Lots of Mini Updates

We had a bad wind storm last night. It rained and rained and rained, and the wind blew and blew and blew. We literally thought our house was going fall over. Joel forgot to snap down both sides of our hottub cover when he was fixing it in December, and the wind got under the unlatched side, and ripped the whole cover off.

Joel let me sleep in this morning. He said that while him and Asia were playing in the living room, she counted to 10 all by herself, and only skipped the number 5!! She's never done that good! She's knows certain progressions, (like 1-3 is her favorite) but she'll always miss a couple numbers, or get some out of order. We thought it was just some fluke, until this afternoon she looked at me and said, "1, 2, 3, 4, 5!" Guess she knows her numbers better than we thought!!

We've got just a few more things to finish on the house, so hopefully we'll get some pictures up soon. We're excited to be getting so close to finally selling our house, but we're also not looking forward to moving. This house is the perfect size for us, especially with the baby on the way. But we know it's more beneficial for us to downsize.

Not too much else is going on: Joel's parents sold their house finally (yay!!) and last week we went down to stay with them for a few days while Joel did some construction/odd jobs at their church. I'm currently looking for a part-time job somewhere. I applied online at Babies-R-Us last night, and will probably go into Family Christian or someplace like that. We also heard that Beaner's is hiring for a new location coming up. I know I need to trust the Lord, but it's so hard not to think, "Who's going to want to hire a 6 month pregnant woman?"

KINA!!!

We got an email this morning from Joel's brother Jason. Jason and his family have been living for just a few months now, in the Tobo tribe of Papua New Guinea, working as church planters with two other families. Here's what he had to say:


For some of you that don’t know… We got a dog on New Year’s Eve. We named him Kina (the currency here, much like dollar). He’s now 8 weeks old.

#1 reason to name your dog AFTER you learn the language…

KINA means “bite him” in the Tobo language!! No wonder everyone ran in fear every time we called his name!


In other news, we're almost done painting our house. My (Alaina's) parents watched Asia all of Tuesday afternoon, into Wednesday evening so that we could paint without Asia sticking her hands all over the walls. It was such a blessing to have the free time to work.

Joel painted the kitchen this morning, and will put a third coat on the hallway this afternoon. Then after a few touch ups/last coats here and there, we'll just have our bedroom and the baby's bedroom to do!! We should be done in the next day or so!

Painting our House

We're in the process of re-painting our house. I bought the paint several months ago, but we weren't able to start the painting until now because of work that needed to get finished first (like trim).

We've got the hallway and living room done, and the entire basement. Hopefully in the next couple days we'll be able to get the entryway, kitchen and all 3 bedrooms done.

Once our camera battery is charged, I'll take some pictures to post...our house looks completely different - it's great! The walls aren't such an eyesore anymore!

We're M&M's!!

Joel: Lieutenant Tiger Toes Ninjaboy

Asia: Princess Cutie Patootie the Great

Alaina: The Amazing Earthmuffin of the Lake

It's not too accurate, considering the limited options they have to choose from - still fun though! To make your own, go to http://www.becomeanmm.com/

Pic of the Day

I didn't know what else to name this post... Uber Cool Snow Pic? Nah; my title may be a little old fashioned, but I like it better!

Snow Day

Our day may have only lasted 15-20 minutes, but Asia had fun nonetheless. These pictures are from New Year's Day around 5 o'clock (it wasn't as dark out as the pictures make it look).

I wanted to try something different, so I just made a collage out of the pictures. I'm still learning my way around Paint Shop Pro, so I made these with paint instead. If you'd like a good copy to save to your computer, I can email you the individual pictures that you like (Dad)!

Can you tell she didn't want to come inside?

The Holidays

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

We're finally home after a nice long week with Joel's family (compared to the typical two-day stay). We left Christmas Eve morning, and arrived in Toledo before lunchtime. We had a big Christmas Eve dinner with Joel's parents, and a couple aunts and uncles, and another big dinner Christmas day with just his parents and brothers.

We spent the rest of the week just hanging out, going shopping at a couple of Toledo's malls, and playing games. Saturday afternoon, Joel's sister (Jen and Ryan) and their kids arrived. We celebrated Christmas again, and Sterling's birthday. Asia had so much fun running around with her cousins, and getting to know her grandparents better.

We arrived home last night around 9:30 and spent most of our New Year's Eve unpacking, and unpackaging our presents! Sounds fun right? :)

Pictures from Toledo

Asia sitting with mom, eating an oreo

Joel and his brother Jordan

Ryan and Jennifer

Asia pwning the noobs!

So happy!

Sterling on Christmas morning

Jordan and his mom

Jen and her dad, listening to music on the laptop

Joel's mom, and Dawson

Asia, Joel and Alaina (and the baby of course!)

The girls! L to R: Asia, Alyson, Claire and Madison

Madison, Ryan and Claire (sleeping so peacefully!)

Sterling and his "cake" that I made:

Brownies topped with chocolate pudding, French Vanilla Cool Whip and raspberries

Dawson showing off a present

Asia playing with Alyson's kitties

Jordan's guitar that he bought before Christmas