Liking pizza?

We had pizza for dinner last night.  In preparing Teresa's slice, I took the cheese off as usual.  When she saw it, however, she was not satisfied.  There was still "red stuff" on it.  So I tried to scrape off the sauce.  She still was not satisfied because I did not get all the "red stuff."  She wanted it like her pizza hut pizza from last week without any red.  Yes, because that pizza had a white sauce!  I think it is the look that matters more than the taste for her.

In the end she gave the slice to me and we settled on some toast with jam for dinner.  And yet, I am pretty sure she still says she likes pizza!  I must admit that the crust is my favorite part too.  Maybe some day she will learn to like toppings.

Knowing the answers

Teresa occasionally has chapel with a pastor at her preschool.  This past week the intern pastor, a student of Troy's at Wartburg, was in charge.  He shared with Troy a glimpse of Teresa's participation in the chapel time.

The chapel time was focused on who Jesus is and his many names.  The kids were asked to help think of Jesus' many names.  Teresa apparently stood right up and proudly said, "Jesus Christ is the son of God and he died on a cross so that we don't have to die, and now we get to live."

I guess she has been picking up a few things from our devotions, from Sunday school, from all the Bible reading we do!  That is so encouraging as a parent to know your kids are learning even when you aren't so sure!  Perhaps she is on her way to being a theology professor!

I must add that Troy and I sit and listen to the kids sermons at church and smile when Timothy pipes in a great answer.  We know he is taking in a lot from church and home about faith too!

Merry Christmas!

It was a week filled with celebrations and family time. How blessed we are to have such time to be together! We had Christmas eve and Christmas day at home before traveling to see relatives.  Christmas eve was low key.  The kids played with a friend all afternoon.  We went to 4 pm and church and then had a nice dinner together.  Unfortunately Teresa had a sore throat, so she skipped dinner, but was able to join in on the ice cream dessert!  We ate our treat while watching a taped Christmas Light Fight episode.  Lots of fun!

Timothy was up early Christmas morning, but very patient and excited!  Teresa woke pretty early too and seemed to be feeling a little better. (Her cold hit towards the end of the weekend.)  We donned our Santa hats and opened stocking gifts.  After a yummy breakfast and a short time of advent and singing, we opened our remaining presents.

One of the stocking gifts was pop rocks for everyone!  We learned that Teresa is not fond of them!

Troy opened his gift from the kids...a coffee/cocoa date.  I guess it came with a big hug for daddy too!!

After hanging out awhile at home and trying out some fun new gifts...big cats and a flying car...we hit the road for Susan's house!  Thankfully the weather was great this year.  No snow either way.  We arrived to find Susan and Grandma Judy and more presents waiting to be opened.  Timothy excitedly used his new reading skills to check out which ones were for who.  We had a great dinner prepared by Susan and were joined by Grandma Judy, Justin, Meghan, and Ariana.  And of course opening gifts after dinner was a hit.  The kids loved there new glow pets from Grandma.

We spent a few days visiting Susan and Grandma Judy.  Ari hung out with us for a day too.  Susan had some games planned and the kids had to be good sports to win prizes.  Here they all work on there coloring book prizes together!

It also snowed while at Susan's much to the delight of the kids.  It was a brown Christmas otherwise.  Susan's culdesac had a huge mountain of snow which was enjoyed by the kids!

After a few days it was on to visit my family.  We re created a Christmas day complete with the kids acting out the Christmas story.  This year was a more artistic telling without the direction of Abby who was away on a trip.  There was a sheep who kept taking Jesus, so Jesus was played by Clarice the reindeer.  There were no angels.  There was some lovely background music by Tate, a very serious wise man, a curious and worshipful cheetah.  Needless to say it was fun and cute!

Grandpa Ken and Grandma Rebecca were happy to have the house full of little ones again bringing much joy!

Once again there was the fun of gifts and surprises.  Jeff, Teresa and Timothy show off there new winter wear looking kind of like ninjas.  Troy joined in the fun too!

And of course as always, there was lots of love to go around.  I feel so blessed that we had the leisure to spend great days with Troy's family and mine.  It was truly lots of fun.

We had a few fun days with the cousins too.  The came to play about every other day. That was a treat.  And timothy got to celebrate his birthday one last time.  Grandpa shared his Y pool pass and we had a fun afternoon of swimming!  The only downside of the trip was a few colds.  Teresa was hit pretty hard and Timothy picked one up to bring home.  But they were troopers and we all had a good time.

Timothy and his new spooner snowboard showing off his age...a backwards 7!