Breath of Heaven

1 week ago, December 14, was one of the saddest days in our nation's history.  We all hugged our children a little tighter that night and prayed a little harder.  The horrific school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in CT.  I had worked a night shift the night before and when I got up I turned on the TV and it was all over the news.  I felt like it wasn't real.  I can not even begin to imagine the hurt those families were going through.  I pray with all my might that I never have to.  When I was on my way home from St. Cloud that evening I was playing a Christmas CD and one of my favorite songs came on.  It took on a whole new meaning for me.  The song, "Breath of Heaven" by Vince Gill (or previously Amy Grant) was playing on a new CD I had bought. 

"Breath of heaven, hold me (us) together
be forever near me, breath of Heaven
Breath of Heaven, light in the darkness
Pour over me (us) Your Holiness for You are holy
Breath of Heaven"

I just thought about the Breath of Heaven, God's presence, holding those people of Sandy Hook together, surrounding them and holding them close.  For without it, they (because I know I would) would shatter, how do you keep going?  God being the light in the darkness for them.  For all of us.  Because our world is as "cold as stone".  We need God to shine some light and give us some warmth.  I am thankful my own babies are just babies and too young to know such evil even exists in this world.  But I know one day they won't be, I can't keep them in a bubble (even though I would love to!).   

Silly Girls!

Here's just  a couple cute pics of my silly girls! 

Thankful Thanksgiving

For the Mages Thanksgiving we went to Josh and Katie's in South Dakota.  It was such a fun weekend and I feel very thankful to have such wonderful people in my life.  My niece, Laura, had everyone go around and say what they are thankful for.  Very sweet!!  We also celebrated my nephew, Jack's birthday by going to a hotel and swimming!! 

The Ladies!  Minus my two little ladies!  Thankful for wine (and kid wine!).

Thankful for good food!!

Kara is thankful for herself!!  Ha!

Thankful Jack is not jumping in the middle of the hottub right now!

Thankful for a hot tub to get in when the pool gets too cold!

Thankful for daddy who swims with you!

Future Dentist?

Miss Kara LOVES to brush her teeth.  She does NOT love to be helped with it!  She is Miss Indepent!  Maybe she will be a dentist?? 

Cute quotes and more...

So, there a LOT of things that I want to post on, but for now this will do...  Allison says the funniest things!  Here are a couple that I have remembered of the last couple days.

Allison: "Mom, where was I born?"
Me:  "At the hospital in Willmar, where I work."
Allison: "So I wasn't born in Bethlehelm??"  (said with a LOT of disappointment!)

And this one was tonight while The X Factor was on.
Allison:  "Who's that, mom?"
Me:  "That guy?  His name is Mario Lopez."
Allison:  "He's handsome!"
Lol, mom agrees!  Oh my!!! 

So, I have been working a lot lately and when I have been off, I have been trying to finish our Christmas cards so I can get them out.  I decided to write a letter.  I forgot to proofread it.  Nothing major, but just FYI (and only those that read my blog will know now!  ;)  I knew I hadn't spelled Cirque du Soleil, right, but had meant to google it and re-type it before printing.  I forgot and printed all 100.  Also my mom noticed I wrote hoping instead of hoPPing.  Ha!  There might be more, but that is all my mom mentioned.  So, hopefully it makes sense! 

I still have the majority of my Christmas shopping to do.  Crazy, I know.  I just haven't hardly thought about it and now I looked at my schedule to see when I could go and it will probably be next weekend.  Pray I don't get trampled in the mall!  Hopefully a better post with pics to come this weekend.  :)

First School Pics!

Allison had school pics taken back in September.  She picked out her outfit (from a couple choices I gave her) and let me fix her hair!  But I couldn't be there to help make her smile or make sure they turned out ok...  Talk about relinquishing control!!  So I was pretty interested to see how they turned out.  I was also a little worried because I think they were taken on only the 3rd or 4th class session and while Allison seemed to be liking preschool, the first day she had big tears in her eyes when I picked her up.  So I was a little worried she was going to look sad in her pics! 

 

Well, I'd have to say they turned out pretty darn good!!  No tears and she looks very happy!  She does seem to be loving preschool (although she still calls it pretty school!!) and looks forward to going every week.  My baby is getting so big!!  (PS, Hoping for a scanner for Christmas so the quality of things will be better than just using your iPhone to snap a pic of the pic to post! :)

Kara

Oh, my sweet girl!  She is so passionate...about everything!!  She is independent - don't even think about trying to help feed her - even if it is rice, or applesauce!  She carries the stool around so she can reach everything and dig in drawers that are normally just out of her reach!  We try to hide it, but Allie uses it to wash her hands and brush her teeth!  Oh, that is something else miss Kara won't let me help her do anymore, brush her teeth!  It really is so cute to watch though, she brushes and "spits" (makes spitting noise, but luckily nothing comes out since she her chin barely makes it over the counter edge) just like her big sister!  And just ask her what she wants, she will tell you!  She clearly says yes or no and rarely has to think about what she wants.  When she is happy, she is over the moon.  And when she is sad/upset...

Well, she doesn't hid that either.  :)  Here's a little video of Miss Kara.  I love it, she has lately had a love of baskets/boxes that she can get into!  She sat in this basket looking at the cards she had just dumped out for quite a while!!  Ha!

Special Purchase!

Well, I FINALLY did it!  I finally bought myself a new vacuum cleaner!!  I think I have been talking about it for 3 years or so.  I have looked online, in stores and even stopped at our local vacuum store, A B Vacuum a couple times before FINALLY making my special purchase.  Here she is...

My big red cleaning machine!!  I debated, looked at a cheaper model...almost bought that one.  But then I looked them both over top to bottom, and underneath!  Pushed them around, etc and decided this was the way to go.  I didn't want to have any regrets.  I could have easily spent double what I did, but this one is 10x, no probably 100x, the vacuum my old one was and will last me 10+ years!!  I don't know what more I could want!  :)  I was so excited to get her home and vacuum!

Family Pics 2012

A few weeks ago we got family pics taken.  A good friend of mine, Jodi Triplett, has really gotten into taking pics and even before that, she takes great pics and I had asked her to take our pics this year.  They turned out sooo cute!  She did a great job!  I highly recommend her!  And I ALREADY got my Christmas cards.  Yup, ordered them and already have them sitting on my desk!  So, for now, here are a couple funny ones... 

Allie was so cold!!  Half the time I can't get her to put her coat on, on picture day she wants to wear it!  Go figure!

And, lol, what 1 year old isn't caught doing this?!  Still cute!

More Halloween Fun!

Then on Monday night Allie got to bring a friend to dance, she brought another of her besties, Miss Audrey!  And they got to wear their costumes.  They had so much fun!!  I have one pic on my phone of that...and I don't know how to upload pics right from my phone to my blog.  Probably really easy, I should look into it.  Anyway, then Tuesday Allison had a Halloween party at preschool.  But my funny little girl didn't want to wear her costume anymore.  Don't know why or what was up with that.  But Grandma Linda was bringing her to preschool and so she wore another outfit she picked out.  So, who knows, but she had a good day at preschool and liked seeing the other kids dressed up and luckily wasn't upset when she got there that she wasn't wearing hers!  Must have been sick of it?!  Well then tonight of course, she got to go trick-or-treating!  She is really getting it and despite refusing to say it to Grandma Nancy or at mom's work, she DID say "trick or treat" and thank you (so proud!) when we were going around to neighbors.  After trick-or-treating we got to go for another treat, Jakes' Pizza!  YUM!  Here are my adorable :) kids on Halloween 2012:

Tink!

WHO, WHO!!  Little Owl!

TRYING to get Miss K to smile!

Halloween FUN!

Eeek, it's been a while!  But I am trying to figure out how it is Oct. 31 already!!  Anyway, I think the girls had a great Halloween this year!  First last Saturday they got to go to a Halloween party in Hector with their cousins.  Allie's cousin Emma is her age and she doesn't see her very often, so she LOVES to spend time with her!  Just before we left tho, Kara burned her hand on my curling iron!  At first I didn't see anything, we ran it under cold water and stuff, but later she had 3 blisters on her fingers.  While I was driving she started screaming bloody murder!  Luckily I had a drink with ice, so I gave her some ice and that helped.  By that night she was fine and actually slept all night.  I felt soo bad for her!

My poor little owl...

Doing pretty good...hungry!

Allie and her cousin/bestie Emma!

Bobbing for apples!

All smiles!

Butterfly Birthday Party

For about 6+ months Miss Allie has been talking about her "Butterfly" Birthday Party.  Well, she finally got to have it on Saturday.  It was a bit chilly, but otherwise a perfect day!!  She had so much fun and got so many awesome presents!  She is one lucky lady!!

It's my party!! 

Kara got impatient and decided to help herself to Allie's presents!

Allie finally got to open her gifts!

Beautiful princess gift from Aunt Mandy!

Butterfly Cake by Grandma Nancy

Butterfly cupcakes also courtesy of Grandma Nancy!

Me and the Birthday Girl!

Blowing out her candles...with help!  :0)

Birthday Girl!!

Birthday Girl opening a few presents!

My big 4 year old!!

Blowing out a birthday candle!

Family pic!

Cousin pic!  Ummm, I think this was about as good as it got!



Allie and Laura, 2 peas in a pod!  On the way up to Mt. Tom

BEAUTIFUL view from Mt. Tom!

My lucky little birthday girl got to celebrate her a few times!  First at preschool where she brought treats - cupcakes and juice (probably not the healthiest, but I think loved by all 3-5 yr olds!).  Last Sunday was her ACTUAL birthday and mom had to work.  When I first realized it was going to be my weekend to work, I thought no big deal, she doesn't know the difference and we just decided to plan her party for the following weekend.  But on the day I was wishing very much to be at home with my family!  Lucky for me, I got an on-call at 3 and because it was a BEAUTIFUL Sept. 30, Jesse had planned a picnic at Sibley and Grandma Nancy, Aunt Mandy and her 3 Zupke cousins joined us there.  Grandma and Grandpa Berntson also got to surprise us with a visit there on their way home from the lake!  She had a BLAST!  Here's a few pics from that day:  Well, I guess they are above, I am too lazy to change them all right now!! Plus it doesn't really matter!  ;)

Little Miss Clean

Who is Little Miss Clean?

Well, I can tell you it is NOT this little lady:

Nope, not her!  Miss Allie has become my little neat freak!  It started last Sunday, Jesse was getting ready for church and Allison called him down to her room.  I wish I had a before picture, because it was a DISASTER!  Books and toys all over.  I had been meaning to clean it up, but with Allie's b-day party coming I kind of decided to just wait until closer to that so I don't have to do it again!  Well, I guess Allie decided to take it upon herself. 

She put all her toys in the shopping cart and moved it to the living room.  Stacked all her books in her nightstand and put her pj's on the pillow on the floor.  She attempted to make her bed even!  And then when Jesse was reading to her before nap, she told him, now make sure and put that book back when you are done with it!!  Oh my!  And she has kept it clean all week!

Then on Tuesday when I was putting Kara down for a nap I heard her banging around upstairs and was wondering what in the world she was doing.  I was prepared for the worst.  This is what I found:

 

She had cleaned up all the toys upstairs!  I was so impressed!  However what she doesn't realize, is now I have a little higher expectations for her and she is going to start getting some more responsibilities!  And my little Kara is still a little Miss Messy!  She is the tornado behind Allison's cleaning!  Allison even said, now we have to keep Kara out of here so she doesn't mess it up, referring to the living room...poor Kara!  LOL!  

And it Begins...

So this year we are getting our first taste of life with a "school-age" child!  Oh, the opportunites and such for them to be involved in!  Allison is in preschool on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, dance on Monday afternoons and Sunday School on Sundays (of course!).  And I think we will do gymnastics this winter.  While that may not sound like much...with both of us working full time or almost full time, I feel like we are constantly running!  Here is what our Sept. calendar looks like:

And there are things that aren't written on there too.  Going to the Y, I actually don't have dance and SS on there every week.  But to be honest, I like it.  And so does Allison.  She is now loving preschool.  LOVES dance!!  Seriously gets so excited to go and tonight the parents got to watch for about 5min at the end of practice to see what they were learning, she did GREAT!  And she liked her first day of Sunday school on sunday too.  She is going to grow and learn so much this year!! 

My baby goes to Preschool!!

Allison had her first day of preschool today at Children's Corner Preschool at the AG church in Willmar.  She was excited and went in good, all smiles, but when I came to get her she looked kind of sad.  I guess she got a little sad at some point and was missing me!  I think she will love it and she does talk about going back, so that is good.  Seems like a kids paradise to me!  We had dance registration tonight and Monday night is her first actual dance practice!  She is very excited for that.  She was so bummed she wasn't getting to dance tonight!

WHAT?!  I have school today?!

Daddy and Allie before work and school!

So excited!!  Well, I guess it is fitting that she says when she grows up she wants to be a babysitter since to her 13 is pretty grown up!!  Book her now folks, she is gonig to be good!  ;)

So Long Summer!!

Well, we celebrated the "unofficial" last weekend of summer with good friends at the Rath Ranch!  ;)  As always, so fun, and SO BUSY with all those kids!  And we each only have 1 or 2!!!

Allie and Audrey - Cruisin'

My busy girl, Miss Kara, loving some crackers!

Enjoying a smore!

The girls!  Only took my hubby about 10 takes to get this one!  I should post the rest for laughs!

Although this was about the best of the guys that I got.  I think someone else got a better one!