Dominican Republic

For those who would like to keep up with Lloyd's trip to the DR, he has started a blog.

sunnysidecrcyouth.blogspot.com or click under the links section in the sidebar of this blog.

Thanks for praying!

Big girl

It seems that if Mom gets distracted, Anika is perfectly capable of fixing lunch for herself. . . I couldn't resist running for the camera when I saw this:-)
PS Anika didn't mind the attention at all either. She's playing for the camera a bit;-) I asked her if it was alright if I took a picture and her response? "I love it!"

That time of year . . .

Apples are arriving on our doorstep again! We are so blessed to have such generous friends. Anika and I got right to work. We whipped out the "apple-peeler-corer-slicer" (I love this little gadget!) and started up the crockpot for applesauce and the dehydrator for apple "chips". Anika is a pretty good snitch but I love her company and her help. She would line up the apples on the trays for me. Her attention span is pretty limited though. She only made it through 3 of the 10 trays that we did. Life is never dull around here:-)

Andrew's Smile

I'm waxing sentimental today. Andrew is teething. He already has two bottom teeth but his top front teeth are coming in. I'm going to miss those gummy smiles -- sniff. It seems like these milestones with Andrew have come so much faster than with Anika. I remember waiting anxiously for all these big "firsts" with Anika. With Andrew, they are all catching me by surprise and I'm left wondering "where did my baby go." I "know" that I should be rejoicing that he is growing; he is healthy; he is developing. I mean, isn't it my goal to help him become an independent, thoughtful, creative, loving, caring, faithful child of God? Ah, yes. But I have to admit, I'm going to miss those gummy grins.


PS My rational side is reminding me that he is only 8 months old and has MANY more milestones to reach - even before toddlerhood:-)

"Fruit" of the Valley

Here's a little ham in a fruit box:-)
Anika grabbed a pillow, her blankie and her ubiquitous thumb.

Flamingo Fundraiser

Some of you might be familiar with this "Fun"draiser. Flocks of pink lawn flamingos are dispatched throughout families in the church, then they can make a donation to have "Flamingo eradication specialists" come and collect them. (There are some other ins-and-outs like picking the next flocking ground, but you get the picture). The funds raised from this event will help to send Lloyd and a group of 13 students to the Dominican Republic. They leave this weekend. Please pray for them as they minister to upwards of 3000 students in VBS type activities during their 6 days there.

Anika's Ride

Since I wasn't able to get Anika a ride on the train float (see following post), I thought I would see what I could do to make it up to her:-) We went to the carnival downtown and let Anika take a spin on a couple of rides. The motorcycles were her favorite (she rode them twice). The boat was a little bit bumpy. She did really well and had a great time.
Andrew tolerated the experience -- there weren't any rides his size:-)

Sunshine Days

Our city's annual "Sunshine Days" were this weekend. One thing I love about where we live is that we are right in the middle of most things. The floats for the parade line up on the street we live on. It is always fun to wake up on a Sat. morning, open the blinds and find a parade at your doorstep:-) Anika really enjoyed it this year. It was so nice to put Andrew down for his nap and still be able to watch the parade from our curb.


Anika's favorite float was this "blue train". Obviously she is not up on Thomas. She was so disappointed when I wasn't able to get her a ride on the train.

Playset Fun

Anika just doesn't get tired of her playset. (For which we are enormously grateful!) She loves to have breakfast outside every morning that I will let her. This particular morning she decided to eat up in her "house".

Andrew

Andrew keeps getting bigger and bigger! He is such a smiler and VERY ticklish, which Daddy takes advantage of frequently.

Big News

Well, I guess it isn't directly our big news but within a week or so we got two big announcements.

Lloyd's sister, Rachel, is getting married! She and Craig are planning a summer wedding in '07. Lloyd will get to marry his sister. (No jokes about the legality of that - I've made them all already!) And I've been asked to stand-up. We are so delighted! They may get a chance to visit us around Christmas time which would be a great time to get to know Craig.

Secondly, my sister, Hilary, called and she is expanding her role from aunt to MOM! She and Jason are expecting their first child in late April. We are so excited for them. So, it looks like it will be another wonderful summer of traveling to celebrate with family.

Hangin' with Daddy

A rare quiet Sat. morning.

Finished Product

Whew! Here it is. The finished product. I spent today cleaning the floor (wow, there is a lot of it), cleaning and moving furniture, and generally righting the house after the chaos of the last few days. But it was worth it!

Flooring in progress

Anika was daddy's little helper. She loved having all of the furniture out of the room. She would run races, gallop around, and sing to hear the echo.
And there is proof that I helped a little bit too:-)

Housing Project - prep

It seems that we are never done with projects in the Wicker household. This labor day we undertook the resurfacing of our dining room. The carpet in our house is as old as the hills and we've been wanting to do something about it forever. Forever became reality with a 1/2 price flooring sale at our local flooring store. We set aside Labor day as the day to put in our new floor. Well, prep work always takes longer than expected so we were still finishing on Wed. But I'm delighted with how they turned out.

It was incredibly dirty under our carpet. The house just feels cleaner now:-)

As we suspected, there were hardwood floors underneath; however, they were not installed with finishing in mind. They were also terribly stained from spills that had leaked through the carpet. Although they don't look bad in the picture -- they are!

Youth Group Kick off

Another youth group year is off to a grand start. (This partly explains why I've been so delinquent in posting. The other reason is the floor project we took on.)

We had a great time at Halma's. They offered us use of their gorgeous ponds (with zip lines), water slide, campfire, etc. It was a cool evening but that didn't stop the kids from using the slide. Anika went down too. (But just once, after that she was freezing!)