Emily

I tell Emily that she, just like the boys were (and still are) the desire of my heart! I know God had a plan and I prayed for a daughter when I was pregnant with her. With the boys, I prayed for boys, with her I prayed for her. I remember the day and time that God gave me the peace of knowing that He was answering my prayer. At the time I didn't tell anyone, I left that between me and the Lord.
Emily loves tap. She took this fall off but plans to attend again next fall. It really seems to be "her thing" she is a natural.
She is in 5th grade and gets all A's. She makes it look easy. I say she gets that from her dad, I did good but it didn't come as easy for me as it does for her.
She would be the most responsible of my children, some say that comes with being the only girl. Either way I'm thankful.
She definately keeps us laughing!!! She is the one with all the humor in our house. Most of the time she is also the one who just annoys her brothers to the breaking point!! When there is an "issue" with the kids usually Emily is in the middle of it! Sometimes the boys just have to walk away, especially Austin!!
We are proud of her love for Jesus! We see her show the love of God to those around her, at school and church!

Emily is our princess! Yes, we have only one and she lets everyone know it. I love to photograh her in just about anyway! She is much more on the smaller side. Austin got all of the big genes in our family. She is going on 11 yrs old and the last jeans I bought her were a size 8 slim! I tell her to pray everyday that she stays little!

It is truly a blessing to have our Emily!

Austin

I am amazed at my Austin! He is such a wonderful big brother, I always knew he would be. He is so good to Elijah. Austin has the biggest heart.

He is a bit of a comedian, he is always making us laugh.

Unlike Elijah, he is actually willing to show affection to his sister! He is actually kissing her, Elijah says he wasn't really.

Austin is doing very good in school, all A's and B's. We are proud of his ability to be responsible and get good grades. He is growing up so fast! (I know every mom says that, but it's true!) He is 5'10" and around 155lbs. He is built very solid! He towers over me, it makes me a little sad.

We feel very blessed to have such a great kid. We are seeing his spiritual growth as well. He is involved in the youth group and growing in God. We pray everyday that he will continue in the path that God has set for him.

He has taken up the saxaphone (what else!) in band at school. Soon he will hopefully be playing in church! He played a duet with Dave at Christmas that was awsome, a very proud moment for all of us!

Zhenders SnowFest

We went to the snowfest in Frankenmth yesterday!! It was absolutely FREEZING!! It was so cold my feet were numb. There were tons of people there, which i expected. The ice and snow sculptures were very neat. I am glad I got pictures because at the time we were there it was very hard to just stop and look at any one for very long. We were so very thankful for the beautiful sunshine! It is totally amazing what they can do with snow and ice. I want to know how they got the ice frozen in big enough pieces to carve? I get the snow part, but the ice is stumping me.

We went with friends from church that asked us to go. Little Sophia was peeking out of her blankets! She was probably the warmest of all of us! Kelly stopped for an amazing cookie and some hot chocolate! Austin, Emily, Danny and Abby posed in front of a sculpture for me. We had a good time. It was also nice to go back to Brook and Tammy's house for chili, and other amazing food and be warm!

We Wanted a Shot!!

Elijah had us up at 6:30 this morning! He is sick! I kept him home from school on Thursday because he started complaining of a sore throat and he was coughing. Yesterday he seemed okay during the day.

Last night we went to Pastor Matt & Kelly's for dinner (Thanks Kelly for the wonderful stuffed peppers, the were awsome!) and he sat in the chair at about 9:30 and just started crying. He had a fever and was not feeling well at all.

I ran to rite aid and bought childrens cough and could and also ibuprophen. I got back to Matt & Kelly's place and gave him the cough and cold medicine only to have him start crying and let it all fall right back out of his mouth!! He was sticky, and I was sticky and crabby. Matt & Kelly had a nice little show of how children are not always sweet little angels! Don't worry, We are always willing to provide the entertainment when we are invited to dinner. You provide dinner and we will take care of the show! :)

This morning at 6:30 his fever was 102.5. He was crying to swallow water! I realized that being Saturday I would either have to take him to the clinic or ER. By 7:30 I decided that it was stupid to wait another hour and a half to take him to the clinic when we were all wide awake, so off we went to ER. That is where i was praying for a shot!! I did not want to have to fight with medicine for 10 days. Didn't happen. The doctor decided not even to do a strep test because he felt he would just give him an antibiotic anyway. Elijah hasn't had an antibiotic for probably over a year so he felt he should go ahead to kill any bacteria that was there or might be coming.

Usually when our kids are sick we take them to the chiropracter first, and then wait to take them to the other doctor after. None of our kids have had to go to the other doctor in a year or more!! Dave and I haven't been in 3 or 4 years!! We love Dr. White (our chiropracter) he keeps us healthy with regular adjustments and always prayer!!

Pray that the medicine goes down easily for the fun 10 days that are ahead of us!

ELIJAH'S FRIEND

Elijah had his friend Cole come over today! He was so excited about my blog that he asked me to put his and Cole's picture on it. Elijah and Cole have been friends since they were 3. They went to daycare together at Linda's before they were old enough to go to school. Stella is a little excited as well for some company to be over!!

LAZY SATURDAY MORNING

This has been an unusually quiet Saturday for us. Austin and Emily are both away at friends houses and Elijah is getting to do whatever he wants!! He gets to sit in moms chair and watch whatever he wants. Dad made lots of pancakes, just for him! We are appreciating having just one at home for a very rare moment in time.
It also gives me time to play with the new laptop. I figured out how to load the pics very easily!
Hopefully now I can blog more often because it is much quicker.

Our New Blessing!!

This past week we were blessed with a new laptop computer!! I am so excited that I won't have to fight with the kids over using the other computer. It's not really a fight, I always have rank! Anyway, we are so thankful that God knows the desires of our hearts! We truly know the principle of patience and allowing God to grant us the desires of our hearts, in His time! We are so thankful! This will make my blogging much easier, and maybe more often. The computer is a gateway something(?). It does have a webcam so hopefully soon we will learn how to use it!

Too Pooped To Type!

I haven't been able to sit down and do anything on my blog in over a week! We are back to school and every night I am falling asleep EARLY! This is so not Christmas break and I for one miss it! I am still getting used to posting pictures, for me it is a bit of a long process, at first. Hopefully the more i do it the better I will get. Anyway, I am going to try to do better.

This picture is just a practice, this was pretty painless but it has nothing to do with what i wrote! :) Finding the pics in my computer is the trick! This pic is of our family at the top of the Sand Dunes in Traverse City i think 2 summers ago!