2013....a good year!

2013 was a good year for my little growing family. Owen turned 6 and wy turned 3. It was mostly full of good health and happiness however some sadness too. The loss of my grandfather and our very dear friends five year old son. We continue to pray for our good friends for strength and peace and a new normal without their precious son, carter.

We traveled a lot this year and enjoyed every minute of it, except for when kris took out the fresh water spiket at the traverse city state park.

We enjoyed two beautiful weddings....my sisters in May and my sister in law in September. Each wedding was just perfect and I'm so happy to have two new brother in laws in the family.

I continued to work from home part time all of this year and spent so much time with the boys. I've been feeling great and have not experienced any new or crazy drug interactions since my last allergic reaction in March. I'm cruising along quite comfortably on my steroids and another medication.

We have kept very busy this past year with Owen's school and have had lots of play dates. I can't wait for wy to start school next year and make some friends all his own.

My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer in November and had a double mastectomy and is currently undergoing reconstruction. She continues to be my hero and I look up to her and thank God for blessing her with life. I have so much to learn from her. And kudos to my dad for being an amazing caregiver to her. I admire him so much for all that he is doing for her.

Props to my awesome in laws who love our boys so much and take them whenever they can. It's always nice to just be alone whether I'm by myself or with kris.

Kris will be taking over a new program at work next summer. I'm so proud of all that he has done to provide for our family. And I'm so happy that he truly loves what he does.

We wish you and yours a very happy new year!! We recently accepted an offer on our house so pending the appraisal and inspection, 2014 might be a very exciting year for us!!

Here are a few recent pics of me and my boys taking on kris' moms bday just a few days after Christmas.









Thanks for stopping by!
Jill

Merry Christmas 2013

We had a super low key Christmas this year. We tried our best to focus on Jesus' birthday and to do as little gifts as possible. The boys woke up around 745am and were so excited to head downstairs for the day. I took this picture of them before we let them go downstairs. So cute!!



Stockings first....Santa was good to them. They both got a pack of gum, a stuffed animal and five Lego mini figures.


Owen was so "cited" to get mini figures.


Wy checking out his gum. This kid loves his gum and eats a piece every 15 minutes.


Wy's turtle book set from Owen. He really wanted it.



And wy picked out this titanic set for Owen which Owen loves.


And finally the big gifts. Wy got the coastguard Lego set for. Santa.


And Owen was psyched about receiving the millennium falcon from Santa.


So excited!!



Christmas Eve we spent the day with my family and then after opening up gifts here yesterday morning we headed to canton for the day. The boys were so spoiled as usual. It was a good, good day! We hope you had a merry Christmas as well!!!

Thanks for stopping by!
Jill

Owen's quote of the day

Owen's quote of the day:
"Dad I asked you a question! Please put batteries in my train" so kris replied "that's not a question" to which Owen responded, "it's a comment!"


And here is Owen at his Christmas concert last week. He had a speaking part and did an amazing job saying his lines. He was so clear and annunciated his words beautifully. We were so very proud!!





Thanks for stopping by!
Jill

New Christmas tradition

We started a new tradition this year. I want the boys to know and understand the true meaning of Christmas, the birth of Jesus and the season of giving. I want them to be raised to be well grounded boys, who will hopefully pass this tradition along to their own families one day.

Our new tradition has three parts, giving, service, and family. They are not getting any gifts from us.....maybe a few very small items but nothing major will be under the tree for them. We have already completed our first year of utilizing this new tradition and I'm very proud of it and plan to keep it going.

First, giving. We let the boys pick an angel tree child at our church to purchase gifts for. Wyatt picked a three year old boy who wanted musical instruments, we bought him a keyboard, and Owen picked a six year old boy who wanted k'nex sets, which we picked out two sets for him. It was important to tell the boys why we were doing this, giving gifts to children who otherwise may not get anything at all for Christmas. Naturally Owen kept bringing up the fact that Santa can just get them whatever they want, so I had to keep telling him that we need to help these kids too, and since we are so blessed it was an opportunity to give back to others in our own community.





Second, service. My dad volunteers to ring the bell for the Salvation Army every year. Every day of the week at night until Christmas. I've always admired him for this and this year I thought it would be a perfect service project for my little family. It is quite a sacrifice standing out in the freezing cold weather accompanied by strong winds that leave you chilled to the bone. But my boys were troopers (for the most part). They did take a couple of breaks to walk around the store to warm up but I couldn't have asked for them to be better considering what was required of them. We received a lot of money and know that the money that they got while ringing the bell is used to help families in our community who need everyday essentials. We rang the bell twice this year with my dad and hope that next year, since the boys will be even older, that we can volunteer as a family.


Thirdly, family. Instead of an over abundance of gifts we had some good old fashioned quality family time. This year we went to splash village and let the boys do whatever they wanted. We had an awesome time in the waterpark, rented a pay-per-view movie in our hotel room (turbo) ate out at good restaurants, took them to a cool arcade for the night and got them whatever they wanted in the gift shop (they each picked out stuffed animals. Owen got a TY big orange fish named bubbles, and wy got the TY teenage mutant ninja turtle Rafael.) we were blessed to have good company this year, my brother and his two boys made the trip with us and we upgraded our room to a loft suite. It was a great trip!!



I'm so in love with my boys and so proud of them! They have amazing manners and are polite little boys. I'm really hoping that by following through with this new tradition year after year we will be encouraging them to be selfless, Christ like boys everyday.

Merry early Christmas! 6 days!

Thanks for stopping by!
Jill

Lemon meringue pie

I'm back briefly to let you know that we are all doing well. Just having a bit of a hard time blogging about the same ol' happy us.....so I'll plan to do another post around Christmas time and then won't be back til next year.

Tomorrow is kris' birthday. He said last night that he wanted a lemon meringue pie for his birthday dessert so I'm surprising him with this....






And yes I made it all by myself (with a little texting support from my mil). Haven't tried it yet so crossing my fingers we all like it!!!



Thanks for stopping by!
Jill