Fun times in the city

Last weekend, we had the opportunity to go downtown to Moody Church with my brother and his family for the Slugs & Bugs concert, and decided to make a day of it by walking around Lincoln Park Zoo which is only a few blocks from the church.  The weather was perfect and the kids were thrilled to be downtown and outside.  

For those of you who aren't familiar with the Slugs & Bugs CDs, you need to be.  Right now, there are 3 albums out, and the 4th is coming out in mid-November.  They are kids albums put together by Randall Goodgame and Andrew Peterson, both of whom are Christian artists who use their amazing talents for God's glory and to share the truth of the gospel in ways kids can understand, all while having a bit of humor thrown in.  Our kids LOVE these albums!  And that might be understating it a little bit.  :)  You can learn more on the Slugs & Bugs website ~ www.slugsandbugs.com.  So when the opportunity came up to go to a live concert given by Randall Goodgame, we couldn't pass it up.  We took the kids last year and they enjoyed it, but I think this year was more fun because they both knew the songs a little better and were more attentive and excited about being there.  Daddy even got in on the fun at the concert.  (see video!)  This was Jim and Julie and Eliza's first real experience with these songs, with the exception of the few times they've heard them while with us, and I think they had fun.  Eliza seemed to enjoy running around the room and dancing with her cousins.  :)

The cousins by the Slugs & Bugs Live sign ~ 

Randall Goodgame - one of the masterminds behind Slugs & Bugs ~ 

Dancin' to the music ~ 

Aaron and some other dads getting instructions for their part in the song, "I Want to Help" ~ 

Aaron's debut as a backup "singer" ~ 

Randall and the kids ~ (you can just see the backs of Micah and Caleb's heads)

This was really cute - since the concert was the kickoff for the kids music program at Moody church, Randall got the kids up on the stage with him to help him sing the last song of the day.  I absolutely love how he included the kids in the show, rather than just performing for everyone.

The "rehearsal" ~ 

Performing with Randall Goodgame ~ (our boys are in there somewhere)  :)

Here's the video of the kids practicing to sing "God Made Me" ~ 

Then after the concert was over we walked the half mile or so to Lincoln Park Zoo and spent a few hours checking out the animals and things to see there.  We were kind of pressing our luck with it being nap time, but the kids hung in there pretty well and got a brief nap in the car on the way back home.  (Caleb started his on daddy's shoulders walking back to our car from the zoo!)

On the tractor at the zoo ~

Jim, Julie, and Eliza in front of the Chicago skyline ~

Checking out the sleepy lion with Daddy ~

Sea Lions ~

In the "egg" ~

We really wore Caleb out!  He fell asleep on Aaron's shoulders on the walk back to the car!

All in all, it was a wonderful day.  Everyone had a good time and we couldn't have asked for more perfect weather.  It's always a blessing when we can get out and enjoy God's creation with the kids and family.  :)

A Fresh Start...

Ok, I admit it.  Blogging has just not been a priority lately.  At all.  Actually, getting anything done has become a bit of a challenge given the two EXTREMELY active boys we have running around here.  :)  So, blogging has taken a backseat to spending time with the kids and other various household tasks and life in general.  I'd say I'll do better, but I think I've made that empty promise before and obviously I haven't followed through.  So... I'm making a fresh start.  

Things at the Klingenmaier house have been good... busy, but good.  I'm not going to try to catch up on everything that's happened in the past 8 (!) months, but I'll give you a few highlights... We had a nice Thanksgiving out in California with my sister and her family.  It was fun to see the cousins play together and to have a week with the DeBoers.  

Christmas was full of wonderful blessings as my dad received a lung transplant (after officially being on the transplant list for 9 days!).  That changed our holiday plans a little bit, but we were glad to make those changes since it meant dad wouldn't need round-the-clock oxygen anymore.  He is now 6 months post surgery and doing great!  Praise the Lord!  All of the reports from his doctors have been very positive and they are all very pleased with his progress thus far.  We appreciate your prayers for him as he continues to recover.  :)  

In March, we hosted Easter dinner at our house, which was a big deal since this was the first time we had a place large enough to do that.  We had 16 people here for dinner, and it was a wonderful time!  

We also learned that we are going to be outnumbered come November!  This came as a surprise to us, as we were still reeling from two miscarriages that happened in August of last year and January of this year.  We didn't really think that we were done having kids, but I had kind of started to wonder if I would ever be able to get (and stay) pregnant again.  But, God had other plans, and I am now 16 weeks pregnant and looking forward to meeting the newest member of the Klingenmaier crew in November.  :)  (and no, we won't be finding out what we're having... though if you want to know, ask Micah.  He's convinced he knows what he's getting for a new sibling, and gives us the same answer every time we ask, no matter how we ask.)  :)

In April, the boys participated in their first pine car derby at our church.  They had fun making their cars with daddy (though daddy did most of the work, obviously).  Micah's car placed 8th out of 43, which isn't bad for his first time and the fact that he's only 3!  Caleb's car did pretty well too, and he even won a trophy for being the youngest participant!  All in all, it was a fun event, and one I'm sure will become an annual thing for our family.  :)

Other than those big things, life has been pretty uneventful around here.  We've kept busy with (never ending) home improvement projects, including gardening, replacing the random trim the previous owners had up around the house, putting up a swing set for the boys to play on in the backyard, and other everyday tasks.  

We celebrated Caleb's 2nd birthday at the end of May (even though his actual birthday wasn't until June 2), and had a combined party for both the boys since Micah's birthday is on New Year's Eve.  It was a wonderful day of playing on the new swing set and visiting with family, neighbors and friends.  This was also the first time we've been able to have one of our kids' birthday parties at our own house, and that was a huge deal for me.  I remember telling someone at the party that I felt like this was my dream come true.  I absolutely LOVED having our house full of people and kids playing and talking together.  I feel like this was the reason we bought this house and I pray for more opportunities to have gatherings and parties like that!  We got a few decent pictures of the party, but my favorite is the video of all the kids playing with the ride-on toys in the basement.  I'm amazed that they didn't crash into each other or the many stationary objects down there!  :)

I might have gone a little overboard with the cakes, but we found so many cute cake ideas that our "tractor" party kind of morphed into a "farm" party... hence the cow, pig, and sheep cakes.

All the kiddos playing on the new swing set ~

Friends, neighbors and family visiting outside ~ 

Thanks, Pops and Nee Nee, for the Buzz Lightyear scooter!  The boys LOVE it!  :)

Basement "traffic" ~

I know my parents got some good pictures from the party, so I'll have to get those from them and add a few more.  :)  But for now, I think that brings us up to date.  My humblest apologies to those of you who actually check our blog from time to time... you've all probably given up on me after 8 months of no updates.  I'm not promising that the frequency of updates will improve, especially with another baby on the way, but we'll see.  Otherwise, I'll be back in 8 months with another recap!  ;)

We're Homeowners!!

The last couple of months have gone by in a whirlwind.  We sold our townhouse in July and were living with my parents for a few months while we searched for a house to make home, which we found at the beginning of August.  We closed on September 7, and took a little more than a week to paint and get it ready to be lived in.  Now, slowly but surely we are getting settled in our new house.  :)  

It isn't huge by any means, but it does have 3 bedrooms, and a full finished basement with 2 additional rooms that could be used as bedrooms (though one has already been designated as the kids' playroom).  There is a lot of storage (which I'm sure we'll fill up quickly!), a 2 car garage, and a shed out back with a little fort on top that the kids have already had fun playing in.  My favorite part of the new house - the yard!! I LOVE having a nice, big yard that the kids can run around and play in!  The backyard is fenced in too, so I don't have to worry as much if they're outside alone for a minute or two.  :)  (though we'll probably have to get some sort of extra security on the gates because my boys are little Houdinis!)  We've met several of the neighbors, and everyone is really nice.  There are a lot of kids in the neighborhood too, all within a few months (even days!) of our kids, so we have even more to be thankful for with this new place. 

Obviously we've done a lot of work on the house already, but I haven't been able to locate the cord that connects our camera to the computer yet so I'll have to post the more updated pictures at a later date.  :)  For now, you can get an idea of what the house looks like from the pictures I took while we were having the inspection done in August.  

Front yard ~

Standing at the front door, looking straight ahead into the dining room.  Coat closet is on the left ~

Standing at the front door, looking left into the living room ~

Hallway to the bathroom (1st opening on the left) and bedrooms (one on the right, one straight ahead, and the master is the last door on the left) ~

Dining room, kitchen through the door on the left ~

Standing in the dining room, looking into the living room ~

Another view of the living room ~

Galley kitchen, taken from the door to the dining room.  The room in back is what we're now calling the "green room" - family room/all-purpose room ~

The people we bought the house from used this room as an eat-in part of their kitchen... we only have one table, so we've made this room into a family room/playroom/all-purpose room.  The doors to the right are sliders out to the backyard.  Hi, mom! ~

Sliding doors out to the 2-3 season room, deck and backyard ~

Another view of the enclosed part of the deck ~

 

Deck, with enclosed area to the right ~

One of the kids' favorite places at the house - the fort over the shed ~

STEEP steps down to the basement ~

Standing at the bottom of the basement stairs, looking straight ahead into the basement.  Room to the left is my sewing/craft room  :)

This is the "bedroom" to the left of the bottom of the basement stairs ~

My sewing/craft room ~

The main part of the basement ~

I have a few more pictures, but for some reason Blogger isn't letting me upload them.  :(  I'll try again in another post, but for now...that's our house!  Can't get a good idea of the house from the pictures?  Then come see it for yourself.  We've got a lot of extra space for visitors, so just say the word and you're more than welcome!  :)

Adventures in Babysitting ~

We had the amazing responsibility of taking care of my then 5-week old nephew, Asher, a few weeks ago.  Tracy and Eric had a meeting to go to at their church and couldn't bring him with so Aaron, Micah, Caleb and I got up and headed to Kenosha to watch Asher for the morning.  What a joy!  Asher is such a sweet baby and was very easy to care for.  He pretty much slept most of the time we were there, but 5-week old babies do a lot of sleeping, so that wasn't unexpected.  :)  I did manage to get a couple of pictures of the boys being cute, so I'll let those do the "talking".  Enjoy!
 

 Snug as a bug in his swing ~

 Micah was "helping" to swing Asher...

...then he started fussing and the look on Micah's face was priceless!  You can see in this picture that his hands are off of the swing, but what you can't see is the look on his face which says, "I promise it wasn't my fault!"  :)

Snuggle time with Uncle Aaron ~

 

We tried to get a few pictures of the boys together, but Cars was on the TV...

At least Asher is looking at the camera!  :)

Cousins ~

 

Love this sweet little boy!

Kisses from Micah ~

As you can see, we had a wonderful morning with Asher.  Emma was there too, but she tends to run for the hills whenever our boys are around.  :)  Thanks, Tracy and Eric, for trusting us with your sweet little boy!  We hope we can watch him again sometime!  :)