Mikaila's 7th Birthday

Mikaila wanted a Barbie themed birthday party. It worked out well because I was able to find all the decorations here. It was a fun party with our missionary friends. We had a party at her school for her school friends and I will hopefully get those pictures up soon. I am hoping to have some time later this weekend.


Here are the table decorations and other things.


Mikaila is blowing out her candles! This is the Barbie cake. I can't believe that I made it and it turned out so well. My mom used to make doll cakes all the time but she had special pans and dolls for it. I had to do some checking on the internet on how to do it with what I had. I enjoyed doing this special cake for my daughter just like my mom did for me.


Mikaila is opening up her presents with her friends. She really had a great time. We all had a good time.

Happy New Year!

We didn't get out on New Years because Mikaila was getting over being sick and Stacey wasn't feeling well. We had fun though. We got some sparklers and decided to go ahead and light them on our balcony.


Here is Mikaila with her one sparkler.


Ethan loved them. He was sad when as shown in the pictures below... that we were done after lighting only 4 sparklers.


Here is Bryan trying to light another sparkler. The wind was blowing and the sparklers would not light very well.



We had to call it quits after about 4 sparklers because our lighter melted! Can you believe that? Crazy! We had fun while it lasted.

Christmas Cookies

We made Christmas sugar cookies on Christmas Eve. They were really good and the kids enjoyed the whole process.

Here is Bryan with the kids as they begin to roll the dough out.


They are ready to go in the oven!


Now it is time to decorate them.


Ethan taking his first bite of his masterpiece.


Mikaila is taking her first bite which I think was her only one. I think it might have been too sweet for her.

Makin' Stuff

We got these suncatcher craft projects in a package from Bryan's parents. The kids were really excited to do them. They had a blast.


Mikaila got a kitty one to do.


Ethan got frogs to do.


Mikaila "had" to do most of it on her own. She didn't want alot of help.


Ethan enjoyed the help which allowed him to play around. Which included seeing how far some of the crystals could go by shooting them off the spoon. Just look at the innocence written all over his face!

Jasmine Enjoying Her Gift

Bryan's mom sent us several packages the other day and she put in a few gifts for our kitty. So thoughtful! Jasmine loves this gift. I don't know what you call it but she loves it. She likes to get in it and then when one of us walks by she jumps out and attacks us.


Here she is waiting to pounce!


She has gotten spooked and is going all crazy. You can tell by the way she has her ears.


She is not so sure about this one and neither are we! The kids love it though. You push some button and it starts singing. Bryan's mom loves to get us noisy things.

Great Gift

Bryan showing his great gift from some friends of ours. He is enjoying it ALOT!! Thanks Paynes!

Decorating the Christmas Tree

Here we are decorating the Christmas tree. The kids really enjoyed it this year. Ethan was a big help wanting to put up all of the ornaments. He got really tired waiting on Bryan to put on the lights.


Mikaila putting on her "name" ball ornament. This was given to her on her first Christmas (I think) by her great grandparents.


Ethan and Bryan putting on another ornament.


Mikaila and Bryan putting our angel on the top. She really was waiting for this the whole time.

Thanksgiving 2006

This Thanksgiving we got to spend with several of our friends and colleagues here in Poland. We traveled up to Northeast Poland and spent several days sharing, laughing, encouraging and just having a great time with 3 other families who are with the IMB. The kids really had a blast playing and getting to speak English with other kids and we enjoyed sharing and learning from each other. We had the most ginormous turkey! It was 37 pounds! We were all amazed at the sight and prayed that it would fit in the oven.

We missed getting to spend the holiday with our families in the states, but we had a good time with our overseas missionary family. We pray you all had a great "Turkey Day".

Here is the turkey. The biggest one I have ever seen! It took two guys to get it out of the oven.


All the food! We had stuffing, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes and the turkey of course.


The two huge pies! One pumpkin and the other pecan. Where was the chocolate? Nie ma - there wasn't one! So sad. It was fine though - I had my fill of buckeyes. Thanks Lid!


Mikaila and Rebecca are just really picking at their food. At least that is what Mikaila did.


Here are Ethan and Maciek enjoying the meal at the kids table.


Here are 3 of the guys (including Bryan) leading us in a time of worship. We were able to share the things that we are thankful for as well.


Here are some of the kids playing on the gamecube. All of them had turns the whole weekend long.


It wouldn't be Thanksgiving without watching football! Some friends brought a tape someone had sent them of a football game from the states. The guys finally got the kids off the gamecube so they could watch a little bit of it. I think they fell asleep, which is also typical!

Geocaching!

We had a fairly free Saturday a little while ago and decided to go search for a geocache. We thought that we might not have many more days of decent weather that we could do it. We all had a really great time. The kids were tired after the full day of hunting, hiking and exploring.

Ethan is leading the way! He was making sure that we were going the way it told us to go.


Mikaila is on the hunt. She sees it and is going after it.


Mikaila showing off her find! She found this one. It was great.


Stacey with the kids after the big find.

Zamek Lipowiec

After our hunt for the geocache we decided to go up to the castle and look around. It was really neat. At some point it was a prision for clergymen and later ruined by fire.

I don't know if you can really tell but, here are the tons of steps that we had to climb up to get to the castle. It is way up there! It was a great view and we all had a blast exploring the ruins of the castle.


This is Bryan explaining to the kids what parents used to do to their kids when they misbehaved and that they should be thankful that we only have them sit in time-out or some other "light" punishment.


This is the outside of the castle ruins.


View from the top of the tower.


This is another great view from the very top of the tower. It is a bit hazy. Bryan was the brave one and went up all the way to get the great picture.

First Snow! November 2nd

We have had our first and only snow so far here. It is cold but so far we have had only a little bit of snow - once. Quite disappointing. Here is a picture I took along the road as we were leaving our friends house up in northeast Poland.



Here are the kids bundled up for the winter weather! We are on our way to school.

Biggest Ant Hill I Have Ever Seen!

We saw this (and several others) along a road in northeast Poland. It is a huge ant hill! Can you believe that? They had to work a long time to build that I am sure and I would not want to be the one to disturb it either. People have come along and put a fence around them as you can see to make sure people beware.

Marshmallow Fields

They have them here too! We have a funny thing from Estonia that has carried over to here. While in Estonia we saw alot of fields that had these "marshmallows" in them and Bryan made a comment about them to a bus load of people while out with the mission group. They thought it was funny especially Mel. Anyway we were out with some friends up north and their volunteer team and Bryan pointed out these "marshmallow" fields to them. They enjoyed the comment. Thought you might enjoy especially those who know what we are talking about!

Silly Kids

Here's a picture of the kids making faces because they really didn't want their picture taken. They just wanted to play in the water fountain. We liked visiting this mall while we were in Warsaw. We found a store that had Dr. Pepper and a box of Rice Krispies in it.

Do You Want An Apple? How About A 100?

We went to a retreat for the SC's and families in the Baltic Field the last weekend in October. We went to the Baptist Seminary just outside of Warsaw and along the way we passed tons of apple orchards. It was really neat to see so many. We passed alot of trucks carrying the apples as well. This is one we came up on that I could actually get a picture of.