angelo family blog

DANDELIONS

2011-04-22T17:21:00.000-07:00

SPRING!

2011-04-22T17:00:00.000-07:00

FOUND A FROG IN A HOLE IN THE TREE

WOOHOO! FOR SUNSHINE!
CODY HELPING "SHOVEL ROCKS" INSTEAD OF PICKING WEEDS IN MISSOURI, YOU PICK UP ROCKS

Gimpy

2011-01-20T09:44:00.000-08:00

The cast isn't slowing him down

this is the night it happened after we got back from the ER

the Kids lately

2011-01-20T09:36:00.000-08:00

the yard

2011-01-20T09:28:00.001-08:00

Here are some random back yard shots
Looking out our bedroom window
building a fire pit in the back right end of the yard

our living room with windows into the back yard

The House

2011-01-20T09:15:00.000-08:00

the kitchen
A view from the kitchen into the living room

On a walk...house is in the background

Chase is in the laundry room window looking out

this is before the grass made it up...now we have a little grass

swimming yesterday evening

2010-06-16T13:03:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures for you mom and dad!

Cody's new Do

2009-06-17T19:40:00.000-07:00

Cody has a new do. i woke up this afternoon (after a night of working) to the sight of a freshly shaven head bobbing beside my bed. looks like daddy gave cody a haircut. i guess it was needed. i'd had several occasions of well-meaning women telling me how "cute she is". he definitely looks more manly, no?

2009-06-11T09:20:00.000-07:00

Two rather important facts I have somehow forgotten to mention:

we have moved into a new home we absolutely love. a duplex with 3 bedrooms (whoo-hoo for another bedroom)
baby #3 is due somewhere around December 4th. =)

we love the neighborhood area we have to go on walks in.

Grass will be here soon. we hope.

To Ellen's delight, we recently had some new neighbors move in. They just happen to be the new worship leader at our church and his family. And they have a daughter Ellen's age. It's a toss up who is more excited about a play-mate, Ellen or her parents. We can't wait to get to know them better.

2009-06-11T09:10:00.000-07:00

My parents are officially gone from the area now as they prepare to head back to Brazil. We are going to miss them SO much. We've been so thankful for the time we've had with them here, our kids getting to know them before we head overseas full-time as well. Here are a few pictures from one of our last hang-out days going mini-golfing at "Pirate's Cove."

2009-06-11T08:31:00.000-07:00

Wow, we have been very slow on our blog! Cody is down for a nap, Ellen is mostly contentedly watching some VegeTales and Scott is off to the office, GREAT time to update i guess.

We went camping over memorial day weekend with some friends who we mooched off of the entire time. There are just no words to describe how good it feels to the right friends around you at the right time.

We got to try some wakeboarding that weekend. Of course on his first time out, Scott pretty much mastered it. I on the other hand...can be found in the pictures only under the splash.

PICNIC WITH SA'I AND TAMO

2009-04-21T16:11:00.000-07:00

we're starting to have some beautiful weather. a couple wednesday's ago when i dropped the kids off for my mom to babysit we took a picnic lunch first. there is no fun quite like hanging out on a picnic with the grandparents.

THE LATEST ON CODY

2009-03-28T15:55:00.000-07:00

Ellen is at the age of infatuation with band-aids. the other day she told me she NEEDED a bandaid because cody bit her on the ankle. cody doesn't have a vindicative bone in his body so i proceeded into a lengthy lecuture on the evils of lying and was feeling quite proud of myself for seizing the opportunity. after quite some insistance though, i finally agreed to look at her ankle and to my horror, found a distinct red moon shape on top with two little "holes" on the bottom. i paused, shocked, to look over at cody who was playing next to us in the tub oblivious to the horrific sisterly accusation. he stopped mid-splash and beamed up the biggest, most sincere, and toothy smile ever. i must admit, his teeth did look suddenly very menacing and sharp indeed. poor ellen was quite put out when i burst into a laugh and reached over to give CODY a big hug. BUT, score one for the "hello kitty" band-aid she proudly wore that night.

lately it seems like cody is all runny nose and defiance. he's certainly figuring out the world of choices. he still can't really say an actual word. the closest he comes is the one word that is nearest and dearest to his little heart "banana" the boy can sure pack away a banana...or two...or three at a time.

he has officialy lost his crib railing...which is probably adding to his runny nose. he crawls off his bed but hasn't figured out how to crawl back up and we often find him in the morning or at nap time sprawled out sound asleep on the floor with no blanket and with an expansive ring of toys around him.

Jason and Krystina visit

2009-03-28T15:46:00.000-07:00

my brother Jason and his fiance Kristyna made it down the weekend while Scott was away. Ellen usually shy's away from guys lately but for some reason felt right at home with Jason.

ROCK CLIMBING

2009-03-28T15:28:00.000-07:00

Scott made a trip the beginning of March with his brother and a couple friends out to Vegas for some climbing. They all came back one piece, phewph! The kids and i stayed over at my parents and had a great time too. It was a great "get away" time for Scott as his work with the Youth Group been getting more and more busy lately as he looks to not only plan Wednesday nights but also plan a renovation for a new Youth area, plan the year's camping and retreat events, as well as put together a "manual" for upcoming youth leaders. He continues to love what he does and the kids/parents we are getting to know.

To see some pictures of what we've been doing with the Youth:

www.ontheledge.org

2009-02-09T18:29:00.000-08:00

cody wanted to jump off the cliff and cried when we told him no.

2009-02-09T18:28:00.001-08:00

ha ha tonka state park

2009-02-06T12:04:00.000-08:00

73 degrees outside today

2009-01-31T20:02:00.001-08:00

we went biking today. was awesome.

2009-01-31T20:01:00.001-08:00

2009-01-31T20:00:00.001-08:00

this kid has a great smile

2009-01-29T14:31:00.003-08:00

2009-01-29T14:31:00.001-08:00

fun in the snow

2009-01-28T06:40:00.001-08:00

we woke to this. the ice turned to snow last night. the roads were bad
before. now they are worse. missouri isn't exactly famous for its snow
removal services.

2009-01-27T18:33:00.001-08:00

I guess you can start checking back more often. I just got it worked
out so I can post to the blog from my ipod touch. we just weren't
taking the time to sit down and update the blog. now I can do it on
the fly.

2009-01-27T18:30:00.000-08:00

cody's birthday was yesterday. he's now 1 year old. not many smiles
from him. he misses his afternoon nap so he was a bit crabby. was
actually kinda cute cuz he was trying extra hard to NOT smile.

2009-01-27T18:27:00.002-08:00

2009-01-27T18:27:00.001-08:00

we worked at culver's last Sunday night. our youth group took 10% of
the night's profits.

2009-01-27T18:25:00.001-08:00

the kids discovered playing under the crib

2009-01-27T18:24:00.000-08:00

ellen almost liked pulling more than she liked riding

2009-01-27T18:23:00.001-08:00

family pic

2009-01-27T18:21:00.001-08:00

we took a walk the other day in the new wagon from christmas.

first snow

2008-12-05T10:54:00.000-08:00

unfortunately this is about the extent of snow that hits the ground here in missouri. we are entering a brown, muddy, cold season. they call it winter in missouri. nasty stuff. oh, how i miss the snow. i mean, if it's going to be 20 out we might as well have snow right? however, with all its shortcomings, missouri did afford cody the first opportunity of his life to put his hands in come snow. and for missouri's efforts, we thank her.

christmas lights

2008-12-05T10:48:00.000-08:00

we put up our lights a week ago

hunting trips

2008-12-05T10:43:00.000-08:00

we have thousand of pesky rodents living in the woods around us. they get to our bird feeders and eat all the food, they get into a storage shed and make a mess, and they have been dropping in number one at a time. ellen and cody love to spot them and go hunting with me. cody really does start to squeal if he sees one out the window. its pretty funny.

last month or so

2008-11-12T13:55:00.000-08:00

here are some pictures from the last month or so. we have had my parents in town, been to chicago to welcome in the bowmans, and have been busy around the house.

tessa is in the process of moving to the ER and switching to night shifts. i'm still working with the youth group, and for those of you up north, we will be coming your way for wintertainment.

cody is about walking on his own now. couple steps and he falls flat on his face, but he is getting better.

facebook

2008-11-03T16:54:00.000-08:00

i'm sure you have noticed that our updates have gotten less frequent. we are now dividing our time between the blog and facebook. so, if you are looking for more updates or something more frequent, find us on facebook.

bridal cave

2008-10-14T13:08:00.000-07:00

it has been a couple weeks now since our last post. everything with the youth group is good and busy and growing. the kids are getting huge. ellen speaks the whole dictionary it seems. fall is in the air. in summary, things are good.

these are some pictures from a couple weeks back when one of my college buddies, brad, came by to visit us. we went to bridal cave.

little update

2008-09-22T12:24:00.001-07:00

wanted to keep you guys in the loop. the newest development has been a new job for me (scott). i have taken a interim youth pastor position at osage hills. it is the church that we have been a part of since we got here. i am 3 wednesday nights and a couple outside events seasoned now. it has been fun, and extremely stretching already. the timeline is not really sure. i was hired along with another guy to keep the boat afloat while the search team looks for a permanent hire. i might be there for 5 months or just a couple more weeks. only god knows.

www.ontheledge.org

that is the website for the youth group. it is fairly recent (8 days) so there isn't much there yet, but if you keep checking back you will see a bit more of what is happening in the youth group.

so there you have it.

smoky mountains

2008-09-12T11:25:00.000-07:00

the following pictures are from our vacation to tennessee in the great smoky mountain national park. we made three different hikes for a total of 13.9 miles. every foot of the trails were beautiful. the smokys are like no place i have ever been before.

wednesday night

2008-09-12T11:09:00.000-07:00

we got into the park with enough daylight to make some supper set up our tent and fall asleep to the sounds of the river. we had a site that was 10 feet from the river. extremely peaceful. great way to fall asleep. even better than a fan.

thursday

2008-09-12T10:01:00.001-07:00

this is the view of the chimney top from the road

this was our first full day at the smoky mountains. we got up and out of the campground at about 11. we spent a little time at the welcome center and then headed up the new found gap road to find our trailhead. on the way up we decided to climb the chimney tops. it was a really cool trail that crossed 3 rivers. at the top, as you can see, there was a rock face that you had to climb to get the view from the peak. tessa and i took turns making the trek and the other stayed with the kids at the bottom of the rock face. on the way back down then we spent time playing in the river and jumping from some of the rocks.

friday

2008-09-12T09:25:00.000-07:00

on friday we hiked out to the hen wallow falls after our night at the cosby campground. then we went back to the river by the chimney tops and swam for an hour or two. after swimming in the frigid water we drove up to clingmans dome. it is the highest point in tennessee. it was a great view from the top. from there we drove down the back side of the pass and camped at the smokemont campground. you can see ellen helping me put up the tent. she was in charge of staking out the corners.

saturday

2008-09-12T08:45:00.000-07:00

these are some pictures from the alum cave bluff trail. it starts down by one of the many rivers and climbs about 2,000 feet up to the bluff. on the way up you also get to climb through a hole in a rock. the water washed out a tunnel and the trail goes right up through it. it was awesome. we couldn't get a good pic because of the darkness.

saturday night

2008-09-12T08:06:00.000-07:00

the last day when we finished the alum cave bluffs trail we went down to the river and ate the watermelon that we had been saving in our cooler. it was well worth the wait. i am 2 for 2 on watermelon this year. we sat by the river and sank our teeth into a sweet and juicy watermelon. cody and ellen even got into the mix. that night we were back at the elkmont campground. we got up at 7 and hit the road for home on sunday. we stayed in a holiday inn on the way home and got back to the house on monday about 4 in the afternoon.

cardinals game

2008-08-22T08:23:00.000-07:00

last tuesday we went to st. louis without the kids. we dropped them off at tessa's parents place and hit the road. we stopped by rei to get some supplies for our trip to the smoky mountains and ended up staying longer than we had planned. that got us over to the game a little later than we intended. still in plenty of time but it meant we had to pay $4 billion to eat stadium food. it was cool however that we met a lady on the way up to the stadium that had some friends bail out and she gave us some tickets in the outfield box on the third baseline in the 4th row. best seats of my life. it was a blast. cards stunk it up though and lost 4-1. the game got over around 11 and we got home at 2:30 in the morning.

ozark state park

2008-08-18T09:42:00.000-07:00

yesterday we did a 4 mile loop as we try to fine tune our hiking shape for our trip to the smokies. 2 weeks and counting. it was a fun trail that wound up and down the ozark hills. some scenic overlooks a couple streams and lots of, "ashes ashes we all fall down" being sung from a certain individual strapped to my back.

as you can see from our last picture we ended up locking the keys in the car as we were packing up to head home. sheesh. david sperling, our new hero, saved our lives. we tried to hit the unlock button with a stick but were unsuccessful. big surprise huh? i had to hitch a ride down to the ranger station and called david, who then drove me home to get the spare keys and then back to the park to tessa and the kids who had to wait for over two hours for that whole process to work itself out. i don't even want to know how many times they sang its raining is pouring.....

big surf

2008-08-18T09:26:00.000-07:00

these are pictures of us a big surf. it is a water park literally 5 minutes from our house. we decided to give it a try this summer (and loved it.) next summer we have already decided to get a season pass. cody will be ellen's age next year and will enjoy it just as much as she did this year. no telling how much fun ellen (and daddy) will have next year.

bubbles and tea

2008-08-18T09:20:00.000-07:00

ellen enjoying some of her birthday presents

ellen's birthday

2008-08-18T09:11:00.002-07:00

august 4th was ellen's birthday. she is now over 2 years old. as you can see from the pictures she has a pooh bear cake, which tasted pretty good. some of her presents included a tea set, a doctor kit, veggie tales, books, bubbles, pickles, and hugs.

we now spend our days getting shots and checking our blood pressure while sipping on tea and eating pickles.

the next level

2008-08-18T09:09:00.000-07:00

ellen is now jumping from the tall black platform

for the masses

2008-07-29T13:54:00.000-07:00

it has kindly been brought to our attention (and rightly so) that we don't have very many pictures of the kids together. ok, practically none. fine, we haven't had one since cody was knee high to a grasshopper. this is our first step in a movement to mend the mistake, and move toward the future of dual-kid picture taking.

stu

2008-07-29T13:43:00.000-07:00

stu and my trusty gonzaga hat

ha ha tonka spring

2008-07-28T14:20:00.000-07:00

last saturday we went to ha ha tonka state park to see the spring. it is the result of a 100 square mile draining field. all the rain water pools to the place in the first two pictures. the water shoots out from under the cliff at 56 degrees and at a rate of 58 million gallons per day. that's enough to make a small river and turn your bones to ice. they made a boardwalk back to the spring. was a pretty fun little walk. you can then hike down to the place where the spring water meets the lake and ride the current into the lake. you can't see very well from the pictures but the area was steaming because of the 50 degree spring water mixing with the 80 degree lake water. really made your whole body tingle when you made the transition of waters. in the last picture you can see the lake water mixing with the cold-looking, aqua spring water. the water felt like it was melting ice water coming straight out of the rockies.

the day was also a little traumatic for ellen. when we got the kid's carrier out of the explorer ellen squealed with joy and ran over to get in. we then explained that cody would now be riding and she would have to hoof it. i think she is going to hold it against cody the next couple times we go out. we had some tears to wipe.

jumping

2008-07-28T13:39:00.000-07:00

the last couple times that we have gone out to the lake ellen has been jumping the whole time. i literally spend a couple hours hoisting her out of the water and onto the dock so she can turn right around and jump back in...for hours. she loves it. all the other kids are also intrigued by this little "baby" that is jumping more than they are. crazy ellen.

ellen at the park

2008-07-28T12:53:00.000-07:00

stu and the swing

2008-07-28T12:42:00.000-07:00

bombs away

2008-07-19T15:16:00.000-07:00

book worm

2008-07-19T14:31:00.000-07:00

cody loves to read

walk

2008-07-12T17:58:00.000-07:00

cody is now strong enough to grab a huge handful of hair and pull till your eyes water. this also qualifies him for rides on your shoulders. oh, yes christi, we are now accepting donations for clothes. our washing machine broke and it is a long walk to the lake to do it by hand. the national guard is bringing us another washing machine sometime next fall.

clay pigeons

2008-07-07T10:49:00.000-07:00

we took out the shotgun last week and shot some fake birds. not quite like the prairies of south dakota with the ring neck pheasants, but it will do.

walk

2008-07-07T10:46:00.000-07:00

the kids love to get outside so we try and take at least one walk a day. ellen likes to push the stroller.

hot

2008-07-07T10:39:00.001-07:00

the last week or so it has been in the 90's consistently so we have spent much time down at the lake swimming, fishing, or in the sprinkler.

vacuum

2008-07-07T10:33:00.000-07:00

ellen was helping mommy clean the living room and got distracted.

Cody

2008-06-23T08:56:00.000-07:00

Cody doesn't get near as much camera time as Ellen these days... he's just the most relaxed little guy, content enough to just watch his big sister in all her glory and drama. Sometimes he gets to join in passively, and sometimes, of course, he's the brunt end of her whirlwind of fun. I'm just enjoying his baby days so very much!

2008-06-23T08:32:00.001-07:00

Joy is Ellen's new best buddy when it thunders, or she needs help out of the tub, or catastrophe strikes with the "pee in the potty" routine...but most especially when its time to go swimming.

2008-06-23T08:15:00.000-07:00

Scott has been gone to Omaha the past several days, so the kids and i spent a little more time with "Tamu"and "Sasi" (Ellen's interpretation of grandpa and grandma in the indian language)and Joy. Of course we hit the swingset.

Cody got to experience the wonderful world of swinging for his first time too. He wasn't exactly as excited as Ellen was but he definitely cracked a few grins and coohs.

rope swing

2008-06-17T15:34:00.000-07:00

swimming

2008-06-17T15:05:00.000-07:00

after we were done playing soccer we went over to tessa's parents place to cool off. new tribes is on the lake and they have a nice big rope swing. it kept us entertained for a couple hours and then a storm rolled in and chases us back up to the house.

football

2008-06-17T14:55:00.000-07:00

for father's day, tessa got me a couple soccer balls. (thanks nate for helping her get some good ones). so, last weekend we went out to practice. cody sat in the shade and sipped on lemonade, ellen ran and got the many balls that sailed high or wide of the goal, and tessa taught me some crafty brazilian moves.

all told, i'm going to be contacting nate koehn. he's the most decorated player in grace university world history and my old traveling companion. he can get me playing for tottenham in 4 months or my money back.

marble maze

2008-06-10T19:42:00.000-07:00

ellen really loves this little beauty. aunt carol gave it to her a couple weeks ago and grandma angelo mailed down about 40 marbles for extra fun. you can imagine what our afternoons are like.

party

2008-06-10T19:25:00.000-07:00

happy birthday to tessa's dad, and happy anniversary to tessa's parents. both events were last saturday.

paintball

2008-06-10T19:20:00.000-07:00

tessa's dad took us paintballing last saturday. we had a blast playing 2 on 2 capture the flag on three different courses. we went home good and tired and all shot up.

stu

2008-06-10T19:13:00.000-07:00

cody now eats rice cereal

comfort inn

2008-05-29T21:23:00.000-07:00

on the way home my parents paid for us to stay in a hotel. we picked a comfort inn with a water slide. needless to say, ellen and i spent hours in the pool on on the water slide.

fires and uncles

2008-05-29T21:15:00.000-07:00

we also got to see uncle ryan and ellen got to have a couple fires with grandpa

mini farm

2008-05-29T17:17:00.000-07:00

we took ellen up to the mini farm at camp. it is like a petting zoo of sorts but with farm animals instead of monkeys and lions. as you can see from some of the pictures the bunnies, cows, sheep, and goats were more like lions, tigers, and bears. ellen was actually terrified of them. we hadn't really seen that side of her before. she did warm up a bit after while and managed to touch some of the animals, but we had to order to do so. after she left each pen she did want to go back in, but as soon as she got in there she wanted right back out. it was pretty funny. the epitome of a love/hate relationship.

cfs express

2008-05-29T17:10:00.000-07:00

camp also has a train for the kids. i think you know how much ellen loved riding on that.

canoe ride

2008-05-29T16:56:00.000-07:00

out at camp we took ellen for her first canoe ride. she was a tad nervous at the start but warmed up to the idea of floating on the water.

barn swing

2008-05-29T16:46:00.000-07:00

tessa took these pictures of the kids out on the swing by my parent's barn. sometimes i think she could be a professional photographer.

at grandpa and grandpa's house

2008-05-29T16:28:00.000-07:00

these are some pictures from around my parent's house up in wisconsin. there were all kinds of new adventures for ellen. she really enjoyed exploring a new yard. and no, the title is not a mistake. ellen calls my parents grandpa and grandpa. hasn't really figured out the "ma" ending yet.

wisconsin

2008-05-21T16:54:00.000-07:00

camp forest springs is having it's 50 year celebration this weekend and tessa and i are already here. we got in this morning (wednesday) and will be here until next tuesday. it is going to be an awesome time to see old friends and remeber all the things and lives that have changed the last 50 years of camp's existance.
we will be silent on the blog until we return home. rest assured we are not dead.

potty in the potty #2

2008-05-18T13:36:00.000-07:00

we have noticed that ellen is more "aware" of when she has to go to the bathroom when she is not wearing her diaper. for instance....when she has just gotten out of the bath, or about to take a bath, or getting her diaper changed she will tell us she has to use the potty, and does. i decided to take a bit of a risk yesterday and see if she could go diaper free for a while, thinking that might help her get used to "going potty." i am proud to report that ellen conquered the entire day (aside from nap time) totaling 17 "number 1's" and 2 "number 2's." i couldn't believe it. it was like she had been potty trained for years. i blurred the contents of the container to save those with weak stomachs. tomorrow she might learn to spell her name and ride a wheelie on her bike.

sleeping on the job

2008-05-18T13:32:00.000-07:00

ellen has been falling asleep in some funny places the last couple days. one was in the middle of the living room and the other is obviously when she was eating lunch. i think she has so much energy and then all of a sudden she hits the wall and is gone. maybe she is narcoleptic.

bird questions again

2008-05-18T13:29:00.000-07:00

ok, i'm 99.99% positive that the top picture is a golden finch. however, i have never heard of a blue finch. i looked it up on the internet and they are only native to south america. small chance we have a blue finch at our feeder. it is the same size and looks much like the golden finch except for the blue color. can anyone out there put a name on this blue one?

potty in the potty

2008-05-15T09:45:00.000-07:00

ellen has become fairly skilled at using the potty. we are nowhere near potty trained but she is really getting the hang of this thing. i would say we get 3 or 4 potties in the potty a week. she potties in the potty, removes the toxic waste container and comes dancing with the good news to us, we then take it to the big potty, flush it and wave bye bye, and finally we eat our potty celebration candy and dance some more.

the yard

2008-05-15T09:29:00.000-07:00

these are some shots of ellen running around in the yard yesterday. she is so cute i could squeeze her until she pops.

the house

2008-05-15T09:25:00.000-07:00

i guess summer is here. this a pic of the place now that the trees have all filled out.

sandbox

2008-05-15T09:19:00.000-07:00

grandma angelo gave ellen a bucket and shovel around easter time i think. anyway, ellen has been loving going out and digging around in the sand. we made a sandcastle village the other day.

stu

2008-05-12T10:34:00.000-07:00

circle of toys

2008-05-09T09:41:00.000-07:00

this thing has really been getting a work out lately

camp fire

2008-05-09T09:36:00.000-07:00

we had our first family camp fire a couple nights ago. if it was up to ellen we would be having a camp fire right now. she loves fires. in fact she is sitting in my lap right now and when she saw the pictures of the fire she started asking to go build another one. crazy kid.

sunday projects

2008-05-05T16:04:00.000-07:00

our landlords condemned a couple dead trees in the front circle and i cut them down yesterday. ellen watched from the front porch and seemed a little concerned the whole time. tessa thinks it was the noise of the chainsaw and i think she has grasped the idea of death and was wondering where the tree would be resting for eternity.

we limbed up the two trees, cut, and split the wood and have it stacked by our new fire circle. that was sunday project #2. we got some cool looking rocks from the woods and made a fire circle. i think our first backyard fire will be tonight. we will take some pictures and put them up sometime. now all we need are some root beer floats and you would think you were at my parents house.

WHAT WE'RE UP TO

2008-05-03T10:41:00.000-07:00

so what are we up too lately....?

well, i'm feeling mostly settled into my job at lake regional hospital on the medical/surgical floor. i work 3 days a week and get patients in ages from infants to upper 90's. it seems like most of what we get lately is cardiac patients in the "observation beds" or chf, gi bleed patients and kids sick with viruses. I usually have about 6 or 7 patients at a time which is a real change for me from 3 or 4.

scott most recently has been putting in hours on any days he can painting and cleaning up a house that is being "turned" by a guy he met playing basketball. He also put in a few more days at the printing company lately. it's been great for scott to play basketball on thursday evenings with a bunch of guys (some from the church where we have started going)

ellen is flourishing in this warm weather and all the opportunities to be outside finding very precious gravel rocks and pretty flowers with her daddy. she very nicely masked a ruptured eardrum this week and is now on antibiotics for that. i'd say she's growing so fast but really she's really staying her tiny little self. it's so fun to have her talking more!

cody is such a smiley little baby. he's got these saggy bulldog cheeks that so suddly erupt into the biggest grin ever when you play with him. he really likes playing "chuga, chuga, choo, choo!" with his arms.

lately scott and i have really felt unsettled in not having answers regarding our future in knowing how long to be in missouri working on paying off loans, or maybe moving near friends to settle in for several years to build a more definite "home" for when we go overseas, or maybe just picking a country and selling all we've got to just go...but in that case go WHERE?

Sometimes God seems so quiet regarding things so important to us but we're finding the joy in finding contentment in our daily relationship with Him. For now we are going to walk slowly in the process of growing in our faith in Him right here in Missouri. It's SO beautiful here now with all the trees turning green, the lakes and the sunshine.....we're just really enjoying being with my parents and watching the kids grow with their grandparents loving on them.

In the ups and the downs, God is good!

culvers

2008-05-03T09:20:00.001-07:00

unfortunately the closest restaurant down the road is culver's. that is a bad thing because we are going to run out of money this summer. a couple night's ago was a nice summer evening and we were feeling like some ice cream. this was ellen's first time to culver's and i think she really enjoyed going back and forth from my snickers mix-in to tessa's strawberry smoothie.

ellen also got her first good spin that night. tessa was whirling around till they were both good and dizzy and then ellen would giggle and stumble around. she was begging for more but we had to stop before we saw the ice cream again. cody pretty much slept through the whole thing.

flowers

2008-05-03T09:13:00.000-07:00

ellen loves flowers. every time she sees anything resembling a flower she is sure to let us know. we have this blooming plant in our front yard and ellen loves to go out and pick the purple little flowers and bring them back to us. it's good to see more the "girly" side coming out of her.

ellen

2008-05-03T09:09:00.000-07:00

not really sure the circumstances surrounding these pictures. she did try and shut herself inside the "cave." i guess she likes finding new hiding places and the closet was getting boring.

spring has sprung

2008-04-26T09:40:00.001-07:00

the last couple days i have taken photos of the backyard to capture the transformation.

stu

2008-04-26T09:38:00.001-07:00

stu has been on the move. well, i guess he has if you consider a couple feet to be "on the move." he was supposed to be napping on the blanket.

ellen

2008-04-23T10:47:00.000-07:00

ellen did two funny things today. this morning at no important time ellen's bedroom door slammed. a couple minutes later tessa went to investigate. she found ellen sleeping. she was in her bed with her pacifier in her mouth and blanket tucked neatly around herself. ellen put herself down for a nap.

after her nap ellen came and knocked on the door. she didn't have her diaper on. usually that is an immediate spanking. she is not allowed to take her own diaper off. however, this time the spirit of the lord prompted tessa not to spank her. a few seconds later ellen ran over to "ellen's potty" and had a proud little smile on her face. then she lifted up the lid and said "poo." sure enough. ellen had gone to the bathroom all by herself.

two firsts in one day. self-nap and independent poo.