Zoo with Bapa

While staying in Minnesota, Ollie got to go to the Great Plains Zoo in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. He had a great time. Yesterday, he went to the Blank Park zoo in Des Moines with his Grandpa Jim. I don't have pictures from that trip so this video is of the Sioux Falls trip only!

Birthday Video

Triceratopsilicious Good Time!

For Ollie's 2nd birthday, I planned to do a dinosaur party. I think I decided that the day after his first birthday party. Being that I am sort-of homeless and living with my inlaws, I decided that the best thing to do was rent a shelter at a park. The park we went to was wonderful. It had a duck pond, a baseball field, and two playgrounds. The day was beautiful.

For decorations, I brought a couple dinosaur puppets I had borrowed from the library, and a few of Ollie's toy dinosaurs. I bought a dinosaur tablecloth, and napkins and did plain colored green and orange plates. Nana brought balloons and matching party hats.

His menu was as follows: Meaty Megalosaurus Munchers (ham, turkey and roast beef sandwiches), Sauropelta Sweets (strawberries, blueberries, grapes and mandarin oranges), Corythosaurus Crunchers (chips), Volcanodon Veggies (fresh cut up bell peppers, broccoli, cucumbers and baby carrots) and a 3-dimensional Triceratops cake.

Ollie helping me make the cake

My sister and her girls came over and helped with the food. Jade became my master sculpter and I the cake froster. I'm pretty impressed with how it turned out. I baked two boxes of white cake mix in two loaf pans and one longaberger mixing bowl. In retrospect, I think I should have done three mixes because there would have been less cutting. We using one loaf and then another have (sliced the long way) and stacked for the body. Then, the bowl piece was cut in half from top to bottom and one piece was the back of the head. The other half was cut to be the tail and the snout. Legs were cut out of the other half of the loaf pan.

Master Artist

The froster!

Overall, I'm excited about how it looks. The horns are ice cream cones, the frill is half a paper plate and the eyes were done with white frosting and blue M&Ms. I saw this cake online and we used just different cake pans to complete it. Ollie thought it was super cool!

Ollie in his dino shirt with his cake!

I planned three activities, although we only did two. I had the kids make fossils by pressing little dinosaurs into air bake clay. They all seemed to enjoy it. The second activity was to do a dinosaur dig. I had planned to hide little dinosaurs in the sandbox and let the kids hunt for them but it never happened. Oh well! I also brought bread for the kids to feed the ducks. This of course was a huge hit and I should have brought about 10 loaves of bread!

For goodies, the kids each got a sucker, dinosaur notepad and a pencil. Instead of the bags, I simply tied them up with orange curling ribbon.

All-in-all, I think everyone had a good time. Ollie loved the party and seeing all his family together. He received many great gifts and lots of awesome hugs!

My baby is two!

So yesterday, my little man turned two years old. He now can count to 13, sing part of the abcs, all of Jesus Loves Me, and Old McDonald. He also knows his shapes and many animals that most of us have no clue about like Guinea Fowl, Osprey, Gibbons and Alpacas. He has a pretty good repertoire of complete sentences. I have to say he's an amazing kid.

One of my favorite things about him is his smile. He has the sweetest personality and loves everyone. When we go someone, he waves at people and says hi. He also often runs up to other kids and "asks" them to play. I love my kid.

He is amazing blessing and I'm so glad that God blessed us with a healthy, active, intelligent little boy who has rocked our world in some incredible ways. Here are a few pictures!

Ollie's First Birthday

Ollie's 2nd Birthday

My, how he's grown!

Testimony

As many of you know, my husband and I listed our house for sale in June. It has been an incredible couple of months. One day, towards the end of May, Bob came home and said it was time to list the house. He felt he needed to tell his boss. It was scary because he had once told him he didn't believe in two week notices. We were a bit fearful that he would fire Bob instantly. We were pleasantly surprised that he did not. This was our first blessing.

We went to work on the house and worked tirelessly to prepare. On June 14, approximately 3 weeks after Bob gave boss the news, we listed the house. That same day at 1:15, I received a phone call requesting a showing at 3:30. I went to work cleaning, baking cookies and turning on the relaxing music. Bob stopped home around 3 to check in and to pray with me. Bob prayed that God would provide an asking price offer that day.

I got Ollie up and off we went to a friend's house to swim in their pool. At 4:30, Michelle, the pool owner, got a call from Bob who apparently had been trying to reach me. We had received an asking price offer and I needed to bring a couple things to the office! It was incredible.

The whole closing went amazingly well and there was not one issue with anything. We pushed our closing to July 16 so we could attend a dear friends retirement ceremony. about 6 weeks after we made the decision, we were on the road.

I've always thought God was amazing but sometimes He does things so far beyond what we deserve that we find a while new awe. The blessings didn't stop. We made it safely to Des Moines and Bob began looking for a job. He seemed to easily get interviews. On Friday, we were on our way to a wedding chatting about a particular interview he had that we were hoping to hear about on Monday. We decided to pray. We asked that Bob get that job and that it be a great offer and that we hear soon. As soon as we were done praying, he noticed an email with his offer for that job!! We were pumped!

It gets better... we thought the insurance was going to be about $550 a month after the company paid their portion. Bob decided to go in and ask for a bit more money to help with that. We prayed before he left. He went in and found out that the insurance was more like $300 a month and he got a couple thousand more per year! Incredible!

I just wanted to share the abundant blessings we have recently received. God doesn't always work this way and if it had taken longer that may not have been a sign that God wasn't supportive. We have been completely and utterly humbled by what we have received lately. We already had salvation and now he chose to give us the desire of our heart. We longed to be by family and here we are. God is good all the time.

I'm excited to serve him again and to pour out my life because God was and is and always will be worth every second. Here is a song that I LOVE LOVE LOVE! Check it out.