Family Canoe Trip

We were blessed, two summers ago, with the addition of a canoe! It's a wonderful, light weight, perfect for portaging in the BWCA, canoe that holds our family in it's loving kevlar!
A couple weekends ago, on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, we decided to go out on Lake Pulaski for our first family canoe experience. It was marvelous. The kids thoroughly enjoyed their time, traveling from Griffing park, along the shoreline over to West Pulaski Park for a snack picnic. Jonah loved "helping" paddle and Aphia was pretty good about sitting still and enjoying the scenery.

This adorable little picture below is the baby- drawn by Jonah.

*I heard this conversation from the other room, the other day:
Jonah: "Aphia, please get away. You're knocking down my blocks."
Aphia: "I know. But I love you."
Jonah: "I know you do, but please love me somewhere else."

*In my pregnantness (I think I just made that a word), my emotions are CA-RAAAAZY! When I was pregnant with Aphia, there was one time that I was driving down a country road, and it was lined with trees, whose leaves were beautifully changing into brilliant oranges, yellows and reds. It was so gorgeous to me, I cried at the sheer beauty for a good 5 minutes of the ride. Sheesh.
Well let me tell you of a little story from yesterday. I was driving north on Hwy 25 in Buffalo, right in town by the post office. I saw a truck pull out from the fire station, going south, and turn it's lights and sirens on. The southbound lane had a long line of cars waiting for the light, they all did their best to pull over, and I in the northbound also pulled way over. I always pull over, but no emergency vehicle has had to use my lane to get by, if they had been traveling in the opposite direction. But yesterday they did! I of course started crying, because well, that's a huge deal to a pregnant, emotionally charged lady! I was glad to get out of their way, so they could quickly get to where they were going.

So if that wasn't enough for me, Jonah stops mid-sentence and says, "Mom we have to pray!" And so we did, just like we always do, whenever we hear sirens. Prayers for the first responders, for the situation, for the victims, etc. We finished and Aphia promptly breaks out into "Jesus Loves Me!" and oh boy were the tears aflowing then! I look back and shake my head. Yes it was a very tender moment for the three of us, but BAWL WORTHY??? REALLY?!?! Again- sheesh.

I don't really have any inclination of whether this child is a boy or girl. But if the fact that I was not very emotional with Jonah, pretty darned emotional with Aphia, and EXTREMELY OVER THE TOP emotional with this baby says anything- it'll be a girl, a very emotional girl. Oh goody- as if one isn't enough :)

Uh Duh!

We had an "Uh Duh!" moments as parents this morning, prompted by none other than 4 year old Jonah. He speaks truth and common sense into our lives quite frequently, and this morning was no different.

Jeremiah and Jonah were talking during breakfast and Jonah, being the "rules boy" that he is, was talking about sin, how he doesn't want to sin, but sometimes he does, etc. Jeremiah talked about forgiveness and asked Jonah, "So after you sin, do you pray and ask God for forgiveness?" to which Jonah responded with, "No. I just pray before and then I don't do it!" Uh Duh! Maybe we should all try to live that out.

Amazingly we have a Savior who knows just how very human we are and that we do constantly falter and fail. He is here to pick us up, wipe off the grime, and set us on our path again. But He never continues spurring us on to stop sinning and turn to the way of righteousness. My 4 year old gets this... why don't we? I shouldn't always wait until after I screwed up, but rather, prevention is the key! Pray prior to sinning and have faith that the Lord will help me to do the right thing! Uh Duh!

Where Does the Time Go?

Last night we put our baby in her big girl bed. If you don't know Phia personally- she's very much the baby of the family, which is going to create some challenges when Baby 3 comes. I said to my mom yesterday, "I'm a little worried about how she'll be when the baby comes." Hoping to get a response such as, "Oh, she'll do just fine!" I instead got, "Yeah... I know... me too." Defeat. No! Not really, we'll work with it. But really, it WILL be a challenge, again where Jonah was not. It's hard not to compare them- they are so drastically different. But I LOVE how each of them is- unique in their personalities, characteristics, quirks, and the like.


So anyways, we put Phia in her big girl bed. She loved the quilt- the pink, the flowers, the polka dots. She did marvelously! And I was very happy with it. Their room is much bigger without the crib in there now, which is helpful.



Jonah loves sleeping on the top bunk! He usually naps on the sofa in our living room, but today begged to sleep in his top bunk and told me as he snuggled in, "I just love to sleep up here!"

Here she is- getting ready to go to sleep!

All tucked in!

Bunk Bed with her new quilt and sheets

Kids helping Daddy to push the mattress out of their bedroom

Peeking out from their new bunk beds!

Easter 2009

The Kruger Family Easter!

I'm ready for more ribs Mom!

We had a fabulous Easter! The festivities included:

1. Finding Easter baskets with presents from the Easter Bunny!

2. Finding Easter eggs all around the house with jelly beans and M&M's inside (Aphia found one, and then each one after that was like a whole new surprise, "Anoner one Mommy!! Anoner one!!"

3. Having to eat all of our breakfast because Daddy told the kids that the Easter Bunny left him a note that said that the kids had to eat all of their breakfast before they could have candy. Jonah wanted to SEE this note and was very intent on quizzing Jeremiah about it, "Where did the Easter Bunny put the note? Did you see the Easter Bunny leave it for you? Are you SURE he left one for you, I can't find it."

4. Wonderful Easter Service at church, topping it off with the ending song being a song that I had been singing before church that morning, "My Redeemer Lives!"

5. Southern inspired Easter lunch at Grandma and Grandpa Wuollett's- bbq'd baby back ribs, coleslaw, garlic smashed potatoes, grilled asparagus, sweet tea and chess pie!

6. Fun visiting the Jasper's for dessert and to be able to see more family!

7. Getting home at a decent hour, watching "The Empire Strikes Back" with Jonah and heading to bed early :)

It was a great day of celebrating our Risen Jesus! Jonah LOVES saying, "He is Risen!" and having us respond with, "He is Risen Indeed!"

This is just a fun picture of Jonah and Daddy, riding on the "new to us" scooter, that Jeremiah got for free from work.

2 Grand Events!

Baby number 3 is on the way in the Kruger house! Due date of November 8th, 2009.


We shared the news with Jonah and Aphia a couple weeks ago, and it spread like wildfire from there. Jonah is very concerned with what we're going to name the baby, and even more so, that we don't have a name picked out yet. Oh boy, it's going to be a long 9 months- well... 8 if this one goes anything like the other pregnancies- which we're praying against.

If you would be so kind as to add that to your prayers, we'd be much appreciative. I had high blood pressure at the end of both my other pregnancies and would rather not go that route again. This hindered the growth of both of the children, in utero. We're praying that my body will cooperate this time, so that this little one can flourish and thrive while in my tummy. Jonah was born at 35 weeks, Aphia at 36... This baby- we're shooting for longer! We're praying now of ways to head off the high blood pressure before it begins, because at that point, it's very difficult to turn back and bring it down. Please pray that it would stay down, that God would help me to find balance in life, so that stressors would not cause my BP to rise, and so that Jeremiah and I (and doctors) can be on the same page with any plans of action.

In other news!!!

Jonah is thrilled with THIS new item at our house! His new 16 inch Raleigh dirt bike is a treasured and prized possession this spring! Each chance we get, he's out riding. He's discovered the art of the "skid" and coasting as well. His old bike did not have brakes (if you pedaled backwards- you went backwards!), and thus if you were moving, so were the pedals, thus he was constantly pedaling! He can be seen terrorizing the roads of Buffalo with his helmet and shades!

Not Me! Monday

As a mom (and well, just as a person in general) I do things that I thought I'd never do, I said I'd never do, and I never intended to do. Some things are choices and some are just plain, old, bonehead moves! The joy of this blog today is that I get to admit all those things in a funny way by saying that I didn't actually do them! If you want, you can pop on over to this blog: MckMama (the wonderful creator of "Not Me! Monday") and link up to more fun stories!

Onward we go with a handful of stories that I did "NOT" do!

This week, while working on organizing my pictures on my computer, I certainly did NOT press some combination of buttons that would flip my computer screen upside down! I did NOT freak out, yelling to Jeremiah, "Come quick, it's an emergency!" to which he just laughed at me and had no idea what I did or how to fix it. In a monumentous moment, I did NOT figure it out and was NOT very proud of myself, thinking that this would absolutely NOT be a fabulous April Fool's joke! Nope, not me!

In a moment of sheer motivation I did NOT decide that Aphia was completely done with her crib (we took the side off a couple weeks ago, and she's been doing fabulously!). I did NOT proceed to mentally rearrange the room, put up the bunk bed, clean it all out, and had it all done (in my head, mind you) until I realized that we did not yet own another mattress for her to actually sleep on, in her big girl bed, which we do own. Doh. The new mattress is NOT ordered and we will NOT be putting her in her big bed when it does NOT come!

I certainly did NOT say to Aphia after church last week, "Aphia let's take off your pretty dress before lunch, so you don't get it all messy." Only to look over, seeing that her daddy had NOT given her a tootsie roll, in which she was NOT drooling chocolate all over the white front of her pretty dress. I most certainly did NOT give my love the stink eye.

I, of course, NEVER take my eyes off my children and would have NEVER found Aphia pouring water (using Jonah's cup) from the big toilet into the kiddie potty, spilling water on the floor the whole way. This has NOT happened several times and I have NOT had to now lock the bathroom door, causing the older kids to have to ask me to unlock it every time they need to use the bathroom!

So how about you? Post a comment if you want and tell me some of the things you did NOT do this week!