one more week...

It is almost unbelievable to me that we only have ONE more week of classes here for our first year at  NTBI!  This is bittersweet for me...I am excited for summer, to hang out with family and friends back home!!  That will be so awesome.  But we have made some really great friends here at NTBI who are graduating, so it will be sad to say goodbye.  And we are becoming close to some staff members, which is awesome.  But I know next spring will come quickly, and we will have to say goodbye to them, too!  Not to mention, we are one year of training down, and just 2 1/2 more to go!  This is so exciting, because we are pumped to go and do what God has called us to.  But that also means more goodbyes are coming...so that is hard to think about.  I know I talk about goodbyes a lot on my blog, but man, I just think about it a lot!  I realize that doing the kind of missions work that we are headed for means that our lives will be filled with goodbyes.  But studying the Bible so much here is helping me to really begin to understand God's faithfulness, so I am so thankful for these 2 years of training! 

Anyway...we are enjoying life here as the semester comes to an end.  On Saturday the school had a really fun picnic that lasted from 10am to 10pm!  Of course, we didn't go that whole time.  After our kids' naps, we headed out there and we had a blast.

It is always fun hanging out with Aaron and Jill's family!  Wow, I am so thankful that I have my sister here with me:)

Our friend Ricky helped Kaine across this tightrope thingy they had pulled between 2 trees.  One thing that I think is so awesome here...with ALL the missionary kids who are students here or staff kids, there are always kids in trees and climbing stuff everywhere!  I think it is great:)  (That is something Kaine is looking forward to in the jungle...climbing trees!)

Halle, Daisy and Ivy had fun with the swings...

Layla and her friend Sadie had a blast on the racing slides!  They climbed up and "raced" down soooo many times!  It was adorable:)  (Sadie's parents are some of the staff that we are becoming close friends with.  An amazingly Godly couple with 3 kids that our kids looove to be with!  We have appreciated Scot and April's friendship so much).

There was a bouncy house that was a hit with the kids.  I couldn't believe how much Layla LOVED it.  She jumped around for so long, no matter how many other kids were in it, too. Every time she got knocked down she just cracked up laughing:)

Here was a surprise...Daisy also looooooved the bouncy house!  I love her expression here...and her belly:)

Our friend Sue (another one of those amazing staff members!) loves Daisy so much.  She is one of Daisy's childcare workers and she truly loves the babies that she cares for.  She played with Daisy in the bouncy house a lot while I was busy with our other kiddos--thanks, Sue!

By the way, Daisy is officially crawling now!!  Yay for Daisy!  She is a little behind most kids, but oh well:)  She is definitely our latest crawler!  She was so content to just crawl (or try to crawl!) around the bouncy house.  It was amazing.

Our good friend, Alisha.  Alisha is so friendly and she helped me (and Jill) feel so welcome at NTBI when we first came.  She and her husband are seniors, which means they are graduating this week:(  We will miss them so much!!  One good thing--they are from Indiana, too, so hopefully we can still hang out every once in awhile! 

This is Alisha's husband, Ben...yes, he is IN the baby swing:)

The night ended with a campfire, complete with Reese's smores (soooo good!!!)

What a fun evening!

Our week will be very busy--filled with hanging out with lots of friends, finishing up our classes and homework, and packing for the summer.  I know I seem sad to leave NTBI, but believe me, we are super excited for summer, too!  We can't wait to connect with our families and lots of friends.  Nathan will be working at a landscaping job full-time, and I will be home (at the villa!) with our kiddos.  Kaine is going to be in tball, and we are involved in VBS in Bluffton.  I know the summer will go so fast, because it is sure to be extremely busy:)  Hope to see all of you Blufftonites this summer!

Thanks for reading my rambling blog post!  I tend to be a bit wordy:)

Have a great night!!

blessed by our friends...

It is an understatement that we have some amazing friends.  We thank God so much for our friends and we appreciate them more than we can say!

This weekend we were blessed by our good friends, Mark and Angie.  They spent most of their weekend to bring their family up to visit us at NTBI.  It was so much fun!  One of the neatest things to see was the growing friendship between Halle and Kaitlee.  It seems like the more these girls are together, the better they get along!  It was so fun for Halle that she could spend 2 days with her best friend:)

We spent Friday evening with pizza at Loomis Park.  We told Mark and Ang that Loomis would give them a good taste of Jackson:)  And anyone who lives here can imagine how many people were there on a beautiful Friday evening!  It was packed with people!

Aaron and Jill blessed us later that night by sitting in our apartment with our sleeping kiddos until after 11:00 so that Nathan and I could go and hang out with Mark and Ang in the guesthouse.  It was great to catch up with them.  Thanks, A and J!!

Today was spent hanging out at NTBI in the morning, then Mark and Angie treated our family to lunch at our kids' favorite place...McDonald's!  They loved the playplace!

When Halle and Kaitlee were at the top of the slide, we could hear them giggling like crazy!  As they tried to get situated into their sliding positions, they were cracking each other up and laughing uncontrollably!  It was so adorable.  They did this several times:)

Mark made Kaine's day by letting him play "angry birds" on his phone.  Kaine loved that--thanks, Mark!

We tried to get a picture of Daisy and Jace (they are only 4 days apart in age!) but this is the best we could do:)

Halle and Kaitlee.  Halle asked me last night, "Mom, is Kaitlee going to stay here until we move to Canada?"  It was so cute:)  Halle loves Kaitlee so much!

Hanging out with friends like this is so fun, but yet it is bittersweet.  Though we still have a good 3 years until we actually go overseas (which seems like a long time!) I know it will come so quickly.  It is awesome to have close friendships but it will be incredibly hard to leave all this amazing fellowship.  I definitely need to be praying all the time for God to give me the grace to handle leaving everyone--I wil need it for sure!

Thanks again for spending your weekend with us, Mark and Angie!  We love you guys!

the studliest hockey player ever...

Here he is!

About a month ago, the Senior class put on a hockey tournament here at the school to raise money for some missionaries.  Chris and Evie Jones are missionaries through New Tribes in Papua New Guinea, and they are getting ready to move into a tribe!  The Senior class project has been to raise money to help them build their jungle house. Pretty cool.

So anyway, it cost $5 per person to be in the hockey tournament, and there were supposed to be teams of 5.  So Kaine and his friends in his childcare class formed a team!  It was so cute.  Of course all the other teams were adults, so everyone was rooting for these little cuties:)

Here they are!  They did such a great job.  It was adorable to watch!

I think the best part is that Kaine wanted to give money toward Chris and Evie.  He mentioned the other day that he wants to give them more money!  Praise God for this little boy.  We pray that he will grow up to do great things for God!

Happy Birthday to our sweet little Daisy!

My baby turns 1 today!  This is so bittersweet...it is so fun to see her grow up but yet I wish she could always stay a baby...sigh.  Life goes on...

Daisy is such a wonderfully adorable, fun, joyful little girl.  Kaine, Halle, and Layla all adore her.  Her smile is amazing!  She brings us so much joy. 

Daisy, we are so thankful to God that He has allowed us to be your parents!  We love you so much and we are so glad you are our baby girl:)

By the way, these pictures represent the newest things that Daisy is doing now!  In the top picture, Daisy actually stood like this for almost 1 minute!  Folks, this is an amazing feat by Daisy.  For soooo long, she has been just content to sit and has NEVER been interested in standing!  I think it is changing, though...

And in the other picture, Daisy is learning to scoot around...backwards.  She is beginning the army crawl, but obviously she hasn't mastered it yet:)

Happy Birthday, Daisy!  We love you!!

Away with my hubby for 2 whole days!!

As much as I loooooove my kiddos, I also really love to be alone with Nathan!  We haven't really gone away without our kids for close to a year and a half (one of the joys of nursing babies:) ).  Now that Daisy is older I can leave her for much longer.  So Nathan and I went away last weekend to...

A Homeschool Convention!! 

It was funny, I was talking to a single girl here at the school and I told her Nathan and I were going to go away for the weekend...to a homeschool convention.  She looked at me kind of funny, and I realized that probably sounded weird to her!  But actually, we were really looking forward to it!  We are really excited to homeschool our kids, and it was great to learn lots of info this weekend.  We heard some great speakers, too, including Ted Tripp.  And it was fun because it was in downtown Cincinnati, and really, what isn't fun when it is located in the middle of a big city?

It was great to be able to walk around downtown...

And we really enjoyed the free continental breakfast (especially the coffee!)...

We walked to the convention on Friday.  It was about a .7 mile walk, and it was really nice that morning!  However, we were at the convention alllll day long and then went out to eat downtown...so by the time we were ready to go back to our hotel it was dark and COLD!!  But still fun:)  Good exercise, at least!!

There were soooo many people at the convention.  We saw some great friends there!  It was so great to see the Beyer's, Beer's, Drayer's, my cousin Erika, more good friends from Leo and Bluffton...so fun to catch up with all of them and get some great advice!!

If anyone is wondering...while we are in training for these next 2 1/2 years, we won't be homeschooling yet.  We will be sending Kaine to a Christian school here in town next year for kindergarten, and then when we go on to our next phase of training (in Canada), Kaine and Halle will attend an academy on our campus (just for the missionary kids).  Then we will start homeschooling after that.  So it is really nice right now to just learn info about all the curriculums, etc...without the stress of having to decide on one right away!

What a fun weekend.  Thanks, mom and dad, for watching our kids!  They had a blast (like they always do!).  We really appreciated the time away!!

my little swing dancers

Kaine and Halle have a new talent!  They just randomly started doing this one day, and I thought it was so cute!  Of course, I know I am very biased because I am their proud mom...I just love these two:)

my friend, israel

Hi everyone!  It's me, Daisy.  My mom told me I could do a guest post on her blog...she's been having trouble thinking of ideas.  

Here I am...aren't I cute?

I would like to introduce you to my good friend (and cousin)...Israel.  Isn't he cute, too??  My mom was so excited when he was born, because he is only 4 months younger than me!  She says we will be good friends someday.  (and since he lives right down the hall from me, we get to play together a LOT!!)

Ever since we were little, we have been hanging out together... 

Usually, we get along pretty well.  We are good friends!

But even though Israel is adorable...he has another side, too.  Do you see that ornery look in his eyes?   

See, even though Israel is 4 months younger than me, he is actually a lot stronger than me!!  (Check out his mom's blog here...he can actually do pushups!!  How many 7 month old babies can do pushups???) 

Sometimes he likes to pick on me...

And take my toys...

And bite me (I know, I deserved this for putting my finger in his mouth!)

Or give me intimidating looks...

So...

 I try to defend myself...

Or sometimes I just try to flee...

But I am an emotional little girl, and a lot of times I just break down and cry.

Hopefully I will be able to crawl soon, and then I will be able to defend myself a little better! 

Thanks for reading my post!  Hopefully my mom's ideas will start returning:)

Love,

Daisy