Morgan Grace Is Here!!!!!!!

Todd and Jami had their little girl this morning at 8:01. I got the chance to go up to the hospital tonight and hold her. She is SO cute! She is one of those newborns who came out looking like a little girl. She is absolutely perfect! Pictures to come later!

I cannot wait to see what the rest of the kids think of her. It is official there are now as many kids in our house on a Saturday night as adults, now that is scary.

Congratulations Todd and Jami! We love you guys!

Nashville and more...

About 2 weeks ago, I had the privilege of going to Nashville with Lifeline as a leader. I was very excited about this opportunity for a couple of reasons. First off, I love to hang out with high school students on trips like this. When you spend 24/7 with them for a few days you really get a chance to know some of them and have meaningful conversations. The other reasons I was excited to go was to see Nashville, I had never been there before, and to hang out with the adult leaders as well.
The reason for the trip to Nashville was to attend the Clarity conference. I have to admit I was a little surprised when we got to the conference. I am used to attending Acquire the Fire as a leader so I just assumed it would be like that, but instead of it being held in a college stadium it was held in a church. It was kind of nice to have a much smaller crowd and for it to be a more intimate setting, but at the same time there is something to be said for worshipping with a few thousand students. There is really nothing like it.
I would have to say that my favorite part of the weekend was hanging out with my 2 high school girls. We had a great time together, one of them I knew and the other one I had never met before. We had some quality time together where we got to really talk. We also had some time where we got to shop, the mall we went to was amazing. It was cool to just hang out the 3 of us while we did one of the things girls love! It was an amazing weekend, and I am so thankful I had the opportunity to get to know these girls.
After we got back, I got am amazing gift. Johnny, who basically ran point on the entire trip, sent each leader a thank you card and a CD where each student had taken the time to thank the leaders for going on the trip with them. I cannot begin to explain to you how good it felt to hear the kids say thank you! Johnny you hit the ball out of the park, thank you!

Oh, for those of you who are wondering whether I did what God was asking me to do, from my last post, I can tell you YES I did. Now we will see where it goes from here...

There has been something I have been needing to do for awhile now and have just not done it. About a year ago God started prompting me to do this thing. I was a afraid to do it and kept putting it off and putting it off. I still kept feeling that prompting from God, but I didn't do anything about it. Sure enough as time went on the prompting went away and I totally forgot about it.
Well that all changed last weekend on my trip to Nashville with Lifeline (more on that later) the prompting came back louder then ever and with it came a sense of knowing that there is alot riding on whether I will obey or not.
So, here it goes, I am off to obey.

Tough Girl

The girls have been taking ice skating lessons for the past week or so and they love it.

But...

It is their first real attempt on the slippery stuff and so they take their spills in the learning process. Allison took a fall last week and unfortunately the typical, "I'll put my hands down to catch myself" thing didn't work. The hands shot out to the side and the face hit the ice.

The fist black eye to be sure. And while it just hurts to look at it (you feel badly for them) there's also that small part of me that thinks it looks pretty cool. My daughter the hockey player!

You look great Ally...

Ice skating anyone?

I said in my previous post that while on vacation we took the kids ice skating. This is something we try and do once a year. Daryl pretty much lived on ice skates as a kid and it is pretty cool to watch how well his entire family ice skates. I am hoping someday our kids will be able to keep up with their dad.

Allison and Rachel did great, by the end of our time Rachel was out there on her own. Allison was a little more dependent on the walker type thing they could hold on to, though she was trying to jump with it by the end. The girls had a great time and we pretty much had to bribe them to leave the ice.

This was Tyler's first time on th ice and be honest I was not sure how he would do. We decided to just let him out on the ice with his boots on and he had a great time. He was all smiles and followed his sister's around wherever they went. I think his favorite part was slamming his walker thing into his sister's. We decided to try skates on him to see what he would do. He was a little freaked out at first, but with his daddy by his side he did okay. Watch out NHL!!!!!

Allison and Tyler on the ice.

Rachel out on her own!

Tyler trying out the real thing.

Thanks for the great time Lori, Brian and kids. We had a ton of fun!

Vacation

So this is a little late coming, but hey what is a girl to do. Last week was absolutely AWESOME! Why, you may ask? Because we were on VACATION! It is the first time in a long time that we have had an entire week together as a family. No school, no work, no agenda, just fun! We did a lot of staying up late (yeah we totally screwed our kids up with this one), sleeping in, hanging out with friends and family and just doing nothing.
Some of the highlights of our week were spending Christmas Day with family, seeing Charlotte's Web with the girls, having dinner with friends, taking the kids ice skating, painting the office, having dinner with friends again, seeing "Holiday" with my girl friends, and ringing in the New Year with friends. My favorite part of vacation was getting to spend time with friends and just being together as a family. The month of December was crazy for us, so it was nice to just "be" for a week with no real agenda.
I have to admit it was really hard going back to work this week. I did not want to be there. I found myself thinking about Daryl and the kids all day on Tuesday and wishing that our vacation had not ended. I guess I will just have to start a count down till our next vacation.
As much as I love going away for vacation, I have to say there is something to say for just staying home and doing whatever you want whenever you want. I think I just need to be on the same vacation schedule as my kids, which would mean a vacation day at least once a month. I think I need to propose that to my employer :)

Christmas 2006

It has been a crazy couple of days, but we had a ton of fun. We started off our Christmas festivities on Saturday when we attended Christmas Eve service at GCC and then had a gift exchange with our best friends. The kids had a great time opening gifts as did the adults. Christmas Eve morning I hit the ground running. I had about half a dozen dishes to make for the holidays. I finished those up in just enough time to jump in the shower, get the kids ready and head to my sister's for dinner. We hung out there for awhile, opened presents, ate food and then it was time to head over to Grandma Marques' house for some more good times. More presents to open, dessert to be eaten, and then time to head for home. The kids did their traditional opening of Christmas pajamas, putting cookies out for Santa and then off to bed. We finished up some last minute details and then off to bed till the big day!


Believe it or not, when I woke up at 8:30am on Christmas morning the house was quiet, no one was up yet. A few minutes later Tyler woke up, then Rachel made her way in our room and at 9:00am we finally had to wake Allison up. I think we had to wake her up last year too. The kids opened up presents from Santa, then my dad and brother came over for breakfast and more opening of gifts. Before we knew it we had to leave to go to my cousins house to open presents and spend time with my mom's side of the family. We left there and headed to Berrien to have dinner with Daryl's side of the family. More presents, food and good times were had.

We spent the day today putting toys together and just letting the kids play all day! It was a great three days and since Daryl and I are on vacation this week I am looking forward to some much needed rest.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from our family to yours!

Hon - We're in Granger Now...

Yes that's my driveway and yes, those are cops!

At noon on Wednesday my wife calls me freaked out because she just saw a car fly through our yard and cops chasing with lights flashing. I quickly headed in that direction at 60+ mph to find one Chevrolet Trailblazer in our back yard butted up against a tree and two empty (and still running) police cars flanking my house!

Assuming there must be a chase in progress, I headed into the house to make sure everyone was okay. Tammy was in our closet with the two kids that were still home and seemed a bit concerned about coming downstairs. I assured her there was no one around, grabbed the camera and headed back outside (dumb I know - but this had to be the most bizarre thing that has happened to us...EVER!!! So I couldn't pass up the opportunity.)

[complete photo gallery here]

Well, after a while the police returned to fill us in on the case. Apparently a few boyz in the hood (I mean neighborhood...) decided to steal a car in South Bend and drop it off to someone at a church in Granger. Along the way, they were spotted and the police gave chase. So the boyz headed toward home (which just happens to be a few streets over from ours) and must have thought we had a secret shortcut behind our house. When they realized they were sadly mistaken, they abandoned car (SUV) and fled on foot - causing our fine men in brown to get an unexpected workout (of course they were "high-fiving" at the end of it - most action they've seen this year apparently...)

The police explained that they had three of the boyz and that one was headed down the toll road somewhere and would be picked up sooner rather than later.

Aside from a little grass damage, our house made it through the ordeal.

I guess on the one hand you need to thank God for His watch care over us but on the other hand you can't help but laugh at the criminal mindset...

Hon - we're in Granger now!

It's a Wonderful Life

I am sitting here at the kitchen table thinking about my life and just how good I have it. My wife isn't here - and no, that's not why my life is so good. She's out at a gas station somewhere in Michiana handing out free gas as part of GCC's 20 Days of Giving [follow along here]. It's nice to be married to someone that cares enough about her community to stand in 20 degree temps to spread a little love...

Rachel is attempting to play games on the computer. Allison trying to decide if she should help her as she walks around carefully with a baby doll she says is Carter's sister.

Tyler and Carter are pushing heavy machinery around the living room and keeping their eye on the TV to make sure I don't turn Dora the Explorer off.

The snow is gently falling outside even though you can't see it in the picture.

I have the Sunday paper in front of me and a cup of Starbucks coffee within arms reach.

It's the holiday season.

I have a great God, family and job.

I have a great roof over my head and two cars that have been working well this week :)

Like I said, It's a Wonderful Life!

Happy 36th Birthday Daryl

Today my husband turned 36. I was tesing him earlier this week that he is now closer to 40 than 30. Of course I can still do this because I have a couple more years till I hit that point. One thing I love about him is that age does not matter, his response back to me was "who cares, it is just a number".
I try to do something special for him to celebrate his Birthday, last year I took him away for the weekend. This year it was more important for us to be at church because today is the 20th Anniversary of the church. So instead of going away for the weekend we got away for the night. The Callenders took our kids for the night and we did dinner, a movie, breakfast in the morning and some other things in between those times. Oh how I love married life! Tonight after church our best friends are coming over to celebrate his birthday and tomorrow we will celebrate with the kids. I love it when the whole weekend is all about him. Birthday's were a big deal in my house growing up and I want to continue that tradition in our house.
Just so you are aware, I have the best the husband on the planet. He is my best friend and the one I cannot wait to go to bed with at night and wake up next to in the morning. He does what needs to be done for our family and because of this we never go without. He is a awesome father who loves his children more than he loves himself and they adore him because of this. I am so lucky I married him, we have had 7 great married years together and I cannot wait to see what the future holds for us.
I love you hon!