Jack

Culture Fair Project 

Christmas gift

Jack is 10 years old and is definitely in the tween years. He is smart, funny, and handsome. He loves school but mostly for the social scene. He is a good student and always gets his work completed and maintains good grades. He plays touch football and basketball with his school. He likes to win but gets frustrated when his team is not doing well. He enjoys legos, pokemon, minecraft, playing board games, playing on his iPad, and hanging out with friends. Above he is presenting his research on Portugal. Below is his latest game. He loves to play games, strategize, and win. I will admit, I enjoy playing board games with him. If ever there is a loss for what to do, I can always count on some Mom and Jack time via a game of scrabble. He likes talking. Often we will all sit in the living room and just talk about anything and everything. We share stories, laugh, plan and dream as a family. Jack also loves to eat. Food is his love language. He is willing to try new foods and has a sweet tooth. He is rarely full. He has started attending youth group at our church and is eager to find out where he will attend middle school. This has yet to be decided. He is in a new developmental stage. Like other preteens, he can be moody, sarcastic, and a bit egocentric. It is a new and interesting world for us. He will request that I pick out his clothes, yet will reject the ones I pick out. If it's cold outside, he refuses to wear warm clothing. I have purchased him pants. He wears shorts. We buy him new shoes, he chooses to wear the old ones. I provide him with a jacket, he wants to wear only a hoodie. These things I can handle. I know to pick my battles. The girl/boy thing has started too. He is now dealing with many emotions, confusion, and sometimes some bad choices. I struggle with this more. One minute he is playing legos with his brother and the next he is requesting to be able to instant message or email a girl from school. My baby changed over night. And with this change, our parenting has to change too. I am studying up on tweens and teens, praying, and asking God for guidance with this new stage. We love Jack so much and I pray God provides us with the wisdom and knowledge to raise our precious first born into the young man that God has purposed him to be one day. Years ago when we decided to start a family, it didn't magically happen. It took time and there was much heartache and tears in the process. We prayed and prayed for a baby and then God gave us Jack. We are so honored that God has allowed for us to be his parents. Parenting continues to be hard work and brings new understanding and enlightenment regarding our own relationships with God. “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked” (Luke 12:48).

Luca

Time to empty out the backpack

Making stop motion lego movies 

More stop motion lego movies

Our Lucaboo is 7 years old and is full of imagination and energy. He loves Star Wars, Legos, Pokémon, playing pretend, minecraft, and being creative. He prefers to play pretend or build something over playing a board game. However, he enjoys activities where he is able to be social and active. He is not a fan of board games because he has to sit still for too long. When he talks to us and sometimes when he eats he likes to walk around and move. He will sometimes walk around the kitchen table or island when telling us a story about a book he has read or a show he has watched. He is for the most part joyful. He gets upset like any other child but can quickly shake things off and move forward with life. I love this about him. He does not dwell on negative things for too long. He is still quite the picky eater and is probably still the smallest in his class. He loves school and loves being with his friends. He tends to hold on to things and not want to give them up. This includes his artwork, toys, clothes, shoes, and even recycled containers that could be a potential craft or construction. The first picture above is his backpack. He carried an empty egg carton around thinking he would use it to build something. We finally got him to get rid of it. Not to worry...he has plenty more paper towel rolls and shoe boxes to work with when he has a chance. Over the Christmas break he spent a lot of time using his iPad and legos to create stop motion lego videos. This is a skill he learned from his older brother. It is such a joy to watch him be creative. We encourage it and hope that it sticks around for a little while longer. He still loves to cuddle and would absolutely sleep with us if we allowed him. He enjoys being tucked in at night and talking in bed. He will often begin the conversation by asking us, "What was your favorite part of your day?" He is a sweetie and I am so grateful he is ours.

2016-2017

The closet thing we have to a family photo right now. Post Christmas brunch.

Opening Christmas gifts at our house before heading to visit family. 

Christmas morning mess in the boy's room. Lots of Lego building. 

I realize it's been a LONG, LONG time sense I last posted. However, the end of 2016 and the beginning of 2017 seem more significant than other years. We hit quite a few milestones last year and I sincerely feel we are entering into a new phase of life as a family. Therefore, I thought it would be significant to document these happenings before the academic semester gets the best of all of us! Below are a list of our 2016 milestones. I hope to post again for each kiddo individually.

2016 (This is a list we composed as a family.) 
January-Packed up our lovely ranch home and prepared for a move
February-Moved into our lovely new home down the road from our old one
March-Todd turned 39
April-The only month that we could not think of something for...
May-Jack went on a week long sleep away class trip (no family members went on this trip)
May-I had surgery...One I'd rather talk about in person than via the family blog.
June-Jack hit the double digits and turned 10
July-Todd and I celebrated our 15 year anniversary
July-Luca turned 7
July-We took an awesome family trip to Yellowstone
August-Todd became the acting Director for the Instrumental Division at work
September-I turned 40
October-We hosted our first annual Halloween Party at our new house
November-Trump won the presidential election ? Still scratching our heads on that one
December-Celebrated Christmas and the New Year for the first time in our new house

In addition, over the course of the year I got a chapter in a book published and Todd wrote a book on the triangle and tambourine. Todd also started doing videos for his latest percussion endeavor. His book will be published in 2017. Hope to post again soon but we all know how that goes!