I was doing so good...

I was doing so good on getting caught up on my blog! Yes, I am still alive and well and can't wait to get caught up so I can start blogging about things in the present instead of always having to think back as to what happened three weeks ago! ha ha. So for now, I'll share with why I am a horrible blogger at times! The hardest part for me is the pictures. I love pictures and I take a ton of them and it is so hard to decide which ones I want to post on my blog to go with my stories. So I have to narrow them all down, then go through and resize them all to make them smaller so they will load quicker on blogger, and then post them and write about them. Well, ok, for me it's really hard! I can never decide what pictures! And of course now I have other things I need to blog about! I have spent the last few days with my friends Wendy and Erin who were here visiting. We had a good time but I am exhausted now! I can't wait to get home for a nap today! Well, I need to get a few things done at school before I leave and maybe I can get my pictures chosen tonight and either blog tonight or at least get the pictures done so I can blog tomorrow!!!!!

Day of Fun with Grace and Sam!

So I had many days of fun with Grace and Sam while I was home but here are a few highlights! They are at such a fun age to take them to do things and they can be independent enough that they enjoy things and also that they can do some things for themselves now too! One day we were at the mall shopping, my mom, sister, Grace and I and the boys all decided to come join us for dinner and for some play time. At the mall they have this big bungee jump/trampoline type of thing that the kids can jump in. I think it kind of pulled them up and they didn't even have to do all that much jumping! Sam really enjoyed it!!! He went really high up there.

Grace enjoyed it until the end when she was going really high and when she would come down low, she would say, "Aunt Kammie, I'm getting a little scared." It was pretty funny.

One Sunday afternoon before I left, we all went out to lunch at this place called Five Guys Burgers and Fries. It had really good burgers and good homemade fries as well!!! They have peanuts there that you can eat while you are waiting for your food I guess. Grace is the nutcracker as she loves opening the peanuts for everyone. She eats a few of them but enjoys just cracking them better! In fact, she was sitting on them to crack them!

We sat Nate up on the sacks of potatoes that they make the fries out of!

Sam, probably drinking my diet Coke! ha ha

And yes, Aunt Kammie even spoils these kids with some high quality tastes by getting them Starbucks hot chocolate! It's so hard not to spoil these cute little faces though!!!!

For our special day before I left, I took Grace and Sam downtown to Crown Center. Our day started off by eating breakfast at IHOP which is definitely my thing that I do with them when I go home. They love it, as I do too! Then I drove them downtown and we got our tickets for Kaleidescope. It is this place that has a bunch of leftovers from Hallmark and the kids can make whatever crafts that they want. They even have this cool puzzle machine where you color on this cardboard piece and then put it through the puzzle machine and it cuts out a puzzle for you from your picture. Pretty cool. I have taken the kids there a few times but they are enjoying it more and more. We had some time before Kaleidescope so we went and played on the outdoor toys there since it was such a beautiful day. The kids had a good time!

With the giant nutcracker!

In front of the famous Kansas City fountains. In the summer I am going to take them back there, because you can wear your swimming suit and run through the fountains! I can't wait for them to do that. And next winter, I am going to take them back down there and take them ice skating on the rink that is there!!!

Working hard on a project at Kaleidescope!

They have all these markers, paints, tape, glue, cut up paper, etc to make crafts out of. The kids love it!!!


Fun times!

Guatemalan Sobrinos

The word for niece and nephews in Spanish is sobrinos, so I am always talking about mis sobrinos here in Guatemala! I took home some Guatemalan gifts for mis sobrinos in the United States! I even tell them to call me tia Kammie, for aunt Kammie in Spanish! Grace is always asking me what her name and how I say other things in Spanish! It's really cute! Here is Grace when she opened up her Guatemalan shirt!

Sam insisted on putting his jersey on for the rest of the night after he opened his. He looked so cute!

And Nate really liked his Guatemalan kitty cat! He loves cats and can say "meow meow" so it was really cute!

I got Sam and Nate hacky sacks from Guatemala. I'm not sure they really eat them but whatever! ha ha. They really liked these, in fact, I think I need to get Grace one next time!
Don't they look cute in their little jerseys. Nate's was a little bit big but he can grow into it! :)

Little Guatemalan worker!

We weren't too successful in the photo op with our Guatemalan jerseys on. It wasn't until I bribed the kids to take them to Starbucks that they finally put them back on! ha ha.

About as good as it gets!

Me and Nate!

It's more like a dress on him!

This was as good as it got for a picture with all of us together!!! ha ha

Grace and Sam were the ones getting the bribe to Starbucks!

Grace and Tia Kammie!

Christmas Eve with the family!

Not sure if this was Christmas Eve or not, but it is just so fun to be back home and be with my niece and nephews at Christmas time. I just love spending as much time as I can with them! Here we all were watching TV one morning, still in pajamas, my favorite thing! :)

On Christmas Eve, we went to church at my sister's church. My nephew was singing in one service and my niece was singing in the next service. I got to hold little sleeping Nate during the services.
Grace didn't do such a hot job singing her song! She didn't know any of the words and just stood there and looked cute. Which you can see she managed to do a pretty good job!! This was actually while we were sitting in church during the service that Sam sang in!

The pictures of Sam singing did not turn out good at all, but here is one that you can kind of see what he did. He knew the words and sang his song really well that he was supposed to be singing, but about halfway through he decided that he was kind of tired and needed to rest on the ledge in front of him!

With all the nieces and nephews on Christmas Eve after church in our Christmas clothes! (Well the kids at least!)

Me and Sam

Sam, well, just being Sam!

And more of just being Sam!

me and our little miracle, Nate!

All the girls in our family: my sister, Kellie, me, mom, sister Kristi, and Grace in the front!

Sam loves puzzles so here he was working his that he got for Christmas. He is so cute. Everytime he got a gift he wanted to stop right then and use it or play with it before he opened something else.

Sam and Grace got their scooters out to use to pass out the presents to everyone. Nate thought it looked like fun and that he needed a turn.

Nate, being cute!

Sam, writing in his notepad!

Christmas Day with the family

Christmas is so much more fun when there are kids around. Nothing beats seeing the joy on their faces when they open presents that they are so excited about and watching them! I love spending Christmas day with my niece and nephews and they have added so much joy to our family. I have gotten into the habit of spending Christmas Eve at my sister's house so that I don't have to get up and get ready in the morning and am just there for when the kids are opening presents. Otherwise I probably wouldn't get to her house until like noon when everything was over! This year I went to sleep after everyone and went to bed in Sam's top bunk of his bunk beds. I'm not sure the kids knew where I was but they didnt' wake me up until about 9:30 or 10! We had a fun Christmas watching the kids open up and play with all of their new toys! Sam got a new work bench that he enjoyed playing with. Nate wanted part of it too!

Nate was a little more into opening presents this year. It was very cute! He really enjoyed this piggy bank that he got! The small joys in life!

One of the few pictures I have with Grace with her hair out of her face!

Sam in his cute Christmas pajamas!

Nate concentrating to open his gift!

Sam liked Nate's microphone as much as Nate did!

One of the joys of getting new presents is all the packaging they put on the toys these days. My sister really enjoyed taking all of the new toys out of their packages. ha ha

The kids got this new game where you put this tail around your waist and it's almost like flag football as you chase each other around on all fours and act like animals and try to get the tails off of the other players! Nate looked so cute with his tail on!

The animals posing!

I got these Christmas pajamas for Grace when she was a baby. I would say they have made their rounds! They are just so cute though! Merry Christmas!!!!

Friends Back Home!

After I finally made it in to Missouri late that Friday night, I called the Millers who were driving from Colorado to Columbia, Missouri, and were going to stop off in Kansas City so we could meet for breakfast. Gretchen said they were on their way and should be in Kansas City around 6:30 or 7. I just told her to call so I wouldn't have to get up! So my phone rang around 5:30 am and they were almost there!!!! I got up, brushed my teeth, and threw some clothes on and went to meet them at IHOP! It was soooo good to see them and so fun to get to see the kids and how big they have gotten. They were not people I was definitely expecting to see over Christmas vacation so it was a really fun part of my trip! Here I am with Makena and Beckett. They are pretty much like my niece and nephew as I got to meet Makena shortly after they brought her back from Ethiopia and as I met Beckett the night he was born and kept Makena while Mike and Gretchen were at the hospital. They are a very special couple and now family to me!!!

Gretchen (my sister...ha ha) and I with the kiddos. Gretchen, after driving for about 10 hours in the car and me after traveling all day the day before and being up at 5:30 am! :)

All of us together again! It was so fun!!!

I also got the chance to meet little Ross, who being stubborn, had to wait until a few days after I left in August to decide to be born! Natalie and I were in the same kindergarten class, so it's always a lot of fun to see her and catch up and think about the fact that we have been friends for about 25 years!!! Kind of weird! I don't keep up with a lot of people from back in Missouri but it's really fun to keep up with an old kindergarten buddy! And fun to meet her little baby now!

Ross and Aunt Kammie! :)

I also had another unexpected visit with another friend that I taught with in Korea. Krista and I met up at the mall in Kansas, where she is from. I took Grace and Sam and we had a good ole time catching up. Grace took this picture of us! ha ha.

It was a lot of fun to see Krista. We took the kids on the carousel and took this self portrait of ourselves! :)

Since Natalie lives in Kansas, after we went to the mall, we stopped by Natalie's house so I could see her again and Sam wanted to hold baby Ross! It was so sweet. Then when he was done, he just kind of got up and left! ha ha. He is a good big brother, which is a good thing since I have another little niece or nephew on the way!!!!

I also keep in touch with my friend Andrea, who I went to junior high school with and we played on the same basketball team in 6th, 7th and 8th grade. She has a little boy who is almost the same age as Grace and then she just had twin girls last January. They are so cute!

Me with the twins

I took Grace and Sam down to Crown Center one day and our longtime family friend, Ed, took us into the Hallmark building where he works downtown. It was so fun. We saw this cool Hoops and Yoyo tree all decorated with only their stuff!

It was so fun to see everyone and especially seeing so many people I wasn't for sure if I would get to see or not. Friends from kindergarten to friends from Korea, what a great trip. I am constantly reminded at how important relationships are and how grateful I am to have those special bonds and friendships in my life. I have so many good friends, literally, all over the world. I am so thankful at how God uses so many different people at different times in my life.