Crazy hair

Sydney has crazy hair. There is just no getting around it. It's growing and it's curly and thus, it's crazy. We all laugh about it.

So when my mom, my aunt, my grandma and I went shopping in Shipshewana we found this doll. It looked just like my Sydney. We called it the "Sydney crazy hair doll". She got it for Christmas from my mom. Here's the pic, tell me if you can see the resemblance!

Sneaky

I promised myself I wouldn't let it happen. No matter what, I wouldn't allow them to worm their way into my heart.

Then it happened. Matt came to bed at around 10 PM last night and said that he thinks Larry got out. I sat upright. "He can't go out, he's too little, it's too cold." Matt quick threw on a coat and went out calling for him. Meanwhile, I was worrying....What if some other big mean cat got him? Or what if he's lost and looking for home? Matt came back and couldn't find him. Now I'm panicked.....What will the kids say? I'm on the verge of tears as Matt renenters the house with a very cold Larry in his arms. I ran to them and scooped up Larry showering him with kisses and rubbing his favorite spot by his ears. I quick ran and got him some treats all the while murmuring loving things to him. I looked up and Matt was standing in the doorway with a huge smirk on his face. "These are the kids cats????" he asked smugly. Well they are....as far as the kids know :)

Sigh

I've just had about enough Christmas, thus I had to change my template, what can I say? The tree goes out to the curb tomorrow. You just get to that point, you know....When you are ready for the holidays to be OVER!

We had a blessed Christmas. It occurred to me sitting there watching the chaos that I am so blessed. Not only do I have 4 beautiful children and a husband who loves me, but I have two godly parents, 4 terrific siblings, two loving grandparents, an aunt who would fly to the moon for me if I asked and a fairly fantastic cousin. We were all together that morning.....It was great. Here are some highlights....(more to come as most of my pics I had to dump on my mom's computer!)


Sydney in her Dora chair with her Dora doll wrapped in her new blanket (thanks Mom Kurtz!) and watching Dora. Have I mentioned that I now hate Dora??!?!?!








Here's Emma with her Dora talking house.....Yes, more Dora....









Here's Molli and Aunt Kimmie looking at the Disney book she got...Thank the Lord, no Dora!








And last but not least, here they all are playing Elefun...a truly fun game for kids, but a nightmare for parents and vacuum cleaners alike :)

Countdown

Oh Christmas is so close I can almost taste it! Tomorrow morning Matt and I head out to finish up the rest of our shopping. We are firm believers in waiting till the last minute :)

Christmas Eve is always the highlight for me. We always dress up. I love the darkened sanctuary, the carols, my dad reading a Christmas story, taking communion with my family and finally lighting our candles and singing Silent Night. This year I have been asked to sing, which just heightens it for me. Not only that, but this is the first time that my Jonah will be able to participate in communion...... I can't wait.

Till then of course, there's cleaning and cooking to be done....So off I go! Merry Christmas everyone!!

One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn't belong......can you tell which one??

This is my friend's son....peeking at the kitties or, as he likes to call them, meow meows :)

An amazing day!

Today was...incredible. You wouldn't know, the way it started....

Sundays are always chaos at our house. Why this is, I'm not quite sure. but, by the time I got to church, I was flustered. Then we blew through the music for this morning. (I'm on the worship team) After that was over, I felt stressed and not particularly worshipful at all. Made it through most of the service. I went to sit down after we were done singing and Jonah was crying. I let it go because this is the norm on a communion Sunday. Jonah always gets upset that we won't allow him to take communion yet. I sensed however that he needed to talk so I motioned to him to follow me. We went downstairs and had a talk. I asked him why he was upset. "Dad won't let me take the bread and juice," he replied. "Do you know why you aren't allowed?" I asked. He shrugged. "It's because we don't want you to take communion until we know that you have decided to ask Jesus into your heart." I explained. He paused for a minute and then said, "What does that mean?" So i explained it to him. He paused again and then said, "Mom, do you think you could come with me after church to talk to Grandpa about asking Jesus into my heart?" My heart almost exploded. So after service, we sought out my dad. My mom was standing there too. "Grandpa", Jonah said. "Could you help me ask Jesus into my heart?" My mom started bawling. It was so awesome. And so, my precious oldest child accepted the Lord today....and the angels are singing!

Whew! Not that I can top that but here's some pictures from decorating cookies at my mom's house yesterday!

This is me before....man, my face looks fat :) And here's me now.....

My face still looks fat...oh well! :)

I am so excited

I am so excited I can hardly stand it! Today I got my Christmas present. A digital camera. I can't believe it!! I'm looking at it charging right now, counting the seconds until I can use it!!!!! I AM SO EXCITED!!!

Tomorrow is the day. I'm going to get my hair cut. I haven't totally decided what to do. If it's disatrous, I will not post pictures!!! But it is just hair and it will grow.

Congrats to Mindy and Jayson and their new beautiful boy!! I'm so glad he's finally here, can't wait to meet him!

My camera is done...pics to follow!

How about this???

http://gallery.hairboutique.com/details.asp?ID=7228

Advice and congratualtions

I dreamt a lot last night. I spent the majority of the day yesterday reading a book. This always happens to me, I start reading something and I can do nothing else until I've finished. I did stop to feed my family, but I ate mine at the computer. This story captivated me. I related to the characters all in different ways, on different levels. The author is just beginning what I think will be a fantastic career. She paints word pictures that flowed through my brain all night long. I fell asleep retelling the story in my head and woke up the same way. So, in a word, bravo!

I'm going out on Saturday. My girlfriend Mindy convinced me to go with her and her mom to this place. It 's a beauty college where you can go and get special things done for cheap because the people doing are students. I'm have a spa manicure and getting my hair cut. I've never had a manicure before. Guess it's about time. I am getting my hiar cut. I haven't had it cut by anyone but Matt for a few years. I really want something different. Do you think this style would look good on me??? Check it out and let me know what you think...
http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/thumb/4/46/180px-Mariska_Hargitay.jpg

I love this new template! I've been searching and searching for a Christmas one.....Thanks to Caz a million times over!!!

Nothing much new to report. The kittens are settling in well. The kids adore them, sometimes too much. Molli is sporting quite the collection of scratches due to her "enthusiasm". They've taken over my computer chair however. This makes being on the computer slightly more complicated! I had a whole conversation with my sister-in-law on IM yesterday standing next to the computer! So we are going to have a serious talk about my chair!

Well off to have coffee, hope you all have a good day!

Announcement

Alright, it's confession time. I knew that once it happened to most of you, it was bound to happen to us. I just can't control myself. What can I say? So here it is.....

There is a new member of our family. Actually two.....







Everyone...Meet our new kittens.



That's right, when the Kurtz's get a pet, we go all out. One kitten was not enough you see. " Mom, they're twins.....They can't be apart..." Of course I wasn't a tough sell, I fell in love with them instantly. And I'm usually not a cat person. So into our home they came. The kids are thrilled. These poor cats are sleeping now because the kids are all outside and it's quiet. No one chasing them or trying to keep them in one spot. Last night, I swear one of them was talking to me telepathically. He looked at me and I swear I heard him say, "How much longer till these children go to bed???" I looked back and replied, "I'm asking myself the same thing!" They are both boys, much to Molli's dismay. She was all ready to call one, Sleeping Beauty! Alas, we had to think of boy names. I left this soley up to the kids. Wanna know what they came up with? Bob and Larry. That's right, we have Bob the cat and his brother, Larry. The only way to tell them apart is that Bob has a extra toe on one paw. They are cuddlers and will make an excellent addition to our home! Sorry about the picture, some of us have yet to receive a digital camera! I took this shot with my web cam!

Now how many of you assumed I was pregnant?????????

Pics

Just because I can, here's some shots of the kids..thanks to Grandpa McGlynn for these!!

Whirlwind

Man, my head is spinning. Whew! Crazy, crazy, crazy! We are snowed in, literally. The kids have their first snow day of the year (Jonah and Molli cried!). I remember when we had snow days in High school and I wanted to go out with my friends. My dad always told me that if the roads were bad enough to close for school than for sure I wasn't going anywhere. Party pooper :)

Other news, Princess has found a new home. I decided, as I was cleaning 0ut her cage the other day, that the kids really have little to do with her and I do it all and she just sits there. The final straw was yesterday when Emma let her escape and we spent an hour trying to get her back into her cage from underneath Jonah's bed! So I listed her on our local Freecycle network. Last night, a very nice woman and her two sons came and picked up Princess. They have another rat so Princess will have a friend. Plus they like to train them/play with them constantly so that's good. My kids were very nonchalant about the whole thing, which I suppose was a good thing.....Now they're asking for a cat.....heaven help me!

Well what to do with my day? Maybe getting dressed would be a good place to start...or maybe not!

Roses

So this is my roses blog. Have you ever seen those roses to things in newspapres? A way to say thanks...so here it is.....

A rose to: Mindy Hubbard. Our van died so we were down to one vehicle. Which meant that we were getting our kids up at 2:30 AM and loading them into Matt's little car that has no heat and taking Matt to work because we needed the car to gets kids to school, etc. So Mindy Hubbard is now picking up my kids and taking them to school, EVERY DAY! What a blessing she is, so she gets my first rose.

A rose to: My husband, some days......man, I'm thankful for him!

A rose to: My mom. She never ceases to amaze me with her unconditional love and support.

A rose to: My blogging friends. Every day I write things on here and you all are so faithful to always take my side and give encouragement...roses to you all!

A rose to: Mindy Schoeberlein who I think just needs one :)

A rose to: Whoever invented the automatic coffe maker....God Bless you!

A rose to: Jonah's teacher, Ms. Mary. What a wonderfully perceptive woman she is. And she is just so perfect and just what my Jonah needs.

A rose to: my friend, Shannon Schauer who always keeps intouch with me, even though we never see each other

There it is, all my roses have been delivered for the day :)

From here to................................................here

My Molli,

Five years ago tonight you came into our lives. Our first little girl. It's been an adventure from the moment you arrived, looking all around and not making a sound, to now where it's all I can do to keep you quiet! What a beautiful and wonderful journey it has been so far. You are such a vibrant, exciting girl and I love you so much. Here's to another 5! (hopefully!)

My last post was such a downer that I decided we needed a little Christmas spirit. So here is our family photo. The only one, I must point out, with Sydney. It turned out pretty nicely, if I do say so myself. No smile from Syd, but at least she's not crying or sucking her finger!!! Click on the picture to see it bigger!

I've been up since 3:30 AM. Why are there just some things that we cannot push from our minds no matter how hard we try??

Some of you have written of struggles you have with family stuff. Why is it that family issues wound us so deeply?? We expect our families to love us uncondtionally, to uphold and support us, to rejoice with us, to grieve with us.....to help us. When we are met with condemnation and anger, it destroys us, more so than any other relationship I think. There is saddness in our house today. I feel heavy, burdened. Say a little prayer for us today, if you think of it.

On a brighter note, tomorrow is my Molli's birthday (it's also Zoe's...Happy Birthday Zoe!!) Parties always help lighten the mood, right??

Success

We did it! We made it! My mom braved her awful back and we went to the concert. It was so good....I am so glad we went. My mom handled it beautifully and we have a fabulous time together. Thanks to those of you who I know were praying that she would be able to make it through the concert!

Life continues to chug along at the Kurtz's. We have the tree up and decorated and the kids are getting excited about Christmas. It sure does have a different feel this year, because it's on Sunday. But cool too.

So last night (back to the concert because it was awesome and it's my blog) We were sitting, enjoying the music. Well in the Van Andel arena there are suites at the very top of the stadium where the rich people get to watch events. Well the suite above where we were sitting was full of rich teenage girls. They talked THE WHOLE SHOW!!!! Even when it was quiet, we could hardly hear SCC because they were talking and laughing. Finally, near the end of the show, someone got up and climbed up there and told them to be quiet, that just because they were in a box didn't mean that we couldn't hear them. They sort of quieted down. THAT IS SO ANNOYING!!! It happened to us when we went to see.........Well, a movie. This girl would laugh about every 5 minutes. Even when the movie was serious, she was laughing. I thought my mom was going to throw something at her! But how do you deal with something like that? I was like, I have paid good money to be here and I WANT TO HEAR WHAT'S GOING ON!!!! Either whisper or GO AWAY!

*deep breath* Sorry, that was just vastly frustrating! Anyway, just wanted to tell y'all about the concert! IT WAS AWESOME!