Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone! My plan is to "simplify" next year, which means I will have more time to post to this blog monthly (I hope). We are all doing well, crazy busy this time of year, but very thankful for ALL the blessings, family, & friends God has blessed us with! More to come soon! Enjoy the holidays and the celebration of our Savior's birth!!

Love, Kari

Noah Andrew

Our Noah you are 3.5 years old now, potty trained :), full of energy, and talking all the time! You love your snacks and the chance to watch movies. You aren't real fond of Benjamin wrecking your train set or every other toy you are trying to play with, but you are good and only knock him down every now and then. You love to wrestle with Dad and Benjamin, to try and ride your bike, to help me with laundry, cleaning, baking, to play outside and to ask "why". Yesterday you asked, "Does God go potty?" I responded "No". Then you went and asked Papa, "Is God a person?" Papa told you God is a Spirit and Jesus was a man when he lived on earth" and you responded with "OK", and off you went to play. I love seeing the world through your eyes! You still love to snuggle and I love that! You are growing up so fast our big boy! We love you Noah Andrew!

Benjamin Jae

You are climbing on everything, getting into everything and running everywhere! that is a crazy combination! We love your deep chuckle, when you say Mom and dadda! You want whatever your brother has and want to do whatever your brother is doing... which doesn't always make him happy. You have a very strong will and plan, but at the same time are also a sweet, snuggly baby boy! Not really a baby for much longer, but you are our baby and we love you so much Benjamin Jae!

Family Pictures

It has been a while... my excuse is busy boys, summer, and life! Here are some family pictures we had taken by a photog friend of mine from college. She does amazing work... it was fun to have something different... and the boys even had fun too! It is hard to get family pictures of 1 and 3 year old boys, but they did a great job.... even Andy was good :) More post to come shortly!

Happy Mother's Day!

I love my three boys (one is really a grown man...most of the time)... and our baby in heaven! Thank you God for blessing me this Mother's day with such precious gifts!! I am truly grateful for the blessings they bring to me daily! Happy Mother's day to all!

1 Year old (March 8th)

Our baby boy is ONE!! It is so hard to believe you are already one! The year has gone so fast...and you amaze us with something new every day... you like to say "momma, dada, and Uh-oh". You sign "all done" and "more"... usually for more food while eating-one of your most favorite activities! You just started feeding yourself with your spoon which stresses me out because you are not as neat as your brother, nor do you care!:) I love your giggle and your newly found deep throat laugh... you love to climb on, through, and over anything and everything, push buttons on the TV, computer, phone, remote, etc. and you love your Mom & Dad! You love to find us in a room and crawl straight toward us wanting to be held close. You love to chase your brother and Eddie. You are taking more steps everyday, about 8 right now, but prefer to crawl since it is much faster. You eat everthing except you don't care for canteloupe (at least this week) or Kix cereal. You have had less ear infections than your brother, but still had 2 double ear infections thus far... hopefully that is it! I love your sparkely blue eyes and your infectious giggle. You are a sweet boy and we are so blessed to have you in our lives! Love you Baby Boy!

(more pictures of the actual birthday to come)

We've got a climber

Benjamin climbs on everything!! His new fav is climbing on the train table to re-arrange his brothers hard work...naughty and loving it!

Busted!!

Benjamin loves to climb everything, but his favorite are the stairs... so we have a gate up to block him... well not anymore. He created a hole...and climbed through...He was almost free to the forbidden stairs, but he was BUSTED in the act!! Silly boy!

Keep bouncing more...

While I was vacuuming the upstairs, Benjamin was placed in the bouncer to keep him contained and also to stop any potential disasters... this is how it ended up... tired boy! He was so cute!!

Noah's 3rd Birthday (in Jan :)

Our baby boy turned 3 on January 10th. We had a party planned with family and well, being Michigan, we got large amount of snow which delayed the party. So he opened his big present, a tool bench with tools, played for hours, then we had a birthday picnic in the back of Awesome van, then played at the mall play area. Noah and Benjamin had lots of fun sliding down the slide and running around. Since we didn't do the big birthday cake for the party we got Noah his first doughnut with sprinkles on it... he still talks about it today... then more presents including Toy Story figurines and Buzz Lightyear. All in all it was a great 3rd birthday!

Some pictures from my Beautiful Sister's wedding!

My sister married Jeremy Foco on January 3rd and it was a beautiful wedding... unfortunately Noah didn't walk down the aisle or smile much, but it was perfect! It was freezing, but we all stomped through the snow in our beautiful gowns and snow boots :) here are just a few pictures with more to follow.

A balmy 53 degrees!

We came home after the holidays with my family in Lansing to find our power out from the large snow/wind storm... our house was a lovely 53 degrees. We called some friends, but they were still gone for the holidays and we figured our neighbors were having the same problem...the boys were ready to play with their Christmas toys and to get out of the car... so we decided to bundle up and head inside. The boys had fun playing and didn't mind the temp...and when it came to nap time we added several layers, including Noah's choice of Mommy's "Christmas fuzzy socks" to keep him warm. They both took over 3 hour naps... our conclusion... to sleep we should keep our home a balmy 53 degrees! (thankfully power came back on around 6pm)

Soccer Moms here I come :)

Merry Christmas to us...this is our Christmas present this year... a new AWESOME silver (looks gold in picture) Toyota Sienna Van. Andy was ecstatic through the whole thing... I however had a more difficult time saying goodbye to our Passat and the Alero... but it is a great present and we are so glad we got it before all of our holiday travels... it has AWESOME packing capabilities! And it came in handy carting people to many a holiday party! Bring on the Soccer Moms :)

Must keep bouncing!

Benjamin loves to bounce in his bouncer... one time he was so tired... but wanted to keep bouncing. He would wake up and bounce, then bounce himself to sleep, wake up and start again. It was so cute... he would wake up and smile... MUST KEEP BOUNCING!!