Holiday wishes

We had a wonderful Christmas. Anna was soooo excited for Christmas and couldn't wait for the big day to arrive. We spent most of the week in Jasper, IN with Dave's family. Dave's brother Steve and his wife Jen flew in from California. Unfortuately, his brother Rob and wife Niki had to stay in Kansas City and work. We sure missed having them there. Anna had a great time with Uncle Steve and Auntie Jen, as you will notice in the following pictures. :) I enjoyed catching up on some much needed R & R and a few books I have wanted to read.

Wish we could have spent Christmas with all of you. Anna really brings so much joy into our lives and we throughly enjoyed every minute of our time together. The best part is that Anna was able to celebrate Jesus' birthday as well. We wanted to make sure she understood the true meaning of Christmas.

In the following video you will see Anna with my new "magical" trash can. We told Anna that you have to say "Abracadabra" in order for it to work. She is just mezmerized by the whole thing. :)

Happy New Year everyone!

New pictures!

Thought you might enjoy a few pictures from Anna's church performance a few weeks ago. She did great and was not afraid in the least to sing in front of 600 people. :)

Busy having fun!

This is a picture of our budding gymnast. We went to a birthday party at the gymnastics place and Anna was totally in her element. She could care less about the other kids, she wanted to try everything. She hopped up on this balance beam (not very low to the ground as you can see) all by herself and walk across without any help! Anna loves to play "going to sleep." She decided that she and her friends along with Daddy would take a little nap.

Anna wanted to do her own hair for church last week. Let's hope she will let me do it this week as she will be singing up front with her class! :)

She has discoverd the art of paint! She used her Halloween money from Grandma B and Papa to buy herself some paints! Thanks Grandma and Papa!

Fun Days!!!

As you can see we have just had a grand old time over the past week. Anna has just been soooo excited about Halloween. It is so fun to watch her eyes light up when she saw other kids in their costumes and all of the treats she received. She really understood how this whole Halloween thing worked this year, so she just had a blast. She started the day with a party at daycare, then I picked her up early to go trick or treating at Daddy's work, then we finally made it home to trick or treat in the neighborhood. We only went to our close neighbors because she was pretty much done and had more than enough candy! Auntie Shannon stayed at our house and passed out candy while we took Anna around the neighborhood. Thanks Auntie Shannon!! Surprisingly we had a lot of candy left, we did not have a ton of kids come this year. Good for me as I can put that in my treasure chest at school (as if they will need anymore candy! :)

I had parent/teacher conferences Thursday and Friday (to add to all of the excitement!) 23 out of 25 parents came, so that is a pretty good turn out for me! I will have to hunt down the other two and hope I can lure them in some how! Sadly the two conferences that I didn't have were the ones that needed it the most.

Otherwise, all is well from here! I cannot believe that today is the first day of November! When I was working on lesson plans yesterday, I couldn't believe that we only have three full weeks until Thanksgiving! I love this time of the year, more fun times to be had!!! :)

Catching Up!

Anna wearing her dancing shoes!
Anna and her new found friend (and cousin) Katie.
This is my going to work outfit.
Little Miss Gardener, she wants to do everything mommy does!

Is that a glimpse of the raspberry monster?
Oh no, another glimpse!
Yep, it's me and these raspberries sure are yummy!
Anna enjoying her trip to the pumpkin farm

These pumpkins make cute little seats too!
Look, I picked out my very own pumpkin!
That sure was a lot of work!
Anna and our neighbor girl enjoying the rare opportunity to run in the street while they cleaned the fire hydrant.
We were so glad the weather was warm enough to enjoy this rare opportunity!

Thanks to everyone for your thoughts and prayers over the past few weeks. Our trip to Michigan went very well and enjoyed seeing family again.

All is going well here. The weather has been super fabulous, so we have been out and about enjoying the beautiful October weather. Dave has been riding quite a bit lately as this coming weekend is his big ride in Indiana. Last year was his first trip to the Hilly Hundred (Lots of BIG hills, 50 miles each day) he did a great job last year and will do even better this year! Anna and I will stay home and find something fun to do.

With a heavy heart...

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, my Grandpa Balsley was very sick and things were not looking good for him to make it through the night. He was able to get through a few more weeks, but went home to the Lord yesterday morning. Please pray for my family as they remember the wonderful life of my grandpa. I am attaching the obituary so you can read more about William Balsley and the life he lived for Jesus Christ!

Thank you Grandpa for being such a wonderful example of God's love in my life!

http://www.nelson-house.com/obituaries.htm

Ahhhh, I can't keep up!!!

Anna on a lazy Saturday morning enjoying staying her in PJ's and putting on some of her formal wear!

Connor and Anna enjoying a little R & R (well really they were taking turns tipping each other over in the chair, but they look so innocent in this picture you would never know!) :)

Sorry I know that I promised I would do a better job keeping up with my posts, but... alas I have failed you. I was a single mom last week as Dave was livin' the life in California. He was there at Disneyland for a conference with his work. If it wasn't so stinking far away, Anna and I would have joined him. Oh well, maybe next time. Of course the first day he was gone Anna fell and chipped her tooth at Daycare. She decided that she was going to "ride" on one of the toy tractors Miss Carol pulled out to emphasize Farm week. Of course this 3 inch tractor was not made for the likes of Anna and she fell forward right on her face. She had a nice fat lip and her front tooth was chipped on the bottom. Being the psycho mom that I am, I took her quickly off to see the dentist when I picked her up that afternoon. They were super nice and were understanding of my psycho mom concerns. The dentist buffed out the bottom of the tooth so that it wouldn't be too sharp and it looks a ton better. Anna did great, she sat in the chair all by herself and let the dentist use his tooth tickler. Of course it helped that we had been reading Caliou (a preschool character on PBS) goes to the dentist several times over the past months. She thought she was pretty cool acting like Caliou. The rest of the week flew by like a blur as I had several meetings after school and was racing home to have a little bit of time with Anna. Overall we did great, but I was sure glad to see Dave come home.

A funny story happened this weekend that I thought would give you a chuckle. Anna was getting ready to use the potty and climbed up on her stool to get on her seat. Just as I thought she was ready to sit down she turned around and faced the toilet and stated "I am going to go potty standing up like this Mommy!" I quickly redirected her and told her that she was a girl and only boys use the potty like that. She of course quickly responded... Why?? I fumbled around for a quick answer and told her that she didn't have the same parts as boys and her potty didn't come out the front. YIKES!!! I welcome any other explanations a two year old can understand from my more experienced friends! :)

Not too much else to report from here. We keep ourselves very busy and enjoy every minute we have with Anna. She is truly the joy of our lives! She comes up with the funniest comments that just make us roll all of the time.

Have a good week!

Enjoying the three day weekend!

Anna enjoying the sprinkler on Friday! It has been quite hot here!
I recently made some dinners at Dinner by Design, a place where you can make your meals ahead and then freeze them until you are ready. On Sunday we decided to try the Cornish Hen grilled on Cedar planks. Well, as you can see things did not work out so well for our Sunday dinner. We soaked the planks for 3 1/2 hours, but they still caught on fire. The directions told us to put the hens on the planks and then close the lid of the grill for 25-35 minutes. Dave decided to check on them after about 12 minutes and this what he found! So, our dinner consisted of cereal and chicken salad on crackers. :)
This is how we labored on Labor day! Dave spent a good part of his day trimming most of the bushes in our yard. This is the first time we have trimmed since they were planted. So needless to say we had a lot of trimming to do. Anna and I helped get everything bagged up at the end. We had 7 full bags at the end of the day.

I will end this note with a request for your prayers. My grandfather has been very sick for quite awhile. My dad called last night to say that he had taken a turn for the worse and it didn't look like he was going to make it through this. I ask that you would pray that God's will would be done and that my Grandpa would not suffer. Grandpa has served the Lord for a very long time and I know he will be thrilled to go home and sit at the feet of Jesus with my Grandma. I am thankful for their guidance in my walk with Christ they have always been an amazing example of His love.

Taking a few minutes to breathe!

Anna decided that she was going to have a birthday party for Auntie Shannon. She picked out everything! :)

Anna and Daddy riding the trike at his work picnic
Enjoying some of summer's best!

Anna playing ping-pong with the most kind Wolff boys.
Anna and Davis trying to enjoy their boat ride all bundled up!
Anna's favorite part - driving the boat!
Anna saw the big boys using the rope swing and just had to try it!

Ok, so I am just getting home for the night but I had a smidge of energy left to update my blog. We had our Open House at school tonight (alway super fun to go back to school after you have been there all day.) I had 8 out of 22 parents come visit. I sure would have like to see more. Thankfully the weather has been much cooler this week. I don't think I have had to turn on my fans once. YEAH!!! Everyone who works with me is thankful as well, because I am not a happy camper when it is hot. I HATE TO BE HOT!!! I guess I should have chosen a school with air conditioning. :)

We went to Dave's work picnic last weekend and Anna was able to enjoy a few fun activities while she was there. She especially enjoyed riding the big trikes with Daddy! :) We also went to "Aunt" Beth's house for a little fun on the boat. Of course Anna couldn't wait to get her hands on the wheel. She loves "driving" the boat. It was fun to hang out with friends and catch up. I sure wish we could get together more often. The only sad part was our good friends Karen & Brock weren't there. They recently moved away from us to Canton, OH. We all missed their smiling faces!

Well, I am going to sign off for today! I will try to keep my blog a little more up to date. Now that I am settling into a schedule, I should be able to get my act together. :)

Delicious Meal

My friend Kim recently gave us some dress-up clothes that her girls used to wear (her oldest daughter Laura now babysits for us.) Anna just couldn't wait to put them on while fixing "dinner."
As you can see Anna is quite the cook. She loves playing in her kitchen with all of her dinner guests.
Anna is trying to teach Patty, her doll to pray. It was the most precious thing to watch!

I was in my classroom for a few hours yesterday trying to get myself organized. The problem is that I keep finding more things that need to be reorganized so my room still looks like a big mess! Hopefully I will make a little more headway this afternoon. Luckily the weather has been nice and cool, so that makes working in the classroom so much more enjoyable. I am hoping the weather stays this nice next week when school starts, usually that is when the 90's real their ugly head! :)

Enjoying Indiana's best!

Well, as you can see we couldn't resist yet another "carnibal." We have tried to get Anna to say amusement park, but she likes "carnibal" better. We traveled to Dave's parents house in Jasper, IN last Thursday. Holiday World is 30 minutes from there, so we decided to check it out. Dave went there many times as a child, but hadn't been back in a while. Anna once again throughly enjoyed herself.

Look at me Papa, I am driving my own boat!

We found blue ice cream and just had to try it! Anna loves the color blue, so she was beside herself with excitement!

Anna is really into trains, so Dave found a place in French Lick, IN that had a 2 hour train ride. This was Anna's first ride on a real train, so she thought it was really cool.
Anna and Daddy looking for treasures at the beach.
Look what I found!

Anna has her own personal lake!

We went to the Indianapolis zoo on Tuesday but I forgot the camera in the car. :( It rained most of the time we were there so we were looking a little wet anyway. Beautiful zoo, we had a good time despite the rain. This was Anna's first trip to the zoo, so she loved seeing all of the animals.

I have been back working in my classroom since our return home. I worked part of Wednesday and all day yesterday and still have quite a bit to do. I spent a lot of time moving Kindergarten materials to the new teachers classroom. I am glad to be teaching first grade again, but all of this moving business is overwhelming. Oh well, it's the price you pay to be back where you belong.

No big plans this weekend, so hopefully we will be able to enjoy being home for a few days! :) I am sure I will be able to take a few cute pictures anyway! :)