Perspective...

Good to keep as we enter the new year...these are all third hand from another post who got them from a book...just thought I would share them as well...

• If you have food in your refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep...you are richer than 75% of the world's population.
• If you have a little money in the bank or spare change in a dish someplace you are among the top 8% of the worlds wealthy.
• If you can drink from your kitchen faucet whenever you want...you are more fortunate by far than 1.5 billion people who have no access to clean water at all.
• If you can attend a church or a political rally without fear of harassment, arrest, torture or death...you have the kind of freedom denied to more than three billion people in the world.
• If you can read this message, you are more blessed than two billion people who cannot read at all.

Jude is whistling

Not that Kristen needed another reason to think her children are smart :) but during this last week, Jude got interested in whistling when he heard his uncle whistling a song. So, he tried and now he whistles!

Trip to Boston Science Museum

Yesterday we went to the Museum of Science. We spent the whole day there...or at least the whole day considering the trip to and from as well. To start, we had the enjoyment of sitting in Boston traffic as we went to the Museum (That was a treat! We spent at least 45 minutes in traffic within a half mile of the museum! And of course, we had the treat of dealing with oh so considerate folks in other cars who got so close to our vehicle as they tried to squeeze by us and advance those precious few feet they clipped our side mirror of the van!)
BUT we did finally make it and then spent the next 8+ hours wandering around, looking at exhibits and eating lunch so that we could make it to the Harry Potter Exhibit which was showing and that we had tickets for at 6pm.
(Side note: neither Kristen nor I have read any of the Harry Potter books and neither of us have seen even one of the movies...so we had no idea what we were in for.)
We had a great day wandering around and finally we were headed over to see the special exhibit. I spent extra money for a set of earphones that tells you about the exhibit as you type in the numbers associated with the particular artifacts...and away we went.
Boy were we BORED! There really was NO fascination in looking at this stuff (beds, clothes, etc) since we had no idea what we were even looking at...
Then, as we started ushering the kids further along...we got to "the dark side" where they were exhibiting pieces, and characters that were Harry's enemies in various movies (I think). WOW! It was very dark and scary kind of stuff and we basically covered the kids eyes and walked through the remainder of the exhibit, to the chagrin of Jaden. Live and learn, I suppose.
Anyway, here are a few pictures of the day:

Museum of Science

Family Day! Yeah! However...
NEVER go to the museum on a weekday when apparently everyone took the week off, everyone decided to go to the museum and everyone was going for the Harry Potter exhibit! After an hour trip (~45 miles) to get to within a qtr mile of the museum, we spent the next hour and fifteen minutes trying to get to the museum and parked.
Then we got to elbow our way around the other 8.6B people (the approximate world's population right now per a museum exhibit) to try to let the kids see a couple things AND we had to stick around until a 6:30 show to let the kids see the Harry Potter exhibit.
DISCLAIMER - We have not watched or read any of the HP stuff...but this silly exhibit has been advertised SO much around Massachusetts, that the kids were amped to see it....
After MANY hours at the museum our chance finally came and we went in to essentially see costumes and beds and a few life-size replicas of certain things in the movies. Kristen and I were bored and annoyed and only Jaden was truly interested as he was listening to the little audio tour that told about the things we were looking at...
Of course, that was until we hit the "dark" section or basically HP's enemies...we had no idea how scary and disturbing some of these things were! So we ushered the kids with hands over their eyes as much as possible through the rest of the exhibit and out the door...
Jaden was not happy but we hope we will all sleep better for not having let them see too much :)
Finally home just after 8:30 pm to put the kids to bed and for us to basically collapse as well.
YEAH!
I love family days :)

Finally...

I have made multiple promises to post pictures of what the addition looks like and I have not done a good job of getting them up on the site. Well, here are some pictures of the mudroom, and new dining room as well as a little view of what the new counter top looks like between the two. Also, just to give you an idea of how we changed up the space, you will see that the former dining room area is now a sitting area that we are very happy with. This is where we had Christmas morning and where we have always had the tree :)


Here is the view back into the sitting area that used to be our dining room. Kristen loves the open feel and that the kids can sit and play a game, or I can read a book and yet still be right next to her in the kitchen.











The new counter top. Kristen loves the additional space this provides for both food prep and serving, but also for decorating.









The new entryway. Our new front door and the door to our garage.







Looking over the kitchen into the dining room.










Looking into the mudroom from our sitting room area.

Jacob's Birthday

Happy birthday to my buddy who turned 5 today. You are an incredible dude that I am overjoyed to have in my life. Your laughter is infectious and I know that on any given day I can guarantee I will smile at some point because of you. That makes you pretty special and today was just another special milestone in what I think is God's design for the fantastic person He is turning you into! Love you!

Goals time again...

Not posting anything yet...just thinking about them. Sometimes goals for the sake of goals are not really what you should be doing with your time...There needs to be a purpose behind them that is something more, right?
It matters what we do, what we spend our time on...
2 Corinthians 5:8-10
8We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. 9So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. 10For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.
Both good and bad things done...
I read a quote from someone not too long ago that said that we usually overestimate what we can do in 1 or 2 years, but underestimate what we can accomplish in 5 or more. I would like to have some goals in this next year that not only are good for the year but that work towards something bigger in the 5+ year view...and ultimately, they have to tie back to what God wants me to do and to work on...that is the only way I will actually get them done.

Looking forward to Christmas

4 days to Christmas. Seems like it gets here really quick now that I am getting older....while when I was younger and now watching my kids...it is funny how long it seemed to take for me back then and now the same for them. I certainly know that they are excited to get to those gifts. We have received things from the family in Colorado and the kids are drooling to get at them :)
I just pray that it really can be an enjoyable holiday...one that we remember why we are celebrating and that both the kids and Kristen and I truly are JOYFUL and can love and appreciate one another.
I pray that for the rest of my family and for my friends as well.
Love you all!

Snow last night

We must have got 16 inches of snowfall last night and Kristen was certain that we were not going to church this morning...however, we made it and although there were WAY fewer people at service, it was good to go and we made it there and back safely.
As Kristen spent the day studying for her final tomorrow, I was with the boys all day yesterday and today and I think we had a couple of good days. Yesterday we made cookies to package and give away. We played Yahtzee. Today we played in the snow and sledded with the little girls that are the boys next door friends...even Jude went down a few times on my lap.
It was a good day, though it definitely wore me out.

Happy Birthday Jude

Just putting a quick post out to my littlest man who turned 2 today!
Love you dude!

A couple of books read...

I finished up a couple of books while I was on my business trip to CA during the first week of December. I was surprised to learn of how many books that CS Lewis had written, so when I saw this fiction trilogy, I picked it up at the library. While it was a little hard to get into, I have finished the first two so far...Out of the Silent Planet & Perelandra. I am working on #3 which is titled That Hideous Strength, but even finishing that up won't get me too close to my goal of total books for the year :(
Oh well, I will have to give it another go next year.

Birthday cards and gifts

Just to share with my family that is in CO and to help me remember (since I am getting old and forget things easily), here are the cards and gifts from Wednesday:

Every guy needs pillowcases....and now I have a couple more:)...Also, Kristen gave me this book that is apparently pretty popular right now, so I am looking forward to reading it.


Kristen and the boys got me a "smelly" for my car (maybe a hint?) and they also got me a new game for the PlayStation.





This was my card from the boys...the inside says I was batting 1000%. Not too sure about that, but it was a very sweet card.


My wife always goes for the sappiness, which is very wonderful to get each year :)

Birthday

Yesterday was my birthday and I enjoyed the many calls, emails and messages that I received from everyone. It was a good day!
I have decided that birthdays are great reasons to celebrate and we need to seek out and truly enjoy those things that can be celebrated. I know I spent too many years thinking...it's not a big deal...and it's true. You can make it into 'no big deal', but then does everything turn into 'no big deal'? I want to have things in my life that are a big deal and that I get excited about...otherwise the days will be pretty long and boring.
So, here was to another year, my incredible family and the many, many reasons to celebrate making it through another trip around the sun! See my next post that will show the cards I got from my family and the gifts :)

3 weeks

That is about how much time has passed since my last post. I am going to post a few things this week to catch up, but...I have been going through a phase again of trying to figure out what I want to ultimately post about. What do I find interest in writing to maintain the blog and to keep up with my family...maybe it has been just a mental block, maybe just being tired from the sicknesses that worked its way through the family...not really sure. I just know that it made it feel like more work than I wanted it to be to post.
So, stay tuned I guess and we will see if anything comes of my deliberations over the next couple weeks :)