Recital and Petit Fours

Esther in a dress from her H. cousins - before we get started on other things, I'll give you Esther's growth report :) Her two bottom teeth just started to come in...She's graduated from the swing to the high chair...She's learned to sit up on her own...sometime's she'll imitate sounds...and she can crawl just a little. So much fun!!

Someday I hope to teach her not to stick out her tongue...

On May 14, we had our piano recital - I was planning to cut back this year, but ended up with about 13 students. (Although, I mostly taught at the church instead of driving to the student's homes like before.) They all improved over this last year and did a great job at the recital! This is my cousin Sarah.

Jeshua

Priscilla

Hosanna

All of us!

Me and two Esthers -

We went to the retirement party for Mr. and Mrs. B. - It's so sad to think that my kids won't be able to have the same great experiences I had with CEF, but hopefully I can pass on the things I learned to them anyway! Thank you both for everything!

Esther is outgrowing her "I love Daddy" onsie, but then, soon she'll be able to fit her, "Daddy's girl" one :)

Like I said, she's learned how to sit up...

In May we also took a trip to TN - except for some van trouble, which Aaron and his brothers were able to fix, it went well. God protected us from all the tornados going through. We listened to "The Hiding Place" dramatized and really enjoyed that, and we bought cheese curds in WI, and were able to visit friends in IL (thank you!) - so it was fun.

Aaron and Esther after the Memorial Day service - We're so blessed to have people who were willing to give their lives for our freedom.

Aaron and I helped with a VBS in another town and the kids were giving us lilacs....one of our favorite flowers!

Pardon the state of chaos my kitchen is in! Hosanna, Miriam, and I made 250 petit fours for our cousin's wedding. It took about 3 days!

If you ever make petit fours, we learned some tricks - freeze the cake with a layer of frosting on top, freeze it again after you cut it and only take out a couple squares at a time, keep the glaze warm in a double boiler, pour the glaze over the cake on a wire rack with a pan under it, then you can reheat the extra glaze that falls through two more times before it gets too thick, but I don't think there's any way to make it easy!

The petit fours as the wedding
Esther and I after the wedding
This weekend a missionary from Africa was able to come and speak at our church. It was very informative.
We cut and froze ten bags of rhubarb - our first "preserving" of the year!

I'm sure you're all wondering where the garden pictures are...I keep forgetting to take them, but never fear, we planted it a little over a week ago (excpet the lettuce and spinach that were planted earlier - we've already ate one salad - even though it was probably a little soon...) and stuff is just starting to come up. Just today, Aaron planted a couple more things and we're praying that it won't rain too much in the next few days!
Rejoice evermore!

Esther's First Easter and More...

I know this is a little late to be posting Easter pictures, but oh well! We updated our computer security system and now I can post more than five pictures at a time - just in case you're wondering why I never did before :)

This week a family from church gave us some raspberry plants, so Aaron went ahead and planted them, even though our garden is still too wet to do much in. I planted a couple feet of lettuce and radishes as well, so hopefully they'll survive.

Esther has this thing for rolling toward the edge of the bed, so sometimes we 'fence' her in with pillows :)

Esther is six months old now -

Aaron had to go to a conference in Colorado last week and took a few pictures to show me -

Esther trying on a bonnet :)

Silas finally consented to hold Esther - after a little force....They even match :)

Eating her toes!

All excited!

Hanging out in Daddy's lap...

Hanging out with Grandpa...

We made raspberry smoothies one night just for fun to drink while we watched a movie -

On Good Friday, Aaron and I hosted an open house for our church people (we were going to do it at Christmas, but Aaron was sick then, so this worked out just as well...) - It was a lot of fun to prepare for and went well. I calculated that 19 different people contributed either recipes, or dishes, or actual help...so if you recognize something, thank you! Oh, and since I didn't want to risk running out of food - we ended up with enough leftovers to share and to feed us for a few days :) We're considering making it an anual event.

Rice krispie bird nests - I remember my mom making these a long time ago -

Strawberry tea punch -

Which is the right baby?

Have a great week! (or however long it is until we post again...)

Spring

We had an absolutely beautiful day this week - Aaron went out and worked on getting the tiller and mower all in shape for summer and we greatly enjoyed having a warm day after four or five months of cold!

Our garden is a little wet right now...Aaron did some ditching, but it's going to take a some time before it's ready to plant :)

If you look really close, you can see that our chives are just starting to come up -

We just cleaned up and put together this Saucer thing for Esther. She's enjoying it and I'm enjoying having a place to put her if I have to do something with both hands.

Esther Joy!

March 2011

Mmmm, do you think I should change the name of our blog to something about Esther? I won't do that, she helps us serve the Lord too (in fact, she's head of our children's deparment :) ) but I'm noticing that she is sort of dominating the blog...This is her in a snow suit - we've been taking her out to get the mail with us once and a while.

She's outgrowing clothes by the week, and she recently discovered how to roll over and is making full use of her new mobility.

Esther's swing from Grandma S. - She likes it for a while, but then she gets tired of being all strapped in!

I sat next to her in the van for a while because she doesn't really like being strapped in the car seat either! Managed to catch a smile :)

We've been talking about going down to visit Aaron's brother and sister-in-law in Missouri for a while, and had a free week so we left after church on Sunday and made it back Saturday afternoon. We also spent a couple nights with my cousins in South Dakota and it was fun to catch up with them too - unfortunetly, I forgot to take pictures while we were there...

Josh and Danialah took us to a BBQ restraunt in Kansas City - it was a cultural experience :)

Esther all dressed up :)

It was like 70 degrees one of the days we were there! Aaron and his brother spent time cutting wood and working in the garden and working on a car - guy things - and us girls just kind of hung out.

Also, when we were in the city, we walked around down town (there were a couple men giving carriage rides...) and went in a giant bookstore.