Christmas really is the best time of the year!!!

Check out my babies! We have had so much fun this Christmas! We went Christmas shopping and the kids were so good! They also got to visit Santa and they loved it. Then tonight we had a blast at the GP Westchester Christmas party where we got to ride on a real horse trolley! Whew! We sure do love Christmas and all the fun ways to celebrate our Saviour! Enjoy the pictures!!!

Pictures of my kiddos are my favorite thing!

BUT my computer has some major issues with uploading that I am working on right now. I will literally sit here for over an hour trying to upload pictures!!!

These are the things I am trying to do:
I am trying to create some Photo Books to put together some memories of my kiddos. I don't have much time to do scrapbooking right now with my Master's keeping me so busy so Photo Books are the best alternative. http://www.shutterfly.com

I am also trying to make some Photo calendars to give away for Christmas presents! http://www.shutterfly.com/calendars

I created some amazingly simple and adorable Christmas photo cards last year and everyone complimented my skills! http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/christmas-photo-cards

And if we were having a fun Christmas party (maybe next year) we would use these: http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/christmas-invitations

We are so excited about this year because we have so many fun pictures to share with everyone on these awesome Shutterfly products! Now if I can only get my upload to work!!!!

What a great date!!! 10/10/10

We have been insanely busy!!! I feel like I write that each time I come on here but it's true. Since school started for me, both work and graduate, we've been going 100 miles an hour! Just to be transparent with you all this is our weekly schedule:

Monday- Justin stays home with the kids until 3 when a dear high school girl from church comes over to watch the kiddos. I get home from graduate school Monday nights, the kids are all asleep and Justin gets home from counseling later.

Tuesday- Justin stays home with the girls on Tuesdays and is also the transportation for Mikah to and from his new preschool from 9-2. He is doing great! We are so thankful that we are able to take him to preschool (with the help from the grandparents) because he so needs the school environment to get him ready for kindergarten. Tuesday nights I get home after Glee Club (yes I founded the Glee Club at my school and I love it!) around 5:30 and this is our family night together. We try to go to a park or take a jog/bike ride around the neighborhood. Something for us to do together to reconnect.

Wednesday- Justin works at the church all day while Aunt Richelle watches the kids (all 5 of them including her 2) and I get home around 5:45 from work and faculty meeting (ugh). Then I clean the kids up and get Mikah and Feliciti ready for Awanas. This is a Christian boy/girl scouts and we thought it would be really important for Feliciti to have some social interaction as well as a school-like environment since we can't afford to have her go to preschool. Good idea Mom and Dad! Feliciti really is excelling and I am so proud of her strides in obeying the teachers! Awanas is pretty short: from 6:30 to 8 in which I usually take Madilyn home to jog around the neighborhood and get her in her PJ's. Then we pick up the big kids and bring them home for bedtime. Justin gets home from counseling later.

Thursday- Ditto for Tuesday since Mikah has preschool and also ditto for our family night. Although twice a month we go to a larger family night including all of the Ziebarths and have a blast with the cousins, Yaya and Granddad, Mama and Papa and the aunts and uncles.

Friday- This is the only day that we have nothing set planned each week. Justin stays home with all the kids and I try to get off work right at 4:30. We have various activities planned for Fridays.

Saturday- We really try to take Saturdays as easy as we can to reconnect and to rest up. We do have things planned time to time: for example, yesterday we watched Reagan and Eli and had a blast seeing life with kids with 5! Umm..yeah that's not going to happen! Also next Saturday we are going to head over to the other cousin's house, Judah, and spend the evening with them!

Sunday- We always go to our church in the morning (10:30 service) and then home for nap and lunch. Sunday nights we have life group with our dear friends from church where we get to life life together. This is one of the highlights of my week as I feel so at ease there. We aim to build each other up since life gets so darn hard sometimes!

There you have it Blog World. This is our crazy, hectic world...but it's our world. I will be graduating in May with my Masters in Math and it can't come any sooner! I am trying to get all my classes in, trying to maintain all A's, and trying to write my thesis project...yeah it's not all getting done right now. Also, we do actually take lots of pictures of the kids but we lost the cord to download the pictures so all you have is words right now. Eventually we will get with it...but honestly guys, to be real...sometimes it's enough for us to be able to smile at the end of the day and hold each other. Our busyness has brought Justin and I closer together and we give ALL GLORY TO THE LORD!!! None of this could be done without Him and His patience, His strength, and sometimes Him holding us up!

End of Summer is So Hard!!

My summer is officially over today...we had Convocation today at the Verizon theater in GP.
And guess what?!? Madilyn started walking today!!! I missed it!!! It was so hard! Justin called me and left a message and told me how it happened. She was upstairs and playing with her brother and sister and then she was standing there at Mikah's door. Then she started walking toward the bathroom like she had been walking forever! It was so crazy! Justin said she was so confident and knew exactly what she was doing!

He did manage to get her second walk on camera which made me so happy! My baby girl is growing up ladies and gentleman! I am so proud of her!

We had a really great summer...we got to go to 2 family vacations...Madilyn turned 1...we got to go to Hawaiian Falls at least once a week...Justin passed his national counseling exam...Feliciti is turning 3 this week...and now Madilyn is walking!

No pictures this time...some next time!

Some Fun Summer Pictures

These are some random fun summer pictures that we have taken recently. The first picture shows the state of Feliciti's hair at each meal since she always gets herself dirty!!! For some reason she likes to touch her hair even if she has food on her hands!! =) But she is my messy Princess!!!
The kids had sprinkler fun in the backyard! Doesn't the grass look great? =) Justin did an amazing job! Yaya and Granddad got this sprinkler for Mikah's 4th birthday and we finally got to use it!
This is Madilyn playing and having a blast! She loves playing with her brother and sister especially if it means she can get wet!















The kids always have lots of fun and keep us very busy! What a great life the Lord has given us!

My Baby Madilyn turned 1!!!

Madilyn Kyle Ziebarth turned 1 on June 27. I can't believe our baby is already 1. She has been the absolute best baby there ever could be. The Lord truly blessed us with her; she is the most calm, loving, funny, sweet, amazing princess we could have ever asked for.
She loved having everyone there for her party! Her Yaya made a beautiful pink cupcake for her first cake and she loved it! Below is a picture of her taking a second out of enjoying her yummy cake to take a picture with Mom and Dad. She started timidly touching the icing but then she held nothing back!

Below you can see her completely covered in cake!! Dad and Bobo came up with a new trick where they would tickle Madilyn with a fork on her head and then she would itch her head with her cake-hand!!! They did this to her head and her ear and her back...you get the picture. Then Daddy got to give her a bath! =)
After her bath, she got to open her presents! She got lots of cute clothes, a toy box from Mommy and Daddy and a few toys. Here is Madilyn enjoying one of her new books.
The Lord really did His finest work when He created my kiddos...but He must have been in a really good mood on June 27,2009!!! Here is a picture of our angel when she was only about a month old at her baby dedication. What an angel...

First Complete Family Vacation!!!

Last week we had our first family vacation!! We went to Mema and Papa Jay's first and then to Beaver's Bend, Oklahoma. We had a blast! At Mema and Papa's we had tons of fun picking vegetables from the garden, eating ice cream cones, fishing and just spending great time with Mema and Papa. It means so much to see my kids spending time with my amazing grandparents. They are truly the best grandparents anyone could ever had and it is such a blessing for me to see my kiddos enjoying them as much as I do!

Below is Feliciti enjoying some nice relaxing ice cream cone time!

In Beaver's Bend we had lots of nature walks, some fishing, an attempt at swimming in the lake, riding on the train, and lots of fun family time! Here are some fun pictures of us having a great time!

Mikah turns 4!!!

We had Mikah's 4th birthday party April 24th at our new house and it was so much fun!!! We literally had over 40 people there kids and adults combined. It was a blast! I wanted to attach some pictures of it as well as some baby pictures of my big boy! I truly can't believe how big he has gotten and how much he has changed! Above this is Mikah enjoying jumping in the bounce house we got which he personally requested!Below is Mikah getting ready to do some serious pinata hitting! He also personally asked for a pinata which we are sure he learned from watching Dora!
Above you can see Mikah's awesome SpiderMan cake and cupcakes his Yaya made him! Thanks Yaya! He loved his cake and the gummy spiders too!
This is Mikah's new Spiderman bike and helmet! We got him the bike and his Mimi got him his helmet. He looks so big riding it and is still adjusting to the training wheels.
This is Mikah at 3 months old...man he is has changed our lives dramatically! He started our family from 2 to 3...he taught us how to love someone else with all our beings...he made us see life for something so much more precious than we had ever seen it! He showed us how the Lord loves us...unconditionally, aware of our faults but loves us anyway! Since Mikah has blessed our lives, Justin and I have finally witnessed how the Lord must love us so much in spite of our faults. We are His blessed children...what a great way for the Lord to show us a fraction of how He feels...
This is Mikah eating his first birthday cake ever! His first sugar ever! It has been an amazing 4 years and I praise God for allowing us to be in this journey with our wonderful son!

Easter blessings!

We had such a great Easter!!

All weekend long we were building up how much fun Easter was going to be and the kids were getting so excited! This year, we focused on explaining to Mikah a little more than last year about Jesus' Resurrection. Last year we weren't ready to teach Mikah about death so we taught him that for us Jesus disappeared and reappeared 3 days later. This year he asked a lot of questions and really got it (the best way a an-almost-4-year-old can.) =) It was so great to see him accepting this awesome pillar of our faith!

On Saturday afternoon we went to our amazing church's egg hunt at a Mansfield elementary school. We had a blast! The kids got TONS of eggs and I will post these pics next since there are so many of them.

On Easter morning Mikah woke up asking where the egg hunt was! Don't worry everyone...On our way to church we kept reminding the kiddos the reason we celebrate Easter-- Feliciti would say "Yeah!" and Mikah would ask some more questions. =) After church we went to Mimi and Papa's (my parents) to hunt eggs and eat some lunch. We got to spend some time with Bibi and Bobo and my adorable nephew Judah! We had so much fun seeing them since we are all always so busy.

After naptime and lots of candy, we went over to Yaya and Granddad's house (Justin's parents) to get more food and more egg hunting! We had a blast there until the kiddos starting getting really tired and cranky. We got to see Yaya, Granddad, Uncle David, Aunt Chelle, Reagan, Aunt Crystal, Uncle Matthew, Israel, Mama and Papa. It was lots of fun!

Now on to my absolute favorite picture of all time! This is the first real family picture we have had since Madilyn was born. Aren't the kiddos getting so big? And they are absolutely gorgeous!!!! I am such a proud mom and I am incredibly blessed!!!!

Geez time flies by!

Hello Blog World! Here I am. I have been MIA for quite some time now and I am so sorry! This post will be all words just updating everyone on the house situation and my precious family.

House Update: Well...we are currently waiting for the underwriters to finish all of the paperwork so that we can finally close! Who knew this process was going to take this long?!?!?! We are trying so hard to be patient but come on! We sold our house in September and here it is almost March and we still are living with our family! ---Here is where I praise the Lord with all that I have celebrating His plan by allowing us to have family close by with houses big enough for us to live in!!!---
We have been living with Justin's parents since the week before Christmas. They might be ready for us to get out of there but hopefully it will be soon! The house is 98% ready- all that is left is painting the baseboards and cleaning! Whew our house is dusty! We are all anxiously waiting and praying for the big move-in.

Precious Madilyn Update: Madilyn is officially crawling now!!! I CAN'T BELIEVE IT! She started out crawling backwards and then finally got the hang of it. She is babbling so much and can say 'Dada' and has said 'Mama' once. Madilyn turns 8 months old in 2 days and is breathtakingly gorgeous if I do say so myself. We get stopped so often with people exclaiming how pretty she is...I love it!

Big Girl Feliciti Update: Feliciti is growing up so much!! She can carry on a whole conversation with you now and she is so smart! She is our cautious, shy angel who has a stubborn streak! =) She is also our 'Cuddle Bug' and loves to be picked up and held! Guess who her best friend is...MIKAH! She and him play together all the time and they have so much fun! She is also traffic-stopping gorgeous and can steal your heart with just one look!

Mikah is officially Old Update: Mikah is grown up! He understands so much, he asks questions all the time to learn the things he doesn't know and he is so smart! He is approximately 98% potty training with the 2 % pertaining to naptime and nighttime. He is doing so good! He is becoming our little buddy with his increased understanding and I love just talking to him! He is still my handsome Justin-clone and he loves to cuddle in short snippets of time when he is not playing!

Justin and I Update: In 12 days Justin and I will celebrate our 8 year wedding anniversary and we are so excited! At the end of March, we are going to take a much-needed weekend of R&R and TLC at my aunt and uncle's cabin! We are loving every second of being our 3 angel's parents and the Lord shows us every single day His love for us through our babies.

Ok Blog World, I will definitely try to be more consistent with blogging. Honestly, life has been so upsetting and stressful lately that I didn't want to share how hard it's been for us. But now you know...we have been living with our parents/in-laws for 8 months now and it's hard...really hard...we are ready for our family alone time...we are ready for our couple alone time...we are ready for our normal life to be back.

1 Chronicles 16:34 Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.