| The Rau Family 的个人资料Rau Quartet照片日志列表 |  工具  帮助 |
|
11月29日 Back home.Steve and I had a great getaway for my birthday. We took a long nap, played games with some friends, slept in, went shopping without the kids, ate at all of our favorite restaurants, and saw 2 movies. That's my idea of a vacation! The best part is that we had absolutely no schedule. We stayed in bed as long as we wanted and I had to fight the urge to feel like I was "wasting" the day...I had to remind myself to relax. It was great. Of course I got the hang of relaxing just when it was time to rejoin life again!
My parents had fun with the girls and they got their picture taken at the mall with Santa. The pics are adorable. I'll try to get one scanned in to show soon. Now we are playing catch up but enjoying our kids and jobs again. We actually got our Christmas tree and decorations up already and I'm loving just enjoying the lights. There is nothing better than snuggling on the couch with your sweetie at night with the Christmas lights softly glowing and crooning Christmas songs playing in the backgroud. Merry Christmas!! 11月25日 Christmas Time is Here!Yesterday we were able to spend the entire day getting our Christmas decorations out. Out tree is beautiful and the atmosphere of Christmas lights in the evening is my favorite!! I'm so relieved that the work is done and we can just enjoy the season. Our XM radio has been set on the holiday favorites channel and we are fully into the Christmas spirit! At our house it is officially the Christmas season AFTER the Thanksgiving meal! No Christmas music, movies, or decorations until then!
Also yesterday we had the "santa talk" with Hannah. We wanted to make sure she understood that Santa was a real person many years ago, but the magical flying with reindeer, building toys with elves, and going around the world in one night is just pretend. The presents come from each other and the reason we do it is to celebrate Jesus' birthday. She pretty much knew all of that, but was a little confused with what she hears ar school and sees on TV. I just didn't want to really lie to her and pretend when we don't do that in any other area of her life! We always tell them the truth of Jesus and the Bible, so making my children believe in something make believe does not seem to be the right thing to do for us. She took it great and is totally ok with "pretending" in the Santa legends just for fun. We liken it with loving to pretend with the princesses and fairy tales, but knowing that they are not really truth. I had been avoiding that subject with her all this time because I just wasn't sure how to deal with it! I'm very relieved...
Steve and I are going away for the next 2 nights for my birthday as my parents are coming to stay. Thanks, Mom & Dad! We're off...
11月23日 My favorite days of the year!Happy Thanksgiving! We just returned from a short vacation to celebrate Hannah and Emily's birthdays and see family for Thanksgiving. Tuesday morning at 6:57 AM Hannah turned six years old! We packed up and left home for a surprise adventure that we didn't tell the kids! After stopping for lunch we pulled into our home for the next 2 days...Splash Lagoon indoor water park in Erie, PA.
We spent Tuesday afternoon swimming, riding slides, and enjoying the several hot tubs. Emily rode all the same rides we did (mostly on Dad's lap) and even did one long, twisty slide all by herself. After riding all the tube slides in a double raft with me, Hannah braved them alone and found out they were so fun and she could really do it! We had to keep a close eye on her as she was ready to run off on her own! Her favorite thing was trying walk over floating lily pads holding on to an overhead rope net. She would run across those lily pads between each ride and ended up being able to sprint across with no problem!
After we showered and checked into our suite (which was attached to the water park...it was so convenient to be able to just walk to our own room to change) we let Hannah choose where to eat dinner. Red Lobster! It is our own fault for taking her there so many times as she was growing up because it was our favorite place...now it is also her favorite place! Although a bit expensive, we were not disappointed!
 After swimming all day the girls were so tired. They were falling alseep at the table. Hannah would take a bite then lay her head down on my lap. We had to stir her to get her to sit up to hear the wait staff sing to her!Wednesday we woke up and celebrated Emily's third birthday! She opened a present and then we hit the water park again. We came back for lunch and check out and then went back to the water park for the rest of the afternoon. After showering and getting ready to leave we needed a snack and found a Cold Stone Creamery...amazing ice cream that you can get mixed with any toppings you like. They mix it for you on a ...cold stone! It was sooooo good! As Steve and I were driving around we found a second run movie theater and were hoping the tickets were cheap. We pulled in to surprise the girls again with a birthday treat...seeing Ratatouille in the theater! The tickets were only 50 cents each. It was a great movie, too!
Emily got to choose dinner but all she cared about was getting macaroni and cheese. So we pulled into a Quaker Steak and Lube and asked if their kids menu had mac n cheese! This place was so fun! It was decorated as if you were in a garage with gas pumps and real car parts all around. It is known for the best wings in the USA. We loved the food and had a lot of fun. The staff also sang to Emily and then the tired Rau family headed to Ephrata for Thanksgiving. We didn't pull in to Steve's parents house until 2 AM!
We had a great visit with the family and counting our blessings was not at all hard. I feel like the luckiest woman in the world with my family, healthy kids, and a loving husband. When we don't buy presents at any other time of year, this season of birthdays is a blast. I love being able to buy gifts and lavish love on my girls once a year and it warms my heart to hear Hannah say, "this is a great birthday, Mommy." The special days of the ones you love the most are truly the best days of the year!
11月18日 What time is it...?...party time! (from High School Musical 2) Yesterday was Hannah and Emily's birthday party. We had 13 little girls here playing dress up, pretend, and running amock! It was a Barbie Island Princess party (the new Barbie movie) where we played dress up, made picture frames decorated with Island Princess pictures, ate an amazing Island Princess cake with EXTREMELY blue frosting, and had so much fun. I say this every year, but putting on a party for my girls and seeing how happy they are is the highlight of my entire year! I love, love, love spoiling them for their birthdays...we really don't buy them anything all the rest of the year and try so hard to always be practical and responsible with our money. That makes birthday time all the sweeter. Their birthdays are my favorite days of the year. I love them so much!!
They had a blast and were soooooo tired after the party. They completely trashed the house (why do we ever clean for company when children are involved?) and it took the rest of the day to put it back together. We had a great weekend. What a blessing those two little girls are and soon they will be just a bit less "little." I will be updating about the fun we have planned for their birthdays next week!
11月11日 I Love Frankie!I got a call at the church office saying, "I need some help and I hear you have a lot of talent at Victory Highway..." Uh oh! They wanted a Frank Sinatra impersonator and an Elvis impersonator! Well, trying to be helpful I made a ton of phone calls, weeded through costumes, and finally took care of the matter for them. It was a paid gig so that made it worth it.
The event coordinators were working with Philips Lighting as they were holding their big convention in Corning. The convention was held in Memphis last year and they had an Elvis guy there. The higher-ups thought it'd be fun to do a spoof since this year the convention was in NY...have Elvis come back and sing NY, NY only to be kicked off stage by Frank Sinatra because NY is his territory. Very hokey...but, again, a paid gig!
So here is the result of all that...my husband and Pastor Paul Mattison from Victory Highway...organized b y Amy Rau, agent to the deceased stars...
11月6日 Now that I'm writing again...I keep thinking of things I want to remember and this one is too good to forget. While at Uncle Phil's Diner (our church's production), my neighbor told me that Hannah once said to her, "I know God planned for us to move here so we could be neighbors and I can marry Grant." (Her son.) And so it begins...
But seriously it warms my heart to hear my daughter talk about spiritual things with such confidence in the fact that God is in control. May she never lose that faith.  Growing up!Oh, my the girls are growing up. Hannah showed me yesterday that she has her first loose tooth. It barely moves at this point, but it moves just the same! I look at all the pictures I have of her and I can't imagine her smile without all those cute little baby teeth..."Nooooooooo! Don't fall out! Don't grow big ones! Stay young and small! Snuggle Mommy everyday! Ask me for help tying your shoes! Just FREEZE right where you are!!"
The past eight weeks the girls have been taking swimming lessons. Hannah is now swimming the length of the pool without any help or flotation devices at all. I can't believe it. Emily took a class with me where she worked on all the skills of the first "solo" class but with the comfort of Mom. She did glides, swimming on her front and back and even floating all by herself. Her Daddy can't even do that one!
 By the end of their session I was bursting with pride of them! 11月5日 Emily CutenessI just have to share these two videos of Emily. One of her saying her newest Bible verse. This is something I treasure hearing her little voice say. I am so grateful I have these on video.
The other one happened tonight. Here is some background. Today I taught music class with Hannah and Emily and a neighbor boy ( I was hoping th class would be bigger but it just didn't wotk out that way this time. I'm trying to earn some extra money by teaching group classes for preschoolers). Anyway, today we talked about the difference in high and low sounds and fast and slow sounds. We have a story that we read where Mozart Mouse prefers high sounds and Beethoven Bear likes low sounds.
While I was in Hannah's room reading to her at bedtime, I heard Steve and Emily singing in high voices and low voices. I thought it was the cutest thing as she taught Daddy about Mozart Mouse and Beethoven Bear and high and low sounds! (and of course if the attention is on Emily, Hannah has to get in there too somehow...)
Enjoy!
I'm back.Well, I'm back. I'm back to blogging, I'm back to sleeping, I'm back to exercising (hopefully!!), I'm back to keeping my house clean, I'm back to tucking my kiddos into bed and reading to them at night, I'm back to talking to and snuggling with my husband...I'm back. Yesterday I took a 3.5 hour nap, played games with my kids, and spent time with Steve. All three of those things were LONG overdue.
My six week sabbatical was truly just proof that I have had zero down time lately. I will try to update you all on our lives here, but I don't want to be up all night!
 We just finished doing the production of Uncle Phil's Diner at church. I assisted the director, played keys during the show and helped serve (it was a dinner theater). Steve and I were also honored to be able to bring our neighbors with us one night. It was so great to invite them and be able to talk about spiritual things. I've been dealing with huge guilt for years now that all our friends and aquaintances were Christians! Honestly, we work with Christians, hang out with Christians, even mostly do business with Christians (people we know from church). And until recently we didn't even have neighbors. Also with Hannah in school now it opens up a whole nother world of families we've been able to get to know.
We were able to go home last weekend for my college roommate's wedding. Jen was a bridesmaid in my wedding! It was a beautiful ceremony (what wedding isn't??) and she was gorgeous (what bride isn't??) and it was so fun to relive all of that excitement for her. It was also an oppotunity for a college reunion of sorts. Steve's best man from Florida came, all of my roommates from my Sophomore year and our friend's the Jancos brought their 2 daughters...the youngest we hadn't met yet. It was overwhelming to realize how much time has passed since college and remembering the old times. I really miss those days. It was an emotionally heavy weekend, but all of it was great!!
Halloween came during dress rehearsal for the production. Steve took the girls to a local church's "Trunk or Treat" where they went from car to car in a big parking lot getting candy! They ate hot dogs and hot chocolate, got their faces painted, and played games. We took it easy on costumes this year...I told them to go to their dress up closet and find something! They don't care for elaborate costumes, they had a blast.
Hannah's class was to wear a costume to school that demonstrated a vocabulary word. Hannah chose DANGLE and we "dangled" the letters from her hat and her word sign around her neck. I came to see her parade at school but she didn't know I was there until I yelled for her! Enjoy the pictures and video from Halloween!
|
|
|
