First update of 2012

Hope you are having a great start to 2012. Ours seems pretty normal. Plenty of colds and sickness to keep us on our toes, which makes it seem as if we are constantly changing/canceling plans. The weather has been pretty amazing..... it seems like an incredibly mild start to winter here in Texas. Still plenty of days that the kiddos can get outside and burn off energy. Great for me!

So here is a bit of what we have been up to:

Finally - made it to Arkansas a couple weeks ago to visit the Kent's before someone got sick. Didn't say that no one got sick, just said we made it there before someone did! That someone was Norah in the middle of the night our last night there. So our 3rd attempt in six months finally paid off.

Too bad it wasn't warm enough to use the new pool @ the Kent's. Next time!

Gavin, Emma & Karmen

Sam (18 mos this week) is our little piano man! He loves to sit here & "play".

Steve took the girls ice skating over Christmas break. There were a few hard falls, but they had a blast!

See, told you he loves the keyboard!

As I said at the beginning, just a lot of normal going on down here right now.

Oh and one more thing, we are learning to stop marching and start dancing in our journey with Jesus. If you are curious about this - check out the January 8th message from our church - Bent Tree Bible Fellowship. http://www.benttree.org/media/sermon-video-archive

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from Texas! We hope that you have a blessed time celebrating the birth of our savior!

Like everyone else, 2011 will close with many memories; many were happy, some were sad, many were life changing, and all were filtered through the loving hands of our faithful God. Steve's dad died in January - we are thankful to know that he is home with Jesus, a great summer trip to visit family and friends up north, The Bema drama at Bent Tree Bible Fellowship, lots and lots of hot summer days spent at the pool and far too many others to list.

It's been quite a while since we posted an update, so here are some pictures to catch you up.

Our crew getting a picture for the annual Christmas card.

Norah enjoying her preschool Christmas party!
Sam dunking the basketball for the first time! Daddy is very proud and excited!


Emma turns 9! She continues to love bats on her cake. Also, she blessed some other children by asking for donations for them rather than gifts for herself!

Greg came for a visit in November all the way from Virginia. He and Steve got to enjoy a Cowboys game, but the entertainment at our house was likely better (check out Norah & Sam in this pic!)

This picture is a whole lot calmer.

Sam - 16 months (proud little Illini fan - basketball that is!) He is weighing in at a solid 33 lbs! He has almost caught Norah @ 35 lbs.

Celebrated our 16th Anniversary in November. We encourage everyone to make time together a priority. I was able to pull off a surprise overnight get away for us. Love our sitter, Miss Lauren!

Halloween 2011 - Our lil pumpkin!

Halloween at our house - a cow, a pumpkin and a princess.

Seriously!

It can not be almost 2 months since I last updated. What happened to my grand plans of getting caught up once we were all back into our fall routine?! Well, I may have had greater expectations than what my reality currently is. So, instead of getting stuck in disappointment (the space between reality and expectations!). I'm just going to try to catch up on posting a few pictures of what's been going on here.

Norah gets her game face on for preschool! Oh and this face can stop Sam from crying everytime!

Sam's reaction to Norah going to preschool! Quick cross your eyes Norah!

Sam & Steve - hotel @ Tanglewood after 2nd attempt to visit the Kent's in Arkansas failed due to sick kiddos AGAIN! Seriously!!!

mid - September: Grandma Bromm, Sam & Emma - loved our visit with my mom!

Grandma & Norah

Norah turns 5! There won't be much peace & quiet at our house for a bit. Norah got a drum set for her birthday. What were we thinking?!!

Sam takes first steps! okay not in this picture, but he did this past weekend!

So there you have it, a little catching up from our camp.

Summer break over, school starts

Summer break is officially over, but the Texas weather did not get the memo. We are still "enjoying" 100+ temperatures most days.

How did we do with our summer philosophies?! Glad you asked! We can report that we did great at behaving like our home was a beach house! We now have much work to do so Sam can crawl around without being the baby version of the swiffer sweeper! We have learned more about the fruit of the Spirit and the blessings that come from trying to bless others with our efforts and actions. Going to keep on pursing this one! The beach house philosophy has to go soon though - if we could just get some cooler temps to help us with that would be great!

Emma's first day of 3rd grade

Sam "stuffed" into his swim gear!
Norah - our newest little fish - can now swim the length of the pool by herself.

We are excited to see what the new school year holds for the girls. Emma loves her teacher and is excited. Norah is beginning to get excited, but also remembers how 'boring' nap/rest time was! Sam is going to be in shock and withdrawl without his 2 biggest entertainers for 3 days a week!

1st Birthday, Picture day, Haircut day, & Bat night

Our little man is 1! Okay, so he's not so little, but he is 1! We find out on Friday just how "healthy!" he is. Socially correct way to say he is BIG!

Finally took the kiddos in for some updated pictures. Here are just a couple to catch you up.

Emma gets a BIG haircut! Once again she donated her hair to help others. 8 inches this time for the Pantene Beautiful Lengths program. The wigs are donated to cancer patients.

BEFORE:
AFTER: Emma quote " I plan to donate at least 2 more times before age 2o."

We took a quick trip to Austin this past weekend to see the BATS! Emma learned about bats in 1st grade @ Grove with Mrs. Carlock's class. She has been crazy about them ever since. Soooo naturally Norah has picked up on this interest too. Since we are only 3 1/2 hours from a city that has about 1.5 million bats under a bridge, we had to go! The girls loved it! Sam wasn't too sure what all the fuss was about!

So we are 19 days away from school starting. Still too quick for this mom! We continue to live as though our home is a beach house. Based on the debris on Sam's hands and knees after crawling around, I'd say we are doing a pretty good job of it! I just hope I haven't let the pendulum swing so far in the non cleaning direction that we can never recover. Ah well, we will find out when school starts.

Enjoy the rest of summer yall!

Summer fun

We did it! 16 days, 42 hours in the van, 4 states (6 if you count the ones we drove through), 7 houses, 3 sick kids and more tylenol and motrin than we can count. That doesn't quite sum up our trip to visit family and friends in the Midwest from June 18th through July 4th.

Add in lots of fun, laughter, great visiting with friends, fabulous to worship at Eastview again, fun on the farm, collecting chicken eggs, playing with rabbits, feeding fish at Grandma/pa's house, cousins to play with, friends to run wild in the old neighborhood with and don't forget a couple of mornings waking up way too early to drive and getting to eat snacks in the van at 4AM! That gets us a bit closer.

Just a couple of pictures from our travel and visits. May get some more added later, and then again may not!

The Wadhams men!

No you can climb it first!
Norah & Keaton
Emma, Christian & Norah

Now we are back and enjoying the rest of summer. Emma did a science camp and swim lessons, we enjoyed a visit with our old neighbors, Stacia and Christian, from Bloomington. And now it is a lot of hot, hot, hot. Yesterday was the 19th day in a row of triple digit temperatures. There is a chance of cooler weather today..... 99! Thanksfully the neighborhood pools are keeping us cool when outside.

Speaking of pools, I think I am doing pretty well at sticking with the beach house mentality (okay, most of the time!). We definitely have a lot of wet towels and swimsuits laying around, cleaning is only done when absolutely necessary and we are having lots of fun. We are continuing to focus on the fruit of the Spirit. Some days that comes easier than others, but I love to see how the girls are getting it.

In fact, recently while at the store with Steve, Norah witnessed a little one having a tantrum in the toy aisle. She promptly turned to Steve and said "He needs to get some self-control!". Too funny!!

Enjoy the rest of summer, it is going fast! Too fast for this mom!

Fruit of the Spirit and Beach home - hmmmm?

So I have a new philosophy for our home this summer. Well 2 actually!

1) We are focusing our attention on the fruit of the Spirit (Galations 5:22) - Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control. We are finding fun ways to practice and show these virtues to each other. Will try to blog about some of our learnings along the way. Likely it will be me who learns the most. I love how God teaches me daily through my munchkins!! I'm sure they will pick up a thing or two as well.

2) We are going to act as if our house is a beach home. When at the beach we relax more, play together more, rest more, clean less, focus on tasks less. We don't get bothered by clutter or sand on the floor or wet towels all over. Soooo, we will see how a confirmed OCD mommy does with this one!! More on that I'm sure.

OKAY - on to some pictures!!

Sam @ 10 months. He is getting around quite nicely by rolling or scooting on his bottom. He has experimented with getting on his hands and knees, but no real progress towards crawling. Although I am sure that is not far off!

Norah in her new dress from Grandma Verla!

Emma & Steve @ Galveston beach over Memorial Day weekend. Our first family trip to start exploring Texas!

Norah's last day of preschool with one of her favorite friends - Annie!