family bowling

Dan took some extra time off this year for Christmas and we had so much fun spending time together as a family. We have been wanting to take the kid's bowling so we headed out Tuesday for a first time kid adventure. The kids did great and I loved watching their approaches!!! Korra danced and handed out high-fives every time....lol. Malachi was a little frustrated that his sister was beating him.. I told him not to worry mommy was beating daddy too!

Love this one of Korra jamming while Chi tries to bowl like she does to see if that will improve his score!!


Had to take a picture of the shoes...who knew they had these cute bowling shoes for kids! Over all it was a fun night afterwards we went for pizza and Chi and Korra were both able to get free personal pizza's from Chi's book-it!

Christmas 2011

Our little Santa..Malachi was able to help hand out gifts at all our parties...he is doing really well at trying to pronounce each letter and was able to sound out the ones he needed to!
Christmas eve was spent with the Kapenga's for our marathon party!! Love it! We started at 1:30 with appetizers. At four I had to do nursery stuff for church and the family went to the service. After service we opened gifts and had the annual taco/burrito dinner..yum! Malachi and Korra got so spoiled! In the above picture Malachi is showing his muscles in order to open his big gift (which was a basketball arcade game that he is loving!!!!).
Just had to post a few pcitures of Korra. I have noticed her growing so much these past few months and I can see so much big girl in these pictures. I loved the way she focused on opening her gifts!
After our mini-party on Christmas day we celebrated with my family....this is the best picture we could get of us....excited kids?

This is a special gift for our little princess...my dad worked countless hours to have this carriage bed done for Christmas and I have to say it is breath-taking! I just hope I have a bit of the talent he has! Korra has been talking about it non-stop, telling everyone, "my grandpa made me a princess bed"---talk about spoiled. (you can view malachi's bed here)...Thanks Grandpa can't wait to see how that is getting in her room...I will be sure to post on that!!)
We had our own little party Christmas morning. We invited both of our parent's and a few siblings over to celebrate Jesus!!! My favorite part of the morning ...Malachi presented the scripture to them by memory...love it (see it here)!
Malachi had been asking for this for months...he was thrilled!!!
Happy Birthday Jesus...

Merry Christmas

I hope your day was magical!

out takes

We can only guess why these photos didn't make it on our Christmas card!! lol!

Luke 2 five year old style

We started practicing this a couple of months ago and I was again surprised at how quickly the kids caught on. This is Malachi telling the good news. I will try to catch Korra doing more then her part in a video another time. I hope you notice the drool-typical Malachi moment! My goal is to continue adding a little more each year! Enjoy!

So brave and so proud

Two brave kids and one proud mama!
While my pictures are not great (i had it in the wrong mode..still learning) my kiddos had a very brave weekend. On Sunday, we had our church children's program and while Korra just stood there she went on stage with-out any tears!!! Malachi did great as well! (Malachi is in the black/gray/red vest below waving, Korrayah is in the sparkling silver and black dress in the next picture).


On Saturday, Santa came to our Christmas party, which he does every year, but this year was different. In the past this has been a traumatic event for Malachi, but he told me on the way there that he was going to be brave and brave he was!!!! Korra was not sure, but did ok when Aunt Angie helped her!

Advent

On December 1st, the kiddos opened up their new pair of pajamas that will get lots of wear by the end of December!! This is the second year I have done the advent calendar and ohhh I love it sooo much! The kids love it too!
Reading a special Christmas story was on the agenda!
As well as these clothes pin Christmas words where the kids matched up each letter! The rest of the month is filled with baking, giving, relaxing, partying, and preparing our hearts for Christmas day!

A David Psalms

Malachi always seems to amaze me! He has this passion for the Bible and can memorize scripture so well (more on that in another post). Anyway each morning I read a piece of scripture from the Bible (that is the way he likes it straight from the word). On this particular morning I was reading Psalms 23:

¹ The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
² He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
³ he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
for his name’s sake.
⁴ Even though I walk
through the darkest valley,^[a]
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.

⁵ You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
⁶ Surely your goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
forever.

After I finished reading it Malachi says to me, "mom, I am pretty sure that David wrote that Psalms."
"Why do you think that," I asked.
"Because he did not fear evil when he was fighting Goliath."

Like I said ...never ceases to amaze me! Can't wait to see what God has in store for him!!!

wordless wednesday

full of it

Korrayah is full adventure! She loves doing dishes and she was hilarious when she was doing them tonight. She said, "this is a lot of work." and at another point she tried getting into the sink I caught her as her foot was going in!!!
She is full of laughs! She giggles about everything and she is contagious! oh and yes we are at the table eating and she is wearing clothes-nothing I would allow in public, but clothes....and yes she has food in her mouth-



She is full of sweetness!

Thanksgiving

I wish I had a lot to say, but I don't. It is not that I am not thankful, because I am! I just feel like I need to post a thanksgiving post and have nothing to say!
We have been working on being thankful at our house this week...a tad bit challenging for a 5 year old and 2 year old, but do able! Today at lunch Korra was thankful for our pastor! Malachi will he is thankful for presents...seriously tell me it his age... I am beginning to worry..lol!
Anyway I am thankful for them both! Their energetic personalities, their imaginations, their love for people, their love for God (this always amazes me...but goes along with scripture...have faith like a child), and just who they are!
Feeling so blessed this week!

basketball star

This picture reminds me that my number one goal for black Friday needs to be a new camera!! I broke mine a few months back and have been using my sister's ancient thing! The past few weeks Malachi has been having basketball practice on Saturday mornings. It is so fun to watch the coaches try to control over 20 five year olds as well as teach them basketball skills. It is funny because most of the drills are beyond the kids, but the coaches are so patient. Malachi is so funny to watch because he just loves the game so much! He is a dribbling maniac! While he struggles to make a basket, he always is so proud anyway. He may be one of the shortest little guys on the floor, but he makes up for it in heart! I think I will be saying that about his heart forever! Love how he has such passion and heart for everything he does!

Last week Dan and I celebrated 9 years! Wow this year was celebrated much different then in the past! We had a simple meal of chicken alfredo (dan's favorite...I think b/c it is the only one he can cook as long as the alfredo is in a jar) and a movie...all after the kids went to bed.
Wow how kid's change things! You know it wasn't extravagant and it wasn't fancy, but I would want nothing more! Happy anniversary Dan!

it happened

This may seem vain but my nightmare came true. I was just commented about how my kids are so good with scissors this past weekend and this morning as I was getting the house in order the kids were downstairs working on a project.....little did I know it was a project involving scissors...bad parenting moment! Anyway Malachi yelled up, "mom, Korra is cutting her hair with the scissors....".... I ran down trying to scream but having no voice ...kid sickness has swept through the entire house! I missed it .................
Vain I know but I cried.... my baby's hair! I am hoping we may be able to disguise it it is on the left side of the picture below. After the harshest discipline I could do with no voice and tears I was able to see that even though it is a lot of hair cut there is still a lot there...even enough to cover the short stuff!
pony tails for the rest of this girl's life....one of the disciplines lol!!! Love her even with-out her hair!

Rambling thursday

Random thoughts:
Sick kids stinks!
Love decorating for the holidays! Love that the kids love decorating for the holidays!
Malachi went to school today even though he could barely talk...has no fever.... says he is fine...sent him!
Korra can barely talk and between me and the rest of the blogger world it is kind of nice.
Korra is still obsessed with boobies has at least one comment a day about them like yesterday:
in target "mom I need to get one of those cup things for my boobs" all referring to a bra! Are the other day when my sister asked if she could watch Tatum and make sure she fed him her response was, "not with my boobs."
I forgot to have Malachi do his homework last night...seriously his very first assignment and totally slipped my mind until I saw it on the counter after he left.


Enough rambling for one day....!

Too much Halloween

Too much candy, too much dressing up, too much cuteness, too much Halloween!
We have celebrated three times over! I love dressing these cuties up and trolling them everywhere! Tonight we will be home though....because too much Halloween has made one little boy have too much of a fever to be out and about! Happy Halloween!

corn maze

My dad spends each year helping get ready for the new salem cornmaze by creating cannons and different things they use for their production. So we try to make it a family event to attend their "worst festival" each year (Bratsworst that is). I love the picture above of all the grandkids.

Walking through the corn maze was fun for all of us!

One of the specialties my dad created- a apple launcher!

Happy Fall!

korra weekend

Korrayah has been so full of it lately. This past weekend we were able to spend some girl time with Grandma K while the boys were gone hunting. She loves being with grandma and Aunt Rachel (who we got to spend some fun time with on Friday night). We spend Friday making applesauce and dozens of apple dumplings for our freezer. She loved sitting by us using the extra dough (or the dough mommy screwed up on) for making her own apple dumplings. Saturday was a fun day of running errands and being together. We spent some time at the mall and we even purchased a Christmas gift! Korra is quite the shopper and at every store she asked to look at her clothes. While we were in Gap she was dancing away with the mannequin when all of a sudden the arm of the mannequin came flying off. She quickly ran away and you should have seen her face....priceless. While we were there we lost an important piece of Korra....her tt. We searched everywhere and left our name with the main desk, but no word. My friend who made Korra her special blanket happened to have an extra...she saved our day and our night. After a long day of fun we returned home with a nice clean tt and a happy Korra (she still has no idea it is a new one she had fallen asleep from the mall to my friend's).
My favorite part of the weekend happened Sunday morning when Korra was rocking with Grandma. Here is their dialogue:
Grandma singing: Jesus loves you.
Grandma: I used to sing this song to your daddy when I would rock him and feed him.
Korra sits up and looks at grandma: you didn't feed him with your boobies?
Grandma: yes
Korra busts up laughing.
Lately she has been into the whole breast feeding thing (she has three aunts that are currently breastfeeding) she breast feed her dolls daily. Not sure what to think about this obsession, but for now it is kind of cute!

After church Sunday we quickly ran to JcPenny's and Korra again was looking at all her clothes. She started taking things off the shelve and was laying them out on the floor refolding them. When I walked up and picked up the things she had on the floor. She was so upset with me and said,"stop messing up my piles you are driving me bonkers."
now I pretty sure she has heard that one before!
Through it all I just can't help but love her to pieces!

sweetness vote

#1 Love the way this photo captures their personalities....Korra is so in charge!

#2 just love the classic poses! They both look so darn cute!

After falling in love with each and every one of these photos I decided I wanted to make one of them a piece of art for our basement wall. The problem is I only need one! Can you please help me choose!

#3 Love that you can see both of their faces and feel the embrace!

#4 true happiness! true hug!