Category: Family (Page 9 of 26)

Tim’s Grandpa Zeeb suffered a stroke just before Thanksgiving.  I’m not going to get the details right, but there was bleeding in the brain and complications.  He was released from the hospital after a week or so and then went to live in hospice care.  Patsy moved out there to help with things and to help her Mom.

After some ups and downs, Grandpa Zeeb passed away this last Saturday morning.

Tim is out in South Dakota today for the funeral.  The kids and I stayed home–I do feel bad I couldn’t make the trip, but with the upcoming recital just next week I have many students counting on these last lessons.  He’s planning to come back today still, so it would have been a lot of hours in the car for Josiah, so we decided to leave him home with me too.

Sadly I didn’t know Grandpa Zeeb very well, but Tim and his siblings and Mom have stories galore about adventures on their farm.  If you think of it, pray for the family today.  For safe travels for everyone coming over to South Dakota as well as an uplifting time celebrating his life today.

Want to know what we’re each thankful for this year?  Here is it (in no particular order).  Josiah’s will make you chuckle… ah, the things a 3 year old is thankful for.

Chloe:

• Pumpkins–because they are really pretty and I like orange
• The new baby
• Shopping with Mom
• The 50’s party at my school
• Rain falling to help the flowers grow
• Turkeys
• My brother
• Friends coming over to chat with us and play with us
• My beautiful parents
• Food
• For Tara coming over to give us nice pictures of our family
• Stores–so we can go there to buy food
• My room
• My cousins
• My family
• Snow falling down
• Jesus.  Because He’s our Savior
• My toys.  Playing with them and having fun
• Our home.  It has lot of toys and protects us
• God

Josiah:

• Bug Stickers
• Pizza
• The House.  And breakfast
• Yogurt
• The fridge
• Mike Wazowski
• Christmas
• God.  No I mean Lightening McQueen
• Daddy
• Candy
• Juice
• Food
• Christmas
• Pete the cat
• Tootheless
• Trains
• Straws
• A kitty
• Decorations
• Candy

Erica:

• Tim being able to be home in the winter
• My parents
• My comfortable bed and a good nights sleep
• Being able to eat breakfast every day with my kids
• Being able to have a house we can entertain friends & family (space!)
• Our beautiful spacious yard for the kids to play in
• Two healthy, adorable sweet kids
• Perfect, amazing, beautiful snowflakes
• A treadmill in our basement
• Washing machines
• For supportive families in my studio
• Tim making suppers
• A husband who let me pick coordinating outfits, do crazy craft projects and family pictures
• Such supportive church friends
• Friendly neighbors that we’re getting to know better
• That we were able to finally share our exciting news (less stress!)
• The timing of the arrival of the baby (hopefully!)
• Being able to teach from my home
• Lazy Saturday mornings
• Watching Chloe sing in church

Tim:

• Being able to clear driveways
• Heat in my truck
• Work.  Having a job
• My beautiful family
• The baby coming in a good month
• Hamburgers
• A backyard for the kids to play in
• A basement to go to while Erica is teaching
• My beautiful wife (prompted by Chloe)
• My new necklace
• Having a close (tight-knit) whole family
• Working vehicles
• Technology at our fingertips
• A self-sufficient wife
• A healthy family
• Mountain Dew
• A good church
• An able body
• A family who loves music
• Having a seasonal job so I’m able to spend 4 months with my kids

We’ve started filling a thankful jar.

Every morning at breakfast we each say one thing we’re thankful for and then I write it on a slip of paper and add it to the jar.  Then, on Thanksgiving Day, we’ll go through and read them all.

It made me smile this morning when Chloe asked Josiah “what are you thankful for?” without being prompted.  It’s a good habit.  And we learned early on that we need to ask Josiah first, because he just copies Chloe’s answers otherwise.  🙂  Josiah’s answers have been pretty funny.  I’ll have to post our contents later this month.

So, what are you thankful for today?

Mike Wazowski (from Monsters University) and Rainbow Dash (from My Little Pony)

Halloween was busy, loud, chaotic, and a whole lot of fun.

We all met here for a quick supper and then got costumes on and hit the road.  We had a fun combination of costumes:

In the back row: Character of Minecraft, Astrid (from How to Train your Dragon), Rainbow Dash, Elsa (from Frozen).
In the front: A hobo, Mike Wazowski, Rainbow-unicorn-princess.

Tim stayed back to hand out candy and the whole gang started down the street.  It was a bit cold and windy, but the kids were running most of the time, so I don’t think they noticed.  Josiah really got into the spirit of things as he realized they actually put candy in his bucket.  He would hold Jen’s hand down the street and then (as soon as he had the OK) sprint when he was in the next driveway–it was pretty adorable.

After everyone was nice and worn out (not to mention cold!) from walking up and down the streets, and the buckets were plenty full… we had hot chocolate and popcorn and the kids watched a movie.

The grown-ups chatted until it was time to put everyone to bed, which went surprisingly smoothly considering there were so many kids.  Only one had to be moved, for being too loud, so that’s pretty good!  🙂  I was hoping everyone would sleep in nice and late the next day, but alas, no.  Happily, though, it was Tim who rolled out of bed to get Josiah and he let me sleep a little longer.

It was so much fun watching the cousins play together and enjoy making memories.

I was struck the moment that we stepped out of Jen’s car on Saturday how unbelievably quiet it was at Aunt Peggy’s house in South Dakota.  I’ve been to the country before, but it’s been a couple of years since I’ve been out to their farm.  And I must say, after living in the suburbs with constant noise, it took be aback at first.  But in a good way.

It was so peaceful.

No hum of buses, or traffic on 169.  No airplane or jets soaring overhead.  No lawn mowers buzzing in the distance.  No kids screaming and yelling at the playground down the street.  Nothing.  Just silence.

This whole situation was amplified during my morning walk yesterday.  I walk with Josiah just after Chloe gets on the bus (so about 8:00).  It was so loud.  Buses everywhere, cars zooming, kids walking to school, traffic honking, radios playing out windows.  But I have become so used to those noises in my everyday life that not until I was out in South Dakota did I notice them yesterday.   I found it interesting.  I don’t mind the hubbub of sounds around here, but I will say it was nice to enjoy some quiet too.

On the farm there were kittens and chickens and 2 dogs.  Let me tell you, Chloe and Josiah really loved those animals.  Josiah in particular just wanted to be by those kittens holding them and petting them and following them and just sitting by them.  It was pretty much the cutest thing ever.

Actually, I thought the kittens were pretty adorable too and spent time holding them… as did most of the kids… and even Jen…

I’m bummed I got him mid-blink on this one… it would have been perfect.

The kittens didn’t love him as much as he loved them… 😉

The wedding in South Dakota was very nice.  We had an uneventful trip both ways and arrived with plenty of time.  It was a relief to be able to travel with a time buffer so it didn’t matter that Josiah had to stop about six times to go to the bathroom on the way home.  It seemed like every time we entered a new town he said he had to go!  (And he really did too!  There were no “false alarm” stops…)  It was a beautiful autumn day and we enjoyed taking a few pictures of everyone dressed up.  Unfortunately in the chaos of all the people (they had a rather large wedding = 300 + people) we forgot to get a really nice picture with Grandma & Grandpa Zeeb or with the whole Friesen gang… but we still did get some great pictures.