A Few Pics

Of the last week or two...

We haven't done much lately for various reasons, but wanted to put up the few pics I have taken.

They Asked Me To Take This :)

Lorelei was very proud of digging such a big hole. Makin was pretending it was Rocket from Little Einsteins.

Again, Picture Request. :)

Guess its a good thing they asked me to take their pic a few times or we wouldn't have much! :)

One of our challenges lately has involved both cars dying on us. So, as Brad's car was in the shop our friends from school were generous enough to drive Lorelei to school and help out a ton while we have been waiting to hear what all had to be done to get the car running again. We finally got a car rented and his car should be running again by late Thursday afternoon. Then we will send mine in and see how bad the diagnosis is before deciding our next step. The kids have had extra fun with Payton and Macie with many activities, including shaving cream and bowling. (Makin is hilarious to watch bowling. He just throws it so hard and manages to hit the pins really well. If you can't tell that is his tongue sticking out as he bowls! My apologies for the bins behind them in the pics, they are the kid's clothes that are too small and were waiting for a trip to the attic.) It is a fun group dynamic as they switch off with older two/younger two and boys/girls back and forth. Pretty fun to watch and seems to be a good combo!

Lorelei has loved reading to Makin lately and its so fun to watch. :) Just love it. She also wants to rock him and sing to him and be totally in charge of getting him to sleep. He loves it but wants the real mom to actually get him to bed when she is done. :)


The weather should perk up next week.
Nicer weather + drivable car + half birthdays = many more fun things to blog about! :)

Happy Birthday Grandpa!

February Family Picture

Sweetness Of Valentine's Week

I grew up making sugar cookies for nearly every holiday. Mom made sure to give them to friends along with her piano students...among many others I'm probably leaving out! Valentine's Day seemed to be the biggest one for giving out these cookies. I have done this for ALMOST every Valentine's Day since I had an apartment in college. (I'm sure there may have been a couple of years here recently I decided not to take the time.) Anyway, this is one of those traditions I like to continue, but I never realized what a saint my mom was for doing this with us until trying to be patient with my own kids while cutting out cookies. :) This year seemed the least stressful and I tried to just take it all in stride and both kids did really well. They loved doing this and I loved their enthusiasm.

We started decorating the cookies after nap. Lorelei was very adamant that her dad get the biggest cookie and she decorated it all by herself. Who else could get THAT many blue sprinkles onto a cookie? :) She said he deserved the cookie for getting his new job. :) So, she delivered her special cookie to her Daddy.

That is a smiley face, complete with a layer of chocolate on the top for hair. :)



For me, Valentine's Day is really an excuse to have some extra goodies around the house. :) Had to show Lorelei with her chocolate-covered cookie. Her cookie decorating plan usually involves putting as much chocolate as she possibly can onto her cookie. She also decorated some specifically for Uncle Bob and Auntie Di. I was amazed at how good she was at decorating this year! :) Makin only decorated his personal cookie which he wanted to cover with M&Ms. :) I also tried out a scone recipe with strawberries and chocolate chips. They were yummy but the kids didn't want them! :) During school on Tuesday, Makin and I went over to the Hughes house for M&M to decorate V-Day cupcakes. They loved decorating and eating their own cupcakes and then just ran around having fun the rest of our visit.

Our first year doing valentines for school!!! Kind of a momentous Valentine's Day moment when you actually have to make a batch of valentine's to give out to the class! And to top it off, they even made their own box at home to take to school to put their valentine's in. Brad and Lorelei worked to cover the box in all pink (I think Lor only lasted helping with the glue for a couple of sides and Brad finished it later.) and then Lorelei had fun putting on any and all stickers and pom pom balls she could to spruce it up. The valentines we made this year were a bag of Teddy Grahams and Gummie Bears with a card that said, "Bear Hugs From Lorelei" with the other side decorated by Lorelei with stickers. And we went all out for her hair as I had a new hair-do idea off Pinterest to try since we already had ribbon that matched her shirt. :) And of course, had to get a pic with little brother in the before-school photo shoot. :)

We are so blessed with these two beautiful kids and the love they give us every day.  Not much can beat their sweet hugs to make you feel loved to the moon and back. :)

Happy Valentine's Day! :)

Visit With Auntie Di

It had been a long while since we had seen Auntie Di, so she and I planned to meet up at Grapevine Mills Mall. She loves to do a little spoiling for the kids, and they were definitely spoiled.

First stop...riding the train of course!

Second... Rain Forest Cafe. Yummy!

Third...a little fun pretending on the play cars, including serving up ice cream from the ice cream truck. ;) Oh and naturally this is right next to the cookie store...so they got a cookie too.

Fourth... Carousel ride!

The kids just had a blast with all of these extra-special activities they got to enjoy. Thanks so much for spoiling us Auntie Di and we had a wonderful visit. :) Look forward to our next visit!

Big Week For The Stahls

Especially the boys!!! :)

First...week of Brad's new job!
Finally, finally FINALLY!!! Brad is working from home! Yippie! So far the job is going well. As usual, I like to give it a month before knowing my full opinion, but thankful for a good first week. Hoping and praying this is the opportunity we have been waiting so long for and it makes Brad much happier, therefore the whole family much happier. We are looking forward to family lunches and no commute after work! Right now his manager starts work between 6-7 AM. While Brad is free to start whenever he wants, (flexible schedule!!!) I love that his manager works so early so that it helps Brad work early too!

Also, Guttie (the golf site he does as a side project) is going so well they are needing to put on the breaks to catch up. He has had opportunities to golf the last several weekends (sponsored by Guttie) so he has been able to live out part of his dream of playing on a golf tour, including golfing on the Independent Golf Tour and enjoying some amazing courses that he has only been able to golf on by special invitation. Very excited to see what God has in store with this and would love prayers for him as he struggles to juggle this, the new job, and time with us. (The course pictured on the left is his latest venture to The Dallas National Golf Club.)

And while we are talking about Brad, he has his hernia repair surgery scheduled for March 15th, so we are very ready to get that over-with and have him healthy again. :) And if you think you hear a faint coughing sound in Nebraska/Oklahoma/Canyon/VA Beach...that would still be him. Still has not completely kicked his nasty cough, but overall a bit better.

First...week of Makin being potty trained-ish!
Well...no trip to Chuck E Cheese yet, but we are getting close. We had our "naked weekend" last weekend where Makin ran around in his underwear (or less) for roughly three days in an attempt to get a jump on potty training. He did VERY well with very few accidents. This week he has been in big boy underwear all day and just pull ups when he sleeps. We have had a few minor accidents but overall he is doing very well! Going rather slow on that sticker chart as we only put stickers up about half the time, but hoping that means he will be accident-free by the time we have our big family celebration out. Guessing it will be a week or two though! Proud of our big boy! :)

First...sporting event for the kiddos!
Mary's husband, Patrick, is enjoying his first year as a High School business teacher and JV basketball coach/Assistant varsity coach. We had been planning to go to a game at some point, and since they were in their last couple of weeks of the season we made sure to go this week. The kids were SO pumped. They sat very still for the first 5-10 minutes watching the game before climbing around the stands. Lorelei loved that the mascot on the sidelines waved to her and her friends. :) They also went with Patrick to start the laundry during the girls game and thought that was pretty cool. :)

First...time breaking a sweat at Barnes and Noble!
No pictures as I was too exhausted. :) The kids had been asking to go to B&N for a couple of weeks and since it has been so nice outside we have not really made our usual winter trips. Since they had been asking, we made sure to plan that for Friday. They were both excited to use the escalator in the store up until the point where Lorelei needed to step onto it...then she and I were reminded she is now very scared of escalators!!! She had an escalator incident with Brad at the airport when his hands were full of luggage and now will not step onto one for the life of her. So, as Makin and I started down, she refused to go so I ended up walking up the down escalator carrying Makin to get back up to her. We took the elevator down but then I just picked her up and made her ride back up. Escalator therapy in the near future for that one. :) Then we had multiple dashes to the bathroom a few minutes later with a freshly potty-trained two year old not wanting to leave the train table to take a potty break. :) Not quite as relaxing as I hoped, but still glad we got out of the house and just love that books and coffee smell. :)

First...time taking pictures of extra chores for the munchkins! :) Okay, so it isn't the first week of chores, but maybe second? And that wouldn't really fit in with the rest of this post now would it!? :) P.S. This is their favorite chore...unloading the clean silverware! :)

Anyway, we have had some extra-challenging moments lately that have resulted in me doing some extra reading and trying a few new disciplining techniques. One of which involves more chores. I do want them doing a few chores on a regular basis, but have to work on making some good charts for that soon. These are just "extra" things they normally wouldn't be asked to do. Makin is a stud at chores and now seldom needs to do any, yet will volunteer to help. Lorelei will let her toys that have been taken away sit in the laundry room for over a week and never wants to do chores. Sometimes she still has to if that is the punishment we decide on. She has gotten very close to many toys being donated, so won't be surprised if that happens either. Still trying to work out the kinks and need to have a few notes written handy on the frig, but my blood pressure is lower so am thankful for some of the parenting wisdom I have read lately. :)

Friday Evening Fun

Trying to add just a little extra fun to a few days each week. We had to aim for the coolest day so we wouldn't roast having a fire in the fire place! There were only two chilly ones (Highs in the low 50s, which were probably considered balmy in MN and NE!) so we made the cooler day earlier in the week for our soup day and then wanted to add some family fun for our Friday night. So, we had a hot dog and marshmallow roast. Such a great time for all of us...and the kids got to have WAY too many marshmallows. :)