My Girls

Some of you may wonder why we haven't posted in a few days. The reason is that Tiffany and Clarissa have gone to visit family in Utah. The plan was that this time would be an opportunity to focus and prepare for my preliminary examination for my PhD thesis. As usual, things haven't gone quite as planned. To understand this, you must understand the effect that their absence has on me.

Tiffany is my one redeeming grace. Without her I am nothing. I don't sleep, I don't eat, I cannot function with any sense of normalcy. She gives me direction, focus and purpose. She is my rudder. Music and the TV cannot overcome the pounding silence that even her gentle breathing breaks. The house feels cold and lonely without her. Turning on all the lights cannot compensate for the light she brings to our home.


Clarissa is my little pumpkin. I love to see her face pressed against the window as I get off the bus each night. Her excitement for life is infectious and she is the best antidote to a long and tiring day. Her sweet hugs and kisses crush any feelings of mediocrity or unimportance. She is my greatest sucess and the joy of my life.

You may wonder how I ever managed to survive to this point in my life or how I lived before we were married. I ask myself the same question. All I know is that I am a better person because of my family. Without them I am not whole. Although I miss them, I am grateful for the realization of how much they mean to me.

I am periodically asked by my single collegues if I find it difficult to have a young family as a student. The question that no one asks is "Is it worth it?". The answer to that is an emphatic "YES!".

Free Ice Cream

Tonight we went to Cold Stone Creamery for Quinn's birthday ice cream. You can sign up with Cold Stone to receive a free ice cream creation on your birthday. They email you a coupon and it is good for two weeks. Clarissa and I picked Quinn up from work tonight and went to have some ice cream. Usually we just get the free one and share it, but since Clarissa is older now, (and because I always feel bad about getting the free one for each of our birthdays and nothing else), I decided that we should get a little kids size ice cream for her. When they were ringing it up, they told us that the total was ZERO! The lady said that they have a promotion going on now where if you buy an ice cream, you get a kids one free. Even though we didn't really buy Quinn's ice cream, I guess it still counted. Lucky us!

Easter Dress

Easter Fun

Today we played with some friends and dyed some easter eggs, and had a little egg hunt.

On our way to our friends house.

Normally Clarissa does wear a shirt, but I took it off so she wouldn't get dye all over it. I didn't think Clarissa would enjoy dyeing eggs, but she really had a fun time. She enjoyed dropping the eggs in the dye, and banging two eggs together, so we came home with several cracked eggs.

Smelling the eggs!

Cadence, Clarissa, and Angelique sure had a fun time playing together, finding the eggs, and especially eating the treats inside the eggs.

Kitty Condo or Clarissa Condo???

Clarissa loves to play with our friends cats, but loves climbing their kitty condo even more. Unfortunately our camera doesn't have sound, just imagine her grunting the whole time she was climbing.

Happy Birthday Quinn!

Today was Quinn's birthday (according to him, he turned 16). Clarissa and I surprised him with breakfast in bed. Clarissa loved helping make German Pancakes, but most of all, she loved sitting next to Daddy and helping him eat them.



She was intrigued by the candles on Quinn's birthday cake, so after he blew them out, we lit one of them again and she had fun trying to blow it out.



We are so grateful for Quinn, he is a wonderful husband and daddy. We are especially grateful for his parents and that they found him under a cabbage leaf on St. Patrick's Day and decided to keep him. Thanks Randy and Judy for raising such a fine son.
We hope you had a fun birthday Quinn, we love you.

Bloggers Memory Lane

My friend Anja recently posted a bunch of photos from yesteryear of people she now blogs with. She challenged others to do the same. This is my first attempt at doing so. I have many other photos, but these are the ones I could find on my computer. There will be more to follow at a later date.

Here is Jon, Becca, me and John at High School Graduation.

Here I am with Ryan and Jonathan R in front of my house playing in the front yard. Check out those 80s shorts.

Here is Jon (a different one, I know a lot of Johns, Jons and Jonathans), me and Ryan. We all played park district soccer.

There are a lot in this one. Back Row (Mike R., Tyler, Justin, Cooper, Rob, Me). Front Row (John, Jon, Rich, Dave). This was for Homecoming in 1997. We had a harvest theme complete with carving pumpkins, a hay ride, and a thanksgiving dinner.



Here we are showing our Huskie Pride for a football game. Cooper, John, Me, Jon, Becky, Michelle, and Tristen.


Young Naperville Singers went to Des Moines International Childrens Festival. Me, Lynn, Emily, Carrie.

Carrie and Tom getting ready for a Y-Chem event. More photos to come...

Artwork

We saw some of our friends in Chicago this weekend, and remembered that over Christmas break when we saw them, one of their little girls drew these pictures for us. We are so grateful for their friendship and love seeing them whenever we go up to visit Quinn's parents. I just wanted to post these pictures of her drawings, they are fun to have.

Nursery

Clarissa, with a little help from her teacher, drew this picture in nursery (the class at our church for 18 month olds through 3 year olds). She hated going the first few times, but now she absolutely loves it, especially the bubbles that they blow at the beginning to get the kids attention in hopes that they will be happy and want to stay. It works like a charm for Clarissa everytime.

Life has been busy

I haven't posted on my blog in a while, things have been busy, even though I can't remember what I have been busy with. In December we had some pictures taken of Clarissa, and this was one of my favorites. We had this mousepad made, and this is how I have been feeling lately.