Gracie's Famous Noodles

So Miss Gracie Zhai-Lynn was born in Xi'an City, China. Xi'an is famous for their noodles. And let me tell ya the girl loves her some noodles! :) During our trip to China to pick up Gracie we had a guide.....the person that showed us the ropes and did all of our translating for us. At almost every meal Gracie would be given lots of choices as to what she could eat. Gracie would speak a whirlwind of words (in Chinese) ....we would look at our guide for her translation and she would say "She want noodle" lol! And noodle she got! :)

7 years later, Gracie enjoys all kinds of foods!! She is an awesome eater. In fact, at almost every meal she insists that the meal we are currently eating is her most favorite and THIS is the meal she will choose as her birthday dinner in April! :) It's nice to hear that every evening!!!

On Sunday evenings we often do a "do your own thing" dinner after church. Left overs or whatever you want. On these kind of evenings Gracie almost always picks Ramen Noodles. She LOVES them!!! This evening Gracie's eyes lit up when I said, "I think I'll have some noodles tonight" :) Gracie jumped into action. SO SWEET! She made a little menu checklist for me. Asking me things like "chicken or beef" etc. SHE insisted on making my dinner. :) When she brought me my food, she brought me my bill as well......

........just in case you can't see....it says "price...a hug" and that is marked PAID! What a sweetheart! It says "fork" on the menu because she always eats her noodles with chopsticks, but I can NOT do that, so I chose a fork! ;)

Love my girl!!

Wendy

Christmas 2012

Ahhhhhhhhhhh!!! And, that is a nice, easy, restful sigh...NOT a scream! lol.  I feel it and appreciate it more this year than I have in quite a while....maybe more than I have EVER.....the blessing and gift of TIME! Yesterday it was so nice to just BE.....be together as a family with no where to go and nothing we HAD to do. A few of us even stayed in our jammers all day. ;) We just were home enjoying the greatest gift of all (besides our salvation).... each other! It was sooooo nice!!

In Sept. I started working full time. I really enjoy my job and feel so very blessed to have it! It's the perfect job for me. I work as a K/1 parapro. I am working in the same distict as all of the kids now attend. SO nice! We are all on ONE school schedule! Last year we were on three different schedules. I work in a different building than any of my kiddos, which is also probably good....I am in the "know", but not in their faces. ;) The buidling that I work in is part of our local public school district. The students in the building are 100% Amish. Interesting huh?! It is a K-8 building (Amish kids do not go to school beyond 8th grade)....65 students total in the school. It is a multi-age level teaching building. Meaning that there is more than one grade per classroom. We have three classrooms. Each classroom has a teacher and a parapro. We have a kindergarten/1st grade room (my room), A grades 2nd thru 5th grade classroom and a 6th thru 8th grade classroom. Our classroom actually consists of two rooms...the teacher's room and my room. The kids switch back and forth between rooms all day. We have 19 students total....8 kinder and 11 1st graders. When the kindergarteners are in my room the 1st graders are in the teacher's room and vise versa. The teacher does all the lesson plans and I help implement them. I LOVE it!! And the kids are just so stinkin' sweet! And, there is not much that tops teaching a child how to read!!! It's great too because I am on the same schedule as my kiddos. I am able to get them up and out the door every morning and leave the house about 5 minutes after they do. Then I am able to get home about 20 minutes before their bus arrives home. We have all the same days off and I am home in the summer with them. YAY!

As perfect as the job is, there is one downside. I MISS my time at home.....my alone time at home. I have VERY little alone time to get things done around the house. And, unfortunately I don't have endless energy! Ha!  Love working with kinder/1st grade age group, but it is a very demanding age...physically and mentally. It is a very needy age. I get 1/2 hour lunch at work and that is ALL the downtime I have all day. It's an "on the go" job! :)  Then I come home to my most important job....my own kiddos....already mentally and physically tired....with no time to decompress from my day....and nothing (homemaking wise) done at home. And, believe me, there is a lot going on here at home every afternoon/evening! Ha! There lies the challenge. I want my kiddos to have the best of me!! It IS doable. I just have to adjust and am still trying to figure out HOW to actually do that!

I guess I said all of that to more fully explain WHY I just am enjoying this downtime with my family so very much this year! What a blessing!!!!

Here are a few pictures of Christmas at our house.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hope all of you are enjoying some special time with your friends and loved ones this holiday season. I am learning not to take time together for granted. Time spent with the ones we love is such a treasure!!!!

 

God Bless!

Wendy

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

Wishing all my friends and family a wonderful Thanksgiving. I hope you are all basking in the sweetness of friends and family. We serve an awesome King!!! His blessings are new every morning. May I soak this in and savor and appreciate what He does for me every day of my life!
Love, Wendy

Favorite Things

Life is very busy and full at our house. Both boys are playing football and I am still adjusting to my new job. I enjoy the new job, but it is coming with more demands on my time. I have lost two hours a day alone at home compared to last year and that is huge! Also, some of my time at home is now spent on things for work. As the year/s go on my time spent at home for things for work should lessen. That's just how it is at the beginning of a job. Soooooo, life often feels like a whirlwind and I do NOT like that feeling. I need to be able to live in the whirlwind without having my outlook consumed by it. Make sense? It's all about how you look at things! I continue to try to savor the small things. Small things that are really big things. Been thinking about that song that Julie Andrews sings in The Sound of Music...."These are a few of my favorite things" You know....snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes, silver white winters that melt into spring, these are a few of my favorite things....etc. etc. On my list of favorite things is a full moon. Just look....

....isn't that GORGEOUS!!! I LOVE it! I stopped and took this picture with Jacob on the way home the other night. Jacob texted Tom, "Dad, sorry to have to tell you this, but mom is in love with the moon!" lol!

That moon is indeed one of my favorite things! Making an effort to let my mind slow down and savor my surroundings and appreciate my countless blessings! Getting ready to head to school and savor many other "favorite things"....a big one being those sweet innocent faces whose smiles will be happily greeting me!

Happy Thursday!
Wendy

Like Father, Like Son

Thought this was pretty cool! Jacob as a freshman and Tom as a freshman....both #84! This was totally coincidental. Love, Wendy

ENGAGED!

On Aug. 10, 2012 James and Heidi became engaged to be married! How do Mom and Dad feel about it? We are happy for them! :) This picture was taken on Middle Bass Island on Lake Erie where James popped the question. ;) I like this photo because it is simply James and Heidi....so relaxed and comfortable with each other! A July 27, 2013 wedding is being planned. It's going to be a fun year of planning!!

The ring.......

Love, Wendy

Raspberry Time!

Don't those look YUMMY!?! That's because they ARE! I think red raspberries are probably my favorite fruit....if I had to pick just one. When I was a girl my Mama Nicks had rows and rows of blackberries and raspberries. I have such found memories of picking from her garden and popping them into my mouth. Mmmmmm! And then her fresh cobblers...hot and fresh from the oven with vanilla ice cream on top. Nothing like it! I miss my Mama Nicks!!

So, on Friday I took Gracie and Isaac and we picked red raspberries. I found a red raspberry farm in VanBuren county. It was a bit of a drive, but we had a great time! We just might have to make this a yearly venture. :)

I have never seen so many raspberries growing in one location! Wow! And they were all covered, so it rained that morning and we did not get wet while picking. Fancy! ;)

It was such a happy and carefree day! I love summer!! When we got home we made some raspberry jam. YUM! I've made a lot of strawberry jam, but never raspberry. It is very yummy! We have been eating a lot of biscuits for breakfast. ;) The jam is so pretty too in the jar don't ya think? I do! :)

And then I made this raspberry pie for a special treat while we watched the first night of Olympic competition. GO TEAM USA! Never made a raspberry pie before either. It wasn't Mama's raspberry cobbler, but close! YUM! Did I mention I like red raspberries. lol!

I think it's time to make the biscuits. Better scoot! Love, Wendy

Desire for Simplicity

Warning: rambling thoughts to come...lots of rambling thoughts swimming around in my head. Sometimes it's just good to get them out. So, July 3rd I awoke to the news that Andy Griffith had passed way. It made me sad. I just love Andy Griffith...especially Andy Taylor and all that Mayberry represents. A calm, simpler, life.....wholesomeness and goodness.  Life today can seem so very overwhelming at times. So very worldly and unwholesome. I sometimes feel so overwhelmed by it that I have found myself saying out loud that I was born in the wrong time. I should have been born back when life was simpler. I know that is not true. I know God has me here when I was meant to be here. But, I have felt this....and do feel this at times. Thoughts like this are swimming through my head as I learned of the passing of Andy Griffith.....the passing of Mayberry and much simpler times.  Then I opened up my facebook to this....

YES!!! Exactly as I was feeling. The world needs more Mayberry. I have never watched Jersey Shore, but I am assuming that it is lacking goodness and wholesomeness. I am assuming that it is, like so many other things out there today, the total opposite of Mayberry. It's filled with the trash that I am constantly fighting to filter out for my children. I am so so weary of filtering out the world. My longing for a simpler life is more for my children than it is for myself. I know how to filter out the bad stuff. I am experienced at doing it. They do not know how to filter it. And, there just seems to be so much more to filter than back in the times of Mayberry.

On July 4th we went to our town's parade. LOVE our 4th of July Parade. We saw this car that morning.....

As the car drove past us in the parade Tom explained to the kids that this is the kind of car Granny used to ride in when she was a girl. She was born in 1919. After the parade ended we walked back to our car and the car was parked behind us. How cool! Tom peered inside through the open windows and said, "Look how simple it is. Wouldn't it be nice if life were still that simple." He was feeling it too!! Feeling the struggle...the overwhelming feeling that things are just coming at you at rapid speed ALL OF THE TIME. The overwhelming feeling that life is out of control. A longing for a simpler time. A longing for Mayberry. A longing for our kids to just be kids and not have to face the realities that kids have to deal with today.

This week I came across this photo.......

......another reminder of the changing times. This is not Mayberry. lol.  Change is not bad. Life does change. That is a fact. Some change is good. This photo is not necessarily sad. Just a reminder of our changing world. What I do find sad though is the moral decline of the world in which we live. It's a sad, sad thing! Life is so different for my teenage children than it was for me as a teenager! Arrrrrrrrgh!

Our Bible lesson on Sunday evening was on meekness. . The usual definition of meekness in the Bible is "strength under control." The "world" defines strong people as those who are assertive, take charge, proud, self-sufficient, self-reliant, and independent. A meek person is the opposite of these things, therefore, many people associate meekness with weakness. A meek person is willing to be submissive, is humble and gentle, relies on God and is dependent on Him to provide strength.   Which of these is REALLY the weaker? If you think it is meekness, try following these attributes for a while, and you will see it is HARD! It is much more difficult to humble yourself and rely on God, than to do everything in your own strength.

It really hit me that the key to being meek is total and complete reliance on God. The realization that he is in control NO MATTER WHAT! None of what is going on in this world is surprising to Him. I'm sure it saddens Him, but he is not surprised by it. And with Him I can live in this world and not be of this world. My children can live in this world and not be a part of this world. In John 17:15 Jesus' prayer for his disciples was

"My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one." 

I follow my Lord's example and pray for my children....please please protect them from the evil one!! Protect them! Protect them! Protect them! 

I need to be meek....I need to humbly remember that God is God. He is the great I am. He is in charge here. God is not overwhelmed by all of this, therefore I do not have to be overwhelmed by all of this. He is quite capable of maneuvering through all the complexities of this world in which we live. He tells us in John 16:3....

"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."

He has overcome the world! He has overcome the world! That's pretty simple. If I am looking for simplicity all I have to do is keep my eyes on Him....keep my eyes on Him and life will be simple. I don't have to long for Mayberry. With God Mayberry is the here and now. He's got it under control. He has overcome the world. I think that what the world needs is not more Mayberry, but more God!

Love,
Wendy

BIZARRE....Part 2!

So, I have NO IDEA what is up with the bizarre locations I am finding frogs/toads this year?? Monday afternoon we left the house at 3:30 for an evening of baseball. We arrived home at 10pm and found this little guy hanging out in the kitchen sink. The kids are NOT bringing these guys into the house. He is another one of those cool guys with the suction cup feet. Since he is the second one we have found in the house I thought to myself.....perhaps they have hatched in the house??...but, these guys start out as tadpoles in water right? I know they do. Maybe it's because of the heat outside and lack of water. They are coming in looking for cool and moisture....perhaps??  HOW did he get in the house though. hmmmm? Just gonna have to chalk it up to another bizarre frog occurrence!

Happy 4th of July!

Love,
Wendy

Graduation 2012

The Gift of Life
I didn't give you the gift of life,
But in my heart I know.
The love I feel is deep and real,
As if it had been so.

For us to have each other
Is like a dream come true!
No, I didn't give you
The gift of life,
Life gave me the gift of you.
--- Unknown


On May 25, 2012 Miss Heidi Jo graduated from high school. We are SOOOO extremely proud of our girl! It's impossible for me to put into words how I feel.....impossible. If I had to simplify the mix of overwhelming and complex emotions that I am feeling I would have to sum it up as BLESSED!! So extremely BLESSED! 18 years ago, after MANY, MANY prayers and dreams and hopes of a child of our own, God blessed Tom and I with the most beautiful baby girl!! Since that day we have been blessed with extreme joy and love and laughter mixed with the blessing of some sorrow and tears and frustration....... The whole spectrum of emotions that go along with being parents...a mom and a dad. Graduation has a way of bringing all of these emotions bubbling to the forefront of our psyche. Of course, we will always and forever be parents. That role does not end with high school graduation. But, graduation is a milestone that makes us stop and think and ponder life. We ponder what is REALLY and TRULY important! It's our loved ones and friends. It's people! It's just another reminder on my path to drink in and savor the little things....the moments....the moments that God blesses us with everyday!

I put together a video with 243 pictures worth of memories along to music for Heidi's open house that took place on May 26th.  It's too long for me to post here, but here is just a smattering of the moments that I will forever hold in my heart. :)

How's that for a smattering? It is indeed just a wee smattering of all of the moments welled up in my heart! Blessed beyond measure!!!

Here is the Senior Page we put in Heidi's Senior yearbook:

Our Beautiful Girl

Along with the wide array of emotions I have already spoken about, my mind is also with Heidi's birthmom very often during this time. Bringing to the surface a whole other gamete of emotions! I know Heidi's birthmom is thinking of Heidi so very much right now. I hope that she has peace in her heart. I hope that God is filling her with complete peace. My wish and prayer is that somehow she can sense that all is well with our girl! Somehow God can let her know. I look at Heidi and I can see her birthmom. I look at Heidi and I can see me. We both have had an influence on who Heidi is today.

Congratulations my beautiful girl!!! Congratulation James!! We love you to the moon and back!

And, let's end the post with one final emotion....FUN! Is that an emotion?? I think it is. May we continue to savor the moments. Every last drop!

Love, Wendy