Moo!

This year, Micah Elijah and Madeline all had a part in our Christmas play at church! Micah was a Shepherd who wanted to know what abiding means, Elijah was a child in his pajamas preparing to sing a song in the Christmas play, and Madeline shared the sound that a cow makes. We were a little skeptical as to weather or not she would say Moo in front of the entire congregation, but she did and she did it with gusto! All of the children did a fantastic job sharing their part of the Christmas story! We were very proud of everyone!

Give Thanks!

We had a whirlwind Thanksgiving.  It was fun, but busy.  It always feels that way with Elijah's birthday falling so close to Thanksgiving day.  This year, Nana, Uncle Nunky and Aunt Naomi joined us on the 16th of November then, Papa and Aunt Hannah joined us on the 18th and spent the time leading up to Thanksgiving at our house.  They had the opportunity to tag along with us throughout our weekly activities which included swim lessons, pioneer clubs, church, Micah's Turkey Trot, Elijah's birthday celebration(which we did early to make sure Papa was able to celebrate with Elijah.) and we spent the remainder of November cooking and eating.  That's what it felt like at least!  It seems that anytime there is a large group of family together it feels as if you live from one meal to the next.  We had a great time.  The girls had a wonderful time trying out new recipes and shopping together, while the guys had fun doing the things guys do!

Rotten chocolate milk and the forest Elves!

      Some days, when I pick Micah up from school, he is quiet and has very little to tell me about his day.  Other days, he is full of stories about all of the exciting things that went on during his day at school.  Today was a day full of stories!  The funniest story he wanted to share with me was the fact that another child in his class had accidentally left her chocolate milk from the previous week in her desk causing a huge stink in the classroom.  It's kind of a funny story but, what really put the icing on the cake for me was the conclusion that Micah had arrived at following the rotten milk incident.  Micah informed me today that he was relatively certain that the elves in the forest drink rotten chocolate milk because one day he had been outside and he lifted up the top of an acorn and decided to smell it, and sure enough, it smelled just like rotten chocolate milk!  Where did Micah get the idea that we have Forest Elves in Traverse City.  I have often felt that our forests in Traverse City could easily be used as an enchanted forest in a movie, but I have never mentioned anything about Elves living in our forests!  How funny!  I love Micah's imagination, and I am glad that even though he growing older ever day, he still makes use of his fun loving imagination!

       In honor of Micah's great imagination,  I have decided to include a few of our Halloween photos in this post.    I found Micah's imagination to be especially active around Halloween!  Instead of dressing in   a typical boy costume such as a super hero or a pirate Micah insisted on being Abraham Lincoln.  He was very cute alongside our little Bumblebee(Madeline) and our Mario (Elijah)
 

Catch up!!!

I can't believe how much time I have let pass, and how many events have occurred since my last blog.  It is amazing how sometimes life just gets clipping along and before you know what happened, a large amount of life has passed you by.  Every evening, as I sat down and thought about catching up on my blog I became overwhelmed with all of the large events that I wanted to try to capture in one blog.  Instead of sitting down and attempting to catch up I managed to let more events with great memories pass by!  Here are some of the highlights of our last month.

Jeremiah and Kaitlin's Wedding!
     We had a fantastic time at Uncle Jeremiah and Kaitlin's wedding.  It was gorgeous!  The weather was fantastic and it appeared that everything went wonderfully!  We were excited and blessed to be a part of it and are thrilled to add Kaitlin to the Bauer family!  She is a great addition!

Greenfield Village

We spent a very brief afternoon at Greenfield Village in Detroit.  We had just enough time to see a glass blowing demonstration, ride the carousel, eat lunch and take a Ride in a Model T.  Micah and Elijah were thrilled!

Hiking the Dunes

We took a little time to be tourists in our own home town area.  We took time to visit the Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive, and did a little hiking.  It was a little wet and rainy, but  we still had a great time.

Pre- Halloween fun

We were very excited to spend some time with Aunt Hannah before Halloween.  We traveled to the pumpkin patch, carved pumpkins and cooked/ate yummy food!

We also traveled to Pahl's Pumpkin patch with Elijah's pre-K class

I am also planning to post pictures of Halloween, but that will be another post.  

Reckless Words

Uncle Jeremiah's wedding(unrelated to blog topic)

     A few weeks ago, Micah’s memory verse for school was the verse Proverbs 12:18
”The words of the reckless pierce like swords”   When he received this verse as his memory, my thoughts were “How fitting” children spend a lot of time throughout their early years of life learning how their interactions affect the people around them.  They learn how to “Use nice words” and how to say “Please” and “Thank you.”  All of these exercises are opportunities for children to begin to learn how to think through their words and the affect that their words can have on their peers and family members.  These lessons help children to learn to take a minute to think before shooting out words that cannot be taken back.  It is amazing how a word said thoughtlessly can stick with a person for years and years.  In many cases things that were said to us years ago can even begin to make up who we believe we are and where we feel our value comes from.  When in all actuality this is not and should not be where our value and self worth is found.    As this verse has been brought to the forefront of my mind, I have become more and more aware of the many times each day that I listen as hurtful words are slung at someone.  The scary thing is that due to social networking sites like facebook, twitter and the use of bogging, people can very easily attack someone without ever having to face them.  I watch as statuses are posted and tweets are tweeted and blogs are updated and I often find myself wondering, “Was someone hurt by that post? ” Ephesians 4:29 reminds us
 ”Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.”   Jason always reminds the youth (and adults) at Redeemer that it is so important to treat everyone as if he or she is worth the death of the Son of God.  Because they are and that is where our value is found!  I pray that in all our interactions, we would treat people this way.

Uncle Jeremiah's Wedding(Unrelated to blog topic)

     Children learn by example far better than they learn through lecture.  They watch every interaction we make, and they hear every time we say something that is hurtful to another, they also hear every time that we compliment others.  Most times children try to emulate our behavior.  I pray that I can through my words and actions encourage my children to think before speaking.  I feel that in many cases, if we would step back and ask ourselves “Who do these words benefit? Are they helping someone grow closer with Christ or will they only serve to anger another? “  If we took a few minutes to think through our words, I would pray that many time we would choose to delete the hurtful message instead of posting it or that we would bite our tongues instead of lashing out at someone.  Colossians 4:46 is a fantastic guideline “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.”  As I was finishing this blog post, I returned to Proverbs 12:18 to read the second half of the verse and this is what I found , “but the tongue of the wise brings healing.
” Proverbs 12:18 in its entirety is  “
”The words of the reckless pierce like swords, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.”  May our words always be words of healing and never swords to one another!

Summer Revisited

Today was a fantastic day.  We started the day by sleeping in!  There are some nights that it feels SO good to sleep, and last night was no exception.  We have been passing a cold around our family which has caused us to have a few restless children throughout the nights.  last night was the first night in a very long time that I remember sleeping solidly through the night without having a child crying, saying they were scared or asking to climb in the bed with us.  I actually woke up in the morning and felt the need to check on Madeline to be sure she was okay.

     After we were all awake, we ate breakfast and then showered and prepared to head into town.  We promised the boys that they would get to play at the Children's Museum last night and were disappointed to discovered that it closed before we arrived.  We placed the children's museum as number one on our list of things to do today.  The boys were excited!  We spent about and hour and a half at the children's museum and then ventured on to Downtown Traverse City for some lunch at the Dish.  It was yummy!  We had noticed that there was a Parade of Homes going on for remodeled homes, so we decided to check it out.  The children were excellent and loved putting little blue booties over their shoes to preserve the carpet in the homes that we visited.  After we toured a few homes on Old Mission Peninsula we decided that the kids were probably ready for a break.  So, we made a stop at the Kids Kove play ground.

 The boys enjoyed running around and climbing the different sections of the play structures, and Madeline enjoyed walking around and trying out the small slide and the swings.

We ended our time in town with a stop at St. Michael's Lutheran Church for their annual Oktoberfest celebration.  We had a great time and ate some yummy food!  I love German cuisine!  We crammed so much into our day, it almost felt like we had returned to summer.  It was a fun day!

Breakfast with Madeline

Jason is at the Seminary this week, which leaves me on parenting duty all alone.  We always miss Daddy when he is gone.  Between dropping to children off for school and picking them back up, I feel like I am constantly in the car.  After dropping both boys off at their schools I decided to head to Cracker Barrel for a nice breakfast out with Madeline.  It is not very often that I am able to spend time with just Madeline.  We had a fun morning together.