Snow Day!

What a surprise! As a weather watcher (especially in the winter), I have never, ever been surprised by a snow day. I can see 'em comin', and I eagerly anticipate. Today just blew me away, though! I had given up hope to the point of not even watching the weather anymore and, lo and behold, we got a few perfectly-timed inches. So...I guess it can happen whether or not I'm watching for it...I'm not as powerful as I thought.

We had been holding onto a Bob Evans gift card for just such an occasion, so we all went out to breakfast, then spent the rest of the day playing (in various ways). It was snowing and blowing for most of the day, so Matt and Joe were the only ones hearty enough to spend any time outside. I think Ellie was probably the happiest in the whole family to have Joe around to play with all day. I love how much they love each other!

All the playing must have distracted Erin because when I went in to get her up from her nap, I found that she hadn't slept at all. I told her I wasn't happy about that, and she promised me that she would sleep tomorrow. When we came downstairs, Matt asked her if she had slept. She folded her hands and calmly said, "I don't think I can tell you that right now." She is just so funny to me!

Happy Birthday, Emily!

And now we move on to the next birthday, our niece, Emily! She turns 21 today, and we hope she made it to wherever she was going. I say this because Emily, as Matt puts it, couldn't drive her way out of a paper bag. She is the one that the whole family loves to tease about getting lost...no matter how close she was to where she was going. For the most part, she takes our teasing pretty well. Hopefully, it's because she knows we love her. The mask picture is one of my favorites of Emily. I took it in the summer of 2002, when she was entertaining some of her younger cousins. Ya gotta love a 16-year-old who will put on a shark mask and chase little kids around a pond. That's one fun cousin!

Happy Birthday, Matt!

We celebrated Matt's birthday last weekend (with his favorite red velvet cake), but the official date was on Monday. He says he had a good day. The day began with a two-hour delay, which didn't materialize into a cancellation from school...that's always kind of a bummer. He did get to start his day with a bowl of Cocoa Krispies, his favorite cereal, which he gets once a year. (It may be the key to his youthfulness!) The girls and I made him his favorite cookies (peanut butter chocolate chip) for an after-school snack, then we had one of his favorite suppers (pork roast, mashed potatoes, etc.). So, I guess he did alright in the food department. He had a couple gifts to open...a sweater, a book, and a magazine subscription...nothing too exciting. For all he means to us, it seems like his special day is never quite special enough. As Jane Austen would say, "He is the kindest and the best of men." We are so blessed!

At Last!

We have snow!!!! We got about four inches between 7 am and noon, so we got to go sledding for the first time this winter! The park down the street has some of the best sledding hills I've ever seen, and we hit them hard. It's so fun to see how much more daring the kids get from one winter to the next!

I love how bright and quiet everything is today. Yesterday our white fence was the brightest object around, and today it looks sort of dingy next to the snow.

Happy Birthday, Uncle Del!

Yesterday was the birthday of my Uncle Del (also known on the blog as UD), the husband of my mom's sister, Aunt Beth (AB). He and my aunt are spending the month relaxing in Florida and enjoying the sun, which seems a little brighter there than in their native Minnesota. On his birthday he may have been golfing, reading at the beach, playing bridge, or maybe something even more exciting. Whatever it was, I hope he enjoyed his day.

Uncle Del is a great cook, as is seen in the picture, and he's also the best one in the family to play partners with in Trivial Pursuit. My mom's Trivial Pursuit box actually has recorded the number of "pie's" his team was able to win in one turn. I think it was four...? He enjoys games of all sorts, but, actually, I don't think Trivial Pursuit is one of his favorites. Bonus points for him for playing it with us every summer on vacation...because it's TRADITION! He also crafted one of the most ingenious contraptions in our house, four little boosters for our card table which make it stand as tall as our dining table. We use them all the time and have yet to see any for sale. It could be his claim to fame someday...if he really wants that sort of thing. He's very special to us, and we wish him lots of love for the year ahead!

Fun At Our House

No big snows yet to keep us entertained, but we're doing the best with what we've got!

A couple weeks ago, we discovered a great new game called Sticker Tag. The kids and I each took one sheet of stickers (the cheap, little dot ones) and chased each other around the yard trying to put the stickers on each other. No points, no winners, just lots and lots of running and laughing. It's so cool to see how they move at the different stages they're in right now. God grows such amazing bodies! (I really could barely keep going when I was chasing Erin. Her little run, combined with her squeals of excitement were just too much!) My kids have never been big on regular tag (I could only ever get them to play for five minutes at the most), but this kind of tag we played for an entire hour! I was a little sore the next day, but it was worth it for the fun we had...and for how easily they went to bed that night.


Then on Friday Joe had the day off of school, and he spent it catching up on playtime with his sisters. They raided the dress up clothes, and I found them acting out the clown scene from Dumbo. Erin was Dumbo, of course, as he is one of her passions right now. Joe and Ellie were having fun making her jump off the "burning house".


For me, it's also been great fun to see the sun again today after three days of rain. What a blessing!

Happy Birthday, Julie and Toby!

Do you suppose that with the time difference it's still Sunday in Seattle? If so, then I'd be right on time in wishing a happy birthday to Matt's sister, Julie, and her son, Toby! (I guess I'm late, huh?)

Twelve years ago, Julie gave birth to Toby on her birthday, which, I think, would pretty much set you up forever in the presents department. Toby is a fun and cool twelve-year-old, whom our kids are a little awed by. Among his many talents, he actually takes fencing lessons, which sort of awes me, too! His mom is a fun and cool person who's older than twelve (and older than Matt by one year). We always look forward to them traveling to visit us in Ohio in the summer and are so thankful that they are faithful to that each year. One other great thing about Julie is that she's the fun aunt who makes birthdays and holidays last a little longer. She sends great presents, even up to a month after the event, which makes them that much more exciting to our kids. So, I guess she won't really mind that this birthday post is a couple days late. There's just that much more love attached!

Go Bucks!

I wonder what it's like to live in a state that's not Ohio tonight. At Wal Mart this morning, I think I maybe saw two people (out of many!) who weren't wearing their scarlet and gray, such is the hype about the BCS Championship against U of Florida. Our kids were all decked out in their OSU gear before they headed off to bed tonight. We let them stay up a little later, so they could see some of the game. They watched for about 20 minutes, which was enough to see both teams score one time. We're almost to halftime now and, as the announcer just said, "It's shaping up to be a wild game..." I know I'm an optimist, but this game hasn't really been what I had in mind.

The football game wasn't exactly what Erin had in mind, either. When she put on her sweatshirt today, and I told her she could wear it for the OSU ball game, she got all excited about going to the ball at OSU. Her visions of twirling to the music may have been dashed, but I think she was OK with it, when she got to practice tackling while we were waiting for the game to start.

God's Resolution (for any year)

(I received this poem in an e-newsletter and thought it was worth sharing.)

New.
New Year.
New toys.
New gadgets to play with.
New things to do.
New things to tantalize.
But what happens to the old?
Thrown away, trashed, burned.
"But it's broken, worn out, used up; it's...it's old!"

And into this world that prizes new things,
which has junk heaps for mountains,
come the words from the One who sits on the throne:
"Behold, I am making all things new." And that's what He does, doesn't he? He takes old things - like you and me, things that are broken with sin, things that are used in the ways of selfishness, things that are tired because of vain pursuits... And instead of holding us at arm's length with disdain - over the trash can - saying:
"It's ...it's old!" He says, "Behold, I am making all things new."

And then He does it.
He takes on body to experience getting older.
He endures the older-than-time taunts of the one
who delights in destroying, in tearing apart.
He knows the age-old temptations to sin.
He hangs on old wood.
Why this throne-leaving to intimately know "old"?
So He can take old hearts and transform them.
So He can make old, sad hearts dance with new joy.
So He can make guilty hearts
know newness of starting over again.
So He can make all of us old sinners
(well practiced in old paths of sin)
know new life.
So He can make all things new.

Kelly Knowlden

New Year, New Look

This is Joe's new look now that he lost his first top tooth this week. It was SOOOOO loose, and he just could not pull it. Then, of all things, it fell out in the night while he was sleeping! He woke up, and it was lying there on his sheet! That's one aggressive tooth fairy!


Erin also has a new look. She has worn this "beautiful tutu" out of the dress up box for the past three days.



Ellie finally has bangs that are long enough to pull back without little clips. (Although, when Matt sees her hair like this, he calls her "Genie".) She had a nice story time with her bears yesterday.

My Verse for the Year

Happy New Year, everybody!

With the dawn of 2007, I have finally decided on the passage of Scripture I will be focusing on for my 35th year of life (as first mentioned here).

My focus this year will be on contentment and the verse I've chosen is Psalm 23:1, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want." Simple, huh? Not really, for me, but I know He will be faithful to teach me. The word picture of a shepherd guiding and providing for his flock is very powerful, I think. Some other passages I looked up as I was thinking about this topic are:

"But godliness with contentment is great gain." I Timothy 6:6

"Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Hebrews 11:1

"And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:19