are children that don't have many of the things that we are fortunate to have. So after we got the box ready, we started filling it with all the goodies we had bought. He then went over to his toys and got some of his cars and motorcyles and put them in the box. I explained he wouldn't get them back and he said, "I want the boy to have it." My heart swelled! Then he proceeded to put more of his cars in the box. I am so proud of him! He is such a joy and brings so much laughter to our family!

Grandparents Day At Grant's School

Last Friday was Grandparent's Day at Grant's school. My mom and dad got up at 4:30 am to drive here and be with Grant. They all had a fun day and I am so thankful and appreciative for them coming. After school, Mark and my dad went fishing. My dad was lucky to catch a big one so I think he was very happy about that. My mom and I just hung out at home while the kids napped. And she did a bunch of ironing for me. I'm telling you, she insists on doing these things, I swear. I so appreciate it because ironing is something I am not good at and it takes me forever just to do one shirt! And on top of that she brought dinner! How blessed I am to have such great parents!!

Saturday night we went to visit our friends Steve and Jennell and their kiddos. We always have such a fun time and remark how we wish we lived closer. But we manage to get together about once a month. They are such dear friends! It is funny to look back and see how much we have changed. Jennell and I went to nursing school together and Steve was going to college in the same town (Peoria.) We use to have quite the time going out (although at one point my fake I.D. was taken away, I think about that now, how embarrassing!) and going to parties. And we went to Panama City Beach on spring break one year. What in the world were our parents thinking when they let us go?!! :) I guess they trusted us. No doubt God was watching over us and even despite ourselves He always protected us. And now when we get together at some point we end up talking about our faith. Scripture, how to witness and more. Don't get me wrong, we are no saints, but we have come a long way. Thank you Lord!

Pictures From Our Weekend

This is at the first place we visited. It is the Stone Hill Winery. It is the largest in the state of Missouri. We took a tour of the cellars and learned about how all of the wines and champaigns are made. It really is incredible! It gave me a deeper apprecitiation and understanding of the process. No wonder it is so expensive!! In this picture below you can see Mark turning the bottles. This is the 4th step in making champaign. It takes 5 years from start to finish!! In this step the bottles are turned a quarter of a turn each day for a year. That is crazy! Below is the restaurant at Stone Hill were we ate lunch. It used to be used as a horse barn during the time of the prohibition.

This is the only picture we have of us together. We set up the camera in our room. We stayed at the Hermonnhoff Bed and Breakfast. It was beautiful!! We had the fireplace in the main room and then one next to the whirlpool tub. Or should I say pool? It was huge!! And the shower?!!! Oh, my!! It was the biggest shower I have ever seen. And 7 shower heads! And to top it off the bathroom also had a steamer and in floor heating. I could get used to that!! The last ammenity we could have done without was the train. There are train tracks directly behind the building. About every 30 to 40 minutes the train would come through. Everything in the room would shake. It was really kind of funny. And we were perplexed as to the fact that we never saw the train move during the day. Just at night! Oh, well. Thanks to tylenol pm sleeping was fine. So we toured a few wineries, tasted many wines and relaxed. It was fun to get away and enjoy time just the two of us. And the boys did well at my sister's house. Hopefully she won't change her mind about keeping them when we go to Korea! That will be much longer!

These last two photos are of the Inn that we stayed at. Even though it was kind of dark and dreary we still had a great time!

Halloween Cuties

Halloween was alot of fun this year! Grant was Batman and Alex was a lion. I think Grant would have slept in his cape if we had let him. He loves any kind of a superhero. And the funny thing is, we have never let him watch any of those shows and yet he still seems to know who they are. Spiderman, Batman, you name it. He really wanted to be Buzz Lightyear but I couldn't find any good costume for it. Alex, at first was not happy about his costume. I think the lion head was a little scratchy but he got use to it and had fun wearing it. We went to a couple of our neighbor's homes and then drove to see some other friends. At one stop, we got out and walked to a few houses with our friends and Grant and Alex went right up to the doors! I guess candy is a good motivator! They probobly get that from me. So after loading up their buckets with candy we headed home. Alex went straight to bed but Grant was anxious to go through and check out his loot.

Five Years!

November 1st, 2003. Five years ago was our special day! We were fortunate to have a beautiful wedding with all of our friends and family. It is fun to think back to that time. It seems like so long ago!! Boy, have we come a long way! When we got married I was working full time as a pediatric nurse and Mark was busy building homes. We joke that that first year was "the bachelor year" for Mark. I worked from 2:30 pm to 11:30pm. And I usually ended up working later till sometimes 1 or 2 AM. We hardly ever saw each other! I would call him from work and he would tell me where he went to eat and with what friend. Then we had Grant. It was quite a change!! Now I was home almost every night. (I worked one night a week.) It took some adjustment! We were blessed after Grant was born to have meals brought to us for nearly 2 months off and on. And people brought GREAT food! Prime rib, lasagna, full meals! Including homemade pies, cakes and more! It was crazy the amount and how good all the food was. Now, at this point my menu that I "cooked" consisted of PB&J and cheese tortillas and tomatoe soup. When Mark would come to my house, that is what I would feed him! I remember being depressed when all the meals stopped coming. I had this realization that now it was up to me to provide dinner. Very slowly I have learned. Thanks only to my sister and mom. I can't tell you how many times I would call them during the making of each meal. My brother-in-law can attest to this. I would call several times in an hour and he would answer the phone saying "what now?!!!" I would also call from the store with questions about ingredients. I remember calling because I could only find dark brown sugar and the recipe called for light. I was very concerned. Thankfully I have a patient family! :)

So Grant came in 2005 and then Alex came along in 2007. They bring us so much joy every single day!! We have so much fun together as a family! And now to have our beautiful Nia! Our cups overfloweth!!! God has been very gracious! We are so thankful for all of our wonderful family and friends. We love all of you!

We went out Saturday night on a nice date and we are looking forward to a weekend in St. Louis and Herman (wine country, supposedly a nice place, let's hope.) I also got Mark's flowers that he sends to me each year. We went to Hawaii for our honeymoon and on Maui we went up the road to Hana. In Hana there was a small little flower shop. Mark sends me flowers from that shop each year. How awsesome is that?! I love my guy!! I'm a very lucky girl!