We're Moving to Michigan...

Yes, you read the title correctly! I better start at the beginning. The past few years Trevor has been unhappy with his job and trying to figure out what to do about it. He has struggled with balancing work, family time, and ministry opportunities within our church. A couple of months ago he told me he felt God was calling him to do something more ministry related with his career. He began searching the internet for opportunities that would integrate his business skills with a ministry. He came across a job at Lenawee Christian Ministries in Adrian, MI. Just reading the job description, we were amazed at how the job seemed to have been made just for Trevor. It seemed he met almost all of the specifications they were looking for in a candidate. LCM oversees a Christian school pre-K through 12th grade and The Center. The Center includes an impressive work out facility complete with racketball courts, basketball courts, an olympic sized pool with 2 waterslides and a climbing wall. It is an AMAZING facility. In addition, The Center has a small restaurant with a Starbucks, a 700 person auditorium, and 70 acres of land. The ministry focuses on trying to get back to how it used to be when the church was the center of the community. They use their auditorium to bring in speakers and singers throughout the year. During the summer they host numerous camps. From the two times we have been there we have fallen in love with the place and the people. On January 23rd, we found out that Trevor got the job as the new Executive Vice President of LCM and ever since life has been a blur.

We are both really excited about this opportunity and feel confident that this is where God is leading us. Trevor and I spent last weekend back in Adrian looking for a house. Adrian is a smaller town of about 23,000 people located in the southeast corner of Michigan. It is just 20 miles north of the Ohio border and is 36 miles northwest of Toledo, Ohio and south of Ann Arbor, MI. After a thorough search of the available houses in the area we made an offer Sunday morning and then drove back to Iowa. Monday morning (yesterday) we got the good news that our offer had been accepted. Yea!!! We are the proud owners of a nice 2-story, 4 bedroom home. It is in a really peaceful neighborhood and appears to have been well cared for. It has a newly updated kitchen and a large four-seasons room, which we will use as a recreation room. As a bonus, it has an in-ground swimming pool and hot tub, something we completely were not looking for. It will be a great house for entertaining, which is something that we both enjoy.

Trevor's last day at Rockwell is 2/12/2010 and his first day at LCM is on 2/22/2010. We plan on moving sometime between those two dates. There are still a lot of variables as to whether or not we can move directly into our new home or will need temporary housing. It all depends upon how quickly all of the paperwork can be completed and much of that is based on how quickly our current home sells. As of this morning, we have a sign in our front yard, so we are making progress. When we first told the girls that we were moving to Michigan, Kaylee realized that meant we needed to sell our house and that we would have a sign in our yard. I asked her what the sign would say and she took a moment to think about it and said "FREE". We laughed and told her it definitely would NOT say free... The girls are really excited about moving to Michigan. In their little minds they know that we will have access to the swimming pool at The Center whenever we want and that they no longer have to share a room. Kaylee is especially excited about that, as she says Kianna snores! One of the perks of the new job is that our kids can go to Lenawee Christian School for FREE, which is huge! I met Kaylee's new preschool teacher over the weekend and she was super nice. I think Kaylee will fit in really well there. Kianna will start preschool there in the fall, as they only have a 4 and 5 year old preschool class. It will be fun having some more 1-on-1 time with Kianna while Kaylee is in school and while Trace naps. Please pray with us that our house sells quickly and that we make this transition smoothly.

Trace's Birthday Party

Trace had a fun time at his party. He had a ball theme. I made a basketball cake and a soccer ball cake plus a little cupcake sized basketball for him. It was his first experience with sweets. Plus he is just beginning to feed himself, so it took awhile for him to decide if he wanted to touch it or not. However, once he got a few bites of it he was all in and made a mess to prove it! He had fun ripping the wrapping paper covering his gifts. His big gifts were an ice cream truck and a climber. I can hardly believe our little man is one!

"Oh No You Didn't..."

The day began just like any other day, when I told the girls "go potty so we can leave". Kianna obediently went into the bathroom and then I heard IT, the toilet flushing. Now I knew that there was absolutely NO WAY that she had actually gone potty, wiped, stood up, and flushed the toilet within the 10 seconds it took for her to enter the bathroom and for me to hear the toilet flushing. Sure enough, she had flushed the toilet just for my benefit so that I would THINK she had gone potty when she really DIDN'T. I had suspected this rebellious act of deception on several other occasions, but this time I caught her in the act and boy did she look GUILTY! Does deception really start at just 3 years of age????

Happy Birthday Trace!!!!

Our little man is ONE!!!! One year old and so many accomplishments:

• Walking: Trace's record is ~15 steps including starting and stopping. Now that he is feeling better I anticipate he will really take off.
• Sign Language: He consistently signs "all done" and today he signed "milk". Time will tell if that was accidental or not...
• Table food: Trace is still a little partial to baby food, but is gradually finding more and more things he enjoys eating. He really likes Spaghettios, Cheerios (starts cheering when he sees the box), crackers, and oatmeal.
• Sippy Cup: Trace has one sippy cup that he will consistently drink out of and that is it! Otherwise, he still prefers bottles.
• Feeding himself: Trace has mastered the art of feeding himself Cheerios and is working on getting other food in his mouth as well. He still doesn't have his pincher grasp down pat (thumb and index finger), but uses the fist full of food technique instead. Whatever works! He is also quite good at holding his own bottle and sippy cup these days.
• Whole Milk: This past week he started drinking whole milk instead of formula/breast milk.
• Teeth: Trace has 6 teeth, four on the top and two on the bottom.
• Personality: Trace has tons of personality. He enjoys playing hide-n-seek in which he attempts to hide part of his face with his hands. Very cute! He loves being tickled. He also loves to laugh and make really loud noises, especially in the car. Trace really gets excited when Daddy comes home from work. He immediately wants Daddy to hold him. It is precious.
• Toys: Trace continues to enjoy walking behind his push toys. He also loves opening and shutting doors, which means that he loves playing in the playroom with the house and kitchen. He still enjoys sliding toys along the carpet. Trace also enjoys dumping things out (essentially making messes), whether it be puzzle pieces or his shapes. He also really likes balls, especially banging them together.
• Climbing: Trace loves to climb the stairs! He also has fun climbing all over Daddy when he is lying on the ground...

Trace has been such a blessing to our family. We all simply adore him. Happy Birthday Trace, we love you little man!!!

Stomach Flu

Last Tuesday (1/12), Trace came down with a BAD case of the stomach flu. It was so bad he was getting up to four baths a day and I was doing 3 loads of his laundry each day. Most stomach flu symptoms seem to last about 1-3 days, but his lasted 5 whole days! The poor little guy would drink pedialyte/water and milk, but otherwise wouldn't eat. Instead of playing, he would lay his head on the ground next to his toys. We felt so bad for him. It was so hard watching him feel so miserable. He was supposed to have his family birthday party on the 16th, but we had to reschedule it as he was still vomiting. He was one sick little dude. Then on Saturday, on top of the stomach flu he began getting cold symptoms and began screaming through his naps. I took him to the doctor thinking that he might have another ear infection. However, the doctor said his ears looked GREAT and thought his screaming was due to his stomach still being irritated! Unfortunately, his lack of interest in toys, wanting to be held constantly, and screaming through his naps continued for 3 days. I'm telling you I was ready to pull my hair out this past week. It was one rough week!

Thankfully today has been much better. He still has a yucky nose, but is finally able to sit down by himself again and play with his toys. He has his appetite back and is no longer screaming through his naps. I'd say that is a great birthday present in itself!!!!

Trace Started Walking

Trace took his first two steps on December 26th and since then his record has been seven steps. He loves to walk behind objects, but has not been real interested in walking on his own until today! This morning when I stood him up he took off and easily walked 11-15 steps and since then has continued taking lots of steps. Trevor came home for a few minutes over lunch and got to witness it for himself. Our little man is off and walking...

Fun Times in Park City, Utah

The Gingerbread House

Deer Valley
The Canyons

Trevor and I just returned from a ski trip/romantic getaway to Park City, Utah. It is always fun getting away just the two of us, although at the same time it is always tough leaving the kids behind. However, we knew they were in good hands, as they were with 4 of their 6 grandma's over the four days we were gone. That makes for some fun times to be had! Our time in Park City was spent eating, skiing, shopping, and watching movies. We stayed at a bed and breakfast called "The Gingerbread House", which was more of an experience than expected. I'm big into reading reviews on just about anything I'm thinking of purchasing. So of course, having read the reviews on "The Gingerbread House" and with them being favorable, we booked it for our stay. Upon arrival we were shown to our room, which is where the excitement began. Our room, which was described as a luxurious suite with a fireplace, was definitely not sweet. In fact, it was so small that the only place we could open our suitcase was on top of our bed. Need I mention that the fireplace was not IN our room, but instead was OUT in the living room area shared by all. Our room had a queen sized bed which filled the entire room leaving little more than a foot of walking space around the bed. Frustrated about our room, we debated what to do. I finally decided to mention our dissatisfaction with our room size to the owner. She was very accommodating and said that a couple was leaving in the morning and after she cleaned it we could have that room for the rest of our stay. In fact, for the same price as our undesirable room we received the "luxurious suite" we had been anticipating complete with a fireplace and beautiful view. Apparently, we had been stuck in the old portion of the house before. Enough said, the issue was resolved and all was well. Although, we did have some laughs and some additional fun navigating the half pipe shaped driveway and roundabout. It was especially funny when we went to dinner that night at a really nice japanese restaurant and were seated in a REALLY small room. I guess small confined places was the theme for that day...

We spent Tuesday skiing at Deer Valley Ski Resort and Wednesday at The Canyons Ski Resort. We had a great time skiing. Both locations were gorgeous. The pine trees and aspens scattered throughout the mountains were snow covered and beautiful! We definitely had a chance to enjoy the beauty of God's creation at its best. On Wednesday, it snowed about 5 inches, so we skiied in some fresh desert powder, as the locals call it. Trevor and I discovered that we were definitely not in ideal skiing shape. We both had extremely sore muscles after the first day of skiing, so were only able to ski about half the day on Wednesday. Our evenings were spent catching up on movies. We watched "The Blind Side", "Invictus" and "Avatar". We had a great time in Utah, but were ready to come home to our little ones by the end. Nothing surpasses their smiling faces and arms around us when we walk through the door...