Playing in the Leaves

I decided I'd better get some pictures of Nate playing in the leaves before too much of the fall color had gone. Fall seems to be in full swing here, which means the trees will soon be empty once again. I have a favorite tree here that I've been watching the color of for a while now just waiting for it to be in it most colorful stage for picture taking. Back to Nate. This was his first time to play in the leaves. He really wasn't too sure about them at first. He seemed to think they didn't feel very good. After setting the camera down for a while and playing with him, he seemed to get the hang of it. I think he'll really enjoy it next year!

The trip of a lifetime

A couple of weeks ago my mom and my aunt started quite a project. Anna Marie (my aunt, Dad's younger sister) flew down from Michigan with a ton of pictures and slides from my Grandma and Grandpa Koss's house. The idea was to scan them all to the computer and make cd's for all of us to have. From what I hear, they scanned all weekend and still didn't finish. I'd been reluctant to look through the ones Dad put on his website. I didn't want to get stuck clicking through endless numbers of pictures. Today I figure it was time to start looking at them. I'd just do a few at a time. I got stuck, and it was wonderful. I spent almost an hour looking through over 500 pictures. I smiled a million smiles, held back a few tears, and really enjoyed myself. It's hard to believe that Grandma Koss has been gone for almost 3 years. Grandpa's seen better days, but he's still keeps on going. It's amazing the love and admiration you unknowingly have growing in you for your grandparents as you grow up. I saved a few of the pictures and have added them here. For the full trip down memory lane, you can click the link to Mom and Dad's site on the right hand side of the site.

I love this picture. It's my favorite of them all. I want to print and frame it. The happiness in both their faces is amazing.

The beginning and end of our ballet careers. Let's just say ballet was not high on my interest list.Happy Halloween a few days early! I'm the one with the red ruffles and pom-poms.I'm about 3 months old here and enjoying some quality time with Grandpa and a pink teddy bear.

There were several pictures of Grandpa with us grandkids. In true grandfather fashion, we were often times on his lap.

Wearing Your Food

Letting Nate feed himself with spoons and forks has not been too high on my priority list. They tend to encourage him to play rather than eat. There comes a time in every toddler's life where he or she must make that giant leap to not eating everything with your hands. That time has come for our Nate. I usually have to try to keep myself busy. Otherwise, I'd be there trying to take over, and he would never learn. So here is a little peek into our learning process:

Randomnimity

Not too sure what to blog about. I guess I'll just try to share a few random things with little regard for grammatical correctness.

• My brother's time in Afghanistan has been shortened. He should be able to come home in Nov. 08 rather than Feb. 09!! Praise God! Keep praying!
• Huskers lost again. . . boo. It's getting pretty miserable around here. Brad said this was the one game left that we should have won. Yikes, what does that mean for the rest of the season?
• Razorbacks won! Woo Pig Sooie!
• I've got a few new shows I've been watching this fall. Private Practice on Wednesdays. Women's Murder Club on Friday. Both good. Wouldn't say either are great. I'm slowly getting more into each. Anything else worth checking out????
• Nate's got a cold. And all the new reports say no meds. I feel terrible for him. I'd never consider braving a cold without medicine.
• We got close to 2.5 inches of rain last week. I didn't think the sun was ever coming back. Today was muy perfecto! 70s and sunny. Tomorrow 50s. Boo.
• I love pears! I long for pear season all year! I'm addicted!
• We went to a church family's house on Friday. She made apple pie with crumb topping! I loved it! I want another piece.
• Nate's been very into coloring lately. He tries to say "color". Only I would understand what he was trying to say though.
• My dad is doing the Detroit half marathon tomorrow. Go Dad! (He did a full in March so this should be a piece of cake) :)
• Monday is my goddaughter's 9th bday!

It won't let me upload the pic of Nate that I want. I'll try again tomorrow. Adios.

I could think of several titles for this post . . .

Okay. Most of you know that I am not a politically opinionated person. It's just not something I get all excited about. I know that the morals in our country are terrible, but I don't know that anyone with the description "politician" is the right one to fix that. Anyways, I just had to post this picture of Hillary. Whether you like her or not, you have to agree that this is a terrible and rather frightening picture. What was CNN thinking (at the time I'm writing this, it's the picture with the head story) when they picked this one out. I'd have to guess that whoever was in charge of this story, wasn't a huge Hillary fan. Yikes!

Pumpkin Patch

Lots of pictures again with this post. I'm not quite sure why I didn't just do a slide show. I was about halfway through loading when I realized it would have been easier. Oh well, they're here now. Brad and I took about 150 pictures while at Pooley's. It was half the cost of Vala's (where we went last year), and more appropriate for Nate's age. Here we go . . .
There were a ton of animals at Pooley's. Brad and Nate are checking out the baby chicks here. There were also goats, pigs, sheep, cows, and horses. Nate wasn't too sure about any of the animals. My two animal observations: 1) Pigs are loud!!!! and 2) A sheep's "baa" is very low.
Nate' favorite part of the experience was playing on the tractors. This is common anytime we are around a tractor. He could have spent the entire time up there. We got a ton of cute picture up on the two different ones, but I only put one here. (I'll try to put all 150 pictures on our snapfish site soon.)

Brad and Nate making their way through the mini maze. Again, some terrific pictures were taken here. Check snapfish for them.
Of course, more tractor love! They had a track for the mini tractors and bikes to go around. Nate's legs were a little short for reaching the pedals.
Just a very Andrea-ish picture. I'm continually on the lookout for picture ops like this.
Nate and I picking out the good ones.
Nate was being a stinker in the pumpkins, which he referred to as "ball". He refused to look at Brad and I as we took pictures. He would turn and walk away constantly. Finally, I started to sing "Itsy Bitsy Spider". He LOVES the song! He froze, smiled, and was adorably photogenic as long as I continued to sing. In the picture right below, he is doing his attempt at making a spider for the actions. (He also tries to to do "washed the spider out".)

Probably one our favorites. Brad did a great job snapping picture while I sang!
I love it when he's actually willing to hold my hand. He's usually too independent and would rather walk beside me.

I think this is my new favorite picture of my two guys. They were checking out the cows, and Nate was a bit unsure of the loud mooing. They seemed to be angry cows.
Nate just wasn't sure of what to think of all the animals. He would just bury himself against his dad.
Instead of a sandbox they had an old silo with corn in it. There were toys for the kids to play in the corn with. It was at about 11 that night as Brad and I were trying to fall asleep, that I had a frightening thought. That corn would be heaven for mice, snakes, and other critters. I'm afraid to think of what was living in there. I was glad that Nate was not really impressed and didn't want to play long in the corn. Still gives me the creeps to think about it though.
And here is the prize winning pumpkin that came home with us. He's not that big, but we thought he was just right for us.
Saturday morning we headed to Kansas City with 56 7th and 8th graders. We went to the International House of Prayer and to Great Wolf Lodge. I think everyone had a great time, but it was exhausting. Hopefully I can get my hands on some of the pictures of Nate having a blast. He'd live in water if he could.

Talkin' Up a Storm

This is my first attempt at using video editing software, and what I have access to is limited. I'm liking the end result considering it's my first go at it. Hopefully in time I will get better. I'm sure I'll look back at this one day and laugh, but you have to start somewhere. You should hear various words such as no, book, ball, and bye. The sound quality isn't the best, but in person you can tell the difference between all the b words even though they sound very similar on the video. I'll keep trying to catch some of his other words on video. I also added on a dance sequence of his and his insistance of being a big boy when going down the stairs. Enjoy!

games, critters, potty seats, and ringing phones

I'll use some pictures to show you what we've been up to lately.

Our good friends gave us the game Apples to Apples. (best game ever!) We had some fun a couple of weeks ago and played with our high school small groups. We had some good laughs and enjoyed ourselves immensely. N and I went to the zoo last Friday with several other moms and kids. We enjoyed getting to see several baby animals including the orangutan pictured below. It was also a lot of fun to get to know some other moms and kids better. N really seemed to enjoy how close he could get to the polar bear. I'm not sure he realized it wasn't a dog though. He still seems to think any animal is a dog. The last picture in the zoo group is neither, N nor animal related, but it's very A-ish. I like it a lot.


They say the earliest a child is ready to potty train is 18 months. Well, we're there tomorrow. N absolutely loves sitting on the potty. He actually will go in the bathroom and let you know he wants to sit up there. I'm not pushing the training very hard at this point. I just want him to be familiar with sitting there for when we are ready to train. He's actually had some success already! Yay for him!!!!Yesterday day was my day of the year. What more could a girl want on her day than her two favorite guys. B took some time off work, and we had some family time. It was great. The phone rang a bagillion times, and all the calls were for me! It was wonderful! We're planning on a trip to the pumpkin patch on Friday. Be sure to check back for pictures. I'm sure to take a ton!!!!

and now for something completely different (-mp)

Warning: Seriousness Below

Meet Matt.

Matt is my younger brother. He and I were best buds all through childhood. He's now married and has a son. Matt joined the Navy as a civil engineer a few years back. After a couple of moves, they've been living peacefully in North Carolina for the past couple of years.

Most, but not all of you, probably know this already, but I found out about 3 weeks ago that Matt is going to be spending a year in Afghanistan. He's set to begin training in November (in Virginia and North Carolina) and head overseas in February '08. We weren't completely caught off-guard with this news. He'd let us know to expect it soon.

In the weeks that have passed since receiving the news, I've been through just about every emotion regarding the situation. Denial. Anger. Scared. Confused. More denial. Right or wrong, I try not to let myself think about it too much. I try to comfort myself with thoughts that he's a civil engineer and not a combat soldier or whatever. The problem comes though at night. Thoughts about it creep into my head as I lie in bed waiting for sleep. My mind travels everywhere as I think about it.

Truth is, I'm scared beyond comprehension about my brother, my best bud growing up, being sent to a country where war is life and reality. (tears flowing)

My mom was told to look up and pray Psalm 91 by someone at Christ Lutheran. Mom passed it onto me, and all I can say is God is good. He know how to bring comfort when it's needed. He holds us tight when we fear our deepest fears. He loves us completely and unconditionally. He gives us his Word to reassure us of all of this.

It's 16 verses and will probably take up quite a bit of space, but I ask that you read it also. Please. Pray it for Matt.

PSALM 91

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say of the Lord, "He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust."
Surely he will save you from the fowler's snare and from the deadly pestilence.
He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.
You will not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day,
nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday.
A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you.
You will only observe with your eyes and see the punishment of the wicked.

If you make the Most High your dwelling - even the Lord, who is my refuge -
then no harm will befall you, no disaster will come near your tent.
For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways;
they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.
You will tread upon the lion and the cobra; you will trample the great lion and the serpent.

"Because he loves me," says the Lord, " I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.
He will call upon me and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him.
With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation."

I would ask that all of you would from now until Feb. '09 remember Matt in prayer. Remember Lindsay. Remember Will. Ask that God would hold this family close together in his almighty hand regardless of the miles between them. Pray that God would continue to comfort all of us with the knowledge that he is with Matt in all things, at all times.

Thanks . . .
-a

Football Fix

After getting in touch with slide.com, they're not sure what's going on with my slideshow only showing 6 of 20-some pictures. They've got their engineers looking into it. In the meantime, I've changed the look of it, and that seems to have made the difference. So . . . if you interested, you can scroll down to the slide show and now see all (okay, narrowed down from more than 50) the football pics.

Can you believe the little guy will be a year and a half next week?!?!?