Easter Weekend

Our Easter weekend was busy but goood. 

On Good Friday, Daniel had to work.... and I did too. For Good Friday services, since I was by myself, I went with my parents. As I was driving there, my car decided to have fun with me, and wouldn't accelerate. So I pulled off to the side of the road... completely broke down. That has never happened to me before. The funny part was almost everyone from church passed me... not one stopped. :) Oh well, they probably didn't know it was me. :) I sat for about 5 minutes until I started it again, and it worked....so I got it to a church in town. Adam came and saved/picked me up and took me to church....I was a little late.

Mom said she'd feed me dinner, and since I didn't go to their house before church, I went afterwards. Adam ended up having quite a few people over, including some of my friends... it was fun to hang out with our group that we always used to hang out with, even though it was for a short time. Mom made some good food... and I showed my age by saying "it was almost 11pm" when it was really only 10:15. Adam said I'm so old already... because I want to go to bed so early. :)

Saturday I didn't work...instead, I baked/cooked all day long. I had to make so much food for Easter. It was kind of fun though, because everything I made I had never made before. I made 6 loaves of pull-apart bread from the Pioneer Woman(delicious!!), deviled eggs, a gluten free chocolate-mocha cake, and a regular cake as well. My kitchen was a mess by the time I was done! The only thing I took a break from was to run with Kendra... 5 miles is what we did! :) Not too bad for us!

Saturday night was my immediate family Easter at Heidi's.

 Playing a game.... challenging at times with the kiddos. :)

 Mr. Carter

 Me & Daniel.... man I look pale here. Can't wait for some sunny Saturday's that I can go to the pool!

Last Saturday we were Daniel's family for Easter... I failed to take out my camera... my apologizes!! We went to his mom and dad's....had a delicious meal, the kids dyed eggs and had an easter egg hunt in the house. It was a little quiter than usual because Shiloh was sick, so Robert stayed home with him. Otherwise, it was a good night! I made my first fruit pie ever. It was actually a gluten-free apple pie... I think I could do better next time, especially with the crust. Or maybe it was just the fact that it was with gluten free flour that it didn't look normal. :)

 Sunday we went to Roanoke for their early morning service, it was beautiful, but we were sitting in church at 7:20... made for a tiring day. They had breakfast there at church, and then we went over to Washington for the day. It was the perfect Sunday to go, because one of my really good friends got announced! Shelly called me on Wednesday night and told me her news. :)

Michelle's engaged to Nathan B... so excited to have another couple in our potluck, and be in another summer wedding! :) Sorry I stole your picture from your blog Michelle... (I know you did that when I got engaged, so I didn't feel so bad. ;)

Sunday evening we went to my Uncle Ken & Aunt Sandy's with the Pfaff's. The first holiday with the Pfaff's that Daniel & I went together since we were married.... he has always had to work for every Pfaff thing. They have teased me saying comments like... "are you sure you're married? or are you just pretending?" :) So it was nice that we got to go together for once. And everyone said my bread looked like it was from a magazine and very good. Whew.....I guess that makes it a little more worth it to have spent half a day on it!!

This year, I feel like I have thought more about what Christ has done for us than I ever have. Communion was so touching for me this year, as it is every year... but this year seemed especially so. It was a blessing to take part of it in Roanoke too. It's another thing that makes me feel more a part of the congregation. Hope you had a blessed Easter!

Social Life

I recently realized that I haven't taken many pictures at all since we've been married. So I've been trying to take a picture at every social thing we're at. :) I'm so glad Daniel likes to socialize and do a lot of stuff as much as I do. Although lately we've had plans every night. It's been fun, but I am getting too old for this kind of thing. :)

I know this isn't a social event... but on a lovely snowy morning, I was headed to work... and ended up in the ditch. The roads weren't even that bad at all, but I came around a curve on our very own lane, and there was a snow plow right there. It was either hit the snow plow head on or go into the ditch. I went into the ditch, and thankfully I barely missed two patches of trees. Whew... it could've been a lot worse. I know it hardly looks like I'm in the ditch in this picture, but I really was! My dad was out of town on business, so my cousin Micah came and saved me! I was only 30 minutes late for work.... but let's just say I go slow around the curves on our lane now. :)

Mom had the family over for dinner a few Sunday nights ago... us kids played Parcheesi, a game we played all the time growing up. A simple game, but it was fun cuz it's just been forever since we've played it. Bridget had fun playing with her own pieces and kept telling us "I'm playing a game too."

 So precious... Bridget's looking at pictures of Heidi when she was young. Mom, all those scrapbooks over the years have paid off! :)

Last week we babysat for Bridget & Carter at our house. We finally can have the kiddos come to our house now that we have room! I went to my mom's before they came to get my Bitty Baby(from the American Girl doll store) stuff from when I was young. Bridget loved it... she played with it almost the entire night.

 She loved wearing this baby carrier.

These two are such pickels, but I love them to death!

This week Daniel was on spring break. So I took advantage of it, and decided to do a whole lot of stuff and have people over that we haven't seen in ages! Monday night Jenna, Adam and Elisabeth came over for dinner(I made some chili. :) I hadn't seen Jenna since Christmas... pathetic!

Us girls. Ignore how I look... this was taken really late and I was really ready to go to bed. :) Oh, and Elisabeth isn't crazy for having a sock on her hand... it was part of the game we were playing, Quelf.. I don't know if you've ever played it, but it's the most random game, and makes no sense whatsoever. It is funny though!

Everyone but Daniel... I love how us girls are so close together and Adam's a little loner on the other couch.

A far away picture, but you can see our living room for now... until our piano comes! Then it will go in that corner! :) We love to have friends over, but we kind of end up kicking them out.... Around 11 Daniel and I kinda drop some hints that we're ready to go to bed. We're so old. :)

Tuesday night Kendra came over... I forgot to take a picture, whoops! We just sat around for quite a while and talked up a storm... and then we dropped some hints that we were ready to go to bed! :) Most conversations these days when Kendra comes over are MEDICAL. With Daniel in nursing and Kendra being a nurse too already, they have a lot to talk about. I just sit and listen. :) Maybe I should do something medical....

Thursday night I failed to take a picture too. We had Fred(Jodi was gone), Seth L, and Joe over for dinner. We grilled kabobs and it was sooo good if I may say so myself... especially for only the 2nd time grilling! They didn't hang out too late... maybe because they're all older than us. :) It was fun though to have some guys over finally! Poor Daniel mostly hangs out with girls. :)

Friday night was the Mennonite Relief Sale. Hannah came with us! It's been way too long since she's hung out with us, so it was great to have her along.

We may have made a scene to take this picture, but we did it! :)

It was great week... but man, I'm struggling with my 4th cold since Christmas and I am exhausted. And it's not about to stop....

Today I got to work my first Saturday in a while. So no sleeping in for me! Gotta love tax season.

Other exciting news... my parents and I went and picked out a freezer today(Daniel was working)! I'm sooo excited to have a big upright freezer in my basement. Can't wait for it to come on Tuesday!

Hope you all are doing well! I am SO ready for some 50 degree weather!

Busy Life

My blog posts have been a little sparse... my apologies. We are very busy people. I know that sounds crazy since we don't even have any kids or anything... but we are constantly going. We don't have much going on that is out of our weekly routine... so if you want to know what we always do, here's a run-down. :) I'm sorry if this bores you, but here it is :)

• Every other Monday night I teach music lessons for the whole evening. I usually teach one other lesson during the week too when I can fit it in (thank goodness for such flexible students/parents while I wait to get a piano in my very own house!)
• We usually have people over at least once a week(lately it's been 2 nights a week...).
• We just started a "Faith" bible study with a random group of people at church. It's on Wednesday nights at 6 before church services. Which means I come home right after work and hop in the car with Daniel. It's been good though, getting know the people in our group better, and I have already learned so much and we've only been there one week.
• Daniel works a 16 hour shift every Friday or Saturday night...it switches back and forth.
• Weekends are always busy... always the house to clean or people to socialize with. :)
• And on top of all that.... we try to go to the gym/work out 3 evenings a week..... and I try to keep the house spic and span, and cook the meals....

I didn't think it would be that hard to work full-time and keep up a house, but it is. Big applause for moms who work full time and still get their house clean, meals cooked, stay fit and exercise, AND take care of your kids. You're supermoms!

Daniel is already on spring break. I can't believe he's already through his first semester of nursing school.... These 2 years are going to fly by! As I mentioned our busy schedule above, we don't have that many evenings just to do nothing and to relax without Daniel having to study. If we have a free night, we usually go to the gym, which means we don't get home until at least around 7:30-7:45 and don't eat dinner until around 8:30. Tomorrow night Daniel and I are going out to eat, and I can't believe how excited I am. Go out to eat, come home, and relax!! Ahh! I am a major quality time person, and especially since we don't get to do that much, I am SO looking forward to it! It would've been fun to go Florida or something over his break, but.... I am in the middle of tax season at work! I don't think they would've liked me to leave them! :)

And I'm so glad it's beginning to be warm again!! I'm tired of these treadmills, I want to run outside! :)

Fun Happenings

Today I was going through my pictures and realized that some of these had never been posted and written about on my blog, when they were totally worthy of that. :) So here are a few pictures that need to be seen by the world wide web. :)

Brittany and Tim were married the first weekend of January... kind of a while ago, but good enough friends that they must be blogged about. :) I love having Brittany in Roanoke....except between the two of us, it seems we're actually hardly there on the same Sunday. :)

 Daniel & I babysat Robert & Mary's boys one evening. We thought we would do something fun with them, so we went and got pizza. It was fun, especially babysiting them together. This picture is soo typical!!

Just last weekend we went up to Belvidere and visted Troy & Ellie and little Cyrus for the weekend. It was SUCH a good weekend. We were only there for about 24 hours, but so worth it. Troy & Daniel got to become friends and thankfully they get along quite well! And of course, you don't have to ask if Ellie and I got along. :) Looking forward to more weekends with this fun young couple that we enjoy being with so much!! Thanks Troy & Ellie! :)

Valentines Day & Mice

Haha, the title sounds so romantic, doesn't it? :)
I'm sure you are all dying to know what we did for our first Valentines Day. :)

I decided to pick up Chinese on the way home from work because I'm been wanting it SO badly. Apparently Daniel was going to surprise me with that... but I kinda jumped the gun on that one. Whoops! At least he thought of it first!

So I picked up Chinese and we ate dinner, we did a very large stack of dishes that has been piling up, and then we went "trapping" together. :) Haha... we went and checked our mouse traps in the basement. I discovered one behind the dryer(and it was still alive!) while I was doing laundry, and Daniel found another one dead. Gag.... that took our number up to 5 in the basement since we've moved. Ugghhh. I do NOT want mice in the house, but welcome to the country I guess!!

We have been so busy this week, we haven't even sat down in our new living room since we've moved. So we sat and relaxed. Daniel decided not to do any studying or homework. It was soo nice! We don't have an evening like that very often these days!


Speaking of mice.... this morning I was not happy at all. I found mouse droppings by my basket of onions & potatoes in the kitchen. Mice... you can be downstairs, we don't really use it... but STAY AWAY from my kitchen!! Every time I opened the cubboards this morning I jumped back.

So today at lunch I went and bought 12 mouse traps. A lot of them will be going in the garage, hoping we catch them before they make their new home the kitchen.

I don't like cats, but I am VERY tempted to get one to live in the garage/outside. I know my nieces and nephews would love it if I decided not to show it any love. :) Plus Daniel's family has a lot of kittens right now so it'd be simple to just take one home with us.


So the adventures start as we live in our new(but old farm) house...

It's almost here!

Moving day is almost here! Tomorrow morning we get to move to a house! We are very excited. Last night we drove to the house to drop a load of stuff off, and we seriously saw about 40 deer out in the field right by our house. After we saw that, Daniel asked me if we could live there forever. Haha, I don't think I want to be in that house forever, but we can live in the country forever! :)

Anyway, last Saturday was the first day we had the house. Daniel worked a 16 hr shift that day, so Mom, Heidi, Kendra and I all cleaned and scrubbed the place.

 Literally scrubbed. Kendra and I got on our hands and knees on the concrete basement floor. Ugh. Let's just say that it hurt to kneel in church the next day!

 Heidi scrubbed the horrible looking shower/tub. She got it to look a lot better though! Thanks to Shaklee's scrub! :)

 And my mother..was a trooper. She cleaned all the carpets and also helped wipe down walls, base boards, etc.

To say I was tired that night is an understatement. It felt so good to get all the dirt out of that house though! It's probably the cleanest it will ever be!

Since I'm SO excited to post pictures of the new house, especially as I begin to decorate, I thought I better post a few pictures of our apartment. Sorry my apartment wasn't cleaner... I took these when we had already started to move a bit. And the decor is slacking, because I didn't think it was worth it for just a few months.

 Our bedroom- view from the door

 View 2 of our bedroom

 View 3- don't you love the ironing board? :)

 This room is the "office." The place where Daniel studies. It's also sort of our junk room...we put stuff there when we don't know what to do with it! Like I said it's sort of mess, my apologies!

 The living room- looking quite bare.

 Kitchen/living room-- don't judge me by my messy kitchen. :/

The kitchen again-this was taken at a different time when I didn't have as many dishes. :)

And the little tiny bathroom with our pinkish toliet. Something I will not miss. I am so excited for more counter space and a bigger mirror in our new bathroom.

So that's it for now folks! It might be awhile until you see another post. Lots of boxes to sort through, and we don't have internet at our house yet.

Christmas Day

Christmas Eve night we went over to my Mom & Dad's. It's been a tradition that Heidi & Luke spend the night, even with kids, so we spent the night too.

It's so much fun. Especially waking up in the morning with the kiddos and having brunch together.

The kiddos got stockings... I guess we're too old for those now. :) I love Bridget's face in this picture. She got a headband with a mistletoe hanging from it... you will see her with it on in nearly every picture I have of her! She loves the thing!

We all went to church together Christmas day morning, except Dad was sick, so he wasn't able to come. After church we had a late lunch of prime rib.

The whole fam. We ate lunch while the kids were taking naps. :) It was much more enjoyable that way! I'd say Dad looks pretty good in this picture for being sick!

After the 2nd big meal of the day, we opened presents with a fire in the fireplace. Ahhh, my favorite time of the year.

 Bridget with her new doll house that she was QUITE protective of. Especially from Carter. :)

 Mom framed a picture for Luke of his favorite time of the year...harvest time with Uncle Tom.

 Dad's new hat that Luke gave him. :)

 Adam gave me Crate & Barrel bowls that I LOVE! Haha, I also got folding chairs from my parents... oh the things you ask for when you have a house of your own!

 First Christmas together.

 Like I mentioned, she LOVED the hilarious headband.

 Oh this girl brings us so much JOY. She keeps us all smiling!!

It was a very FUN two days with family.

Although, like I mentioned, my Dad was sick with the flu. Unfortunately, he didn't enjoy our family Christmas very much. Almost my whole family got it after Christmas Day. Oh well, it was well worth it I suppose! :)

Leman Christmas

On Christmas Eve we went to Mom & Dad Leman's for lunch. It was such a GOOD lunch. We each brought a Chinese dish, which included several stir frys, crab ragoons, egg rolls, fried rice, all the works.

Like most Christmases, the day was full of eating, talking, games, and gifts. One thing that was different is we reenacted the Christmas story. Grandma Knapp had all the costumes(which is a lot) that she made for her grandkids to do this same thing every Christmas.  

 I had Shiloh's name for Christmas...I gave him a little piggy bank. He loved it so much he sleeps with it quite often. :)

 Here is the Nativity scene. We actually have a Mary & a Joseph, along with a baby! :)

 Fred & Jodi's family. Such a darling picture. Letty truly is a little angel!

 Robert & Mary's family

 Daniel & I in our costumes. I think we mostly dressed up for the pictures. ;)

 Grandpa was reading to the boys. This picture is SO typical!

 Me & Elisabeth. I am so blessed with such a wonderful sister-in-law! Can't wait for her to get married so we can do things together as couples! :)

 All the brothers except for Timothy

 Elisabeth & sweet little Asher

 Eating the great Chinese food!

Jodi crocheted all the boys slippers for Christmas presents. I'm pretty sure they all loved them!

It was of course a wonderful Christmas Eve. So fun to be in a new family and learn their traditions. Makes me excited to make OUR very own traditions when we have a family!