My Main Man

It's not very often that I get a good picture of my husband. Most of the time he won't let me take his picture. But when he is in a particularly good mood I get a few shots in. These were some of my favorites from our first snow fall. He is quite the expressive guy and his eyes tell a story, that's for sure. He can send me into giggles with just one goofy grin, and his "if looks could kill" stare just might be considered a weapon by some agencies. No matter what his expression though he always looks handsome to me!

Happy St Nicks Day!

As a Christian family we are constantly trying to find ways to celebrate this most special and holy time of year. It can be tricky with all the commercialism to find Christ at Christmas. But amidst all the hustle and bustle, partying and presents we have managed to create a few special traditions that our special to us, and today is one of them.
A few years ago inspired by a Mops speaker my sister decided to add some new Christmas traditions to our family that really bring the true meaning of Christmas to light. One of those is the celebration of St. Nicks Day. Having celebrated this for 4 years in my high school french class, this one was really inspiring to me, so I have added the tradition to my family too. We bake cookies or make some special treats to give as a special surprise to secret pals that each family member has picked. Then after dinner we drive around and secretly deliver them ringing the doorbell and running away. When we get home we leave our shoes outside the door and hope that St. Nick will come and deliver a goodie to us. Every year we have been fortunate enough to have a special St Nick treat or two delivered to us by secret pals as well.

St Nicholas was a real saint who lived long ago. He dedicated his life to serving God, and followed Jesus' teachings to sell what you own and give to the poor. Many legends surround him and he is known as one who preformed miracles and did kind deeds for children, the poor and the sick often bringing them money or treats. He is known as the saint of children, unmarried women and sailors for various miracles he preformed.

We celebrate St Nicks day as one way to show love and kindness to those we care about. We talk about being thoughtful and generous and glorifying Jesus in all we do. And we have a lot of fun doing it!

This year we celebrated just as in years past. We made several batches of cookie dough in the morning, in the afternoon we baked and packed cookies up. We packed in the car without eating dinner because we also had a Twins Club party to attend so we delivered some packages in early evening and some late after the party. We got caught twice, but didn't let it spoil our fun! When we came home, after putting our shoes out we settled into our jammies and went to bed. We awoke the next moning to find a special new christmas ornament for each of us in our shoe along with a candy cane... yum! Sadie got a bike ornament for learning to ride her bike and being persistant, Philip got candy cane made of bells because he learned the true meaning of the sweet treat, Addie got a star because she loves to be the kid of the day, and Carter got a wagon because he loves to ride and share the fun.

Twins Club Kids Christmas Party

Tonight was the twins club Christmas party. It was fun to be able to go visit with some old friends and catch up on how our busy lives have been. We had a lot of fun making crafts and having a little snack. We were most excited to see Santa Clause. How fitting since it is also St Nicks Day (more about this in another post). Santa gave each child a present with cocoa, a little santa mug and some candy. Although the kids were all really excited about the idea of seeing santa they were less than thrilled with the actual encounter. They sort of half smiled as Addie and Carter sat on his lap and Sadie and Philip stood a bit behind. I was allowed to step away for the photo so I will be in it too. I'm not sure who had a camera to snap a shot for me, but if I get a copy of it I'll post it here. I'm sure it's comical.

Does Heaven Have A Gate?

Who would have thought that would be the most important question I would ever hear my sweet little boy ask. But that was the start of thee most important decisions in my childrens' life. The decision to accept the Lord Christ Jesus as their Personal Saviour.

It started like this... Sadie, my 7 year old daughter had been running around the church after Awana, and I got concerned because I couldn't find her. "I get worried when your out of my sight Sadie. I always want to know where you are," I said when I found her.

Fast forward 20 minutes when we are all buckled into the car to go home.
"What would you do if you couldn't find me Mom," she asked.
"I'd search for you until I found you," I said.
"What if you couldn't find me though?"
"I'd search for you all the days of my life and if I still couldn't find you when I died then I'd wait for you at heaven's gate because I know you will live with me there for eternity." I said, feeling a little teary over the thought.

"Mommy," Philip said, "Does heaven have a gate?"
"Yes, heaven has the biggest most beautiful and ornate gate you could imagine. When people talk about the pearly gates they are talking about the beautiful white gates at heaven's entrance. Only those who believe in Jesus as their personal saviour can enter through the gates and live in heaven. Do you know what heaven is?" I said, not knowing if they truly understood, but always hoping to plant a seed.
"Heaven is where God and Jesus lives," Addie piped up.
"Yeah and angels too," Carter added.
"But God made it all he made heaven and earth." Philip likes to show off his knowledge.
"God made everything!" Addie enthusiastically replied. And then a jabbering from all of them ensued about the many many things that God did make, trees, dogs, sky, stars, turtles, dinosaurs (but those ones all died), and of course the things God didn't make but made materials for and also made the people to build, like cars, houses, bandaids, etc.
Knowing this could go on forever I decided to redirect the conversation, "And who is Jesus?" I asked, testing their knowledge.
"God's son!" They all replied without hesitation.
"And why was Jesus born?" I asked, seeing if they were starting to understand the meaning of Christmas.
"God loves us and sent his son," Philip quoted his cubbies verse.
"Because he was a baby and he was God's son and he had a mom," Addie said.
"Yeah and God is his dad, Addie." Carter noted.
A groan came from the back seat, "Jesus was born becuase he had to die for our sins so we could go to heaven. because we all sin and do stupid stuff like lie, and be bad" Sadie said a little exasperated by her siblings, but finally inspired to join the conversation.
"I'm glad you know that Sadie because I know you already accepted Jesus as your saviour. Addie, Carter, Philip, I hope someday you will decide to accept Jesus as your saviour and know Jesus is the son of God, believe that he was born on earth and died on the cross to pay for your sins and that he rose again, and that you will trust him as your very own savior. Then you will live in Heaven with God, and me and Sadie. Forever."
"I do Mommy, I know Jesus is God's son, I want to live in heaven after I die. " Philip said.
"Me too," Addie said, "because I know God and Jesus."
"Jesus is my saybeyour," Carter said in his cute little voice, "I want to live in heaven."
"Yeah and Jesus died on the cross mommy," Philip added importantly.
"Wow! Okay,you reallu know your stuff kids good work," I said, "Then let's pray....."

And that was the begining of the conversation that prompted my three youngest children to accept Jesus as their Saviour. We prayed together and talked about what an important decision they had made. How this day heaven rejoiced for them and their book was now written in the book of life and they would some day enter the gates of heaven, and see God face to face. This is a day to celebrate!!!!

First Snowfall of the Season

It's officially winter. It came quickly this year. But it's beautiful so I don't mind. The snow came quietly on the weekend and was gone for the most part by Monday so we didn't even have a snowday for school. The older kids were at Grandma and Grandpas house for the weekend so Jose and I got some time to enjoy the fluffy white flakes with the twins. It was very cold so we had a few short pay times outside, each time coming inside to warm up with a cup of cocoa.

It was also Princesses first snowfall. We weren't sure what she would think of the stuff and we worried she'd get too cold. We didn't have any snow boots for her little paws, but she didn't care. She loved the snow. She would run and chase through the snow and bark at delight each time someone threw a snowball. It made her crazy wild with excitement, and she took a nice long nap when we came inside.

Jose thought it was really fun to play with Princey in the snow. He really liked to throw snow at her and get her riled up. Then she'd chase after him barking up a storm. It was cute to see them both playing happily.

Addie thought the lawn needed to be mowed and wanted to make sure the birds were fed. She's always my little worker bee,

Carter prefered to try and eat the snow, but didn't like the fact that it was cold.

Jose couldn't keep a smile from crossing his lips as he watched the kids in the snow.

I have to admit I thought it was pretty fun too, nothing like a little snow to bring out some good old fashioned family fun on a white winter weekend.

Happy Birthday to Me

I just turned 30.


At first I was excited. I have wanted to be thirty since I was a pre-teen. But as it came closer I got the blues. I wanted to celebrate in style, but felt lame throwing myself a party. Half my friends were going to be out of town anyway. Then I wanted to spend the day out of town shopping or refreshing, but some relatives and family friends were visiting from out of town so that wasn't going to work. Also I share my birthday now with one of my beautiful nieces (best birthday present I ever got by the way) and she happens to be Sadie's best friend, so it's usually all about her party on my birthday. Which is totally fine with me, I love to make birthdays special for kids. And she wanted a party at the water slides, so that was fun. But this was going to be my 30th. And for some crazy reason 30 has been more important to me than any other birthday. Better than 16, way cooler than 18, and more exciting than 21, 30 just hits the spot with me, it's weird I know. But I was a little let down that noone was offering to have a party for me. I had even straight out told my sister to throw me a surprise party. But she refused.

Oh my sweet sister never disappoints though. Ok that's a lie, there have been times when she has disappointed me and I'm sure there will be more, she maybe close to perfect, but she's still human. But this time she didn't disappoint me. She threw me not one but two surprise parties.

First, on Saturday, the day after my birthday party she and two friends were going to take me out for dinner. Our other friends were out of town like I said so she it was going to be a small group. So when we arrived at the restaurant I was surprised to see several of my friends waiting for me with balloons, big fake plastic earrings, matching sparkly plastic tiara and everything. There were friends there my sister didn't even know very well, and my best friend from out of town. What a fun surprise. Of course we ate too much, then went over to another restaurant for coffee and desesrt and which also turned into some appetizers and we again ate way way too much. But it was fun and memorable, and so very very sweet.

Next day a small intimate family bbq was planned. I invited Janet, my out of town friend to spend the night and join us for the bbq. Little did I know that was the plan the whole time. The next morning she suggested we go out to breakfast like old times. My mom offered to watch the kids and said take our time. So we ate a long relaxed breakfast, Then we stopped by the grocery store to see if another friend was working and the Janet wanted to go to the mall so we hung out there. I was rather embarrased because I had chosen to just wear my sweats out to our little breakfast jaunt, and now found myself cruising the mall but hey I'm 30 who do I need to impress. Then we finally got back to my parents house just in time for the bbq. I walk in and appologize for being almost late. Not a big deal I'm told relax and enjoy my birthday weekend. We head out to the deck to have some chips and dipand wait for lunch to be ready. And then....

Down the lake a bit I see a train of boats coming. Don't think much of it there is a boaters club on the lake and they get together a few times a year and parade around the lake. Didn't know what the occasion was but when i saw santa on the bow of the first boat I thought "cute christmas in July, maybe they are promoting their christmas morning parade". Then my mom points the sign out to me "what's that sign say?" she asks me. "I don't know mom looks like maybe a phone number to me, 3-0- something" it still isn't hitting me. Then I recognize some of the people. "Hey that kind of looks like the Hadfields. Oh and that is your boat and there's Dave and the sign says happy 30th ye olde farte. And I'm guessing it's Cheri in the Santa suit." And boy was my face bright red. I was surprised AGAIN! They all came to shore and we had a great big bbq and even more friends stopped by and the ones who were out of town had gotten back into town and we had a blast. Thanks to all my dear friends and family and especially my sister for showing me just how much I really am loved. I won't forget!

Slippin' into Summer

My hunky hubby surprised the kids with a spiderman slip-n-slide during his lunch break. Sadie was the first to mater this new toy, and Addie was right behind her big sister. Philip was little leary of it and Carter liked the water squirting into the sky but was fond of the idea of sliding down it on his tummy. Of course when Jose got home from work he couldn't wait to try it out for himself. Actually it was so hot out that I even took a couple turns sliding down it. Once we turned the water off Carter felt more brave and slid down the slide on the water that had collected and pooled in the cener. After a couple of tries without the hose he was ready for a water blast, but Philip stayed on the sidelines. Maybe we will get him to try it out before summer is over.