Cute moments and prayer requests

Noah is at a very fun age.  He has many cute moments that bring us so much joy.  He got ear tubes about a month ago and was an AWESOME patient!  He did not shed a single tear at the hospital.  He was so brave and trusting of all of us caring for him.  Other than that, this guy has stole my heart!

Joy has been fun in a different way with all the knowledge she is gaining in school and life in general.  She is a sponge and loves soaking in new information.  Joy had the privilege of attending a Daddy-Daughter Valentines Ball.  She had the time of her life!  It brings me so much joy when she is overflowing with happiness, like she was when she returned home from this event.  And a final Joy note is that she is very interested in princesses lately, which I can understand, but am not exactly excited about.  Hopefully, God can help me teach her that He is 1st and most important in her life, not a prince/man.  And, hopefully she will grow to believe her and everyone's beauty lies within our soul and not our outward appearance.  Though Disney movies are entertaining, they are far from reality.

Reality...  is hard lately.  Please pray for our dear friend, Anna, who is only 6 and fighting for her life against brain cancer.  Pray that the radiation, which had to be started earlier than planned because the cancer has been very aggressive, kills this evil disease living within this sweet little girl.
In addition, please pray for Nora, a college roommate's 2 yr old daughter, who also has battled brain cancer and was undergoing her post radiation, antibody treatments.  She was not handling the treatments well to start with and then ended up with fluid in her lungs and clinging to life.  She has slowly recovered from that setback and is recovering.
Thirdly, pray for our friend, Bill (mid 40s), who had heart surgery that ended with complications that sent him to the ICU for a few weeks.  Thankfully, he has been transferred out of ICU but is not well enough to go home to his two daughters, Abby and Sarah, and wife, Katherine yet.
Fourth, please pray for our East Madison church.  We, the church body as a whole, are struggling with all that is involved with being a new and small church.  And, there are lots of DIFFERENT ideas on how to resolve these problems.   
And, finally, our family could use prayer as we say goodbye to our 10 yr old cat, Angel.  She is going to kitty heaven today because her health needs have started to exceed our budget.  I've been dreading this day since I received the news she was diabetic 2 years ago.  Please pray for Danny because he has lovingly taken on the difficult task of taking her to the vet.

On a brighter note, below is a video of some of the cute moments we have enjoyed with our kids over the last 2 months...
 

December highlights!

Yeah, I finished this just in time for the end of December deadline!  A belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!  We spent Christmas at the Krafve farm with the whole family.  Christi announced that she is helping to add to the cousin population in July 2014!!!  Joy keeps talking about the new baby cousin that is coming!
Danny and I are celebrating 10 years of marriage on 1/3.  Since Noah is still pretty young, we decided to keep it low key and head back to where it all started in La Crosse, WI for a couple days.  We are looking forward to putting our feet up!
Below is a video that captures what our life has consisted of during the last 6 weeks or so.
It starts with Noah expressing his love for balls, specifically football.
Then it continues with Joy singing one of her favorite Thanksgiving songs from PreSchool.
After that is 2 clips of Noah practicing some verbal expressions.
Then, Joy sings at the Advent Service at her Preschool.
Next is Danny and the kids doing what they can to entertain now that we are stuck inside more.
And then, Noah does the actions to his favorite song, "The Itsy Bitsy Spider".
After that, we put the kids to work.
Then, Joy and Noah do actions to Laurie Berkner's song, "I'm Gonna Catch You!"
Next is Joy performing in her Christmas program.
And finally, it ends with videos of the kids preparing to go tubing and actually tubing.

Sorry it got so long.  I guess they've been extra cute and fun this month.  Enjoy!

2 months already!

I guess I've been busy since our last post.  Since it's been so long, I'll just give some background info for the video below.
It starts with Noah letting Joy pull him on his beloved truck.  Joy did a great job being careful!
Then, we finally got around to doing fireworks. Joy loved them, Noah did not.  :)
Then there are a couple goofy videos of my nonstop chatter box, Joy.  Danny was playing with different settings on the camera and Joy was happy to entertain.
After that is a clip of our morning ritual, to wave at dad out the front window when he leaves for work.  And, a taste of Noah putting Joy in her place.  ;)
Then, Noah shows his excitement about Elmo and his love for his Grandpas!
And it ends with the kids on Halloween.

We are gearing up for a Thanksgiving in Cedar Rapids, IA, Christmas on the Krafve Farm, and Rylee's first birthday party in between.  I love this time of year!  Especially when it is time for the golf courses to close!  Watertown golf course closes after Sunday and Waunakee will stay open until the weather is more consistently cold.  Danny and I are also excited to celebrate 10 years of marriage soon after Christmas.  Time sure is flying!

Enjoy the video!

Joy is 4!

Joy is now 4 years old.  The video below captures what her day looked like.  She is truly blessed to be so loved by her family and friends.  We thank each of you who were involved in celebrating her birthday. 

The Kids Went Golfing

We finally got the kids out golfing!  It was back on August 15th.  We had hoped to get them out more this summer but Danny's schedule and ours just didn't coordinate very well.  Both kids enjoyed themselves as you'll see in the video below.  Since then, Joy has started preschool in the afternoon 3 days a week.  She loves it!  She goes to Eastside Lutheran School literally 5 or 6 blocks away.  I will include her first day of school pic below as well.  She turns 4 in just 3 days.  I will try to get videos uploaded in the next week or so again of her birthday and few cute random videos of Noah.  Enjoy!

Our Little Dancers and some extra

Hi.  This video is of Joy on the last day of her first-ever dance class.  She REALLY enjoyed dance and she will most likely be continuing, but probably not at this location.  We are feeling a bit shocked at the price of dance, especially for an almost 4 year old, so I am shopping around a little bit at the moment.  Joy is also very excited to start Preschool, 3 afternoons a week, on August 21.  Where does the time go??  There are 2 more videos below this as well.



The next video is of Noah, and some Joy, dancing around the house.  Their favorite song at the moment is the "Bumblebee Song" by Laurie Berkner.  If you watch/listen close, you can hear Noah singing along by saying 'Bah, bah, bah" - his approximation of 'Buzz, Buzz, Buzz".  He requests this song nearly every time we get in the car now too.




This last video is a compilation of different cute or funny things the kids have been doing the over the last 1.5 months.  Joy is playing with her friend, Zach, in one of the clips.  And, in case you can't tell what's happening in the last clip with Noah and the golf clubs, he is frustrated with them and bites the cart a couple times.  I guess he has a little golf etiquette to learn before he hits the golf course.  ;)

Our babies dance the same!

Wow!  I am behind!  Life just keeps flying by.  I have a few new videos to share of our silly kids.  This first one if of Joy dancing when she was about 10 months old and then goes into one of Noah dancing, at 14 months old.  It seems pretty obvious that they are sister and brother.  The hospital definitely didn't switch any babies on us!





Here are a few video clips of our crazy fun kids...