Ummmm...

One might wonder how a 5 year old got out of the house this am with her PE shirt on backwards...than again is WAS before 7am...

A Day On The Beach - But I Won't Rub It In:)

We went exploring this afternoon and found ourselves at East Coast Beach. It is more of a recreational park - we saw very few swimsuits. There are biking trails and walking trails. There are also roller blade rental shops all over the place along with many restaurants and little shops. We saw quite a few tents up and aren't sure if they are there for the day or if they actually camp there during the night. True to form I thought that camping sounded like fun while my better half wasn't so sure!

A view of the beach

Kenton got to work building a sand castle - notice the subtle advertising for McD's in the background. Considering that it is far from the adults in the family's favorite restaurant we find ourselves there quite often!
There were a few men flying kites along the beach. Since there is a constant coastal breeze this works well.
Ethan hops a ride on Daddy!
Okay, this next one made me laugh! Instead of a drive through on the beach they have a "Skate-Thru" You actually skate in there to a special counter and order and than skate back out!
The skyline you see in the background is downtown Singapore.
As Chinese New Year is approaching we are starting to see red Chinese lanterns everywhere. Tonight when we returned to our apartment there were fireworks going off - right in the middle of the city in between buildings. We've never seen anything quite like it. I'm guessing the Chinese New Year will bring a lot more displays of fireworks!

Ethan is experiencing the sand for the first time! If it works I'm uploading a video of him walking in the sand for the first time.
:)
This was the look on his face when we put him down on the sand for the first time! Not the twins' reactions! If I think of it sometime I will post the pictures of them in the sand - they held their feet out of it!!
Taking a break to watch all the ships coming into the harbor. Singapore is a huge shipping port.
Little shops were set up at various places selling everything from underwear (yes, underwear) to towels, to beach toys, to sunglasses and purses.

This was taken on the walking trail a little ways off the beach. If you get away from the touristy area this is what you find.
This is one of the many bike and roller blade rental shops that we saw. It was funny to watch people - they all share the same trail and I saw one little girl on a bike suddenly turn around and a man roller blading behind her had to do some quick maneuvering to keep from colliding! Good thing that it wasn't me on the skates or it wouldn't have ended so well:) This video is mostly for the grandparents...This is the easiest way to get videos to them. Ethan made two friends today which you will see...One was Ronald McDonald - he kept walking over to him and smiling up at him. The other was a little boy who earlier at the "race track" was playing peek-a-boo with him!

School Update

I'm happy to report that both twins are doing well so far with school. They both slipped into the new routine and school without any trouble and told me ALL about it when they arrived home today! There was a moment of brief panic when I realized that I didn't know exactly where they were to be dropped off and I saw buses flying by EVERYwhere. I learned that is what the helper on the bus is for...she spotted me standing on a corner looking around frantically and brought the twins safely to me:) We made it inside right before a Singapore Soaker hit!! (Complete with lightening and thunder:)

Phase 2 - Completed

We are safely in Illinois. We had a LONG, uneventful trip out here with lots of traffic. Pretty much from KC all the way to Chenoa exit there was constant, steady traffic that we aren't used to seeing. It took 9 hours instead of 7 due to 4 stops and being at a stand still in traffic twice around St. Louis - in the middle of the afternoon. BUT we are here safe and sound and I've done NOTHING all morning in an attempt to relax a little before the holiday rush begins tomorrow:) My next job this afternoon is to go through all of our bags and clean out and reorganize since we just threw things in them while packing at 3am last Monday!

The twins had a fun Holiday party on Thursday - the class had made a really cute scrapbook that they gave to them to remember all their Kindergarten friends. We tried getting out of town Thursday after the party but ended up leaving yesterday morning instead. It worked out better that way as it gave us time to visit Don and Eileen and Gene and Mary before we left. Plus, most of our trip was in the daylight which was a plus since we kept running into fog.

Anyway, once my camera battery is charged again I will post pictures of the twins last day at Blue River...

Phase 1 - Completed

Phase 1 of our move is officially over. The movers showed up at 9am this morning and by 5pm they had everything loaded on a truck and ready to be put into a shipping container. We are staying at Joe and Joan's until the twins are done with school on Thursday and than on to Phase 3 of our move. (We are currently in Phase 2 which consists of finishing up loose ends here in KC before we head to Illinois.)

I'm pretty sure that if you could put Ryan's car on auto pilot it would go from our house straight to Fehr's:) I made many trips back and forth today including a last minute trip to the dentist for a root canal - YEA! Merry Christmas to me early, I guess!

:)

Karen K just e-mailed me these pictures from Cailer's b-day party last summer. I thought that they were cute and wanted to share them:) Enjoy!

Kenton, Kalahan, Cailer, and Trystin are ready for a water gun fight!
Klaire, Anna, Kenton, Kaitlyn, Cailer, Trystin, Kalahan, Raegan, and Karen
Klaire, Anna, Brock, and Kailtyn
Anna, Kenton, Kaitlyn, Raegan, and Timon

ready to play football!

Fall Party and Trick or Treating

I ran upstairs for ONE second and when I came back down look who found the Halloween candy! He was having a grand time playing with it and was quite mad when I picked it all back up:)

He likes the taste of it too! Ryan took the twins around while I stayed home with E and passed out the candy. Our neighborhood kids all went together riding on this neat float that someone was pulling behind a lawn mower. It was covered in lights that blinked off and on - it was pretty creative and someone did a lot of work on it!

Kenton is waiting to play a game at their Fall party at school.

Kaitlyn is playing pumpkin Bingo
Kenton giving me one of his "Kenton Looks"!

Kaitlyn is making the spider craft. They were creative and cute. Yes, I just called a spider "cute"!!!
And here they are before heading off to school. A firefighter and an angel (Just in case you couldn't tell!)

Pumpkin Patch Field Trip and Other Things

Well, I survived my first field trip with a group of Kindergartners!! It was an ear splitting good time - listening to a whole bus load of 5 year olds sing nursery rhymes over and over and OVER isn't exactly my idea of a way to spend my morning! BUT, it was fun to spend the time with the twins and see how they are with their friends at school:)

Kaitlyn hit the slides with two of her friends - over and over again. Are you starting to see a theme here?!?

We rode a hay rack out to the pumpkin patch where we had our pick of tiny pumpkins to take home with us. Here is Kaitlyn with the one that she picked out.

Here is Kenton with HIS tiny, little pumpkin!

Kaitlyn decided to jump in with the boys and make a scarecrow.

Here is Mrs. Wiley's Kindergarten class - Fall 2007

Onto the "other" things. I thought that I'd write a quick update on Singapore. We've been keeping really busy doing all the little things that come along with such a move. I scheduled Hepatitis A vaccines for us next week along with our usual flu shots. That is really the only recommendation for shots that we haven't already gotten. I'm going to see if they will speed up Ethan's schedule as Indonesia has reported cases of Polio. We have interviewed two rental management companies for our home and now are making the final decision of which one to go with. Both want to start showing the house beginning of November to potential renters so we've been cleaning out and cleaning up. We've been filling out paperwork to get work passes and dependent passes for Singapore. We are waiting official word from the Singapore American School on whether the twins are in for the Spring semester or not. If they aren't we have a choice of a private Christian school or homeschooling until next Fall when they could for sure get in. We have the moving company coming in the middle of November to tell us what will fit in a 40 foot container and what the transit times are for our things. We also get a 650 lb air shipment of things that we will need immediately. I have gone through the house and made a very detailed spread sheet of what's staying, going, being stored, or donated. This way we know exactly what to tell the movers and we have a detailed shipping list in case something gets lost or damaged. We have started stocking up on things like our favorite soaps, diapers, summer clothes, printer paper, etc. to send over in our shipment. I have quite an extensive list of things to get in case they don't have it there, thanks to Lynn:) I am ordering a really good stroller since we'll be doing a lot of walking...We've also picked out area rugs to send since they are considerably cheaper here. All the condos have marble floors and I want to have cozy rugs:) We're also starting to collect medical records to take with us as well. There is SO much planning that goes into a move like this that it can be overwhelming at times! Than, we take a step back, a deep breath, and say a prayer that God will work out the small details along with the big ones...and so far He has!!

We have our first Parent/Teacher conference tomorrow and than we are heading back to Illinois for the weekend. Ryan's going to spend time in Peoria helping Grandma Joos get a few things done and I'm going to help the twins make a REAL pumpkin pie:) Should be fun! We're heading to Elgin for the weekend and than we are home until Thanksgiving while our families come and visit US:)

Family Art Project

We have officially completed our first "Family Art Project"...it came home from school two weeks ago and we JUST did it this morning;) It consisted of Mom doing all the cutting, Dad doing all the designing, and Kaitlyn and Kenton messing up what we just did! Oh - and Ethan eating all the teeny, tiny pieces of scrap paper that he could find on the floor and than throwing up on the carpet. The scarecrows were still "drying" when the twins left for school so I took them in to the classroom for them...we wouldn't want them to get messed up on the bus, now would we? After all, Mom and Dad did a LOT of work on this FAMILY art project! To be fair, the twins really did do a lot...they colored and pasted and glitter glued. The entire time I was cutting the scarecrow pieces Kaitlyn kept saying, "Look at Mom's GOOD cutting skills...Boy she sure has GOOD cutting skills." I'm sure glad that all my years of cutting experience could be put to good use:)

Tonight we have our weekly Crown Financial Bible Study. I decided to try making my Mom's secret Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cheesecake...sure is hard when it's a secret recipe...:) I've heard that it gets RAVE reviews so we'll see how well I did tonight. The twins are going to a bonfire...it's homecoming tonight so there was NO chance of getting a sitter so they are going to the alternative activity that's been planned for the church kids. Ethan's going with us since he can't be trusted around a fire. I'd better go and get supper going so that we aren't late. The twins don't have school tomorrow so we may be taking a family trip to the pumpkin farm to get pumpkins for them to carve in a few weeks.

The Culprit and The Damage

Okay, so it really wasn't too bad. He just has shorter bangs (do little boys have bangs?) than before and has a little tail hanging down that is all that's left of the hair he had.

I don't know if any of you take the quizes that are posted to the left of the blog but I have and I'm embarrassed at how much I DON'T know about the Bible! When you take the quiz it gives you the correct answers and shows which ones you got wrong. You can also click on the reference to read the passage (KJV). Than it gives you your percentage and what the average percentage is and how many people have taken it - it's pretty interesting!

Well, it's Monday morning again with another busy week ahead of us! We made a quick trip to Illinois this past weekend to see my Grandpa R and Ryan's Grandpa J. We were home in time for church on Sunday so it was a REAL quick trip:) But the time spent with our Grandparents is precious and we wouldn't trade it for the world! Today is picking the house up and running errands and than tonight we are going to watch the 4 highschool marching bands that are in our school district. They do a little exhibition once a year that we like to go and see. It's so different than when I was in High School! A lot more involved with costume changes for the whole band, more high tech, and the flag line has to know how to dance along with twirling a flag. Good thing I didn't have to know how to dance way back when! The flag is challenging enough without doing ballet at the same time:)

The twins are upstairs supposedly cleaning their rooms but I'm hearing a lot of door slamming and fighting so I'd better go check it out!

First Field Trip

The twins are going on their first field trip tomorrow to an apple orchard. They are SO excited and have been talking about nothing else all week!! "Mom, do I get to get up early tomorrow?" "No, dear....not for another four days." Than I sigh and think about what a long week it's going to be:) They get to go with the morning Kindergarten class which they think is the best thing ever...AND they get to be car riders for the day instead of bus riders!

Our Crown Financial bible study has been leading us through reviewing how we view our posessions. This is timely for me since I've been cleaning out closets and de-cluttering in anticipation of our move. It's amazing how I tend to hang on to things that I really should have gotten rid of years ago:) I don't tend to be a saver but I still have things I need to part with. When you look at everything from the perspective that God owns it and he's entrusting it to us to take care of you begin to realize that you can't possibly take care of everything you have so maybe it's time to clean out! "The more you have, the more you have to have to take care of the things you have!!" That's a quote from Jungle Jam - a CD the kids like to listen to! It's so true, though!

Uh Oh! I hear E - As the Lord has entrusted him to us I'd better go take care of His possesion :) Sure puts things in perspective, now doesn't it;)

NEVER say Never!

You know how the saying goes, "Never say never?" Yeah, well it caught up to me this time! A few weeks ago I was having a conversation with someone (don't remember who) about how the twins have never cut anything they weren't supposed to with scissors. Well, that's easy when they haven't had access to scissors. BUT, because of Kindergarten they have a school box of supplies that they keep at home to do "homework" with and in that box are - guess what - a pair of scissors. AND this afternoon I'm sweeping away when I enter the bathroom and find a bunch of hair around the toilet. "How odd" I think to myself. Katie and Matthew are here and are using that bathroom and I'm thinking that Matthew must have given himself a haircut (while on the toilet, apparently) and didn't clean it up. WELL, about an hour later I'm in the basement yelling at - excuse me...asking Kenton politely to get his rear in gear and pick up as we have supper company coming in an hour when I notice - HE'S MISSING HAIR!!! The story went, "Huh, what scissors? What hair?" NOW, this is hard to believe as there is evidence to the contrary - he HAS to know what's going on! FINALLY, "Kaitlyn did it. She was practicing to be a hair cutter." HMMM, Kaitlyn is not fessing up so now we know one of them is lying..."Kenton did it himself!" "Well were you in the bathroom with him at the time?" "NO!" Ryan sat down with them and gave them the "One of you is lying to me and you would have been in less trouble if you would have just confessed" speech. Kaitlyn eventually confessed. LET me tell you that it's so hard to know which child is lying!!!! You just have to keep throwing out consequences until one of them decides that they had better hurry up and confess before they get EVERY thing they own taken away:) There will be a picture forthcoming and I have to confess - Katie and I were laughing through most of the ordeal as it WAS quite funny! She had also noticed the hair and had ALSO blamed Matthew - Poor Matthew - He wasn't around when this all took place so I don't think he even knows that he was a culprit for a short time. Oh well, the twins are now banned from using scissors EVER again (Or until the next "homework" assignment that requires their use) and I have hidden MY pair so well that even I don't know where to find them!!!

Back Home

We made it safely home early Wed morning - about 2:00am! Ryan and I were up until about 4 because our timing is off. Katie and Lauren came back from Illinois with us for a few days and they were sleeping soon after we arrived - as was Ethan. The twins' came home from Joe and Joan's this morning around 9am - way too early for me to be awake:( Now it's all about digging out after being gone for a week and a half and than Katie and I are going to tackle some closets and begin getting ready for a garage sale. After next weekend things will finally slow down a little and I can concentrate on volunteering at the twins' school and taking care of Ethan. It will be supreme to have all of us back under one roof again tonight! I sure missed them while we were gone.

K and K had picture day today - and PE!! We'll see which one they did first;0 Kenton didn't want to go today and I suspect it's because he wanted to spend time with us. It's hard to know when they really need that time and when they need to learn that they still have responsibilities and can't skip school whenever they want.

Well, the babies are both sleeping so time to get something done before the twins' arrive home from school!

Tunnel Trails, Wisconsin

Alison and Kenton are going through a railroad tunnel on their bikes. It's so dark that you need to walk your bikes and use flashlights! This isn't the longest tunnel on the trail either. One of the other ones (that we didn't go through) is famous for dripping on a person!

Kenton is standing at the entrance to the tunnel right before we went through. It was a wonderful day for biking with the temperatures not being too hot. The bike trail follows an old railroad line and you actually bike through small Wisconsin towns. The part of the trail we were on was mostly shaded.

I think that the entrance to the tunnel is pretty! We were camping with a group from Elgin on Labor Day weekend - Highlights were - Kenton - going home, Kaitlyn - bike riding, Ethan - being held all weekend, Becky - playing croquet uphill with Sam Bachtold (he set up the course!), Ryan - the bike ride and getting sick:(

HAPPY 30th BIRTHDAY, Robin:)

We have a gray, cloudy day here which is a bit of a bummer but we need the rain so I won't complain! It would be the PERFECT day for sleeping in but I had to get up early to get a donation out for the Sherwood Center so I decided to stay up and get some things done! Ethan woke up with me but after a bottle he went back to sleep for awhile.

I spent this week house cleaning (ughhh) and getting ready for our trip next week. We leave in the am for a weekend of camping with the Weiss's and than Monday AM Ryan and I take off for a "Look, See" trip to Singapore. That's what his company calls it! The closer it gets to leaving the more anxious I am about leaving the kids. Usually it doesn't bother me much and I'm thankful for the break but I think that the distance this time is my problem. It's not "quick" to get back home in an emergency!

We are set up with Skype now and can talk for free to anyone else who also has it. We're going to try it out next week from Singapore to make sure everything works okay and than will decide for sure once we're there what will work best. Ryan's been gone this week to North Carolina so we've been able to try out the webcam...Ethan was SO excited the other night when he saw Ryan on the computer screen! He wasn't sure what to do and was squealing and jumping around:)

I'm heading to Back To School night tonight for the twins and than we head out in the morning. I've got a LOT of packing to get done today!

BTW: If you click on any of the pictures in my blog you can see them much bigger on the screen.

Odds and Ends Pictures

These flowers were sent to me from Melissa, Valarie, Katie, and Rachel with a LOVELY note attached to them! Thanks, girls for helping me to feel SO old:)

This picture was from the first day of Kindergarten. They came off the bus wearing those hats...they say,"I'm a Kindergarten Star" - I think that they were made in Art.

Kaitlyn received a haircut before her second day of school as I was tired of fighting tangles! It sure does grow fast! It's much more manageable now but can still be pulled up.

And last but not least - here's the birthday girl! She doesn't look too old, now does she?

Birthday's and such

Well, I'm officially another year older...and wiser:) 30 really isn't all that hard...the gray hairs are completely a different thing! I had a nice birthday lunch with some friends at Jalapeno's - a Mexican restaurant. Joan decided to bring me a cake when she heard that I was going to make my own...I don't usually bother with a cake for myself except the twins are now old enough to know that a birthday means a cake! Don and Eileen stopped by with a birthday balloon and gift basket and to see the twins come off the school bus....we had a really hot, humid wait for them! Oh - and I had flowers awaiting me when I returned home from my lunch...they came from my four LOVELY, young sisters:) Other than that I have been spending my day cleaning out the coat closet...I don't think that we are going to need coats in Singapore. Or hats. Or gloves. Or scarves. Or boots. I'm getting all the things that we're getting rid of ready for a big garage sale to be held sometime in September. I came down to wash up some of our winter coats and realized that I had left the clean clothes in the washing machine, AGAIN. This will make the third time that they are being washed to freshen them up...clothes sitting wet for a couple of days tend to start smelling mildewy! If that's a word. Well, I'm going to go and check the mail to see if there's anything in there for my birthday:)

First Day of School

These pictures are a little out of order. I still need to figure out how to download them in chronological order.



It didn't take Kaitlyn long to make a friend and start putting together a puzzle. We weren't there long when she learned where the bathroom was - always important info for a little girl!







Kenton found some toys after sitting at his desk sizing the situation up!







This is Mrs. Wiley, their teacher. She was very patient in posing for pictures for all the moms:)







AND of course we can't forget Ethan! He and mommy went on errands after the twins left and he was a happy little guy - doesn't seem to miss them too much! I found him pulling himself up to standing on the back of the chair - he'd than get stuck and cry until I rescued him or he fell. He's going to walk before he's crawling!

Kaitlyn and Kenton were ready to go about 30 minutes before the bus actually came so we went outside to take a "first day of school" picture! They were running around the house with backpacks on saying, "Mom, how long NOW before the bus comes!"

We were inside the house when I heard the bus pull up - she was about 5 minutes early. I think that it helped the twins as there wasn't really any time for them to be nervous about actually getting on - they just ran outside and straight onto the bus. Once they were on they may have had some second thoughts. Isn't a cute, little bus?

Of course I had to beat the bus to school:) This is the twins getting off the bus at school - Joan rode up there with me for moral support. AND, I wasn't the only parent there and armed with a camera.

It didn't take them long to figure out where to hang up their backpacks. I felt a little sorry for the teacher as she was overwhelmed with anxious parents in the room - I'm pretty sure that we were more nervous than the children were:)

Kenton went right to his seat and sat for a minute looking around trying to get his bearings. We had gone to school yesterday to drop off school supplies and to find out where they were to sit.

Life Changes

I'm sure that many have heard of our upcoming relocation to Singapore. I'm not going to write much about it here but if you have questions or concerns please call us. If you Google Singapore and click on the Wikipedia link you can find out quite a bit about the country.

We are staying busy...we head to Colorado this week to spend time with my Dad and Mom and Rachel. I'm sure I'll have pictures to post of that trip:) We LOVE going out there and the mountains. We'll come back next week to company, the twins starting Kindergarten, and Lord Willing, baptisms. It's hard to believe the twins are that old already - where does the time go?

As you can see from the picture, Ethan has started getting up on all fours and rocking. It frustrates him (as you can also tell from the picture) but it won't be long before he's crawling and getting into all the twins things (and mine:)