Raising Arrows

being silly @ Milham Park this spring I thought I'd share a few of our favorite family times since moving to Portage. We've had to make some small adjustments to some of our favorites but it's worked out well and we still enjoy each moment of each hour spent together. TUBA! So Saturdays are our family days. They follow our family movie and pizza nights still. That's a tradition I don't think we will ever change!!! We love pizza and movies. ha! As the weather got nicer we found a few local parks that have become a favorite for all you kids. Milham Park, so we can see the geese and play on the big slides and wander around free and Celery Flats. The Flats have ponds, and lots and lots of FROGS!! We've bought nets and brought buckets and go frog hunting! (and always release them once we've watched, examined, picked up, and played with each one.) It started out as a field trip for school during our Frog unit, but has turned into a wonderful adventure we...

I can't keep blogging on and on about life without sharing and blogging the ugly, tough days too. I don't want to paint this beautiful picture of life that seems to always run smoothly. First off, I'm a mess half the time. A new mom all four of you, I now understand what oasis is ... a 15 minute shower, where I answer to no one, I just stand in pure silence, letting hot, burning water run down my body. I try to spend that time wisely, like in prayer for our family and missionary friends, but honestly I'm not the greatest at it yet... most the time I'm just fighting to keep my eyes open without falling asleep standing up or trying to get that one Disney song out of my brain for 10 seconds!! I love my life. Each of you, my children. And I absolutely LOVE being a wife. This life is seriously all I ever really wanted to do. Teach, train, snuggle, repeat. But life is life and as most lives go, it's thrown some curve balls our way. One major one that effects mos...

It's been two weeks. Two beautiful, yet tough weeks. It seems cliche to say, but it does seem like yesterday. At this time two weeks ago, I was just put on my strong meds for GBS and let it run it's course before the midwife came back to break the rest of my water. (My water ruptured the night before, and I had been slowing leaking fluid thru the night and day, with contractions on/off) I was terrified, yet excited. I knew there wasn't much more that stood between holding you close to my chest ... except labor. I mean like real labor. Like take a deep breathe, this really hurts, how could I choose to do this again, labor. And that's the thing. Labor is unpredictable. I hate it but I LOVE it. It's such a stresser for me. I'm a planner. I have to know the 411 on each detail of my day. But labor, well that's just not how it works. Some are long, some are short, some take weeks to recover from, while others I could hop out of bed and do a dance a...

So every year we keep a "memories" jar... and through out the year we fill it with our favorite events, happenings, words, or moments. We then open it up and read through them on Jan. 1st with sparkling juice and breakfast. It's a fun and simple tradition that we look forward to sharing with our kids through the years. So I have had 2014 and 2015 "memories" on my laptop, saved, and ready to blog but just never have done it. (thank you, no internet) So i thought now would be a prime time to finally spill the beans and get them saved on the blog! Along with some fun photos from those years. {disclaimer :: they are in no real order or sequence. sorry!} 2014 Oct. 9 th – Eye appts for Milo & Norma : Norma good, no problems. Milo, we're told, will have surgery soon... praying and a bit scared August 5 th – Reenie starts back to work with momma :) a very cute distraction As of June, Theo “says” :: tractor, light, dog, bubbles, bath, mom,...

Since it's been so long and everyone has grown so much, I want to update on how and where each kid is at. Along with a few fun family updates. It'll probably be a longer post, but what the hey! It should be done. So lets begin with the main frame... Mom and Dad, Tim and Dani,  lovebirds that started this beautiful mess. We are in our 7th year of marriage and looking forward to celebrating our 8th this summer! Whoa, where did time go?! Overall not much has changed with us. Tim got new glasses and keeps a pretty respected beard now a days and I still deal with the dilemma of long or short hair... it changes frequently. Tim has been working for the Gospel Mission now for a little over a year, and has a nice office. I am pretty much a full time stay at home, homeschooling, soccer mom. I still second shoot weddings with the awesome Melissa Gregersen on the weekends, but last fall stopped my weekly fun at the studios so I could home school and be with the kiddos. It was a hard cha...

Well, looks like I have a lot to catch up on. Including but not limited to adding two kids, moving twice, and some awesome lessons God's been teaching our family. It would take me a very long time to detail out all of these and in the next few weeks I hope to give a more accurate account about where we are and how our lives have changed. For now I'll say just the short of it all.... -We moved back to MI in March 2014 -Miss Norma Irene was born June 2014 -We began helping with Citygate (or Uchurch as we began) shortly after moving back -Milo began kindergarten this past fall (2015), and we decided to homeschool - we LOVE it! -We moved to Portage Feb. 2016 (which is why we finally are able to have REAL internet again and I can begin blogging again! woot) -And we are expecting a sweet, new baby boy this summer!! Obviously there's SO much more to all of this. But it's so hard to know what to elaborate on and what to let go ... so that's the small steps to ...

It's officially been 2014 for 12 hours now, and as I sit down to write our year in review I'm reminded, yet again, at how blessed we've been this year & how much I've learned. God's taught me so much about patience, his enduring love, grace & his faithfulness. Nothings in order, there were so many memories this year that our jar was overflowing. So here we go... - end of March, beginning of April: getting settled into our new home & it finally feels like "home"  - May 29th : dinner with the Wilkinsons, Rudolphs, & Morrie - swimming, tractors, lots of kids, late night  - Theo's first steps across living room Nov. 20th (Mom & Dad were in Germany... walked for Nanny) - April 5th : Family night at the park with McD's - slides, sunshine, walks, picnic  - Baking the month of December and starting our own Christmas traditions - chocolate chip cookies, pretzel bark, frosting cookies, lots of music, oatmeal scotchies  ...