Spring has Sprung in Chambery

A few pics of our recent trip to a park near our apt. with some of our friends.

French Birthday Party

We were invited to a french birthday party with some friends we know from Marianna's school. It was held at a beautiful park on a hill and we learned some traditions for French bdays. For example, we didn't know that it is normal to bring a small cake or the like to share and a drink too and the gifts are usually small and simple. They played lots of games and the party went from 4pm-7pm! The kids were SO hungry by the end (ours!) because we usually eat at around 5:30 or 6:00. French kids are used to eating at 7:00pm or later so this was no problem for them! Oh and it is apparently fairly normal to not have a bathroom at public parks! So that was another first: having to deal with a 2 1/2 year old who had ummm "loose business" and no tp! Anyway, here are the only two pics we managed to take.

New French friends

We had a great time tonight with new French friends. Daniel met the husband at Marianna's school when he realized Daniel spoke English. Then we realized our daughters were buddies at school. So we've been talking about having them over for a few weeks and we finally did and were so grateful we did. It was a fantastic time. It probably won't improve our French since they both knew a good deal of English, but we are excited to share friendship with them. I was especially thankful everything went so well because I had terrible insomnia last night and today my cold/fever got considerably worse. So so thankful...and ready for some rest tonight!

Olivia became fast friends with their younger child. They were in hysterics despite the lack of a common language:)


Louis and their younger child.

Marianna and her buddy Z, having a great time.

Around the dinner table with new friends. What a blessing!

We served Taco Salad and they brought wine and really good chocolate:).

We love our small group

Both our sending church in Bremerton as well as the WVBC here have really great small groups (FCBC calls them fellowship groups) that have been a blessing to us.

These are a few pictures from our recent activity while in the book of Daniel to help us to know who/what/when where regarding the kingdoms etc.

Randy hamming it up as an Egyptian and Maggie trying not to laugh:
Our small group leader's wife, Mary pushing the kiddos on the swing

Grandma Kathy with Louis
Judy holding her kingdom's sign proudly
Daniel had the "Media" stick
Liv ran between kingdoms, she was not very loyal

Our fearless leader, Doug
I was in exile, so I was always trying to figure out exactly what that meant:)
Our small group held our garage sale for us (we had a bunch of stuff to get rid of) and pretty much did all the work for us. The church donated a ton of stuff (a lot nicer stuff than we had in most cases!). They raised over $1500 for us during the sale. No joke...fifteen hundred dollars!! It was so crazy and a huge blessing.

Puget Sound fun pictures

We have a cozy little place on the top floor of some friends' house here in our former hometown. The only hometown we've known as a married couple! We are enjoying our time here although Daniel came down with shingles earlier this week. He must not have the worst case though...judging by other's experiences with it on facebook. Yuck! He's a trooper about it, still working over at the house to get the most pressing projects done before we leave in a week or so.

We've gotten to spend time with friends from church and have had fun!

Cowboys and the Prairie Princess

Just a normal day in the life of MK's.

Yay for Swagbucks!

I am so excited! I just made my first order with Swagbucks on Amazon.com!

Here's what I got, and am only paying $6.70 out of pocket...

"Family Feasts for $75 a Week: A Penny-wise Mom Shares Her Recipe for Cutting Hundreds from Your Monthly Food Bill"
Mary Ostyn (her blog is Owlhaven and the other book I read of hers was great)

and

"Leslie Sansone Walk Away the Pounds Ultimate Collection"
I have never used this, but lots of lovely ladies from my church have recommended this. I (used to) love to run, but have found it almost impossible to do it consistently w/o running in the dark( not safe). I did it for awhile at our last house when Daniel wasn't working and could walk w/ the kiddos on the track while I ran. So...I am hoping to walk with this video while the girls sleep 3 times a week and see how that goes.

PS, thanks for those of you who have signed up and are using Swagbucks through my affiliate link! I've gotten a good number of points that way! If you want to sign up I am going to add the link on the blog sidebar:). Its says SEARCH & WIN. Thanks!

*PS today is MEGA swagbucks day and I won 100 bucks earlier today!

Three under three (and no we're not expecting!)

Our friends here at JAARS (they are also aviation and going to Cameroon!) are having baby number two--most likely today! So we have their daughter who is almost 2 over. It has been a lot of fun to have a constant playmate for the girls! We are praying that the rest of this mommy's labor is smooth, she's been at it all night long already.

Daniel trying (only moderately successfully) to get some Bible reading in with 3 littles around him:)Oh and notice the foot biting going on there too:

Liv and the ole "poke yer eye out when mommy is taking a picture" move.

BFF's:

Liv, trying to get a piece of the mommy action (always):

Always checking out eachother's sippies:

We're praying for baby A to come out quickly and safely! But in the meantime we're having fun with our friend:)

Friends visit our new house

Its official, I'm photo-taking challenged. And I am so bad at paying attention to details I probably will never get better at it:)

Oh well.

Here are some pics of our recent visit with friends from Illinois at our new house. Their youngest boy and O are pretty much going to get married someday. He was enamored and we love the family so its all official:)

Scenes from our crazy weekend

Grandma took one for the team and spent several hours with three munchkins while I gallavanted around town picking up stuff for the house, returning stuff to lowes, etc. We had such an amazing team of helpers working on our house this weekend!



M with her new dolly from grandma and grandpa...complete with little outfits, diapers and her own diaper bag. She loves it:)



Big thanks to those who helped us this weekend (over 8 people in all!)

Piggy Tails and I'm exhausted

Never knew piggy tails could make one quite so happy before I was a mom. So stinkin cute!



And whew...what a weekend. We had so much wonderful help from church friends and family on our new house! The yard looks ten thousand times better and after a good pressure washing the house's outside looks almost brand new. We found out our house has a pear tree and a really old really sweet grape bush in the backyard...too fun! So, even though I locked myself out of the house, tried to starve the work crew several times (by not getting the food to them on time for various reasons) it was a really good weekend. Still tons of work to do, but we are hopeful that we can get a few important rooms "liveable" in a month or so.

I do need to make an effort and follow previous dr.'s orders though and try to get my feet up for a few hours a day. I noticed more and more swelling this weekend and was in some decent pain. I want the baby to come out, but the right way! Not out of necessity, but because she's ready!

I'll post a few pictures of our weekend and hopefully post a few pictures of the house when there's time. Hope you all had a good weekend too!

Fun with Little Friends

Lately a friend has been helping me pack and work around the house (thank you!) and her kiddos have come over too. M has so much fun when they are here! Bonus: every time M has older friends over she seems to pick up a new skill:) Last time she started to learn how to slide down the stairs on her back side (as opposed to crawling down backwards which she's been doing) and to hold the railing and walk down. She is also now trying to "jump". Pretty cute...she never catches any air but she sure does try!