Some News

Here are some pictures of Ali and Nana, from Nana's visit this weekend. Ali greatly enjoyed the visit, and had lots of fun learning and performing the actions to "If You're Happy and You Know It" and being read lots of books. Nana even read Ali two books before bedtime! What a treat! We all had fun as Arlene visited my church (Faith in Huntington Beach) and took us out to dinner to celebrate receiving a call.

About that...I have received a call to be pastor at First Lutheran Church in Concord, California. I'll be heading up there the first weekend in March for an official visit. Please keep us in your prayers as we consider this opportunity to serve God in the East Bay area.

Anna's staying healthy with the pregnancy, although she seems to have more morning sickness than usual. Nana swears it's going to be a boy because she never got morning sickness with her girls.

Things we need to post

1. New pictures of Ali, who is still as cute as ever, and is growing like a weed.
2. Information about Jed's current job situation.
3. Great family time with Ben and Jen.
4. Baby number two, due in October.

All will be updated in the next week or so; stay tuned.

2007 Ends! 2008 Begins!

Happy 2008 everybody! Mommy and Daddy let me write another blog thingy. They said it's a new year, 2008. So far not much has happened this year, but I thought I'd let you know what happened in 2007.

I had lots of fun this year at Christmas. This year I'm 16, which is much older than last year when I was 4 at Christmas. I was too little to open the presents last year, but I'm basically a pro at it now. Let me share the steps with you.

Step 1: Tear off a piece of wrapping paper
Step 2: Give it to Mommy.
Step 3: Tear off another piece of wrapping paper.
Step 4: Give it to Daddy.
Step 5: Repeat until Mommy and Daddy give me another present.

Another thing to do that's a lot of fun is when I see Mommy and Daddy eating "Christmas Candy" or "Cookies" I walk up to them with my mouth wide open and sign "Please." They know what "please" means since I've taught them well.

So as you can tell, Christmas was wonderful. We spent time together as a family, just the three of us. We went to church and sat together (Daddy didn't have a service Christmas morning) and ate and enjoyed presents.

On Saturday we spend the day in a place called San Diego. It was a fun day trip. We went to the Science Center and I ran around a lot because there was way cool stuff, and stairs that Daddy let me climb. Then I fell asleep and woke up at a place Mommy called Konos. She let me eat some of her egg burrito and then we took a walk. I walked almost all the way down to the beach and this old lady said some bad words to some people and then she said she was sorry to me and said I was darling. Mommy agreed with her about the last part. We had dinner with a friend of Daddy's from high school (Tim Jette). He and his wife have three year old twins named Adam and Patrick, which seem to be pretty popular names since I now have two friends with each of those names. I had a blast.

I also wanted to point out to you some of my artwork. It was supposed to be a private showing so I locked the door so Daddy couldn't come in, but he walked in through the doors to our porch. Mommy was a little angry that the restaurant didn't give us washable crayons, but I thought it would look good no matter what. She used a lot of elbow grease and a Magic Eraser to get the job done.

Anyway, thank you for all your presents. I especially like my books and toys and clothes. And hugs. If you come and visit me I can reward you with a slobbery kiss. I'm good at those, Daddy says.

Bye for now!

New pics

We had our pictures taken last week as a part of a fundraiser for my MOPS group. Here are a few to tide you over until the Christmas cards come out...

Ali blowing kisses...
Playing the "Let's grab Daddy's face" game...
Kisses from Mommy and Daddy!

Found!

The camera is found, so here are some new pictures of the not-so little girl.

Her new skills:

She is looking at her Jesus doll. When we ask "What do we do with Jesus?" Ali folds her hands. She also knows to pray before meals.

Her favorite toy: This box of Sesame Street books. We find them everywhere in our house. Recently, she enjoys handing them to us and saying "thae tyoo"...the closest we can get to how it sounds.

She signs "more" very well (as in the picture) , as well as "please". She says dada, mama, and nana(banana), no and up.

Just for fun, here is a picture from a year ago as well. It makes us realize how big she is!

What's new with us? Not much. Really, we just wanted to tell about our little girl.

A Snow Day, of sorts...

Yesterday was quite an interesting day of teaching...

As most of you have heard, 16 wildfires are currently burning throughout Southern California. One is, as Jed put in to his parents "still at least three miles away from our house". Now, we really are not in danger, but the air quality is quite poor, as you can imagine. Little piles of ash were outside my classroom door yesterday, and even the walk to the bathroom would send my students into coughing fits. So, yesterday at noon, we started calling parents and had them come pick up their kids, and we called off school for today...because of the "snow" (aka ash) that is still falling.

Now, as I said, we are safe, but some of my students were evacuated. The picture shows one of the fires. To the left is the city of Foothill Ranch. Several of my students live there. Please pray for them, and for the overworked firefighters. They believe arson is the cause of this and several other fires burning in the area.

We'll keep you updated!

More Pics for You!

Ali is ready for football season!

Ali Maschke is relaxing with Ali Gator.