blast from the past, part 1

As I have been sorting out our mess of pictures, I've come across some that are too good not to share, so SKH suggested that I use them in a weekly "blast from the past" post. Even though this will make two posts in a row of things that are not our children, you will certainly recognize why this picture needs to be posted for the world to see.

In the summer of 2000, Sean and I took a team of high school students from Grace Community Church to Northern Ireland on a missions trip. (Actually, it would be more accurate to say that I took them and Sean joined us two days later...once he had sorted out his passport issues with our U.S. House Representative and spent many hours alone in different airports trying to get to us.) Overall, this trip was full of difficulties and while I know we grew spiritually and did even have some fun, basically it just made us thankful that after 26 days, it ended.

One afternoon we were driving all around Northern Ireland (and actually, a significant portion of the south as well) to pick up team members from their various ministry locations. We only had one student, Shannon Roehr, with us at this point. As we were driving (in the infamous minibus) through endless miles of green, I saw a cow...and then I had one. Sean and Shannon had not seen the cow, and by the time I could coherently speak to tell Sean to turn around, we were far enough down the road that he was not really excited to go back, but he decided to humor me. We ended up having to go quite a ways down the road to the next round-a-bout (super fun intersection replacement) to turn around and then go all the way back, but I think we all thought it was well worth it.

Here is the cow that caused all the fuss...


Sick.

In the cow's defense, she had very new twin calves, but still - that's gross. After we took this picture, the calves got freaked out and started running away, which caused the cow to do her best to run to keep up. It did not look very comfortable at all, and I'm surprised she didn't trip.

newman in love

Newman and Strawberry are looking to plan a spring wedding...we'll keep you updated.



For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of having your own Strawberry Shortcake, please note that he's not kissing her in this picture...he is smelling her lovely strawberry-scented hair.

feet

I recently got an e-mail from Annie Grook asking for foot measurements for Mags and Calvin. I thought this was an appropriate prompt to post this picture of Maggie...


So Maggie is a men's size 13, Brooke.

When I actually measured their feet, I did find something kind of weird. Brooke wanted the length of their feet and around the widest part. So the weird part is that for both of them, the measurements around and for length were the same - Maggie was 6" and Calvin was 4". Being a curious person, I decided to see if this was true for myself. It wasn't. I was overly disappointed by this, probably because I've been watching a show on the Mandelbrot set and so I am obsessed with finding patterns and equations in everything.

I did try to make cute little tracings of their feet, but they weren't so cute, so I'm not going to post them. Calvin's doesn't even look like a foot - he is a little too wiggly to have a good foot tracing done.

grandma + annie grook come for a visit

Maggie received a few new babies to add to the ever-growing collection. That is little Maggie on the left and Jaelynn on the right.



I know that I've already posted a similar picture, but look how cute!



This was the first time Maggie was really enthralled by a story. Annie Grook gave her a copy of Peter Rabbit as well as a hand-knitted Peter complete with blue vest (Maggie is holding him in the picture). When Grandma got to the part about the vest having brass buttons, Mags quickly started examining her little Peter to be sure that his vest matched the story - good thing Annie Grook had paid attention to detail.



One night Grandma had held fussy Calvin until he fell asleep and was then joined by Maggie, who had woken up with a bad dream. Looks like everyone is pretty cozy for song time.

thanksgiving at the weinberg's

I don't have a lot of pictures from Thanksgiving - wasn't really into taking pictures as Calvin was only like 36 hours old - so I'll share a few of what I do have. Here is Maggie with Auntie Sarah (Zimmer). They were exploring the Weinberg's new house and stopped at the landing to talk to us.



Here is Mags making lots of trouble with Susi Zimmer and Nathan Board.



And I know this is a picture that includes neither of our children, but look at my skinny husband! And he's even skinnier now...yikes!

baby in a basket

hospital pictures

We had hoped that our doctor (Dr. Vold) would be on call for Calvin's delivery, but God had Dr. Nicolav in store for us. We had never even met him before this, but it couldn't have worked out better - we loved him, and he did a great job.



After his first bath, they put Calvin in this little blanket nest that he really seemed to like.



Maggie came with a lot of little plastic dinosaurs for her new little brother...as you can see from the next two pictures, she liked him right from the start.



Then it was time to visit with Boppa and GG...



Later on, as she was going to church with Boppa and GG for Thanksgiving Eve, Maggie came back and showed her Dad her new book of pictures of Calvin.



Nap time...

animal crackers

At Calvin's shower in October, Maggie got a gift as well - her first box of animal crackers from Mrs. Uncle Jim and Esther. She loved eating them, but loved the box even more. She carried it as a purse until it fell apart. Fortunately she has just received a new, orange knitted purse from Annie Grook - pictures to follow.

more from the photo shoot

This was a strong contender for Calvin's annoucement. I couldn't get past Maggie's fountain/swan hand, though, so it didn't make it.

Everyone liked this one too...

And I think this one is funny - it looks like Maggie thinks Calvin is doing some hilarious dance move.

chicken hair

This is not a great picture of Calvin, but it's for those of you who haven't gotten to see him in person...it shows his funny white-blonde hair pretty well. Along with his giant man hands. He is screaming in this picture because he was sad his first bath at home was over...or something like that.

fun in the snow

A few weeks ago we had enough snow that it collected a little. Maggie LOVES the snow and took advantage of it with Dad, throwing lots of snowballs and making a tiny little snowman. Of course she had to look good while playing in her cute horsey gloves and hat - thank you Annie Grook!

my little pony is a pain in the...

...foot.

On Sunday night as evening church was starting, I put Calvin's car seat into the nursery and headed back into the service. Just as I got to the doors, GG (my mom) rushed out, dragging a crying Maggie behind her. I asked what was going on and GG said Maggie needed to go potty RIGHT NOW. So I took over the dragging responsibility, explaining to my now bawling daughter that when you need to go potty, you can't stand still, you have to run to the potty so you won't have an accident. This made no difference in the dragging at all, and she kept saying something unrecognizable with all the crying - the only word I thought I understood was the last one, and it sounded like "poop". So I just kept telling her she could go as soon as we got on the potty. Once I got her on the toilet, nothing happened, and she kept crying and repeating the unknown sentence. I told her I was going to shut the door to the stall and let her calm down and then she could explain what was wrong. A few moments later, she said "Mama, I am ready to tell you". So I opened the stall door and pointing to her foot, she said "I not saying 'poop'! I saying I don't know what in my BOOT!". So, I unzipped her little boot, and there was her My Little Pony brush, bristle side up, poking her heel. After Maggie and I (and the other lady in the bathroom) got done laughing, we talked about why shoes are not good toy boxes.

i did what?

After such fun tucking Maggie in for a full night of sleep, Calvin decided to do the same. After his 10pm feeding, he decided to sleep until 7! Hopefully this is the first of many nights. I think he heard us saying his sister slept through at 8 weeks and wanted to get his in under 7 weeks.

bedtime

This picture is from Maggie being tucked in last night. When it came time for us to leave, she said "Oh Mama, please let Calvin stay here!". I explained that he was too little to sleep with such a wiggly big sister, so she asked how big he would have to be to sleep with her. I said that maybe when he was three we could try it out. She laughed and informed me, "Calvin isn't going to be three...he's a boy!". I'm not sure where she got the idea that boys can't be three, but there you go.

calvin's introduction

Here are two pictures from Calvin's first Sunday at one28. Maggie was very excited to be sitting with Grandma when her little brother was introduced...

chow time at red robin

Maggie enjoys everything about Red Robin...except Red Robin himself. He produces much terror and screaming...

calvin + "annie grook"

For those not in the know, Brooke Higgins' most important alias is "Annie Grook" - here she is playing that role...

sleeping calvin

Calvin is about a week old here...

little brother / big sister

maggie at 3

I love how Maggie squeezed her whole personality into this picture...

first post

Well, here I go! Thanks for your patience as I figure out the best way to do this. Here is the first of a few pictures I'll post from Calvin's first / Maggie's 3-year-old photo shoot. He's not always quite this peaceful!