Spring 2009 Photo Gallery

An Easter morning photo of the kids: Grace (15) Caitlin (16)
Nathan (5), Jeremy (8), Sarabeth (9) and Juliana (5)



Mary and Juls coloring eggs


Grace, before she cut her hair


Nathan is a budding artist


Caitlin getting all the dye ready



Our spring project... all the living room carpet is out, awaiting the new carpet's installation


A thorough cleaning and getting the walls ready for paint

The walls aren't white anymore!


Tan paint goes onto the hallway walls


The offending light fixture, which overheated and caused an attic fire!


The Clear Lake fire department was out in force


Firefighters begin the cleanup


And what a mess it was!


We spent HOURS cleaning up the mess



Mary reads the birthday card Juliana made for her


Another homemade birthday card.... Happy 50th Momma!


Jeremy the swordsman in action!


Happy 9th birthday Jeremy


Wow. Jeremy cleaned up on his birthday!


Trying out his birthday basketball


Jeremy gets ready to help dad grill his birthday dinner


Caitlin, on her 17th BD!


Not as many presents as Jeremy got. Welcome to adulthood Cait!


But.... the adult type presents can be pretty sweet :-)


This is a Washburn guitar. It has a very rich sound. Needless to say, Caitlin was pleased!


Playing a song for her Dad.

Global Warming??

What a bizarre summer thus far. It has only hit 90 degrees on 3 days so far! According to Weather Underground, the temp at Mason City hit 90 on May 19, 93 on June 22 and 92 on June 23. So far in July, the high temperature for the month is 84 degrees on July 6. Today you ask? A brisk 71 degrees under a bright cloudless sky. Mary had to break out a sweatshirt this morning when it was a breezy 55 degrees.

This summer, we set up a 4 foot by 18 foot pool for the kids. We filled it over a month ago and they have only been in it 2 or 3 times. The water temp has not risen above 73 degrees because we just haven't had any HOT days!

More posts and pics to come soon!

John

Juliana is Toothless!

Juliana lost her first tooth today. It has been loose for several weeks and she's been wiggling and wiggling it. Today she came out of her room with a few tears in her eyes. She had wiggled it a bit much and the tooth was barely hanging on and was bleeding. Daddy got a tissue for Mom to "wipe away the blood" and voila! She did bleed for a while. As most of you know, Juls has had two open heart surgeries and is now on a baby aspirin daily, which means she bleeds a bit longer. She bit on a tissue for a while and after a few more tears, Juliana was all smiles!

Grace Turns 15

February 28, 2009: Grace is growing up so fast. She turned 15 today and we celebrated with a lasagna feast and birthday pie. Jeriah and Shawna were able to join us, as did the Cox family. It was an excellent dinner! Grace is in the 9th grade now and has been homeschooled the entire time. This year she is in a new curriculum called "Sonlight", which requires a LOT of reading. Grace is a reader who can devour whole books in a single sitting it seems. She says she is "tolerating" the Sonlight, as the reading consists of a lot of literature and she would rather be reading Star Wars or Narnia. Grace is currently planning on doing a missions trip to Idaho this summer with the youth from another church here in Iowa. She's looking forward to the opportunity to witness for Christ and see a different part of the country. She also will likely be trying to get her learner's permit this year. Keep us all in your prayers!

Happy Birthday Grace. We Love You!

Happy 9th Birthday Sarabeth!

January 31, 2009: We celebrated Sarabeth's 9th birthday today. She has been with us for just over two years now and we've been blessed by her addition to our family. This past year we were privileged to see Sarabeth come to know the Lord as her Savior and were excited to see her follow the Lord in believer's baptism. She is a quiet child and very well behaved. She enjoys helping out around the house and usually keeps her room very tidy. In school she does good in spelling, but not so much so in math. She has been taking piano lessons for a year and a half and is doing great in that. We enjoy listening to her practice! Sarabeth is an animal lover and really enjoys having our puppy Lizzie around the house.

Happy Birthday Sarabeth. We Love You!

Happy New Year- The Year of the Ox!

Welcome to the Year of the Ox. We celebrated the Chinese New Year today at our house. The kids spent much of their school day doing things like writing chinese characters, making chinese flags, decorating the kitchen in construction paper "Chinese Lanterns" and creating some new year's dragons for a parade around the kitchen and living room after dinner. Speaking of dinner---WOW! We made homemade pork egg rolls, beef "pot stickers", garlicly stir-fried green beans and some amazing chicken satay's. The chicken was marinated in a garlic-ginger-teriyake sauce before we skewered the meat and grilled it. The Cox family joined us for our "excellent new year adventure" and everything turned out great!


Lunch was "long" noodles (Raman noodles) which the Chinese believe signify longevity


The kitchen, decorated in Chinese lanterns

The dragon parade. This is Nathan's design, with Juliana's pink dragon just behind.

Sarabeth's dragon.

Nathan and Sarabeth parade through the living room.
The amazing chicken satay's

Welcome to Siberia!

This was the outside temperature at 8am this morning. Wind chills were even worse, at 45-50 degrees below zero. Thankfully, our house is warm and we are comfortable. It is NOT fun leaving work at 7:30am and having to get into a very cold car for the drive home!


The low tonight is again projected to be -23F. The NWS has issued the following warning:

A WIND CHILL WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 10 AM CST FRIDAY.

BITTERLY COLD TEMPERATURES AND A WIND OF 5 TO 10 MPH WILL CONTINUE TO PRODUCE DANGEROUS WIND CHILLS TONIGHT. EXPECT VALUES OF 30 TO 40 BELOW ZERO TONIGHT. BITTERLY COLD CONDITIONS WILL PERSIST THROUGH LATE FRIDAY MORNING.

Keep us in North Iowa in your prayers as we continue to deal with these very rough conditions.

Happy New Year!

Mary and I wish all of you a very Happy New Year. Whatever you're doing this evening, BE SAFE and may 2009 be a year of great blessings to each of you.

John

Christmas 2008

Merry Christmas! May your heart personally know the best gift ever given some two thousand years ago - the babe in the manger, our Lord Jesus Christ - given by God the Father at just the right time in history. It's not about our presents, the food, the gatherings, the tree and decorations and definitely NOT about Santa Claus ..... as little Juliana says, "We don't believe in Santa Claus, Mommy. We celebrate Jesus' birthday!" At the age of 5, she is surely not missing anything by not having Santa as the center of the holiday .... Holy Day ..... that is meant to celebrate the coming of our Messiah, in lowly human flesh, to eventually buy us back to Himself ... if we would only believe the unbelievable miracle of His salvation. His gift to us is signed, sealed, wrapped and delivered - not in His birth, but in His resurrection. We merely have to admit our need, realize there truly is no other way to enter Heaven and accept his gift - open it - experience it - believe it. I believe! Do you?

Grace, taken by Jeremy.

Mom, taken by Jeremy!

All Sarabeth truly wanted was the dollhouse.

Nathan, the Hulk!

Oh, wow, Bionicles!!

Ryrie study Bible - oh, yeah!

Ice fishing pole for Dad.

Jeremy, the Batman!

Sweet Juliana.

The first gift of Christmas 2008!

Christmas Eve dinner - yum!

Mom with the littles.

Christmas Eve we used to eat seafood - coming from Maryland, that is not an unusual thing. Crab cakes, steamed shrimp, sauteed scallops .... but getting good/fresh seafood is not as easy here in Iowa, so we have slowly, year to year switched menus. This year we went simple - with a spiral ham, roasted vegies (potatoes, sweet potatoes and carrots), breaded green beans and warm rolls. Jeriah and Shawna came in just prior to dinner. Strawberry slushies were a hit with everyone, especially the littles! For those of you who have seen our home before, note the new look of our kitchen - redesigned, painted, new lights .... I love it!

Mary with her "older" girls, Caitlin and Grace.

Sipping strawberry slushies while waiting for Jeriah/Shawna.

The littles with their new aprons that Lynn made for them.

The littles decorated rice krispie Christmas trees - Jeremy had to get the trick of picking up the tiny m&m's and figured out how to place them where he wanted them - then he was off. There is nearly nothing this kid won't try to do and usual accomplish! All the kids had a great time of it - showing us how each does things differently. Nate's rows of m/m's were all the same color; Juls set her m/m's really close together and took forever to get them done; Sarabeth did them exactly like Mom had shown them ..... not an individualist heart at all! : )