Stuff

Tom and I began TW Custom Wood Products in 1994. It was a full time business for us for a few years and for the past 10 years it has continued as a part time business. The last few years we have been building displays for a fragrance company in Detroit. The past six months or so it is really keeping Tom hopping! He built more displays in the first three months of this year than we did all of last year. It has gotten so busy that Tom has taught me how to drill holes. Some of the displays have several holes...20 hole, 40 hole and 120 hole...to hold frangrance viles. I actually enjoy my time in the shop. It is a nice change of pace. We are currently swamped with orders and are having trouble keeping our chins above water. Tom has several projects for the house that he would like to do, but has absolutely no extra time to do them.

The kids love spending time in the shop with Daddy......Jacob especially. It won't be long and I'm sure Jacob will be able to get his hands into TW Custom Wood Products. ;) Jacob spent some time this afternoon out in the shop with Dad. He ended up spray painting something?? Not sure what? It seems that the spray paint can is one of Jacob's favorite things of the summer. When I was dropping the kids off at Grandma's for a few days I discovered that Jacob had packed a can of spray paint in his bag. :-O I confiscated that sucker and brought it back home with me. I'm quite confident that Grandma would not have appreciated that spray can being around at all! ;)

Wow!! We are in our last full week before school starts again....and tomorrow is Friday. :( I just love summer and am sad to see it come to an end. Heidi had a pizza party at the library tonight. It was the final party for their "Paws to Read" summer program. After that we all went to an ice cream social at the school. We had a little meeting telling of the coming year, ice cream and then the kids were able to go into their classrooms and meet their new teachers. I think seeing their friends and being at the school after three months off got both Heidi and Jacob a bit excited about the coming school year.

Since all good things do have to come to an end...ie summer break , it's time to start thinking about the next season......Fall! :) I'm so thankful to live in an area that has beautiful Autumns. Some trees are already starting to change. The night air is nice and cool. I absolutely love Fall! It's my favorite time of year. :)

Wendy.....who is making an effort not to dwell on the fact that school is starting on Tuesday(boo hoo!), but instead will drift off to sleep tonight dreaming of crisp air, pumpkins, beautiful oranges, browns and reds, and bobbing for apples. Oh, we didn't do that last year. Gotta do it this year! Gracie and Isaac will love it! Sweet dreams.

And the Winners Are....

.......Heidi and Millie!! :) Heidi entered a contest at the library at the beginning of the summer called "Paws to Read". It was a photo contest. You were to take a picture of you and your favorite critter reading together. Pretty cute idea! Anyway, they announced the winner yesterday and Heidi's photo won. The winning photo is posted above. She won a real nice red duffle bag and an all weather AM/FM radio. She's pretty tickled and I'm pretty proud. :) Oh, and my little bookworm is currently on her 45th book of the summer! Jacob actually took the picture. So, they did it all on their own. Hope you all are having a Zipa-Dee-Do-Da Day!!

Love,
Wendy

psssst...just between you and I..Heidi's holding a big fat piece of bread in that book! LOL!! I thought it was pretty clever! ;)

Sleep Over

Heidi had a sleep over the night before last. I didn't write this post last night because I was just too pooped from all of the activity and had to go to bed. lol! This is the third summer that Heidi has had this sleep over. Usually there are three friends here.. Linda, Sherese and Heidi (yes another Heidi...two Heidi's in her class at school...our Heidi is Heidi Jo at school). This year only Linda and Sherese were able to come because Heidi was up North with her family. These girls have so much fun together! They have a zest for life that is contagious. At the age of 12, they are all in the midst of puberty and are teetering between womanhood and girlhood. On one hand they are very grown up...so grown up sometimes that it leaves my mouth hanging open in shock, but on the other hand they are still very much little girls. ;) They are so uninhibited when they are together and just down right silly sometimes!!! They are FUN! I had so much fun watching them have fun. The girls included Jacob, Gracie and Isaac in a lot of their fun too. They are just a great group of girls. Of course, when Gracie grows up she will have friends named Linda and Sherese JUST LIKE HEIDI JO!!
LOL!
A few of the many activities they were involved in during the 24 hours they were here were swimming, baking cookies, hide and seek inside, hide and seek outside, bike riding on our back roads, very energetic game of spoons, dress up, and the highlight of the sleep-over every year..sleeping in the treehouse. Their desire to go on a bike ride was so strong that Heidi rode Jacob's bike, which is way too small for her. She looked quite funny with her knees up by her ears as she peddled that bike. Ha!! And, Sherese rode my bike with the baby seat on the back of it. As I said, totally uninhibited as to what others may think. It's all about having fun and being themselves. I just LOVE that about them!! When they dressed up they called themselves the bride-robbers. When getting the sleeping bags out of the attic Jacob begged for Tom to get down my old Olympia typewriter that I received as a high school graduation present from my family. They have had so much fun with that typewriter in the past couple of days! It doesn't even work. It even made it up to the treehouse the other night. Anyway, Jacob was the teller at the bank using this old typewriter and the bride-robbers came in and robbed him...too funny!

One more thing to share. Apparently you can all just disregard my last post....for now anyway! At the breakfast table, after the night in the treehouse, the girls were singing Heidi Jo's praises for "saving them from the spiders". What? MY HEIDI?? :-O They said that they kept her up all night keeping the spiders away. Wow! When they were telling this I had to chuckle thinking about the story I had just posted about when she was four and screaming at the top of her lungs at the sight of anything that moves! Then, later that day Gracie and Isaac were out on the porch playing and I heard some fussing going on. Gracie was wanting to get on her bike and was begging Isaac to get rid of the spider that had taken up residence on her bicycle seat. Huh?? I said, "Gracie, what's the problem? just the other day you were catching spiders and putting them in a jar?" Her response, "NOT TODAY..I WANT ISAAC TO DO IT" LOL! Ok, we all know that it is a woman's prerogative to change her mind right? Because I know that statement is true, I won't be one bit surprised when the next time Heidi finds a creepy crawly creature in her room that she is summoning Jacob to remove it as usual AND my dainty little Gracie will once again decide that today IS the day to be down on hands and knees in search of something fun to capture and put in a jar for observation. Kids.....you think you have them all figured out and then they throw you a curve ball! Isn't that what makes parenting so fun......or frustrating... you NEVER know what they are gonna do!

Good-bye Linda, Good-bye Sherese, see you at school, where we will have to act more grown up.......maybe. ;)

Wendy

btw Heidi is now officially taller than me and her shoes are too big for me! How did that happen? Boo Hoo!

ps. For some reason I am unable to upload photos right now. I'll try again later.

Creepy Crawlies

First let me say that we are country folks. We spend a lot of time outside. Our favorite activities take place outside. Tom and I are just big lovers of nature and the great outdoors. Much to our dismay the summer that Heidi was four years old she spent a big majority of her time worrying over what creepy crawly things she might see if she went outside. Since we do spend so much time outside, Heidi spent an equal amount of time that summer screaming at the top of her lungs over all of the creepy crawly things that she actually did see while she was outside. She truly was afraid of ants, beetles, flies, gnats, caterpillars, spiders.......ALL bugs! Her fear was very real!! Her fear extended to frogs, toads, snakes (can't blame her there!) , etc. So, we spent most of that summer reassuring Heidi that most of these creatures were harmless!.......we also spent quite a bit of time rolling our eyes when Heidi wasn't looking! ;) lol! I'm happy to report that 8 years later, Heidi is much improved! Although, we still occasionally see her flying through the yard with a very giggly 8 year old running close behind with one of his recent finds. ;)

We are now in the midst of another summer with our other beautiful 4 year old daughter. What a difference! Gracie has absolutely NO fear of anything creepy or crawly!! In fact, she actually enjoys all of these creatures as much as her brothers do. The above picture was taken the other day while Gracie and Isaac were catching spiders.....YES SPIDERS! YIKES! :-O Gracie went and got the jar and started putting them in. She has been known to pick up snakes as well. Not sure if she is like this because she is growing up with two brothers or if this is just who Gracie is. I have a strong notion though that this is just my girl. She also has a tendency to be a little dare devil! The first experience Gracie had with our Go-Cart she was sitting in the seat while Tom was doing something with the motor. She accidentally pushed the gas pedal and the Go-Cart started moving. This would have scared most 3 year olds to death! Not our Gracie! Instead of being afraid, she got a huge grin on her face and pushed down on the accelerator harder and Tom had to chase her down! LOL!! Little Stinker! At her orphanage in China they had a Merry-Go-Round. We were given several pictures of Gracie as a toddler on the Merry-Go-Round with her friends. In these photos all of her friends are white knuckling it.....holding on for dear life...and Gracie has both hands way above her head, again with a huge grin on her face!

Have a Happy Tuesday!

ps. I'll bet when you saw the title to this post you thought it was gonna be about Jacob huh? ;) lol!

Wendy

Sisters

Tonight Heidi gave Gracie a Gracie make-over. ;) It came complete with hair and nails. Gracie LOVED it!! :) Gracie continues to always want to do EVERYTHING "just like Heidi". Tonight at the dinner table Gracie grabbed her milk and said "I'm gonna drink all my milk just like Heidi" We looked around the table and Daddy's milk was gone, Jacob's milk was gone, Isaac's milk was gone. None of that seemed to matter to Gracie. She completed her task and drank her milk "just like Heidi" so that she can grow up big "just like Heidi" ;) It is so sweet how much Gracie just adores her big sis! Heidi is definitely up to the task of being a great big sister. I'm so glad that they have each other.
God Bless,
Wendy

Over the river...

....and through the woods to Grandmother's house we go!! Took all of the kids for a visit with Grandma yesterday. They spent the night last night and we will go back and get them tonight. All is eerily quiet on the home front. We called them last night and they are having a fun time!

This is Gracie's firt time spending any time at all away from Tom or I. She has been with one or the other of us for the past year. She was a bit apprehensive about it yesterday morning before we went to Grandmas. She said, "Will you come back and find me". In the spring we took the kids to the zoo. Before going to the zoo we explained to Isaac and Gracie how very important it is to stay very close to Mommy and Daddy at the zoo because there will be a lot of people there and we don't want them to get lost. We explained that "lost" means that there are so many people that if they get too far away we will not be able to see them because of all the other people. Gracie then said "I was lost in China.....you not come and find me" :( We had a long conversation about this, but since that conversation she has thought of her time in China in this way. She thinks that she was lost and we found her on the day we met her in China. So, the statement that she gave me yesterday morning before going to Grandma's house, "Will you come back and find me" is coming from this idea. Tom and I have been extremely conscientious with Gracie and her adjustment to her new life with us. She is doing just wonderful!! She has developed a very secure attachment to us. After a year at home we feel Gracie is ready for this next step... a visit to Grandma's with all of her siblings. What fun!! :)

We talked to them all on the phone last night and they were having a grand time!! Gracie was all excited that they were all going to sleep together on Grandma's floor. ;) Jacob was extremely excited that he was going to be able to help Grandma makes eggs this morning. Hmmm? wonder how that went. ;) Jacob really enjoys helping in the kitchen.

Gotta scoot for now. I have a dental appointment shortly.......fun way to spend my day alone at home huh? HA!

Fun in the Sun

This weekend we stormed the beach of Lake Michigan! We had beautiful weather. The high temp was about 77 degrees. The water was a bit chilly for my liking, but it didn't seem to phase the kids one bit. We went to Saugatuck, a beach we had never visited before, and it was very nice. There was a nice wooded trail about a mile long leading to the beach. We wondered how Gracie and Isaac would do, but they were both little troopers walking all the way there and back. Upon entering the park there was a sign that said "Warning Biting Flies, No Refunds" ....hmmmm? Never seen a sign like that before?! We didn't notice any flies until we made it to the beach. They were a bit pesky, but not pesky enough to hinder our fun! Both Jacob and Isaac really enjoyed the fact that they could get totally dirty with sand and it would just wash right off.....not that they mind getting dirty at any time, anywhere, but the good part was that Mom didn't care either!! ;) Jacob would literally roll in the sand and then come show us with a huge grin on his face. He would then make a running leaping dive into the water. He also enjoyed being buried in the sand. This brought back memories for me of all of us cousins doing this one day at Mama and Papa's house on Borgman St. Remember doing that guys?

Gotta scoot for now. Millie, our dog, did not make the trip to the beach with us this weekend. We left her at the kennel, where she gets wonderful TLC. The kids are chomping at the bit to go pick her up.

Love,

Wendy

Back to Normal

Well, things are back to normal at our house tonight. Heidi is back home safe and sound and Wyatt went back home tonight too. Jacob and Wyatt have had sooooo much fun over the past three days! They have played so hard and had a ball doing it. Just a few of their activities included basketball, climbing trees, playing in the tree house, building a fort in the bedroom, catching all kinds of critters including butterflies, frogs, crickets and grasshoppers, swinging side by side as they twisted the swings so that they would face each other as they flew by, romping in the woods, I even saw them off to war and back home safely a few times. Aren't boys so much fun!!!! While Wyatt was here we received a message on the telephone from another one of Jacob's friends, Anthony. The message went something like this "Hello, this is Anthony and I REALLY want to talk to Jacob, so when you get back home could you PULEASE pick...up....the....phone!! Oh, and Jacob you are a big fat doe doe head!!" LOL!! Jacob's response to this....hysterical laughter!! Now, girls would not react to being called a "big fat doe doe head" in this manner. It would NOT be funny at all would it?! In fact, those would most likely be fighting words for a female. Most probable they would be cause for the silent treatment for at least a good week. Ya gotta LOVE eight year old boys!! :)

Jacob had such a good time with Wyatt that he cried all the way home from church after Wyatt went back home. I was so surprised by this response from Jacob because I have never seen him react like this before. He REALLY had a fun time! The tears continued until bedtime. :( Poor baby!! I remember the feeling so well though! Well, I actually still feel this as an adult when fun times with family and friends have to come to an end. Jacob is fast asleep now. I'm sure he will feel much better in the morning. Good rest has a way of fixing things like this. Sweet dreams my beautiful boy!!

Wendy

Gracie Day!

Wow! One year ago today our sweet Gracie walked into our lives. She had been in our hearts for 9 months prior to this day, but one year ago today we were physically united with our beautiful daughter in China! What an absolutely amazing journey it has been. Watching Gracie blossom right in front of our eyes has been nothing less than remarkable! Quite frankly, it's hard to put into words!! She is most definitely our Amazing Grace!! We were prepared for a rough year. I mean it would HAVE to be difficult wouldn't it?! Look at the huge change this child was undertaking at the age of 3. Yes, Gracie grieved! Yes, Gracie sobbed! Yes, Gracie pushed us away in the beginning when she was distressed. Yes, Gracie fought me when I rocked her. Yes, she wailed when we had to leave the orphanage for the last time! But, it was in NO WAY overwhelming to us at all!! We sang and rocked and sang and rocked and sang and rocked. I think back to these things and just marvel at what an incredibly brave little girl we have!! How extremely quickly we gained her total trust! How far she has come. During the past year we have waited for the ball to finally fall. It just hasn't happened and we really don't believe that it will. She has developed a very secure attachment to us and is doing absolutely WONDERFUL!!

Gracie has an extremely sweet and gentle spirit!! We have never seen anything even close to resembling a temper from Gracie. She is just SWEET SWEET SWEET!! She is most definitely a girly girl! She loves playing dress-up, barbies, kitchen, tea party, etc. She loves girly clothes too. She is talking up a storm in English and can't even remember her Chinese when we try to get her to remember words that she hung onto for a long time. She can't even pronounce many of them correctly anymore when we try to get her to repeat them to us. She still has trouble with the "c" sound and the "g" sound. She wants to put her tongue on the roof of her mouth for these sounds instead of leaving it put. Once she gets these two sounds down, I think we'll have it licked! She's as smart as a whip!! She can write her first and middle names. She can tie her shoes, but very loosely. ;) She remembers SO much about her life in China. Now that she is able to verbalize well, it is very interesting the stories that she tells about her life there. We need to start video taping her talking about things. I'm sure it would be very interesting for her to watch later in her life.

How's that for a Mama brag! ;)

Recently she was talking to her Daddy about the day that she met us in China. She described knocking on the door and us opening the door. Daddy asked her how she felt. "Did you feel scared?" Of course, when asking this question Tom was assuming that Gracie would probably be scared of the new situation or scared about meeting us. etc. Gracie said, "No, I not scared...I sad" Daddy asked "Why were you sad". .....Gracie said, " I was sad because nobody loved me" How extremely heartbreaking!!!! :*( And, how absolutely amazing that at the age of 4 she is able to verbalize the feelings that she was having so well. The conversation continued that Gracie is happy now because, "Mama loves me" "Baba loves me" "Heidi loves me" "Jacob loves me" "Isaac loves me" "EVERYBODY loves Gracie!" You got that right sweet pea!! You are surrounded by SOOOO much love!!!! We love you from the depths of our souls!!

Happy Gotcha Day my beautiful girl!!

Here is a picture of the first glimpse we got of Gracie one year ago.






Here is a picture taken last night at Gracie's Tea Party. ;)



Love,
Wendy

Switcheroo

Do these two have mischief in their eyes or what?! ;) Jacob is very excited to have Wyatt spending the next three days with us. Wyatt's Mom and Dad are in Tennessee for a few days. So, Wyatt came home from church with us this morning. He will be with us until Wednesday evening. I'm sure it will be three fun filled days! In the meantime Heidi is spending the next few days with her friend Brook. Brook is spending time at Grandma's and they invited Heidi to join them. Heidi and Brook always have such a good time together! This all just came up today and Heidi was so excited this afternoon as she packed her suitcase. I know she'll have a good time, but I sure will miss her too! So, we will switch back kids at church on Wednesday eve. ;) The whole switcharoo thing left both Gracie and Isaac a bit puzzled and out of sorts. I think they have it figured out now though. I know they'll both feel much better when big sis is back where she belongs!

This afternoon Jacob had a baseball team party at his coach's house. The coach lives on a lake and Jacob had a GREAT time!! He went tubing for the first time and LOVED it!!! Sometimes it's hard to get details out of Jacob......I've been told this is a typical problem with boys. ;) He will come home from school and it's like pulling teeth to get details of his day out of him sometimes. Well, no problem with every detail on his tubing experience!! Of course, the highlight of the whole thing was when he fell off the tube. lol! He seemed tired in church tonight. So, I'm hoping that the busy afternoon will make the evening a bit less rambuctious in the boys room. I still here them talking in there, but it's not loud.......that's a good thing! I remember how fun it was to have a friend spend the night!!

Here's to a bunch of Happy Z's at our house tonight and at Melanie's house (Brook's Grandma)!

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!! ;)

Wendy

Price Tags, Cookies & Lemonade

Well, summer 2006 Backporch Sale is history. It wasn't nearly as successful as we had hoped! The grand total was $102.15. We did get rid of two bigger items...treadmill and couch, which would have otherwise probably had to go to the dump. I hate taking stuff like that to the dump! And, the weather was beautiful, which was a huge blessing!! The main thing is that the kids had fun with it! Jacob really enjoyed being the man in charge of the cookie and lemonade stand. He also served as the "lookout man". Since the sale was on the backporch we could not see when a customer was coming. Jacob would shout..."someone's coming everyone man your stations" LOL!! He's a hoot! Gracie and Isaac spent most of their time playing with the stuff that we were selling. ;) The reason for having the sale was an effort to raise money to re-do Heidi and Gracie's bedroom. Heidi is really wanting to re-do her room with a horses theme. Gracie is crazy about horses too, so it will be perfect for them. I told Heidi that we could have a sale and all of the money that we make from the sale will go into re-doing her room. She has been a real trooper in helping get things ready. It was a fun project for her. She sat faithfully at her "station" as the head cashier all weekend too! I'm sure we will be able to do some fun things with their room with $100. :) Much of what we have left will be packaged up and taken to the Church for our "Give Away Day", which will take place Aug. 19. The community comes in and we have things available to them that they might need and we will also have school supplies for the kids. We have done this in the past and it was very well attended.

A man came to the sale and we had a very interesting conversation. He lived in the house next door years ago. He was able to share some info. with us about our place. It was fun and so neat to learn!!

It's been a Zipa-Dee-Do-Da Weekend so far!! :)

God Bless,
Wendy

Breakfast In Bed

I've had a rough few days with my allergies. My meds didn't even seem to help. When my allergies are extremely bad like this my energy is just zapped! Seems that the heat just accentuates the problem too. By the end of the day yesterday I was completely wiped out........all of my energy stores were totally depleted. I hit the ole pillow very early last night. Tom leaves for work very early in the morning..4 am. Isaac is my early waker (usually around 6) and as soon as he wakes he always finds his way to my room and we have a good morning snuggle. Most of the time Isaac is awake for the day. This morning Isaac fell back to sleep. We both were sleeping so well!! The next thing I know I was greeted by three sweet smiling faces with a food tray. Yes, Heidi, Jacob and Gracie were serving me breakfast in bed! How SWEET is that!! Heidi made the eggs, Jacob the toast and Gracie was the helper. ;) This is a first for me and was so special!!! I have been served breakfast in bed before, but Daddy has always been here to help....and it's usually Mother's Day. ;) I looked over at the clock and it said 8:37 :-O Wow!! I can't believe I slept that long, but I REALLY find it hard to believe that Isaac was snoozing away with me! God must have known I really needed that rest! And, I feel SOOOOO much better today! The temperature is down and it's raining.....awwwwww!

The case of the missing suitcase has been solved!

I think I mentioned in a previous post that when we picked up Jacob from camp his suitcase was missing. We assumed that someone had mistakenly picked it up. We were losing hope though that we would ever find it because it has been several weeks since camp. Yesterday afternoon I recieved a call from a gentleman who was on the road on his way to the camp as we spoke with Jacob's suitcase in his trunk. YAY! It had been picked up by accident by another family. It has been a traveling suitcase as it ended up about 3 hours from us. We will probably go down to camp and get it early next week.

We are busy preparing for our back porch sale today. We will have it tomorrow and Saturday. So, I need to scoot!

God Bless,

Wendy

They're Here!! They're Here!!

Gramps and Neena rolled in on Friday morning. As soon as we hear the sound of their truck backing into our driveway the house fills with excitement. The kids start jumping up and down and shouting and dashing out the door. Even Millie, our dog, gets in on the action of greeting Gramps and Neena when they arrive. :) We were able to enjoy three full days with Gramps and Neena before they were off to a new adventure this afternoon. We had a nice relaxing visit. We were able to stay pretty close to home all weekend and just enjoy being together......and make attempts at staying cool cause......

..... it's HOT here!! We were finally able to pick up our window air conditioner from the repair shop on Friday. It had been there a week. The bad news is that it is still not working properly! UGH!! The good news is that it does work somewhat....even if it is not in top working condition it is much better than nothing in this heat!! We have another call in to see if we can get it up and running 100 % of the time soon! The kids are spending a lot of time in the pool and eating lots of popcicles in an attempt to stay cool. Isaac knows how to stay cool! ;)







Isaac has been able to swim underwater for quite a while now. He's a little fish. Gracie has finally perfected this skill as well. She is so very proud of herself and we are so proud of her too! :) Because she is now spending time under the water and not just on top of the water she is getting some water in her ears. On Saturday evening she announced that "her ears weren't talking very loud" LOL!!! :)

Gracie had fun giving Gramps a new hair do and a shave. ;) She also glamoured Neena up with lots of body glitter!! I think Neena's glitter is on to stay for a good long while! Her face was still shimmering when they left this afternoon. lol! ;)





It was so nice having Gramps lead singing again at church on Sunday! Isaac was sporting what looked somewhat like a shiner on Sunday, but he actually got bit by a mosquito near his eye. Those squitoes have that affect on my boy. :(





We already miss Gramps and Neena, but are so happy that we are able to see them as often as we do! We miss you Gramps and Neena! Be Careful!!!







Love,
Wendy