Cara's Birthday

This post is a bit over due. Last week Monday Cara celebrated her 8th birthday. On the Friday before Grandpa and Grandma came over to celebrate. Games were played and books were read. Then it came time for Cara to open her gifts. She had been wanting 2 American Girl movies: Kit and Samantha. She wasn't disappointed. On Saturday night we watched Kit as a family and enjoyed the movie.

After gifts came the birthday brownies topped with marshmallow and chocolate frosting. Most anything with Chocolate is a hit for Cara.

Monday finally came and our sweet daughter officially turned 8 years old. In our home, the birthday person gets to pick the meals. For breakfast she wanted pancakes, for lunch grilled cheese, and for the 3rd or 4th year in a row, chicken on the bone, cooked carrots, and mashed potatoes for dinner. Cara LOVES chicken on the bone.

After dinner we gathered in the family room to open her gifts: pot holder for her kitchen, material for sewing, new dresses from Lands End, and 2 new Odyssey cd's. For her cake, Ashly decorated a flower cake in pink and yellow.

Cara is such a blessing to our family. She is helpful and is excited about learning to sew and cook. She has a cheerful and caring personality. This really comes out when others are not feeling well or when Daddy is working from home. She loves to be his secretary and bring him coffee, water, and snacks.

Here are some pictures of Cara over the last 8 years:

Happy Birthday, Cara

We Love you!

1 Year ago...

Yesterday we celebrated our 1 year anniversary of moving to Central IL. Looking back we see how God moved in our lives to bring us to the point of moving and then to this day. The road was not without trials and heart aches, but He saw us through. God has blessed our family with a wonderful church family, friends, a home that we can use to bless others, and most of all a renewed sense of faith that God does work all thing together for our good. We may not see it in the midst of trial, but God does and brings us through.

Things have been quiet around here...

School is back in session, music lessons and chess club are going to be starting soon, but for now.... quiet.

Not too much has really be happening around here. Daniel is busy working. He spent a week in Las Vegas at the end of August for a security symposium with the other security engineers from Symantec. He has also been traveling up to Oak Brook a few times.

Justin is also busy working. He works for a local builder doing some farm work and odds and ends jobs. It's a lot of fun for him because he gets to drive the company truck around, drive tractors, skid loaders, and whatever other equipment they own. His hours are great also. He starts at 8 amd and gets off around Noon. That means he can drive our vehicle until he gets his truck finished. He then does his schooling in the afternoon.

The rest of us are busy working on school all morning. Sara gets a bit lonely, so we try to work through Mathias's work, so she has a play mate!

Music lessons start this week: Justin, cello; Jesica, violin; Ashly, piano. Thankfully we have them all on Monday afternoons and for now Justin can drive everyone where they need to go. In October we add Chess Club to the mix for Josiah. I will probably have to be the bus driver so that everyone gets to where they need to be on time. It will make for a busy Monday, But better 1 busy day than having to be out multiple day. The best part is all the lessons and chess club are within a 7-10 drive from each other!

Besides schooling, I have been busy quilting. Right now I have 3 baby quilts and 2 table top quilts in the works. It's a lot, but I am enjoying the relaxation I get from creating fabric heirlooms.

Living out in the country through all the different seasons has been fun. Now that the weather is cooling off a bit, our trees are starting to loose acorns. That means we are getting more wildlife around. Here is proof. These were taken from our deck out into the yard.

No blog post is complete without a couple more pictures of the family!

Ashly is 13!

This past Sunday, Ashly turned 13 years old. This post is a bit late, but I wanted to get some growing-up pictures and my computer isn't working properly.

Friday night we celebrated Ashly's birthday as a family. We had the usual gifts and cake. However, she choose cheesecake this year and I was able to buy a sampler from the store. So we were able to pick our flavor.

On Saturday, I drove Ashly to Dwight where we met my parents. Ashly spent the weekend with them. On the grand children's 13 th birthday they take the birthday child somewhere special and then they get an overnight with Grandpa and Grandma. Ashly wanted to see a piano concert. So after much searching, my parents found a piano concert featuring Beethoven at Ravinia. They were able to get lawn seats and enjoy a nice picnic while listening to a wonderful concert.

Sunday afternoon the rest of the family drove to pick up Ashly and spend the night. That night we also had a small birthday celebration.

On Monday we drove over to Paarlburg Park for a small Labor Day gathering. There was supposed to be a small Civil War re-enactment, but only 1 man showed up. He set up a nice display and spoke at length about the different items.

Sara was not at all interested, so she busied herself with some playing and just being cute.

Monday afternoon we met up with Daniel's parents and went out for pizza at Aurelios. They have the best pizza and we miss living close to one. So Ashly had a pretty full birthday weekend and we had a lot of fun celebrating with her.

Ashly is such a blessing to our lives. She is helpful around the home and can bake/cook some wonderful food for the family. She has a bubbly personality and it very smiley most of the time. Her favorite pastime is reading, but she is also learning cake decorating and sewing. She'd also like to learn how to quilt like her mother.

Here are some pictures of Ashly growing up. I had a hard time picking because there were so many. You can really see her personality and beautiful smile in these. (Yes, the pictures of Ashly as a baby really are her and not Sara!)

1 year old eating her cake!

Loves her babies

Such cute pig tails!

Ashly loved to sit in the dog kennel with our black lab, Nikita

Mommy and Ashly (3 yrs old)

Our expert navigator (3 yrs old)

Jesi and Ashly loved to color.....

Ashly and her caterpillar (if you look closely you can see it on the end of the stick)

Ashly reciting a poem at a Mother Daughter Tea

Have to ask Ashly about this one!!!!

Ashly (7 yrs old) and Josiah (3 yrs old)

first quilt

Reading...her favorite past time.

Piano...her second favorite past time!

Happy Birthday Ashly! We love you!

Japanese exchange student

For 4 weeks this summer we had a Japanese exchange student staying with us. Her name was Atsuho and she is 13 years old. It was a little hard a first overcoming the language barrier, but as the month went on we found it easier to communicate. That doesn't mean that we always got our point across though!

When Atsuho first arrived, Daniel was the brave one trying to speak Japanese. We had been give a book that had Japanese and English phrases. We were able to point to the English phrase and she could read it in Japanese.Daniel though had fun trying to read the Japanese.

Over the course of the month we took a few day trips. We went to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, Matthiesen State Park, horse back riding, had a couple picnics, went out to American and Oriental restaurants, took her miniature golfing, and just had fun!

When the end of month came, we were all so sad to see her leave. Many tears were shed as she boarded the bus to head to O'Hare to catch a plane with all the other exchange students. So far we have been good at keeping in touch and we look forward to receiving more letters and emails.

Here is a photo album with TONS of picture from our visit. (click here)

You Deliver Me CD | eMerchMan

You Deliver Me CD | eMerchMan

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