No "Blogger of the Year" award for Wendy....

It's totally PATHETIC that it's been almost a year to the day that I have blogged. Last night at church one of my friends mentioned to another that I have a blog, she was in SHOCK... she herself is an avid blogger and so faithful to update it often. It got me thinking... I really should blog a little more frequently. It's funny I could write almost the exact same thing as I did last May as it pertains to homeschooling.... We are in fact getting ready to wrap up our school year, and I was just looking over Makena's portfolio that should be turned in on May 1st!:) I think it looks pretty good, mostly. I guess I'll wait for feedback from the "supervising teaching" aka: Nat and see if I should tweak anything for next year. Math is done as far as the curriculum we picked goes, but we'll continue doing some sort of math review all summer, so we don't have too many steps to re-teach in the fall.

Most recently what has occupied my time, besides, school, housework, full-time Mommy and full-time Wife is.... fitness and exercise. I'm down approx 60 lbs from last August, and I have been training to run my first ever 5K race since January. It's been a long road, but I can't tell you how amazing the transformation has been. For me it's been a total journey. Taking a long hard look at what it actually means to demonstrate self-control and self-discipline. It's not about dieting for me, I mean who can really diet??... it's so short term, and I was way over losing and gaining, to lose and gain again and again. I wanted to change my lifestyle, my habits, and my attitude. I've done it! Praise the Lord! For it really is only by His grace and mercy that it's been possible. The results are a bonus as far as I'm concerned. The 5K race is June 2nd. It will be here sooner that I know. My sister Whitney and I are running it together and Todd and Dustin will run the 20K race the same day in Des Moines. It's the DAM to DAM. You can check it out at - we are really looking forward to it. My parents and Whit's husband Jonathan will all be there to cheer us on! :) Oh and the photo - yes that's our WHOLE FAMILY all 7 of us. That was taken by our dear Hannah Sandersfeld, at our church family fun night. :) Western themed! How fun!

Begin Summer.....

Today is the last day of our home school year (officially)! Swimming Lessons are over! I'm still recovering from getting up at 5AM everyday last week. My 15 minutes on the computer this morning is already over. I should do something more productive before my children's feet hit the floor. The coffee is ready, and I really need to get up and go make myself a cup.

Today we clean house, do the final Math lesson, and read from the book of Mark (which is our summer reading for front-line). Complete the day with a family swim at the coralville pool!

Dustin's good friend Luke is moving to Canada tomorrow. The boys are going to a movie together tonight, I think. I'm glad they will be able to do that, one last little fun thing before departure to Canada, we will miss you Wrigglesworth family. :)

Make it a great day!

garden - check, it's good to be done.

Super Exciting - It was 92.6 yesterday! Oh yeah and we were setting record lows with heavy frost last week, but anyway this is IOWA and it is where we love to live... why should these drastic weather changes irritate me!?

The great super exciting news is that all of my garden is in, both flowers and tomatoes. This is the earlies I've had that done in, um... well EVER! So with that said, if the record lows and heavy frost come back, I might be in trouble. :( Have to wait and see, and PRAY!

Today it's school work and then errands in Coralville.

Oh and if you think of it, pray about the possibility of us getting a Suburban.

thanks and God Bless

Eventful Easter!

It wasn't what we had planned for our Easter holiday, however, the Lord worked it out according to His plans.

Dustin was at a Jazz concert Friday night with his Mom and Step-Dad, and became very ill. He got sick before the show even began, and they took him to the ER in Waterloo. He ended up with Appendicitis and had an Appendectomy on Saturday morning! We went to visit him then on our way to Todd's parents (which is where we were headed anyway). We left earlier than planned to get there as quickly as possible. He had just been back in his room 40 minuets or so when we got there. He was doing very well, comfortable, just sleepy. We stayed with him over the lunch hour on Saturday while his Mom grabbed lunch. Then we left and headed on our way to Sheffield.

It was a bummer that he couldn't be with us, but we were so thankful for God's protection over him and that his appendix didn't rupture or leak! He was discharged on Sunday morning, and we talked to him on the phone before church! He was in good spirits and ready to get out of the hospital. He will spend this week out of school recovering, and probably not return to running track this season.

The rest of us had a good time in Sheffield, always a blessing to spend time with family and see Todd's Grandma, Aunts, Uncles and cousins.

Good to be back home and back in routine (mostly)! Have a blessed day! :)


In Christ,
Wendy

Inspired by friends....

So I can't let this day end, without an update, only because my good friend Amanda started her first blog today, so I'm inspired to get back to blogging, so what it's only been about 15 months since I've been here and written anything. It's funny too because I really like to write and it's therapy. - Oh and the things that my kids say, should really be recorded because they are really, really funny!

Today was a work day. We have some company coming kind of last minute, but I work best under pressure, and it's always a blessing to see James, Meredith, and Ian. Plus it was time to do the weekly cleaning anyway, we just got some jobs done a day earlier.

This week, we rocked science and made our second batch of home made laundry soap. The kids loved it. It blends Science, Home-Ec and Shop because we stir with a power tool, measure with measuring cups, and it turns from a liquid to a gel like substance in 24 hours. Very, Very cool - and CHEAP! :) Love that!

Dustin's track season is a little more than half way through. The weather has been rough this spring for track. We got the kids to a meet in Marengo last week, and it was beautiful.

Easter is Sunday and we're looking forward to a mad dash trip up to Todd's folks. It will be a good time, to see his family (especially his sister her husband and their kids). Tomorrow night is DATE NIGHT - all the kids will be some place else and we will have a date before we take off to Sheffield. Nicely timed. Thanks to those who are making that possible!

That's enough - I'm tired, and will glance at the news for 10 minutes before bed! Pilates was hard tonight, haven't been in months and my body reminded me of that tonight!

I'm reminded though as I close on the eve of this Good Friday - how very special and scared these next hours/days really are, what our Lord did for us, asking that "this cup" should pass, never the less, "not His will," but that of His Heavenly Father be done.... I so often want my own way. Lord willing I can be ever mindful that NOT MY WILL, but that of MY Heavenly Father be done in my own life, each day. To God be the Glory! Happy Easter!

Cold and Kids...

Best to stay in when the temps are -5 so that meant uploading the videos from our Christmas trip to the Ramada Tropics Resort in Des Moines. They are up on our youtube channel, you'll have to be a bit patient with the background noise and waiting for the boys and Kena to come down the slides. Todd now tells me that there is a feature on youtube to add background music in place of the sound that was originally on the video. In the future we might combine several shorter video's into one with background music and just show the highlights. We should be able to make it a little better each time, we're learning... I've also uploaded all of the pictures from that trip to our web album through picasa web albums. I've embedded a slideshow right here in our blog for you to enjoy. If you wanted to view any captions or see the pics larger you can follow this link. Click Here for Web Album

We also babysat today for some friends of ours, Garth & Kati. They just got home from a 2 week vacation visiting family in Utah.... they needed some alone time after the 24 hour train ride home over night New Years Eve with their three children. We took a video of supper and it was NOISY to say the least. We almost doubled our numbers with their 3 and our 4 here, and of course both babies cried at the same time, while the bigger ones at the table sang and shouted - ear plugs anyone? Should you elect to watch this video, please do yourself a favor and turn the speakers down a bit :) Click Here for Tonights Video

Happy New Year 2010 and Happy Birthday

Just like we've started the last 4 new years.... we celebrated the birth of Braden! He turned 4 today. Time sure has gone fast, he's been such a joy to watch grow.

He got a lava lamp as one of his gifts today, he and his brother and sister are up in the boys room as we speak, I can hear them on the baby monitor... squealing with laughter about the balls of lava moving up and down through the clear liquid. He also spent the entirety of his day in a swimming suit and swim shirt. That is totally Braden because you know there is a wind chill advisory for tonight and tomorrow... Negative 25 is the perfect weather for running around mostly naked! What a kid!

New years bring new resolutions, one of them is to blog this year, I mean come on get with the times right? I'm a "techie geek" sort of girl, shame on me, we should have a family web site, maybe in 2011. Resolution number two is to read my bible in a year! This is the year to do it! I think I've finally found the bible that will help make that possible. It's in chronological order of the way the events actually happened, it's NIV version (which should make for easy reading), and it's designed to be read in 365 days. It is marked for what your supposed to read each day, it's only 3-6 pages per day. All of those things combined make it all most fail proof. I'm prayerfully hopeful that God will grant me the discipline to make it through this year. Last resolution is number three (and that's plenty) to eat healthier and build up our immune systems, as a family. I seem to have come to a new understanding and appreciation for the value of the immune system, and how easily we can damage and destroy it with anti-biotic medicines.

I'm looking forward to this year, mostly looking for spiritual growth, a better understanding of God's word, to be more faithful to it and my personal prayer life. Spending time with my wonderful husband and our delightful children (currently numbering 5). Now I must close because even though those delightful children have been tucked in for the night, I can still hear the pitter patter of little feet, and still small voices on the monitor. Good Night, and God Bless!