Happy New Year!!!!!

So it's been a while since I've last updated our blog.:). It's kind of been crazy. So to update our blog, I'm going to give a little recap of last year. So since Jackson graduated from 2nd grade, he moved on to 3rd grade in Mrs. Wilson and Mrs. Puehler's class. He is in the regular class all day, he made honor roll and loves math and is doing very well. Raja was adopted in July. So he says, "I have a family". He turned 5 December 30. Matea loves "school". She loves to learn and always wants to do something else. She will be the one to love school one day.

Fall 2010

Matea was in Nicole and Will's wedding. She loved it!!!

carved pumpkins (they don't look too excited)

Tubing, boating

Went to Curtis as a family in August to clean up the pontoon boat and eat ice-cream since we had no boat and it rained.

The pontoon boat (2nd one in a year) flipped over do to a storm that went through

Fair

Had the privilege of hosting a Basque student this summer. The one on the far right. Her name is Maren. We took her, Natalie and Amanda to Chicago.

Jay went to Canada

We went to the Curtis, MI and stayed at the cottage. This is Lake Superior.

Enjoyed the pontoon boat before the storm:)

We had a grill attached to the boat and on the 4th we grilled hotdogs and watched fireworks.

Maren caught a fish!!!

Raja

Raja and Braylon

Matea ready for fireworks at Manistique

Matea also had a birthday!!! I don't remember if I posted that or not. She is 3!!!

Many more pics to come. So much has happened since our last post. We are changing blogs but until Matt and Julie give me a tutorial on how to use it, I'm just going to update this blog and there will be more to come later:)

Jackson graduated today from 2nd grade!!! Ok, so many of you may think, "Big Deal". For us, it is huge. Way back before school started, we were told he would never make it. Others said that they would give it a try. Ever since, they saw Jackson's capabilities, and have helped in so many ways to help him succeed. They didn't help with the answers, but they helped to get the answers out. Due to many hard workers and go getters, Jackson is moving on to 3rd grade and it has been recommended by teachers to place him in regular ed full time. Yay!!!! We are so proud of Jackson and all his hard work and he still doesn't complain. (Well some days he may have because he was tired, but who can blame him?:))

"Mom, I'm tired of pics."

Raja and Matea are looking at the goodies that came with the awards:)

Jackson's awards

He is actually working on multiplication, just needs to keep practicing the higher numbers

moral of the story, don't let people tell you you can't do something.

All things are possible with Christ

Take me out to the Ball Game

We took Jackson to a game yesterday. We were given 6 tickets for a suite so we pulled Jackson out of school and also took Matt, Barry Tuckerman and his son Connor. It was a blast.

Raja and Matea saw our tickets this morning,

so they put on their hats and played baseball in the hallway.

Kalahari

So we started out at Great Wolf and left in our swimming suits to Kalahari! Crazy day!

We had a great time though. The kids loved it! It was Raja's first time swimming. He liked it. Matea loved the water, still not in her face:). Jackson did the big slides with his dad. And of course he loved that. Jay looks more buff now too:)

All 3 loved stepping on these. We had to move Raja away because he kept spraying other people:). Not to mention he learned how to splash and he wasn't afraid to splash anyone walking by. Even mom's with camera's. People don't like that too well! I had to explain to him he can't splash other people we don't know.
Jackson loved the wave pool. He could have been here all day.

Matea is very cautious. She won't try things if make her. She has to do it on her own. One thing she does not like, is water in her face.

Tara went with us. This was taken at Great Wolf when we first got there. We had to leave due to them not allowing Jackson to go down any slide with us.

Elm Street Carnival

Pie in Grandpa's face. He also got to throw it in his principal's face. He laughed. Matea cried for Grandpa. Raja laughed.

Ok, so this was taken a while ago. Matea and Raja were in the kitchen eating a snack and I heard Raja saying stop spitting. I went in there to find Raja eating and his face looked like this! Raja didn't realize what his face looked like. By the way, this is a cookie.

Snow Day!!!

Fun with cousins!

Ready to sled behind lawn mower

Butchering

Jackson would rather be with dad than inside packaging with me:)

Matea with her Aunt Joy:)

Before this picture, Seth was showing Raja how to throw meat in the grinder:)

Raja's 4th Birthday! He was so excited when we were singing. At first, he didn't know what was going on and then he started laughing. He loved it!