Mike

My brother, Mike, who is a Marine was deployed to Iraq a couple of weeks ago. Please be praying for his safety. The girls and I had a conversation about him that went like this:

Ella: “Mom, can Uncle Mike come with Grammie this time?”

Mom: “No, He’s in Iraq, far, far away.”

Ella: “Did he take an airplane?”

Mom: “Yes.”

E: “Is he somewhere dangerous?”

M: “Yes, he’s in a war. It would be good to pray for him whenever we think of him. We can pray for him right now. Would you like to do it?”

E: “Sure. But you say the “Heavenly Father.”

M: “Ok. Heavenly Father…”

E: pause

M: “Are you going to pray?”

E: Nods. Pause. “Oh! Let’s start all over!”

M: “Heavenly Father…”

E. pause

M. “Are you praying?”

E. “I want you to say ‘Uncle Mike.’”

M. “Maybe you should try doing the whole thing by yourself. I’m not sure what you want me to do.”

E. “Ok. But everybody be quiet. Mom, go look at the stove. Don’t close your eyes.” Whispering: “Heavenly Father…(to Mom) But you can keep doing things. Maybe look at the flowers. That would be a good surprise for you. Lily, you have to be quiet.”

Lily: “I want to talk to Dessa and say , ‘shh.’”

E: “Dessa can make noise. I’m OK with that.”

M: “If you don’t want anyone to hear you, you could say it in your head.”

E: “Ok, but I’m not going to pray for our snack. That’s too weird.”

M: Growing impatient, finally realizes that if she were a disinterested bystander, this would be pretty funny. Goes to computer to type, on the way hears:

E: “Heavenly Father…wait, I’m going to eat a couple of marshmallows first.”

A few minutes later…

E: “Mom, I prayed for Uncle Mike AND our snack! Two things.”

So, Mike, if you get the chance to read this, you are in our thoughts, prayers and conversations often! We love you!

It's been a while

It's been over a month now since I updated last, so I though I'd leave at least a little note. Bob did get the secretary job permanently, so we are very excited about that! He has year-round work now and we are finding that there are several changes that will happen because that change, in a good way. It's funny how you get used to your way of living and just do things accordingly, then things change and you realize that your habits have to change too. Most of our changes make things less complicated. We don't have to save up money for winter expenses since he will have a solid paycheck for the whole year, which is a relief.
Bob still really enjoys his job. Every day he comes home and says, "I love my job." And everyone at work loves him. It's a wonderful thing for a man to be respected and appreciated in his work, and it's a wonderful thing for a wife to see that he is.
Odessa made her first two-word sentence two days ago; "Bye Dad." so cute. We've finally gotten her to stop playing in the toilet. HEY! Did I even mention she's walking now!!! She's been walking beautifully since mid-August. She's quite balanced, too. I think all that extra waiting was so that she would be ready to pop right up and not have any hard falls--because she hasn't.
Lily gave us a laugh the other day. We have been trying to get her to stop sucking her fingers (at least when she's not in bed). We were driving home in the dark and we could hear the little sucking noises so Bob said, "Lily, fingers!" There was a big smacking noise as she pulled them out of her mouth and said, "You can't see, Dad! It's too dark!"
We've had a couple of birthdays in the house. Lily's five now and Ella's four (she can have gum!) We had some great birthdays. For Lily's birthday, we made a special "pool" cake and rode a little kid-sized train at the park and went to the library, amidst opening lots of presents. For Ella's birthday, we opened lots of presents, had a cake and had special visitors from MT. Grandma and Grandpa Wolf and Uncle LeRoy and Ethan came to celebrate. One present the girls got was the each "found a little lost pet" outside in the yard to care for. Unfortunately, mom got pets that weren't as tough as she thought. Dad had to glue them a few times until finally Ella's poor kitty got sat on by Dad "like a mother hen" as Lily says.
In between birthdays, we went to our church's family camp, which was really fun. The girls were in their element. The big girls came and took them out to play constantly so Lily and Ella had more freedom than they are used to. Dessa is also quite a favorite among the big girls in our church, so she had someone walking her all day.
The girls started choir last week. Ella is loving it, Lily wasn't so excited last week, but this week the teacher brought treats and Lily knew she wouldn't get any if she didn't participate, so she did everything well and was rewarded. She even enjoyed it once she decided to.
Our current big project is working on erecting a shed some friends gave us. The Madsons are demolishing their cute, unusable back yard and creating a usable play space for their children, and in the process they needed to get rid of a shed. We needed a shed, so they just gave it to us. It's such a nice shed, too. Bob is building a floor for it, and we're hoping to get the shed up this coming weekend.
Well, that's all for now.

Pics of the lake

So here are the promised pictures. We got a new camcorder in MT, so that was the memory-capturer of choice for this trip. So I only got about six still photos in MT. Oops.
These are of Bob's family's cabin on Seely Lake. What a great couple of days we spent there!
Lori-I apologize for not stopping in at your house. I spent a lot of time bing thoughtless on that trip, and that was a result. It didn't occur to me. I'm sorry. We were sorry we just missed you at the cabin, too. Would have been fun to play together.
Does anyone else who uses this blog site know how to coordinate the pictures with the text?

We're back!

We're happy to be back home! We had a crazy but great time in MT (pictures and details to follow, some day). Those of you who know me well know that I'm not too good at making phone calls, but I do pick up the phone if rings! Please call and fill me in on your lives!!

Funny link

For what it's worth (and that's not much), I found this little article for gee-wiz. It's about how your high school experience may have affected your career. See if it rings true for you here.

According to the surveys they took, having been a cheerleader I should be a very happy in my corporate vice president role. Sounds like it worked for me!
have a great weekend.

A few more pics

We are headed to MT for a week (two for us girls). I just wanted to post a few more pictures before we go. I had to show you Dessa's new favorite pass-time; wearing everybody's shoes on her hands. She does it all the time! Pretty funny. Bob's job is going well, he really enjoys it. Still hoping he gets hired in August, we'll see. He was explaining his job to the kids and told them he works as a secretary. Ella said, "A SUCKERTARY! Will you bring us suckers?" Lily said, "That's a pretty silly job, Dad." We have a nice little blackberry patch in our back yard, which the girls love to harvest. Summer is good!

A time to buy, a time to sell...

...and a time to thank the Lord you can afford the house you're in. We've taken our house off the market, due to a lot of changes in economy and circumstance since we listed. Plus, we're tired living like we don't live here. We think now will be a good time to work on saving and reducing debt rather than increasing debt whilst everything else increases in price. So anyway, another season in life over with. We are excited to live our days and organize our work according to our family needs rather than focusing on selling the house. We're sorry to miss out on that great house we were looking at, but we really weren't getting very far with selling our house any way. Perhaps this is God's way of keeping us from getting in too deep. At least listing the house has helped us get some work done and much needed organization, so we're thankful for that. Now it almost feels like buying the house all over again--I can re-arrange and make things work for us in new ways.
Dessa is getting tooth #3, top front as well as taking her first solo steps. Exciting times!
I found more of Odessa's outside photo shoot Red dress
Also, here's some pictures: