Two Weeks In Africa...

February 27, 2014

Dear Friends and Family,

This summer, we (Jed and Anna) have the privilege of being members of a short-term mission team through MOST Ministries (Mission Opportunities Short Term).  As our final experience as a part of the Pastoral Leadership Institute, we will be joining several of our dearest friends in ministry as we form an Eyeglass Team headed to Tanzania from July 25 to August 6, 2014.

We will be serving in Khama, Tanzania where we will hold an eyeglass clinic for several nearby villages.  Many people will travel (often walk) hours to get to these clinics.

Our teams needs the prayers of other Christians.  We are asking you to consider being a prayer partner for us, the team, and the ministry it will provide in Tanzania.  We will be working with pastors in the community to share the Gospel message as well as providing for a tangible need for many of the people in the area.  Our goal is to help in a physical way, serve as a witness to Christ and encourage local church workers in Tanzania.

Please pray for our team as we learn and prepare for this ministry.  There is much to do before we leave.  We are currently in the process of collecting old eyeglasses.  If you have a pair of glasses you no longer need, we will collect them from you to pass on to others who can use them.

Pray for travel plans, safety and schedules of our team members.  This trip requires many hours of travel and our team will be coming together from various parts of the United States.  Please also pray for those that will be caring for our children while we are gone.

As team members, we are responsible for our own travel, lodging, food and other expenses.  If you would like to contribute to these expenses, please make the checks payable to Jedidiah Maschke and sent to 279 Cloverbrook Circle, Pittsburg, CA  94565.  Please put “Tanzania trip” on the Memo line. If you would like to contribute online, you may do so through our church’s online giving page: go to www.flcconcord.org and click “Simply Giving” Online, where you can donate a special offering to us and write “Tanzania” in the box to the right of the amount.

Thank you for your support on this trip!

In Christ,

Jedidiah and Anna Maschke

My Little Fairytale Mix Book by Ali

My Little Fairytale Mix Book

by Alaethea Maschke

Once upon a time, Little Red Riding Rapunzel was taking cookies to her Grandmother when she saw Papa Bear.

It started to rain. When Little Red Riding Rapunzel saw the BIG BAD WOLF, she ran and Ran and RAN!

When Little Red Riding Rapunzel got to Grandmother's cottage, she gave her the cookies, and the Big Bad Wolf's tree fell down and he got rained on.

The Bear tried to find Little Red Riding Rapunzel, but she switched the signs so the Bear was like "Uh Oh, it's the end of the story," and he never found Little Red Riding Rapunzel.

The End

Spectacular at Seven

Hello, my sorely neglected blog.  I'm not sure you will ever be a regular occurrence, but if at least Birthday posts get up, I will be happy.

We celebrated Ali's 7th Birthday today.  Seven seems old.  You are no longer a little kid.  Ali is just getting so big.

So, what is our seven year old Alaethea Ruth like?

She is passionate.  She cares deeply about things.  She's a rule follower, and likes it when others follow the rules as well.

She's our creator.  She loves to make things.  She loves to give handmade things to others.

She loves being with others.  She loves making new friends.

When we asked her what she wanted for her birthday, she couldn't really come up with anything.  Finally, she said "I really just want to go to San Fransisco for the day with you."  Um, we can do that.  So today Ali and I took BART into the city and had a fun day.  We went to the Exploratorium.  It was fun to be there with just her. We wandered around, made art, and had a great lunch where we could talk, uninterrupted.  I asked her some questions when we were there.  Here's what I learned about my seven year old.

Favorite color:  Pink
Favorite toy:  Samantha (my American Girl doll that I passed down to her)
Favorite fruit: Strawberries
Favorite TV show:  Fetch! with Ruff Ruffman
Favorite thing to wear:  Shirt, skirt and leggings
Favorite food:  Mac and cheese
Favorite Game:  Crazy Eights
Favorite animal:  Giraffe
Favorite Song:  California Gurl (an extremely edited version)
Favorite Book: Frindle
What she wants to be when she grows up:  An art teacher and a babysitter.


Since the few people that see this will have already seen the pictures on facebook, here's a different one of my newly minted seven year old.
I love you to the moon and back, Alaethea!

Here Ali is in the monochromatic room at the Exploratorium.  She got some jelly beans and then we had to guess the color before she ate them. Fun and interesting!

I One, no, Free!

That is what Abi will tell you if you ask how old she is.  Apparently, she has decided to just skip being two.   That is just so Abi:  she knows what she wants and she doesn't think anyone else should tell her what to do!
We love our little spitfire.  Abi is full of life, has a great sense of humor and is as charming as anyone can be. She gives a mean hug, and ADORES her Baby dolls.  Since she was constantly stealing Ali's Bitty Baby (Curly), we decided to give her her own Bitty Baby (she calls it Baby Abi).  Abi was so excited to get her new baby and has played with her almost exclusively for the last week.

Her birthday was a quiet, family affair.  We had her request of pancakes, eggs and funfetti cupcakes for dinner and she loved having Happy Birthday sung to her.

Abi's biggest news is that she started preschool today (the 13th).  She seemed a bit apprehensive, but her best buddy, Josiah (or Bubba, as she calls him) was there to help her out.

Now that the birthday craziness is done, we can gear up for Thanksgiving and Christmas!

Turning Four and Feeling Fine

Josiah had a wonderful fourth birthday filled with dragons, trucks, pizza, Chuck E. Cheese and many, many Angry Birds.

This is the first year that Josiah has asked for a Birthday Party.  We tell the kids that to have a party somewhere other than our house, their guest list must be smaller than six.  Ali has never been able to pare down her list that much.  Josiah did not have that problem.  We invited five kids; two were able to come and Josiah was just fine with that.  He loved the crown and balloon he got and was super excited to take a turn in the "Ticket Blaster"

We celebrated with pizza and Angry Birds cupcakes and he was given a remote control dump truck and a dragon (a very popular toy in our house!).  The next day, his actual Birthday, was a quiet day at home.  We gave him some Angry Bird games and toys and he is having fun playing with them as well as pretending he has his own Angry Bird You Tube Channel.

Josiah is a kind, considerate boy.  He is my buddy.  He loves his Veggie Tales, Angry Birds and making music.  He's not sure what he wants to be when he grows up yet; some days he wants to be a doctor, other days he wants to be an Angry Bird.  When I tell him that I love him to the moon and back, he loves to remind me that the moon is far, far away.

A bit of a catch up

We have done the following things:
Celebrated Easter
Finished Kindergarten
Visited Wisconsin
Went to camp
Started 1st Grade
Celebrated Ali's 6th Birthday

Here are some picture to prove that we did the things mentioned above:

 Easter 2012:  Josiah: 3 1/2 (in his favorite color, purple), Ali: 5 1/2, Abi: 17 months

 Pictures from the first and last day of Kindergarten.  Ali adored her teacher, Ms. Lum.

 Ali's first grade goals:  To make new friends and to learn to spell more words correctly.

For her birthday, Ali and I went to see the Kellogg's Tour of Gymnastic Champions.  It was a fun night of making memories.  And, Ali was over the moon to be able to watch Aly Raisman's Gold Medal Floor Routine live!
Hopefully, most posts will come soon to prove that we do, in fact, have three children and that they get their time as well...

Great Kansas Adventure of 2012

We had a wonderful trip to Kansas.  It started with a slight snafu which resulted in Jed not traveling with us to Kansas (but I did manage to stay fairly calm flying with the three kids).  We were reunited as a family at the Potter's and had a great trip traveling across Kansas (and a bit of Nebraska) visiting family.  Ali made a list of things to do.  We managed to do it all.  Here was her list:

Play with Aunt Carrie's toy kitchen

Cook with Nana

Go to a park

Play in Snow

See Mom's toys

Do a craft

See Grandpa Hasty's grave

Watch a movie at Nana's

My list included seeing all the family.  Here is the pictorial proof.

Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderfully quiet Christmas afternoon, enjoying dinner, opening presents, and spending time as a family.

We pray that all our family and friends near and far had wonderful days as well, and are still enjoying the ten days of Christmas left!

Number Three is One!

I didn't forget about this little one.  She's now One!  We had a low key family day...we opened presents, ate pizza and carrot cake (or "Laura cake" as our Veggie Tale loving son calls it.  Ten points if you understand why he says that.)

Abi is a joy.  She smiles, laughs, and loves her brother and sister.  She signs "eat" and "please" and would eat her weight in cheese if we would let her.  She is wonderfully average in height and weight (20 pounds and 29 inches) and took her three shots like a champ.

The obligatory pictures are below.  We love you Abigail Charis!

Unsure of what to think about the candle.

Very happy after eating the frosting (and cake).

Watching football with Daddy.

Halloween 2011

I think that Josiah's favorite holiday is Halloween.  What other day can you walk around and request candy?  A dream come true for my little three year old.

Here are the kids as Junior Asparagus, Cinderella, and a dragon (a costume that has been well loved in my family)  Also, Ali and her pumpkin.  Josiah didn't want that picture taken.

When I Three...

"When I three" was a phrase Josiah loved to use in the last few weeks.  Now that's he is three, he's giving himself a bit more time..."When I five" is is favorite phrase, especially when he's trying to get out of doing something.

Josiah loved singing "Happy Birthday" and blowing out his candles.  He was over the moon to go to Chuck E. Cheese and play games and enjoyed his "Larry Bob cake"--my first attempt at designing anything  in the world of cake.  I was happy Josiah knew who was on the cake!

Here's to our buddy, Josiah.  I pray three is a great year for you!

Fabulous at Five

I still sometimes wonder how this baby

became this little girl (who wants to be a cheerleader/teacher/mom/artist when she grows up)

She had a great week!  We celebrated as a family at Chuck E. Cheese on a very quiet Wednesday night.  Thursday she gave two new books to her classroom (they don't do class parties) and then had five friends over for a party today.  Here's some pictures of the fun.

Happy Birthday to our beautiful girl.  Ali, you are joy to all who know you!

First Day of School

Ali's now a week into to school and loves it.  She's is learning to "sit smart", practicing all kinds of school routines and making new friends.  Here's a few pictures from the first day.

 Leaving the house on the first day.

 After we dropped off Josiah at school, we went and had coffee (or hot chocolate in Ali's case) and talked about her goals for the year.  She decided she wanted to have the chance to write on the board and read a hard book ("like my Dora books")  I'm looking forward to seeing if she meets her goals!

We picked up a gift card for her teacher and she drew a card for her.  It's a bit hard to see, but it is a picture of Ali and her teacher smelling some flowers.

I'm sure you will hear more about school as the year goes on!

Some Late Summer Pictures

For your enjoyment, here are some pictures I (Jed) took. This is Ali after getting her face painted at "A Taste of Concord" on Sunday afternoon:

And this is Josiah, with Elmo on his cheek.

The next is Ali at her friend Alyssa's birthday party on Saturday...a Hawaiian theme, as you can tell.

And finally, Josiah as we took a ride on the Redwood Express, a miniature steam train in Tilden Park.

Our Little Graduate

Jed and I sat down tonight and said "really, we have a child old enough to graduate?"  Yes, we do.  Ali's now a preschool graduate (but told me tonight not to call her a kindergartener yet).  Ali took center stage and sang her songs, wore her cap and gown, and graduated.