My Buddy!

Corban and I bonded this time--at least I felt like we did! This is one of my absolute favorite pictures!

Sorry, about all the posts so suddenly!  Can you tell I got left alone in a quiet house for several hours?!

PANCAKE TIME!

Patience was on spring break this week, too. So, she had Callista over for a sleepover. We had a fun, fun time making pancakes. I'm not sure who suggested the girls put flour all over themselves, but, hmmm....they did. Stefan heard that we had made pancakes and so since he didn't get to the service tonight, due to the change in plans, we decided to have pancakes for supper! So, Auntie Donna pulled out the stops and made chocolate chip pancakes in fun shapes for both sets of kiddos today! I had a super fun Auntie Day, making me wish even more that I lived closer to nieces and nephews. Maybe some day..............

Easter Concert

Morning Star hosted a 4 church choir for an Easter concert. It was beautiful.
Brian directed and Johanna played. It was beautiful. They presented it twice.

I was trying to get "belly" pictures, but I was not too successful!  :-)

Rockfordian Bixbys

Some fun kid shots!

Olivia's Antics!

The girl is on the move pretty much whenever she is awake!
She's a doll--but you got to keep your eye on her because she has absolutely NO fear!
Notice her mischievous grin whenever she thinks she has succeeded at something amazing!
Precious beyond words!

Happy Birthday, Brenda!!!

We sure hope that you have a wonderful, wonderful day. We know that you will be royally treated by that sweet family of yours! Enjoy! We love you and are so thankful that you are a part of the family.

CONFERENCE 2011

We are back home from conference...it was a great week, made extra special since Tim and family were there! It was a beautiful spot and the facilities were the best. The playground and ping pong room made it super special for the kids. The speaker this year was Roger Rosenau-- he is a cousin to Vernon. We enjoyed his messages. Fun week.

Minnesotan Family

I had a wonderful time with the Dan Bixby Fam.  I got there around noon on Friday.  The kids had the day off in honor of my arrival!  (haha!)  We spent a relaxing afternoon chatting, and then went and met Vanessa and her new hubby, Scott, for supper and then went to a concert which was very enjoyable.  We had a good time.  Saturday, we all slept in a bit.  Then we girls hit up the MOA.  I haven't been there in YEARS, so I wanted to at least say I'd been while I was up here!  They taught me how to play Settlers of Catan--a game I've been wanting to learn how to play!  It was fun.  Late night.
Sunday, they leave for church at the crack of dawn!  Great service.  Dan had put a lot of time into the song service making it somewhat of a Good Friday service (or Passion Sunday, as he called it.)  It was such a blessing.  Truly one of the best, if not the best, song service I've ever participated in.
Sunday evening they had a business meeting.  So, Ben and I went mountain biking.  WoW!  It was quite the experience, but thoroughly thrilling--for the most part!  (Has Ben gotten a helmet, yet?!)  It was good b/c I had to burn off some of the calories inflicted on me by 2 incredibly awesome cooks in that household!  YUM!
Monday was a bright and early morning. Got to see Ben off, then Elise.  I left before Isabelle.  Don't know how they keep track of everyone's schedules!  So confusing!  Dan helped me get a rental.  Then I drove to see Vanessa at a Starbucks.  Was good to sit and chat with her for about an hour.  We had a good conversation and time of prayer together. She is very happy in her new life, if a bit homesick.
Was a great visit, and I am so thankful the Lord worked it out for me to go.
Thank you, Dan, Brenda, Elise, Ben, and Isabelle for a WoNdErFuL time!

 

My cool RAV4 in pic with Vanessa and me!  ;-)

Just call me "Grandma Morgan"

Several years ago I bought these cute sweaters for Patience, Isabelle and Miriam-- well, somehow they never got them. At Christmas, I refound them and they were just perfect for my three little girls on this side of the ocean! This time Miriam got the biggest sweater and not the smallest! The three girls were all in yellow this morning so we got a picture.
(In case some of you don't know-- the other two girls are Kayla and Krista Seely. Their parents are here learning French. They serve in Cameroon with BMM. We have officially "adopted" them :-))

Quick Visit with the Barnes

Before this is really old news, I wanted to post a picture of Steve and Rowena Barnes. They were down here last weekend to speak at CDLM and dropped by Sunday evening for a quick visit. We were honored that they took the time to come by and enjoyed the few hours we had together. It made a very late night for them as they drove back to Paris. They had never officially met Ruth and had not seen Tim in years. It was nice to catch up a little-- since EBM no longer does conference with BMM we don't see each other very often.

Fun 5K!!

Just for fun, I thought I'd share these pictures. I did a 5k today--1 year since my first ever 5k. I have been Milette's "trainer"--haha! I was super proud of her. She's done an amazing job!
I work with a fun group of teachers!

 A lot has changed in a year!

Nati Comes For a visit-- 1st time with his wife!

Saturday, Nati and Rebecca came by on the way home from their vacation. We had lunch here with Tim and Ruth and kids and then went downtown for a walk along the quai. Nati wanted to get some coffee somewhere quiet :-)-- do you see the crowd of people in the background? It was sooo beautiful that everyone took to the streets. We then came home for Nati's favorite meal (tacos!) and spent the evening together. They left early this morning for Switzerland. It was so neat to have them stop by, even for a short visit. Our Swiss son is special so it was great to get to know Rebecca better.

Tooth Action

The Tim Bixby household has had some serious tooth action this week. Miriam knocked her chin climbing a tree on Sunday, and I think that might have given a slightly loose tooth the added impetus it needed to quickly become REALLY loose, and she lost her first baby tooth then on Wednesday. She had an advantage in this whole thing of having seen her brother lose his teeth, and realize that it really isn't any too scary, and after all, one might find a little something special under one's pillow after such an exciting experience, so she was pretty thrilled!

Micaiah's tooth action was a little less natural. We got an afternoon phone call on Tuesday (actually, it was Papi who took the initial call as he was keeping the younger kids while we were in class) that Micaiah had had an accident at school, and we needed to come pick him up to take him to the dentist. Somehow he had been spinning around with a classmate at the end of recess time when he slipped and hit the ground mouth first. Some of the school workers were still cleaning up the blood when we arrived to retrieve him. After calling three different dentists, we found one who was immediately available and we took him in. He agreed that Micaiah's front two teeth had received a pretty terrific shock, and wanted us to go get an x-ray taken to make sure there was no fracture (see picture below). It was a pretty cool machine that went around his head, and we now have a REALLY cool picture of all his hidden permanent teeth yet to come in. In fact, the dentist was even able to tell us that Micaiah will only ever have one wisdom tooth to come in. We are grateful that there was no fracture, and it seems like the teeth will heal fine, although the dentist did say that those front two teeth are not completely out of the woods yet, and wants us to come in again next week for a check-up. He had a seriously swollen lip, but after three days it is looking much better, too. So there you go. There's a summary of some of the toothy experiences we've had in this Bixby household this week. :)