Pictures of the cruise and kids with Grandma & Grandpa

A Long Time...

Well, it's been a long time since I blogged and I decided I need to change that! So much has happened since Christmas. Greyson and I went on our cruise to celebrate 10 years of wedded bliss! It was great. We went to Grand Turk Island and Nassau, Bahamas. We snorkeled, explored and just had a great time together.



My parents kept our kids for the 6 days we were gone. What a blessing that was. We could really enjoy ourselves knowing our kids were safe and taken care of. The kids had a fabulous time with Grandma and Grandpa too! They even got to ride the train at the mall which mommy never wants to pay for!



Greyson has gotten back into the swing of things at school. This is going to be a tough quarter, but we're really looking forward to the next month when we will know where we will be going! Call day is April 27th... 32 days away!

Gideon is doing great in school. We had his first ever parent teacher conference and he is ready for Kindergarten. The teacher says he is a joy to have in class and is her best "picker upper"... I wish he would bring that skill home with him! hehe

Amelia is wanting to be called Amelia exclusively... It's quite cute. Grandma said "Hi Mia." and she told grandma, "I want to be called Amelia!" She is the poster child for 3 year old princesses. She changes her clothes at least 3 times a day and is constantly wanting to wear a dress and do her nails. She's a lot of fun at this age.

Nathanael is attached to me majorly! We need some prayers for him to start sleeping through the night. He's having a hard time with it and mommy and daddy are pretty tired. He is running now and loves for you to chase him. He loves to do whatever brother and sister are doing, sometimes they are ok with that, but sometimes not!

All three of our children are such blessings and are so much fun! Prayers are always needed for their health. Gideon is still allergic to Milk & Eggs, Amelia to milk and maybe more, but she's never been tested. Amelia has her renal reflux, she will be tested for that again on the 6th and hopefully the test will show that it has corrected itself and no surgery is necessary, Nathanael had an abnormal kidney ultrasound, so he may be tested for the same thing.

Greyson and I are doing great. We actually have a date night tonight! We're looking forward to that! I have been listening to books on tape all the time and of course reading. I have finally found a successful method for reading my Bible. I am doing "Today's Light" and meeting with a group of women on Monday nights, and I am excited to say that I have kept up and been reading my Bible every night before bed for 4 months now! I had to have a mentor of mine challenge me to not pick up my novel until my time with the Word was done, and I have stuck with that challenge and been very blessed by it! I even have notes in my Bible that I read this section while on the beach in Grand Turk! If I keep up with it I will have read through the entire Bible cover to cover by November of 2011.

This week Gideon was off school and I took the kids to Rockford for some much needed time up there. We stayed with Emmett and Julie again and had a wonderful time! They are such a blessing to us and Mia just loves playing with Harper constantly! They had a great time. We were able to visit most of our Rockford friends and Gideon had at least 2 play dates with Tyson. We always look forward to our time there.

Well, that's about it for now. I will get pictures posted later. God bless!

Christmas in Quincy

I pray your Christmas has been as fabulous as ours! We have had a wonderful time with friends and family. Fun in the snow, great food, games, and of course Christmas presents! With mom's side of the family we each bought a game and did a gift exchange and then spent all afternoon playing everyone's games! It was so much fun! Our family loves games so much and this was really a great time! Gideon and Mia loved opening gifts, as any 3 and 5 yr olds will! This was Mia's Barbie Christmas... she got 5 barbies, some princesses, some regular barbies. Gideon got a sword, a light saber, and a dart gun. He's had tons of fun with uncle Rusty with those. Our family as a whole got a Wii and have had lots of fun creating our Miis and playing together. We'll have to definitely set time limits on that one! :) The kids would play constantly if we let them! We've had so much fun already and we are looking forward to seeing our friends, the Wysockis, for New Years! It's going to be fabulous to spend time together! :) God bless your New Year!

Happy Thanksgiving Y'All!

This Thanksgiving, I am so thankful for our family and friends who have been supporting us this past year. Whether with care packages, money, or prayers, they are all wonderful blessings to us!

Things have been going great! The kids are growing up fast but having so much fun. We've been going to the Magic House a lot.

We have been travelling some, we went to Rockford to see our friends' new baby. She was gorgeous! We also got to spend time with our Small Group friends. It was a great, but short, visit.

For Thanksgiving, we are heading to Uncle Stanton and Aunt Nora Ann's. We're really looking forward to our time there on the farm. I'm sure the kids will have a wonderful time. I baked 5 dozen rolls and 2 pies for the get together.

Greyson starts the Winter quarter next Monday. Only 2 quarters left! We had our primary interview with the vicarage placement director. We are both looking forward to the process and moving on to the next chapter in our ministry life! :)

Anyway, that's all for now! God's blessings on your Thanksgiving!

~Mendy

It's been a long time...

Hey all! Well, I'm sorry I haven't updated in awhile. Things have been crazy, but good!

Let's see... our summer ended with a vacation to Rockford and Cincinnatti. It was really fun. We saw lots of friends, some museums, baseball game, and more. Greyson preached at Mt. Olive, and did an incredible job! He has truly found his calling.

We had birthday parties... it's hard to believe that Gideon is 5, Mia is 3 and Nathanael is 1!!!! Time sure flies when you're having fun!

Gideon started preschool at Mt. Calvary in Brentwood. He is loving it! He loves his teacher and the friends at school. He goes 3 days a week in the afternoon. The hardest part about him going to school is that Mia wants to go too.... her time will come!

I have started attending MOPS (Mothers of Pre-Schoolers) and they havea program for the kids, not unlike Sunday School, and Mia thinks that is her school. So, when people ask Gideon about school, she pipes in... "I go to MOPS!" It's quite exciting for her.

Nathanael started walking rightat 13 months, then we all were sick, he had a fever for 4 days, and so he gave up walking. After he felt better he started crawling everywhere. We decided to help him along. He loves grapes, so we would hold grapes and he would have to walk to get them... he remembered how to walk in no time and now he is almost exclusively walking.

Classes are going well for Greyson. It's going to be a tough year class wise. But, he has always been good at academics, so I'm sure he'll pull through just fine. This quarter he is taking Passion Narratives, Homeletics II (preaching), Pastor as Counselor, & Systematics. We're getting into a routine finally that really allows him time to study.

Let's see... my nephew Jaxon was born September 5. He will be baptized this weekend! WOOHOO! He's adorable. The kids are so excited to have a cousin!

We're taking Mia to the ENT Dr. tomorrow to talk about tubes... she's had 7 ear infections in 12 months. and we're getting to the bad time of year for her... so we'll see what they say.

We just found out that Gideon is not getting any better in regards to his milk allergy, the egg allergy is very low, but he's also allergic to dust mites, mold, grass, and so on. I am slowly learning to be a better housekeeper, dusting twice a week instead of once every 6 months or so... the only thing is is that both he and Greyson need to be out of the house when I dust because it stirs up enough to bother their allergies/asthma.

Anyway, we're getting it all under control.

This past weekend was the Seminary Women's retreat, it was a great time with a great speaker on Women's leadership. I was on the planning committee and it turned out really well. we had 42 women come. I hope we're close enough that I can attend next year!

I guess that's all for now. I'll find time to post some pictures soon! :)

God's blessings! ~Mendy

Summer already???

Well, it's hard to believe, but Summer is here! Greyson has completed his first year of classes, and the summer term started today. It's hard to believe so much time has passed. This year has flown by. We're now facing our first round of good-byes... as people leave for vicarage or call. Our next door neighbors headed out this morning. We pray God's richest blessings on their ministry!!! But they will be sorely missed.

Over our break we went to Denver again. We had a blast! We went and rode the Georgetown Loop train in the mountains, attended a Rockies game, went to the children's museum, went to a great little place called tiny towne and we were blessed to hear Greyson preach for the very first time! It was pretty cool to sit there and see him up there for the first time. He did so well, and the kids did awesome too!

Our last day in Denver Gideon and I collected some roly-poly bugs and made a home for them in a container provided by Grandma... we left them at the hotel in Kansas and went back for them... little did we know that they would all be dead 2 days later!!! I guess I need to do research on keeping roly polies alive before we attempt the project again! :)

While in Denver we also had the chance to visit with Greyson's aunt Barb. We had a wonderful visit and enjoyed our time with her. One week after we left, Barb died. We're glad that we had that chance to see her and spend time with her and we pray for her husband and sons and the rest of Greyson's family during this hard time.

On our way home from Denver we stopped in Larned, KS where Greyson preached again. We really enjoyed being there as well. At the hotel the night before, Nathanael had a lot of fun with his reflection! Check out this video...

This past Sunday was our church picnic at Chapel of the Cross and dad and I made a pie for the pie contest. It was fun and Our pie tasted fantastic, however we didn't receive any prizes! We still had fun baking and watching the pastors and other judges try it! :)

We're getting into the swing of things for summer and looking forward to lots of fun with friends! Hope you all have a blessed summer!

Life goes on....

These past weeks have been pretty normal witha few exceptions.

We had our first trip to the ER for an injury... Gideon wasn't watching where he was going and walked right off a pair of concrete steps... as Greyson says, he fought the sidewalk and the sidewalk won. Here's a picture of his first shiner...

Greyson is taking homiletics right now and so he's learning how to write and present a sermon. He has been working hard in that class. His other classes are going well too. And he's just thrilled that baseball season has started! Go cubs!

This morning, I was getting ready to take the kids to spanish class (taught by a missionary here on campus) and I told Gideon it was time for spanish... he said, "no mom, it's baseball season!" Greyson had to explain that we can still take spanish lessons during baseball season! The kids really do say the darndest things!

Easter is quickly approaching. Easter is my favorite holiday of the year and I am really looking forward to celebrating this year. I have been in charge of an Easter breakfast for the past 7 years and it was fun, but I'm really looking forward to just being with my family and worshipping at church this Sunday!! We will be celebrating Easter in Quincy this year with easter egg hunts and all!

Another funny story, yesterday it was snowing in the morning when we got up. Gideon opens the door, sees the snow, and says, "Mia!!! look! It's the first snow!" I told him that hopefully it's the last snow! We've just had so much nice weather and been outside all the time and now that it's snowing he thought we had gone full circle!

I've been taking a cooking class on campus with the head chef of the kitchen here. It has been so much fun! Once we have a real kitchen with a little more space, I have some things I want for Christmas! :)

We visited a preschool yesterday that I believe Gideon will be attending in the fall. I think he will have fun and really excel, but we'll see. pray for us as we make this decision!

I can't think of much else new going on. God bless you all!