Grandma Fiechter

Joni, Kinzie, & Gma

Today is Grandma Maxine Fiechter's birthday! YAY! Happy Birthday, Gramma! (as if she looks at this...we have yet to talk her into getting internet...)

We just think she is awesome! Grandma is the type of person to do anything she possibly can for you. She has babysat my boys countless times - I can't explain how much I appreciate that! When I first explain that I have something going on she'll almost always ask, "Can I keep the boys for you?" Not only is she always willing, but she'll usually offer too! I used to have to turn her down on her offer just to give others the chance to have the boys! ;) She loves having the family in and is an amazing cook! I truly think I got my desire to cook from her. When Nick and I were newly married we'd go to her house once a week for supper! Now and then, one of us will find a new recipe to try (like Olive Garden's recipes, yum!) and we'll get all the ingredients and go to her house to cook it! It is so much fun and I am really enjoying the memories we are making! She has also been teaching me so much about flower gardening and giving me lots of good tips.

Thanks grandma, for everything you have done for our family! You are greatly loved and appreciated! God has surely blessed us to have a grandma like you!

In addition to grandma's birthday, my sweet little niece, Kinzie just celebrated her first birthday! We had a party for her here last weekend. Here are some pics from the evening!

Isn't her cupcake cake so cute!?! Jason and Joni did such a good job!

Here is Kinzie licking her cake...She really wasn't all that interested!

This picture is of Kinzie playing with the stroller Brad's and us got her! She loves it! ;)

And of course, she got a ride in it herself too! Mason and Carter loved it so much, we thought about buying them one too! Daddy didn't think that was a good idea! ;)

Happy Birthday to Kinz too! Love you sweetie!

The.........Incident.....

Well, on Friday evening we invited our good friends, Michael, Jane & Deacon Reinhard over for the evening. We do this occasionally and we usually enjoy a good game of Ticket to Ride.

Well this evening we decided to play Monopoly Deal instead. (this is a great card game!) We had great fun, although the guys were mad at Jane and I the whole time for talking too much...but oh well!!

Midway through the game we began to talk about crepes! Yum! Michael (being the great man that he is :) ) had made Jane and I crepes at about midnight last week while working on the DD4. (see Jane's post about weight gain during the DD4...hmmm...wonder why?! ) So.....we got hungry for them again! Michael so graciously whipped up a batch for us again!

Here is Michael making crepes, and Jane assembling them...
Notice the plate on the bottom left burner???

Still noticing the plate on the bottom left burner??

Notice the plate...broken...on the carpet....hot!?!?! and Jane in utter panic and disbelief!!!
Also, notice that Michael graciously kept working on those crepes...

So - the story is that with our crepes we decided to heat up some smok-y links too. Well - the wrong burner got turned on (or both - we really aren't sure what happened!) and the plate got heated up too! I should add that Michael kept telling Jane and I, "I smell something burning..." "Hey, do you girls smell something burning?" "Okay, I'm really smelling something..."

Michael - WHY didn't we listen to you???

So, Jane finally noticed that the plate was hot when she tried to move it a little. Then all of a sudden we heard a crack, saw pieces of a plate flying and of course, heard a famous scream out of Jane. (which then caused me to scream...sound familiar, Clint/Amy?) ;) At this point I thought, "Oh, hilarious! This will make a great blog post! So I run for the camera, (not the hot plate on my carpet!) {but I did get a great picture of Jane, huh?}

This is the end result - a scar on my carpet!

Can you even see both of them?

Of course, the rest of the evening - Jane felt terrible (it probably wasn't even her fault) and I had to convince her that I will still be her friend and that I am not mad at her!! No worries - it only added character! ;)

Thanks Michael and Jane for spending the evening with us! There is always excitement with you two! ;) We can't wait till we can do it again!

Pampered Chef

An Open Invitation...
As most of you bloggers may already know, Jenna Stoller is now a Pampered Chef consultant! I am so excited for her, and will be hosting her first party/show!

WHEN: Monday May 18th, 2009 at 6:00pm (lite supper)

WHERE: @ our new house - 444 Elm Grove Rd

WHY: I am hosting this party to help Jenna out - get her started and get her name out there! (of course the free/reduced price stuff is enticing! BUT - I certainly am not doing this for the free stuff. With that said, those of you who choose to come, please do not feel obligated to buy something. Their products are awesome, but I just really don't want anyone to feel like they have to buy something ;) .

So - now that we have the "disclaimer" out of the way....If there is anyone out there that knows they need a pampered chef item and can't come to my party - please give me a call or post a comment here and I'll be sure to get your items ordered Monday evening!! You'll need all the latest cooking utensils for when the famous Dutch Delight 4 breaks out sometime in the next 2 months!! Thanks a million!

Congratulations, Nick!

He did it!!!!!!!

After 4 years, 8 semesters, 6 summer sessions, and countless hours spent studying.....Nick is now a graduate of IPFW (with distiniction, if I can toot his horn a little! He is going to ream me!!) and has a double major in Accounting and Finance with a minor in Math!!! Way to go, babe!

If you can tell - he is the 4th one in on the bottom row...I'll try to fix this later...

Will we have more schooling in our future? Will IPFW be seeing a lot more of our $$ AND of Nick??? Only God knows at this point and we are both comfortable with whatever he leads us to...Right now 'the plan' is for Nick to work at Lincoln Financial Group in Fort Wayne as an Actuary (*see below for an explanation of an actuary...b/c I'm sure if you are like me...you have no clue what it is!). He is excited and slightly nervous - so please keep him in your prayers at the beginning of next week as he plans to start work on Monday the 18th.

Look closely...See any problems?? Nick hasn't noticed yet!

Although school is over for Nick, studying is NOT. Actuaries are required to take a series of (really, really, hard) tests. Nick is on number 4 of 9 (which he will be taking on Friday).

Nick, Congratulations!! I am so proud of all of your accomplishments and I will continue to stand by your side through all this studying! I love you so much ~ I praise God for the wisdom he has given you ~ not only academically, but spiritually as well. We are blessed! I am so thankful to have a husband as driven as you are! Love you!

**ARG! I did not type this in this large font...but I can't get it to go away and it is 2:50 am...(I'm petrified of storms...so this is my new coping tool!) I'm going back to bed now! ;)

*An actuary is a business professional who deals with the financial impact of risk and uncertainty. Actuaries have a deep understanding of financial security systems, their reasons for being, their complexity, their mathematics, and the way they work Actuaries evaluate the likelihood of events and quantify the contingent outcomes in order to minimize losses, both emotional and financial, associated with uncertain undesirable events. (copied from Wikipedia)

Happy Mothers Day!

Yes, I am still here! I have been extremely busy juggling the new house, finals week for Nick, the Dutch Delight 4, and two children with ear infections! But, I thought I'd take some time out tonight to post about Mothers Day.

I LOVE being a mom. It is the most amazing and rewarding job ever! I feel unbelievably blessed with my two children. They bring so much joy and love to my life. I just tucked Carter in and we talked about Mothers Day and what it means. Yes, it brought tears -- lots of them. Yes, it brings me down. No, it isn't much easier than the first year... (for those of you who don't know, I lost my mom on Christmas Eve 2007 in a terrible car accident)

I try to focus more on my journey as a mother, and not as being motherless. God has blessed me beyond imagination with 2 children and I am so grateful for that. And, I am thankful for the 22 years I had with my mom. So often, Satan can get me sad and angry because of the short time I had with her, but then I think of those children who never knew their moms. But I did - for 22 wonderful years. So, tomorrow I am going to try to remain as grateful as I can - instead of being sad and angry - I am going to do my best to celebrate my mom's life, and not dwell on her death.

(Whoa...this is so much harder to write than when I had thought it out in my mind.)

I really am not sure why I am writing this in my blog. I guess I felt like I needed to get it out. And I realized on Friday at Potluck how people are clueless about how to react around me. The subject of mothers came up and suddenly the conversation got awkward and silent. I couldn't fix it - it was sad for me...But I don't want to rob my friends of the joy of talking about their moms.

So I guess I kinda want to take this time to thank everyone again for your many prayers and your extreme love and consideration that you have shown me. Going through the loss of my mother has not been easy, but it sure has helped having so many Godly friends (and family) by my side.

I am not looking for sympathy from this post. Maybe continued prayers - we could always use those! ;) Thanks for listening and sorry there are no pictures...I thought about posting a picture of my mom - but this post took me so long to work through that I am too tired to add a picture! Maybe someday I'll put one up on my sidebar....We'll see.

A big Happy Mothers Day to all you moms out there! And - to those of you who no longer have your mom...well I understand. My prayers of comfort will be with you.

Another thing to think about would be those women who want so badly to be a mom - and can't. My love and prayers are with you, too.