Kelsey 8 years

Cassie 12 years

Merry Christmas to family and friends.  This post is for everyone who's Christmas card and photos from us got lost in the mail.   What was that?  Did you just mumble under your breath, "smells like procrastination " ?  Well....you would be right.  You see, our lives are way more swamped than everyone else, right?   Seriously though, we do enjoy all the cards, e-cards, web posts and phone calls.  Really loved seeing the photos of all the kids.  They are amazing and shocking. Do they really need to grow up?   Yes, they all look better than ever, but it seems like a conspiracy to make me feel old   I want you all to slow them down a bit.   Your beautiful families are a testament that we all have a lot to be thankful for in spite of the economy.

Just wanted to post a few pics.   I'll start off with a video of the insane ice storm we got just the other day. A picture's worth a thousand words, so here's the video link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPeZ6_ZZfsQ&feature=channel_page.  

The day after the ice hit and clung to all the trees, we had massive wind.  The wind blew pieces of ice up against the house and it sounded like someone was throwing rocks at us!  As far as things that happened this year.... it kind of went by in a whirlwind, which I know is the norm for many of you as everyone seems busier than ever.  I'll give a quick run down so we can all get back to our chaotic lives.

Cassie and Kelsey helped us head up VBS at our church.  Cassie reentered the school system here in Plymouth after being homeschooled since 3rd grade.  Cassie joined Cross Country and  Choir.  We all get to help out with the music at church.  The girls play piano and occasionally sing.  Nate plays a mean guitar (I know I'm going down when he sees that statement).   We tossed up a video of Cassie and one of her friends singing Noel at a church program where a few churches in the community get together.  It was a beautiful program.  One of the churches had the neatest children's choir complete with bells.  They were awesome!  Anyway, here's the link to Cassie and Shelby singing.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_CH88fb3EY 

Here's the link to the music we played for the Christmas program.  http://www.youtube.com/indiananate7

Kelsey continues homeschooling.  She's talked about going to regular school, but still asks to homeschool.  She still loves reading Garfield and American Girl stories.  She started guitar this year so she stays busy.  She and Cassie have friends from a couple of families that come for a few days to spend the night.  They all have a blast. 

Nate continues his position with Embarq and I work part time so I can homeschool and help Cassie with her activities.  Nathan is considering taking on Youth Leader at our church.  The children and youth attendance has really grown.  We also got to do World Pulse Festival this year.  http://www.igougo.com/attractions-reviews-b106548-South_Bend-World_Pulse_Festival.html.  If your ever here in August, this is the place to be. We got to see one of our favorite bands...Casting Crowns.  We also heard Skillet, Toby Mac, Mandisa and many others.  Okay, more than enough info to last the rest of the year.  You all take care and have a great New Year.  Congratulations to all of your kids for working hard at school and at their extracurricular activities.   Stay strong and hang in there.   I love seeing involved parents and I know that is how all of you are.  Strong families are a much needed commodity in our society.  I'll post more pics of friends and family. 

Pix swimming topside

Cassie and her Mimi

Our beautiful nieces Alaina and Abbey

My cuties Kelsey with cousin Alley

Cassie's cross country team

Blueberry festival fireworks show with friends and family

My dad still running strong at a race here in Plymouth.

 Alaina and Cassie

Halloween

Fall at our house

Della and Kelsey

Cassie and D.J.

Alley and Kelsey at our house

Getting ready for a Luau

Dan and Melinda and Andy our house for Cassie and Alaina's birthday

 Shelby and Bitsy in sunroom 

cousin Billy's visit

  Hey everybody,

Yes, I know it's been forever.  March was it???  Anyway, so much has happened since then.  A visit from our good friends Robin, Glen, Kolby, Madison, and Kennedy.  They are from Nebraska and the kids are really like cousins to our girls.  We all had the best time.  The girls were in tears when they left.  They are a really fun family and we love them to death.   

Cassie's slumber party (I think there were 12 or 13 girls).  Right after Robin and Glen's visit- Kelsey's birthday (we had a swim party).  

Then there was a trip to Tennessee (our transmission went out on a hill so our car was perpendicular to oncoming traffic on the underside of a slope).  Fortunately, some other wonderful friends of ours came to the rescue.  They had arranged a spectacular cabin for all of us to rent together.  Their children are also like cousins to our girls and we all had a great time with them.

Cousin Billy's visit just before our crazy trip (wow, he's grown up now with a real job and great talent). 

Then there was Blueberry Festival time (if you've never been you must try it at least once).  And now school has started up and I'm in the running for most insane homeschooling mom of the year (I am working really hard to win this award...kids think I'm a shoe in).  Anyway, mix all this in with working part-time and preparing for a jewelry show at a festival coming on Sept.29th-30th and that is what we've been up to.  So to sum up the missing months...there's been laughing, crying, singing, sighing, shouting,rushing (maybe a little pushing and shoving), learning (forced only upon the children of course), and incredible craziness. 

The pics I'm posting are from when Billy came from New Mexico to visit.  He wasn't able to be here long, but we enjoyed seeing him and the girls just adored him.  He played with them and showed them his wonderful ability in drawing.  He is really amazing.  We all even had a big pillow fight. 

These pics are for you mom.  Hope you and Daddy have a wonderful time in New Mexico.  A big shout out to Aunt Mary Lou, Uncle Andy, Billy and Lee (thank you for your service to our country).  Love all of you and hope everyone is well.  All of you gently pick mom up off the floor.  She will be shocked that I finally got these pics posted because she would have had it done the day after Billy's visit. 

Now this is just my beauty going to her first grade teacher's wedding.  I included this because I can't believe how grown up she looks.

Now just for fun, here are some photos of mimie and papa at our house.  Kelsey is papa's girl.  Can you tell?

I'm putting these pics in because we miss our good friends that deserted us to live in Wyoming.    I think I will blow up this picture of Judith and sit her next to me in church.   No one would think twice about it because they already think I'm crazy.   I miss you Judith!  Everyone misses hearing you sing and play the piano.  I wanted to post these because Cassie says almost daily, and certainly every time we go to church, that she misses Robin.  I'm also asked why, oh why did Robin have to move.  These are pics in our park in Plymouth just before they left for Wyoming.  Their family has built a beautiful house there in the mountains.  I liked the one they built here better because it is here in Indiana 

  Okay everybody, I know it's been a while since I have updated.  I've been waiting for Nathan to upload some pics from a Sunday dinner we had with my parents.  Well, yesterday he got sick and I don't have the heart to force him to do my bidding.  Yes, all you techno crazed people out there, I know I could figure it out for myself, but my husband is in computers after all.  I don't want to learn anything I don't have to because that would become my JOB too(my dad will relate to this immediately).  Anyway, I know before he got sick he loaded our Chicago trip pics so he could look at them right away, so I thought I would go ahead and start an update with this. 

This past Friday we left for Chicago.  The girls were beside themselves with excitement because one...we were staying in a hotel.  For some reason my girls think a hotel is THE GREATEST.  I have to admit this was a pretty nice hotel.  We stayed at the Marriot right downtown and had a room on the 39th floor with two windows.  We all enjoyed the view which was very exciting for us country folks. 

the view from our window

The second reason for excitement was our visit to the American Girl Doll place.  Cassie had saved her money to buy the American Girl Doll of Today for this year.  The place was really neat for those of you have daughters.  We really enjoyed looking at the historical scenes for each time period in our American history.  In  the evening Nathan had scheduled the live theater show for us.  The young girls were outstanding vocalists and actors.  It was a wonderful way to give the girls a greater appreciation for our American History.  No one enjoyed the show more than Nathan.  At the end of the performance they asked everyone to join in singing their theme song.  We were in the front row, so the stage was right there.  Here were all these talented singers almost face to face with us.  There was no way I was going to let them hear my off-key, sour notes.  Nathan wasn't even phased.  You should have seen him.  He stood proudly with his song sheet just bellowing out the song.  It was so heartfelt, I was more captivated by him than with the performers.  Sadly for Nathan, at the end of the show, he kept looking back to see if the actors had come out so he could get them to sign his program book.  His favorite scene was the one with Addy, the slave and her mother.  They both had amazing voices and really evoked a lot of empathy for how difficult it was to be a slave.  I love how American Girl portrays the different cultures so our girls can get a glimpse of other's experiences.

Kelsey with her Elsie doll

Cassie with Daddy in front of Kirsten's different cultural outfits.  Kirtsen is the Pioneer who immigrated to America from Switzerland. 

The girls and I in front of Felicity's time scene.

This one is for my niece Alaina.  She is Lindsey the doll of 2001.  We all decided she bears quite a resemblance.  Cassie wished she could buy this one for her.

The girls playing with their purchases.  Kelsey chose a baking set for her doll complete with an apron.  This kid loves kitchen sets and food related items.  It's not working out for me trying to live vicariously through her to become a neurosurgeon.  I can't seem to pinpoint where I went wrong.

Cassie with her Nicki Doll.  The book is great too because Nicki likes taking care of animals like Cassie does. 

This is for all those Star Wars Fans.  We visited the Lego store in a pretty mall downtown.

Everyone was wanting their picture taken with this handsome lego fella.  Unfortunately the picture doesn't do their creation justice.  We took these few photos with my phone camera because we didn't bring the camera along to the mall.

nathan relaxing at the pool.  Notice his hand is in the claw formation.  He was having laptop withdrawal.

the girls had a great time at the pool.

The girls wanted to eat at the Rainforest Cafe, but the lines were hideous.  We forgot about the big Saint Patrick's Day parade.  So where did we eat?  McDonalds!

Bye Chicago!

That big city definitely wore me out!

Okay, I'm sending this off then hiding before nathan sees the write-up about him.  He would never admit to anyone how touching the American Girl Theater show was. 

Christmas gathering

Okay, I just uploaded a bunch of pics from Christmas 2005.  I put them in an album under photos for anyone interested to peruse.  As I was looking at the pictures, I just couldn't resist entering a log on them.  Why did this period strike me as funny?  I remembered Cassie and Kelsey being excited about having the family gathering at our house.  Their shrieks of excitement and dancing around was cut short when I quickly informed them team work would be required.  All you families out there know exactly what I'm talking about.  The dreaded "this house will be turned inside-out and upside-down in an attempt to thoroughly clean".  When asked by my eldest, "why do our rooms have to be perfect when none of the adults care about seeing our rooms?"  My pat response was, "your room should always be immaculate anyway, you are told on a daily basis to clean."  My daughter is no dummy, she knows we don't do an under the bed and closet checks unless someone is coming.  Why would we bother?  Just in case that ultra clean relative or friend would happen to go into her room to say hello and one of the children is scurrying under the bed for a lost toy.  What if she would happen to bend down and horrors of horrors,  realize the floor under this bed hasn't seen the light of day, let alone a vacuum cleaner for eons.  NO, my daughter realizes we must not take that chance.  By Christmas Eve Day, the entire family has done their job.  The house is practically sparkling... even under the beds.  The only thing saved for the last minute is the vacuuming to ensure every last crumb and piece of lint is gone.  My husband truly is world class at doing a bang up job on this.  So he had already said he would do all of this while I finished  putting tablecloths and decorations on the tables.  Nathan gets out our carpet sweeper in hopes of working his magic.  A few swipes into it notices it isn't picking everything up.  Now Nathan can fix just about anything, but of course on this day, the vacuum was beyond repair.  I say in my controlled panic voice, "what are we going to do" for those of us from Indiana (what are we gonna do)?  "Not only will someone see a mound of dirt under every bed, but will see visible specs of carpet debris everywhere.  There was no need to worry for long.  My Knight in Shining Armor (or was that a pair of jeans with holes in the knees and a paint-stained t-shirt) came through for me.  He whipped out the shopvac faster than you can say-well shopvac.  And there he was with the little bitty floor attatchment and not-very-long hose scrubbing with all his might.  Unfortunately, I was the doubting Thomas wondering aloud how in the world he would be able to clean our entire two story house full of carpeting with an attatchment that couldn't be any wider than a foot.  Fortunately Nathan was a force to be reckoned with.  He was on a mission, I had never seen anyone handle a shopvac with such amazing expertise.  He could maneuver that hose and tiny attatchment in a way I had never imagined.  Indeed, after only two hours "no crumb was left behind".  I don't think I was ever more in love with him. 

By the time our guests of family and friends arrived, we were able to present a nice clean space thanks to everyone's team work plus Nate and one shopvac.  Did I mention I had dared to vary from a traditional holiday dinner to serve soups and breads.  Now in my defense for you traditionalists, the soups were very hardy and there was a choice of three.  If anyone was truly unhappy, they still had an out...we had a few choices of alcohol to put people out of their misery.  Of course the sight of the alcohol put my dad in more misery, the look on his face at seeing it being served....  He's great!   Although, I can't take credit for this, friends kindly donated the wine (they caught wind of the soup).  Somewhere during the meal we had a cracker quacker (inside joke for those of us at the gathering) because we had failed to put the proper foods together.  Then there was also a little frustration for some over the fact that we were waiting to serve coffee until after the gift opening so we could try to prevent spills and burns from all of the present opening.   The short of the story is, everyone did seem to get enough to eat and finally had their coffee and desert.  We all seemed to have a great time watching the kids unwrap their gifts up in the loft.  Yes, we squeezed everyone up in the loft area because we had used the main space downstairs for all the tables to serve dinner.  But once again, in our defense, we opened up the sun room for added space. 

I have to say, God bless my dad for his thoughts on the dinner.  Food is food and he liked it just fine.  I can always count on him for a great critique for our dinners.  Thanks daddy   Of course it probably helped that we served his favorite...chocolate chip cookies. 

I wouldn't have traded this day for anything.  It is a great memory...truly worthy of it's own album.  Take a look at the pics if you get a chance.  Looking forward to many more crazy christmas gatherings.