Where have these four years gone?

This is the face that greeted us four years ago, September 12 at the airport in Appleton.

It was the first time that we were meeting our sweet Tizita as she arrived to her forever family and home from Ethiopia.

 It was love at first sight and our love affair has not stopped since.

We love our sweet Tizita.

 This is the first picture of the two of us playing together on that first day.

We have played together countless times since then.

It is hard to believe that Tizita will turn six in just a three months.

The time has gone so quickly.

This weekend we will celebrate her Tiziversary.

It will be a fun weekend and we will never forget this sweet face that met us that September day four years ago.



Take a Peek into my Classroom

This school year is off to a great start.

I love teaching.

I miss teaching in the summer although I love my time off, too.

I have 39 Preschoolers this year.

21 of them are two and three years old and attend in the morings.

19 of them are four and five and attend in the afternoon.

This year well over half of them are boys.

Boys change the dynamic of the classroom, but it is still all good, just a bit louder.

I thought you might enjoy a peek into my classroom.

We begin each day with our Jesus circle time.

I have found that having the children sit on chairs during this time helps them pay attention and keep their hands to themselves.

We all enjoy our Jesus time.

I love telling them the Bible stories and watching them take it all in.

I love knowing that they all know Jesus and if anything happened to one of them, they would be in heaven.

I love knowing that I have the opportunity to share Jesus with them everyday. 

 Everyday we say the pledge.

I want my kids to know how great our country is and how much we need to respect what we have here and never take it for granted.

As  you can see, we are still working on our right hands, but it will come.

 And yes, we still pray in this classroom.

We begin and end each day with prayer and we thank Jesus each day before our snack.

I want my kids to know that they can talk to Jesus whenever they want or need and he will hear them.

 We have play time.

It is an important time for the children to socialize and make choices.

Playing school is always a favorite activity.

 Sometimes the kids take out lots of toys and activities.

It drives me a little crazy at clean up time, but we are learning to clean up, too.

 We do lots of learning, too.

I love watching this age learn.

They are so eager and enthusiastic.

These are my older children learning to cut, color, and stay on task.

 Everyday we have a star student.

This student gets to do lots of special things that day.

 There is a snack everyday brought by the star.

And yes, sometimes it is cupcakes and other unhealthy things.

We are not a sugar free classroom by any means.

We end our day with fun time in the gym or outside.

 

Yep, I have the best job in the world

Living the good life in Grandmaville: We Knew Everything Would be All Right

Living the good life in Grandmaville: We Knew Everything Would be All Right: Ten years ago
today, terrorists attacked America in the most horrific way we could ever imagine. We must never forget that awful day and all...

This is my post from a year ago.  I like it, I am using it again. 
Don't ever forget!

Just click on the link and it will take you to the post.

Soliana's Baptism

 It is Sunday night.

We just returned from two days in Oshkosh celebrating Soliana and her baptism.

As an added bonus, she is walking now.

Our weekend actually started on Friday night with a yummy Elias fish fry with Alissa, Nathan, and my mom.  Elias never disappoints and we all thoroughly enjoyed our meal.

After the fry, we all went over to Ann's Uptown where Kev, Vikki, and Mal joined us for beers and laughs.  (Mal did not drink beer, of course, but she added to the laughter.)

On Saturday we headed up to Oshkosh to hang out the Soli and Tiz.

 Tizita's three cousins were also there and so my time with her was very limited.

She did stop her craziness to take a photo with me and her baby.

Never having had cousins myself I am not used to chaos that occurs when they get together.

My girls only have one cousin that lives close and Mallory was always like a third daughter so they didn't get all wild and crazy.

Anyway it was good to get my Tiz back today when they left.

Luckily her sassiness left with them, too.

 Today was the big baptism day.

Soli and her Godfather, Uncle Nathan before the service.

 Up at the font with Godparents, parents, and Tizita.

 There is a reason we baptize infants, beside the Biblical teaching.  Infants cannot walk around and get crazy up there.

At this point Nathan took over to distract Soli from climbing up the altar steps.

It was a bit of a circus, but at least the baby was cute.

 As you might recall, Soliana was baptized in the Care Center by Courtney and Paul and a bottle of water, but they chose to do the water thing again, just to make sure it was done properly, I guess.

 Almost done now, Soli.

 At Tiz's baptism, we did not take any family pictures.

Alissa and Nathan were not able to be there so what was the point.

Since this is my blog, I am going here, I was sad that Courtney did not choose her sister to be the godmother for her first baby.  Alissa told me she didn't care because she knew the second one would need her more than the first one.  She claims she knows the trials of being a second born.

At any rate, I took full advantage of us all being there today and took many pictures.

 The proud Godparents and their little Godaughter, Soliana.

 No baptism would be complete without Gigi (great grandma, my mom)

Very proud day for her seeing little Soli become a Child of God.

 Gigi with all her Grandaughters and Great Grandaughters.

 Grunkle Kev (my brother), Grantie Vikki (his fiance) and Malloyr came for the baptism, too.

It was so nice of them to make the trip.

Kev is Courtney's Godfather, so it comes full circle.

 After the ceremony we had lunch at Courtney and Paul's.

Grandpa and Soli share a nice, tight bond already.

She is always smiling when she sees him.

 Soli loved all her presents and gave them kisses.

Here she is doing a bit of dancing in a new dress from Alissa and Nathan.

It was a nice weekend.

There were a few issues, always are when there are outlaws involved, but all in all, it was good.

Another first day of preschool is in the books

School started yesterday.

It was a successful day.

My classes are big,

The kids are enthusiastic.

The teacher is ready!

 

Bring it on!

Our First Outing with Sweet Soliana

Our Labor Day Sunday was a perfect day.

I had suggested to Courtney that perhaps she and Paul would like to spend some time with Tizita before she started Kindergarten.

Granted, I really do think it is a good idea to spend one on one time with your child, but I had big unterior motives.

I really wanted to spend some one on one time with Soliana.

My plan worked perfectly.

Courtney and Tiz had a mama/daughter outing which included pedicures and a movie, Paul had to do some work for his first day of school, and John and I got to have our very first outing with Soliana.

 

We started out with a visit to the zoo.

This is the camel that almost ate the baby.

I was wiping Soli's mouth while she sat in the stroller by the camel cage.

All of a sudden I thought John was shoving my shoulder, but I looked up and I saw a big camel head.  Yikes!

Soli seemed unfazed by the large head that invaded her space.

John and Soli take a break by the wolves.

We had to take a picture by the big globe just like we did with Tizita on her first visit to the park.

Here you can see that Soli is sitting by Africa.

Finally a big smile as we rode the train.  Soli and I sat together and Grandpa sat in the seat behind us.  The train was really hard on his knees!

After the train, we spent almost an hour at a picnic table eating ice cream sandwiches and playing with a bottle of water and a straw.

Such a happy baby and so easy to please.

This happiness is just because of the straw that she would take out and put in the water bottle.

John and I were laughing as much as she was.

It was good for all of us.

Then we moved on to our empty soda cup.  More fun!

The rest of the Van Auken family joined us for pizza at Cranky Pat's.

We were busy celebrating the end of summer.

Tiz, Paul, and I all start school tomorrow.

May it be a year of blessings for all of us.

 

A perfect Labor Day weekend!

State Cow Chip Throwing Contest

 John and I just got back from a fun day spent in Sauk City at the annual state cow chip throw.

We had been there two years ago when we stumbled upon the event, but this time we knew just what we wanted to do when we got there.

 We enjoyed yummy pork sandwiches for lunch and these homemade pies for dessert.

 The craft show was full of great treasures and we got a nice headstart on our Christmas shopping.

 We did  not indulge in a funnel cake, but what festival in Wisconsin is complete without the funnel cake present.  I have never had a funnel cake and am not sure I would even enjoy one.

 We had great seats for the actual cow chip throw.

This contestant came all the way from England to throw a chip.

 I was pretty excited to capture this chip in mid air.  We had a lot of residue from the cow chips hit us as we sat on the bleachers.  A few of them almost landed right on us.  Spectators have to be alert during the tosses.

 This is the wagon that is full of cow chips.  The contestants choose the two chips they want to use for their throw.

 Just a shot that I could not resist.

 After the excitement of the cow chip toss, we took a nice walk on the new riverwalk.

We finished our day with a margarita and some fine Mexican food at an outdoor restaurant on the riverwalk.

It was the perfect way to end a very perfect day.