All I want for Christmas....

My 2 front teeth!

Celebrating 11 years together

Everyone who knows Scott knows how blessed I am to be his wife!

And here are the 3 beautiful children God has given us during these 11 years. We decided to celebrate as a family this year.
Here are the beautiful flowers that my sweet husband arranged in advance to be given me at the restaurant.

To Encourage

This week and month, we have been remembering very difficult days we went through a year ago. This song has been a great encouragement to me. We can pour out our hearts to the Lord and it is worship and the road to deeper intimacy. He meets us there!

Eating Dinner

Why not eat your hot dog in a tree?

Grandparents!!

In October, both sets of grandparents came for a visit. And everyone got to watch Mikey play soccer! He had a lot of fun and did a great job.


We all went to a pumpkin farm and had all kinds of fun.




Papa and Grammy Pittman took the kids to a state park and gave the kid's a lessons on their ancestor William Pittman, who was a long hunter.

Recent Artwork

By Michael: instead of a still life he opted to take his paper outside. He emerged with the above drawing.

Katie did the above still life of a pumpkin and an apple.

Anna drew this still life of a tea pot and cups.

Celebrating 5 years with Katie

5 years ago we were blessed with our "miracle baby" Katie! After a very stressful week in the UAE, a long plane ride home accompanied by a physician, 2 weeks in the hospital, and 9 weeks of bedrest..... we welcomed Katie into the world. Certainly, the Lord answered many prayers in giving us a healthy, full-term baby girl. In the past 5 years, I have had multiple opportunities to reflect on Job's words "The Lord gives and takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord" Katie is an example of the Lord giving to us and I have appreciated that even more as He has "taken away" other unborn babies. Thank you Lord for Katie!



Grammy Pittman helped us make this castle cake!


Celebrating with friends!

A Day at a One Room School House

Last week, Anna & Michael had the opportunity to spend the day with other home schooled kids at a one room school house. It is maintained by the school district to give kids the chance to learn about how school used to be. It was a lot of fun and very interesting! The highlight of the day was writing with feather quills and ink wells. There were about 20 kids there of various ages and they all dressed up and brought lunches in pails and handkerchiefs. As you can see, they would have been very cute pioneer kids!

Growing Up!

Life in Iowa

Here's our house for the year! It is a great house for us and we have enjoyed settling in.


The rooms were all ready and decorated for us.... Anna and Katie share a room and it is cute and PINK. They were thrilled and it was fun watching them discover their new rooms.


Anna broke her wrist falling off a trampoline. She wore this brace for 2 weeks and now has another brace to wear for 2 more weeks. She is eager for it to be healed.


Her is Katie on her tricycle. She is proud of herself and asks me to watch every time she rides down the street.


Mikey got a tent for his birthday and their kind Daddy set it up last week on a nice night and they slept outside. Everyone slept great EXCEPT Daddy!

Mikey's Birthday Party

Michael turns 7 on August 25th and before we move, we wanted to celebrate with the Pittman family. He has been wanting to go to Chuck E. Cheese since we got to the States, and we kept telling him, "We will go on your birthday!." Grandpa & Grandma, Uncle Travis, and Uncle Jason & Aunt Aimee were kind enough to celebrate with us.



The kids played tons of games. Here's the girls on a virtual roller coaster.


Mikey is a great kid! He is tender hearted and always considering others. He loves to explore and has collected lots of bugs, lizards, and rocks this summer. He has really wanted to catch a snake, but hasn't been successful yet...... I think his favorite person is the world is his Daddy. He LOVES to do anything if Daddy is involved (but especially wrestle and enjoy Dad as a human jungle gym.)
We love you Mikey!!!

Summer Fun

We have continued to travel a lot this summer to see family as well as enjoy life at home. The kids were all able to attend a class at the local community college's summer kid's program.
The kids love exploring, and it is even better with Grandpa. They have collected all kinds of bugs and rocks.

At a family reunion with Aunt Aimee


Katie enjoyed her cake decorating class right before the 4th of July!

Anna & Michael took a class about bugs and plants and made their own chia pets!

In Ohio with cousins and my aunt

And Great Grandpa and Grandma Nottke. When I asked Anna what she liked the best about Ohio, she said "swimming and Great Grandpa and Grandma." They had only seen the girls when they were babies and had never met Michael so it was very special to be together.





We had a really great time on a family vacation in Branson, and Papa and Grammy Pittman got to come and join in! We loved swimming, seeing some shows, exploring,visiting a cave and Silver Dollar City.
Last, but not least, I got to visit my new niece Ilaria Edith Baker,born on May 30. I flew to Boston the day my sister got out of the hospital and spent 10 days with her family.

Here's Ilaria all dressed up.