Daycare Center, PA

Just a few months ago, Travis and his good buddy, Dan, decided to head to a pastors' conference for a time of refreshement and encouragment. Dan's wife, Karis, and I figured that the week would be a lot more fun away from our husbands if we got together here at our house, so our kids could play. Just before the conference, however, I learned that my sweet friend, Carissa, would also be alone for the week since her husband was heading to the same conference. That is when the mayhem began! I decided to invite BOTH friends to my house along with EVERYONE'S kids. Carissa's blog gives the greatest description of last week. 7 kids ages 3 and under together for 3 days! Please check it out here. Here's some extra pictures from the week. It was absolutely crazy, and I think I am just now recovering, but I would definitely do it all over again for the wonderful privilege of spending time with my awesome friends and getting to know their beautiful children. Because of our plans to serve the Lord in 3 different parts of the world someday (us in Romania, Karis and Dan in Cameroon, and Carissa and Ben here for now), this was a very important time for me. Thank you so much for coming all this way just to be with us. I LOVE YOU, CARISSA and KARIS!

Luke

Kate

Ethan

Kayla



Krista

Kara



Sam

Belly Blowing and Tickle Tickle

Sam has really been enjoying Kara lately and has been blowing on her belly at diaper changing time. She totally LOVES it! It's so fun to watch them play together. Kara has really started babbling. She loves to make her tongue go in and out. It sounds like, "Tickle, tickle, tickle!" So cute! I'm glad I got some video of it, so I would never forget what it sounds like.

Toothy Grin

Need Some Extra Sugar??

Here's a recipe I found just the other day on the side of a cereal box. It so totally grossed me out that I thought I'd share it with some of you other moms whose kids need some more sugar!!

4 cups Lucky Charms cereal
2 cups gumdrops
1/3 cup butter or margarine
6 cups mini marshmallows
colored sprinkles (optional)

Can you imagine??? Yucka! I definitely LOVE candy, but I'm not so sure this would be too yummy....

Family Travels and Fun Times

I've been forgetting to journal our deputation travels. We wanted to show some pictures of what we've been up to for the last several months. We've met some really great people and had some fun places to stay too! Here's a few pictures of Sam and Kara playing while we've been away on our trips.

We even got to visit the zoo in Delaware. Wasn't a whole lot to see, but there WAS a tiger (the most important to a 3-year-old boy).

We've also been having some fun family nights too! I got Family Fun magazine for Christmas from my sweet mother-in-law (thanks, Ninny!). We found a great craft - Grass Heads!



At first I thought they would never grow, but then after a weekend away, we came home to find them GROWING!!! YAY! Sam was soooo excited.



Last week we colored Easter eggs too. We started out with 12 in the pot to boil. Two of them cracked while boiling, another 4 or so cracked while we were coloring them and a few more while we were decorating them with stickers, so we were left with about 3 pretty eggs...oh well!!



I guess you can't expect much when you're letting your kids help! =) I remember painstakingly decorating eggs when I was a kid, so I was kind of expecting more interest from Samuel. I keep forgetting he's only three. On one egg he took the little white crayon and scribbled about three lines and then plopped it in the color! It came out looking quite plain with a little tiny scribble on it...so beautiful!!

Brother and Sister??

We're just driving along on our way to a deputation meeting. We’ve been talking about our kids and how similar they look. Kara seems to look so much like Samuel did when he was her age, so I began looking back at some old pictures. When Kara started finding her feet a couple months ago, I remembered the picture of Sam doing the same thing, so I snapped a few pictures of her to compare with his. What do you think??

A sleeping shot . . .

The Wide-Eyed Look . . .

Snuggling Up . . .

Kara and her cousin

Travis' sister, Tammy, gave birth to a handsome baby boy (Stephen) about 3 weeks after Kara was born. These two had a great time playing at Christmastime. Just wanted to share some pictures! Super cute!

Here's my new favorite picture of Kara. I'm so thankful to the Lord for my beautiful baby girl. What a joy she is to me!