Better with than without

I am so thankful for the privilege of having a husband who is continuously seeking to be better at what he does--being a husband, dad, communicating God's love and leading those around him.  He is constantly coming home with new books--the latest being "The Truth About You" by Marcus Buckingham, a wonderful strengths based success book that you work through.  It's so exciting because when he is learning, it spurs me to learn, too (I don't want him to be that much smarter than me!!!).  Just kidding...I actually love learning.  There are things I watch or read that I never thought I would when I was a teenager.  There's a show on Discover or some channel like that called "How it's made"--horse saddles, car windshields, tons of stuff.  I've been learning tons about nutrition in the last few months, too.  Tosca Reno's clean eating cook book is one of my recent reads, along with a lot of other info to go along with it.  Our boys are definitely adapting to our more nutritious lifestyle (it wasn't horrible before, but we've definitely kicked it up a notch).  A few weeks ago, after checking out at Meijer, we (evidently) passed an older man scanning several 'un'healthy items.  And Ezekiel calls out, "What's that man thinking?!  Those aren't healthy!!"  We just continued walking away, hoping he wasn't offended, because we're pretty sure he heard.

Anyway, back to my fantastic husband's example, it was his idea for us to begin P90X and the whole nutrition makeover.  Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

He definitely makes me a better woman :)

Train Rides!

In September of 2007, Ezekiel and Isaiah went to Monticello to see and ride the trains at the Monticello Train Museum. They had so much fun!









The Museum had a cool playground for them to horse around on...












HUMONGOUS TRAINS!












The engineers station--careful, boys--don't push any buttons!!!













A fun ride on the track in an open train car. Thanks Nana & Papa!

Fall Soccer

I know these are from a while ago, but I thought I'd post on our soccer season!  Craig and I coached the boys team and had a blast--all the kids practiced and played so hard.  They worked together really well and had a good grasp on how to play the game by the time we were done with our season.  We are thinking about coaching them again this spring--the boys will still be on the same team, so it will be a little easier for now :)
Mary was our ref--we led the kids through stretches and then Mary had them hit their shinguards before each game.
Ezekiel loved being goalie and had goalie gloves he got (after this game :) for his birthday--he was so generous in sharing his new gloves with all the other goalies!  You can tell he needed a break from running in this pic!
What camaraderie!
GO TEAM!

Christmas Day

Christmas day was full!  We had a wonderful meal (which Craig and I did much better on than in years past with amount of food consumed!), then all the grandkids opened their gifts.  Ezekiel, Isaiah and Craig each got a pair of basketball shoes (Isaiah's were a tad small, so we exchanged them for the ones that are the same as Ezekiel's, so now all 3 of them have black basketball shoes!).  As you can see, Isaiah is thrilled with his football jersey--we root for the Bears, Illini and Cubs, however we do not discriminate when it comes to what teams jerseys our boys can wear--they have the Chargers, Bears, and now Isaiah has the Colts!  Ezekiel got the LeapFrog Tag reading system--so cool!  They love Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom!  Ezekiel writes notes and lists all the time--he really enjoys reading and writing!

Lydia needed a little attention amid the gift giving, too!

We were so blessed to celebrate with so many family members!  Please don't feel left out if you did not receive a Christmas card/pic/note (this year or last year)--no one did.  We really meant to, but ran out of time each year.  We are hoping to have a family shot taken soon (I want a 10x13 for a frame I have for the living room!) and we will try to send a note out with that when it happens--that might be after our 90 days with P90X, which is now 5 weeks down.

Sorry it's been so long, but I'll try to be more regular this year (hey, we've got diet and exercise to work on, so I might as well throw this in there, too!)

Enjoy your weekend!

On our way

to Grandma and Grandpa's we stopped at the Build-a-Bear workshop for the boys final gift from us--they each picked out a sweet puppy, helped make it, named them (Ezekiel's is Puppy, Isaiah's is Airbud) and they got to LOOK at the outfits.

This is where we got creative--everyone seems to "do Santa" a little differently, but we have been pretty upfront with them.  They'll talk about Santa and be excited and that's totally fine, but we'll inevitably get around to "Is that what the cartoon says happens?  That's really fun to talk about...Santa is really nice, and there really was someone who gave gifts, but this is just a fun thing to remember--a good story.  What about Jesus, is He just a story, or is He real?"  And 2 booming voices resound with, "He's REAL!"  So with that said, instead of us surprising the boys with a little gift "from Santa" this year, they got to be Santa.  They looked at all the outfits, decided which was their favorite, then I took Isaiah out while Ezekiel picked out a special outfit for Isaiah (keeping in mind what Isaiah was wanting) and when they were done, I took Isaiah in to pick out a special outfit for Ezekiel.  They were so excited and really get into keeping secrets, so they did a great job--and there was a little suspense, just in case brother didn't get just the right one.  They got to open these gifts from Santa Ezekiel and Santa Isaiah on Christmas morning.

When we were really close to Brownstown, we saw this stunning sunset--how beautiful!  The boys took the opportunity to take pics with their cameras (although this one is from my camera).

Craziness

Wow, the last 2 months have been such a whirlwind!  We celebrated Christmas with my family in Bloomington over Thanksgiving--we alternate whose in-laws we are at each year, so since we were all together at Thanksgiving, it made sense to give gifts in person.  We had a lot of fun, ate a lot of food and really enjoyed our gifts--Mom made us all huge picnic baskets and Mom and Dad loaded them with goodies, plus Mom and Dad made pajama pants for every daughter, son-in-law, grandson, and granddaughter (Even 5 month old Bella!)  What a wonderfully creative Christmas!

Craig surprised me with a new fitness program for us to do together--it arrived the beginning of December.  I was not offended--6 Christmases ago I asked for an exercise system, and I've used that (The Firm) plus a system I got about 2 years ago (Fluidity--I love this!), but we couldn't do either of these together, plus they were more feminine.  We are doing P90X (an extension of Beach Body, or something like that) and we are loving it!  It's been a lot of work to add 60-90 minutes of exercise 6 days a week (we were maybe doing 2-3 days before...maybe) and I feel like I've been enrolled in a nutrition class these past 5 weeks.  There is so much to learn and watch out for.  We were eating pretty healthy before, but this has definitely upped the anty.  We have so much energy and are beginning to see more muscle definition--there are 3 phases and phase 2 (which we are in right now) and phase 3  are when the results begin to really show.  Maybe I'll show a before and after pic after we're all done :)  we'll see...

We had a lot of fun with our Christmas with the boys this year!  They only got a few things--a book each, a coin popper (you know, those plastic things you put a finger on each end and have to squeeze the ends together to get your change out--that's the best I can describe it), Ezekiel got a sweater and Isaiah got a pink calculator (he had requested this for some time :).  We searched for a long time to find just the right ones, then returned and purchased different ones and finally found the perfect digital cameras for our little guys!  Ezekiel's is almost indestructible and can take pics in water--a little pricey, but it takes great pics!  Isaiah's is great for outdoor pics and is pretty durable, and the name was perfect--the Argus BEAN!! (That's his nickname--it was also mine when I was little, but we really had no intention of duplicating, it just happened).  So they opened their gifts from us on Christmas Eve morning, then we left for Grandma and Grandpa's house.

(my pics aren't appearing in the order I'd like for them to--kinda backwards)

8 years and going strong...

Today is our anniversary and I am so excited to be married to my best friend!  Even the boys are in on it today--Craig told them this was a day to celebrate, kind of like a birthday, and they were so excited!  He told them they needed to be extra nice to Mommy (me!) today, so they assumed anniversaries were like Mother's Day :)  Kinda.

I am so proud to be married to a man that goes out of his way to love me so well, is such a strong leader for our family, and whose desire to be like Jesus is unwavering.  We are nowhere close to perfect, but we have a great time living life together!  Here's to another 80 years together!