Thanksgiving

This was the year for our family to spend Thanksgiving with the Slagenweit side of the family. The Florida crew arrived early and then then our Ohio clan joined them for Thanksgiving day. The college break begins after sixth period on Wednesday so we left soon after but it was quite the trip with some blinding snow that covered the roads and left us blindingly following the tail lights of the vehicle in front of us for a large part of Pennsylvania. The boys were amazed at how quickly this trip went......since they were sleeping for half of it!

My camera stayed in its case for the majority of the time and the pictures I did take were very random.....weird random as a matter of fact.


My "little" brother Jonathan handing off his youngest son, Carter, to my sister, Jennifer.

My nephew, Evan.

The boys spent the majority of their time playing the Wii. As you can tell by Allan's face, it has a numbing effect. After we left last year he sighed and said, "I have an addiction. It's an addiction to playing video games. It's good we don't have any at home."  Having the exposure once a year is actually quite a good teaching tool for my guys and I think that's why they've never asked to have any of their own.

 This would be my nephew, Bryce.

 Daniel and Zach are playing with the marble track that I played with (and if I'm not mistaken, my father played with) when I was young at my Grandpa and Grandma Slagenweit's house. It's a track with slightly angled channels that have a hole in the end where the marble drops to the next level - back and forth until reaching the bottom. Some things never get old!

My niece, Kaylynn and nephew Bryce in conversation.

The week before Thanksgiving we caught up with the homeschool group from Christian Nation Church for their yearly Thanksgiving feast. My boys all chose to dress up like pilgrims this year......but even Pilgrims must carry cap guns.

Summer Days are Here!

Summer + slower pace = fun family times. Not that we couldn't be busy this summer but there are more important things than being busy. Here's this past week:

Kroger had their raspberries on sale the past two weeks for a $1, so that gave good reason to make up some jam. There were 20 jars but one has already been opened to go on toast for breakfast - marvelous stuff!

We tried out a "new-to-us" park on Tuesday evening at Mt. Airy Forest that has a really cool treehouse!

We had fun exploring there and then decided to take a little hike. The boys are always looking for an adventurous walk in the woods - pretending a myriad of things along the way. It was HOT the middle of last week and so we were thoroughly soaked and worn out by the time we got back to the van (but little people sleep better when they're all worn out :o) Here's Stephen with his hiking stick "whip, whip, whip"ing away at whatever he's whipping - have no idea where he got it from!

Allan wanted me to take a picture of a tree with arms -

Then Wednesday was spent in the garden....all day.... finishing the planting that needed to be done for this year. We would have to choose the hottest day of this year so far to finish but since we were leaving on Thursday it couldn't wait any longer. I broke down and bought Preen (which I should have done two months ago!) so that I don't have to spend the rest of the summer weeding. So now all the cucumbers, squash, cantelope, and okra are planted and I took time to stake the tomatoes.

Thursday we headed to Tennessee!

Where we stayed at the Valentine's home -

And grilled our meals while enjoying the lovely patio and gazebo area that had a swing and table -

While the boys explored the woods and spent time playing on the swing -

Enjoyed some awesome scenery in the Great Smokey Mountains - what a wonderful change of pace from the city. God is such an awesome Creator!

Enjoyed all the flowers that were blooming (including Mountain Laurel and azaleas) but missed getting pictures of the turkeys.

Two different days we took the boys to Cosby Creek to throw rocks and just enjoy the outdoors. They had a marvelous time!

All too soon it was time to pack up and head back to Cincinnati - we arrived home last evening a little after 5:30, had some homemade pizza, took our Saturday night baths and headed to bed.

Today we had lunch with our special friends, Michael and Linda Schaub, and their girls (all four of them :o). Tonight we have to say goodbye (again!) since they're taking their new little one and heading back to Florida. I'm so thankful they were able to be here for the birth of the baby and we got to meet Maddie before they had to go back South. We will miss them!

IHC April 27

This year IHC was special because my brother, Jonathan, and his family attended. They stopped by for a very quick visit to drop off a desk. Philip purchased a desk for me off of Ebay that was located in Tampa and they delivered it. This year we took all three boys (which I think is a first) and thought I got to see many faces - there wasn't a lot of time to talk :o(

These are my nephews - Tyler and Zach. Oh, and the other guy is my baby brother!

Allan Turns Seven!

Allan turned seven on Thursday! Since he was in school, we needed to make a treat for his classmates. I used an idea from a friend and made frog cupcakes. They actually turned out quite cute (except the ones with red eyes looked rabid and the yellow eyed ones looked anemic). 

Later that evening we celebrated his birthday supper (pepperoni and mushroom pizza, Doritos, and pop)with friends. He got a bike and a pocket knife - he's working on learning to ride his bike and got his first pocket knife cut on Friday! I can't believe I'm the mother of a seven year old! The other evening he acted hesitant about giving me a good night kiss and so I figured it was time to tell him that if he was uncomfortable that was normal and he didn't have to kiss me. He looked at me shocked and said, "I'll never be embarrassed to kiss you!" I hope that's true. We're so blessed to have this young man in our family.

Philip's 40th Birthday!

After arriving home from PA we started getting ready for Philip's "big" birthday. Turning 40 wasn't earth shattering for him at all....he said as he looks at his life, he's done everything he's dreamed of and God's allowed him to do more than what he could have imagined. I'm so thankful that I've been blessed to watch God's working in his life over the past 10 years and it has truly been amazing! We celebrated with family and a few friends and enjoyed reminiscing about what God has done.

We celebrated with steak (thanks to a Kroger gift card for a Proctor and Gamble study :o), baked potatoes and salad. Then, Philip had asked his mom to make him a Mississippi Mud Cake...that was wonderful! The following day we celebrated with our Young Adult Sunday School Class....but I forgot my camera!

Trip to Pennsylvania

It was a joy to be able to spend a week in PA over the last part of February and the first of March. Philip was holding revival in York, PA which is about 2 hours from my parents so we took the boys with us a made it a "vacation". It was nice to see my dad and mom again and for the boys to enjoy some more time with Grandpa and Grandma. My mom had some pretty good days while we were there which I'm thankful for. Grandpa and Grandma both read lots and lots of books (although the boys seemed stuck on The Sphinx during that time period), colored, and played for hours on end. And my guys loved it - they just have a hard time understanding why we can't do it once a week or so :o)

In the evenings my brother and sister-in-law would come over and wear the boys out before bedtime. Side note: After a streak of seven boys in the family, we've just learned that April (my brother David's wife) is expecting a girl. So my parents are going to get their first granddaughter sometime in July! In looking through pictures thought I don't have any shots of them....other than the evidence they were there by mom son's headgear!

One afternoon while we were there we saw the most amazing thing. I happened to look out the deck doors and the sky was just full of flocks of Canadian geese (strangely enough they were heading south) As far as you could see to the left and right there were geese and the noise was incredible. They were flying pretty high so it was difficult to get a good picture.

While there we were able to see some relatives that we hadn't seen in some time. On Sunday my Uncle David and Aunt Miriam came for lunch with their son Jason. Then Monday my Aunt MaryLou and Uncle Jeff brought my grandma Miller for a visit. My grandma hadn't ever seen Daniel or Stephen so It's been at least 4 years since we'd seen her last. She doesn't look like she's 80 does she?! We had such a wonderful time! I'm so glad they made the trip!

All too soon it was time to head back to Cincinnati. But we take the memories with us and look forward to when we can do it again.

Things we've been doing

It's February! This is the time of year that get's my creative juices running for spring and summer and I love it. Reading seed and flower catalogs, placing orders and planting the things that need to be started indoors. Ahhhh...there's nothing quite like it. (And just this week my pyramid strawberry bed arrived! Yippeee!) But this time of year usually brings some wonderful white stuff that demands people to slow down and take a break which is wonderful after the rush of the Christmas holiday. I look at snow as God's gift to those who have a lot of out of the home obligations that allows them to stay at home and not feel guilty for it! Unfortunately most of those people hate snow....so I enjoy it for them! Here's what we've been up to:

Sledding at Eden Park: Daddy was VERY kind to pull little people up the hill!

 Because it was a   l - o - n - g way up for little legs.

Stephen was amazing! He absolutely loved it and as soon as he'd get back to the top he'd go down with whoever was ready - I think he went down more than anyone else.

I took Stephen to Sunday School for the first time the other week and he did very well. Due to sickness we've not made it back but hopefully soon, for the first time in almost seven years, I'll be going to my own class without little ones. That will be different.

We've been eating some Sunday meals in the cafeteria since my mother-in-law has been away - I so thankful for this blessing!

And just today I planted Coleus, some coral petunias and some plum pudding petunias! It should make for a pretty summer. Once they germinated I'll post another picture of them.

Celebrated the homegoing of a friend/role model and shed many tears of sorrow for the empty spot she leaves in so many lives.

Perhaps someday in the future I'll blog more about this. Three years ago one of the things I started to do was blog about some individuals that God brought across my pathway over the years who influenced me for God and wholehearted surrendered service to Him. Unfortunately, they're all still in the "unpublished" category and now two of those individuals have left this world. That's something I may take up again.

I'll admit, having a "blah" looking blog doesn't motivate me to update! But I've been working with the HTML code this week and am starting to make some headway although not as much as I like. I'm about 30% computer literate and that's not enough to be working with code! So, I'll keep working and hopefully someday soon - it'll have a new look :o)