Lent ~ Part II

It has been a full week and not too bad.  I have not missed meat at all but one of my favorite winter drinks is hot coco, I love it.  When I made the no chocolate/coco rule that was geared toward brownies and chocolate candies and stuff.  Although, I do not eat much chocolate it does go in spurts where I need dark chocolate, need is such a strong word, I thought just an extra challenge.  Anyway, so my first week went pretty well minus yesterday when we had a lunch meeting.  I ate my meal, all good and then they passed out mints.  And I love the mints at this place, so as normal I picked it up bit the thing in half and the second that mint hit my tongue, the signals in my brain were like an alarm.  I looked at my friend Christina and spit it into a napkin without even think about our poor guest sitting across from us.  Of course I explained and they laughed and shared there mishaps as well.  Although it may have been wrong I did enjoy the few seconds of the mint, yum.  I asked the practicing catholic now what do I do, confession, that would be interesting?  She said just do better for the rest of the time, ok.  That is easy.

See what I mean, yum right.  Now think you can go to your
fridge and have some and I will wait until Easter.  And then I
will have one of those new Dark Chocolate Reese's Cups.

Time Together

This last month has given Troy and I some great time to spend just the two of us.  Valentine's weekend Troy and I hit the slopes.  It was Troy's first time skiing so we did not venture very far.  I didn't want to travel 4 hours, to just turn around after 2, but he did great and he loved it.  We went out and practiced by ourselves for a little while and he seemed to get a handle on his skis pretty quickly.  During our lesson Troy's skis were having a major problem and frustrating our instructor.  Everytime Troy tried to turn right his ski would pop off, poor guy.  He finally got them fixed and we enjoyed the rest of the day skiing.  It was a lot of fun and we plan on going again soon.

Troy on the magic carpet

Troy and I at the top of the hill

me at the bottom

The other night Troy and I ventured out for a late night sled.  We went up to Malone which has a great hill  for about an hour.  It was a lot of fun.  Troy and I even tried out a ramp that had been built off the side of the hill.  It went pretty well until my last time.  When instead of leaning forward, I leaned back and hit my head on the way down.  Other then that little moment it was a great night and a lot of fun for Troy and I, we loved it.

Our Sleding Night

Before we got started

But I'm Not Catholic

Yesterday, we had a conversation at lunch with my co-workers regarding Lent, that some were not Catholic so they were not giving anything up. It is true I am not a practicing Catholic but I do like the idea of giving up something. I like to pick something in my life that I think I could do without, something that has been a struggle or that thing, that one thing I seem to be obsessed with, something that when you give it up, you are bettering yourself. You are suppose to then use your time to reflect and pray.

I challenged my husband as well to find something he wanted to give up until Easter, he felt like that was a very long time to say good bye to one of his weakness, soda, which he seems to drink the most of while on the job. Due to a recent book I went thru I decided to cut out all meats except chicken and as an extra little push nothing that has chocolate/coco. This will be interesting since I can drink soda in front of Troy and I am sure between now and Easter he will consume a taco or 2, starting tonight for dinner.

Maybe I should have given up some more like facebook or blogs but since a lot of my family and friends live out of town and these seem to be our main form of communication and updates I couldn't do it. Plus I can't miss out on pictures of my nephew or pregnancy pictures of my sister-in-law for over a month it would drive me crazy.

I love challenges, the only down side is we have a guest staying with us who I am not sure will share in the enthusiasm of the lack of soda and beef for dinner. I wonder if anyone else is giving up anything?

15 Month Check-up & Snow

Yesterday, Troy and I took Gracie in for her 15 month check up.  Everything is normal minus the stuff running from her nose but we are smack dab in the middle of cold season and theres not much to do but wait it out.  We did find her stats to be hilarious!

Weight: 20lbs 8 1/2oz - in the 16th percentile

Height: 30 inches - in the 37th percentile

Head: 18 1/2 inches - the 80th percentile

Wow, I wonder where that head came from? : )  It is funny to us that she is so little, it is hard to tell because of those cheeks of hers, Hilarious!  Although her weight is low the doctor said she was not too concerned, if her height was in the 60th percentile and her weight was still low then we could worry but she is in the same area so she is fine, she just has a big head : )  We can also add PediSure just to make sure she is getting all the nutrients that she needs, if we are concerned.

I thought I would go ahead and post some cute pictures of Gracie's first adventure into the snow.

Listening intently to the dog barking

Taking a stroll with daddy,

you can see how much snow we got

My little cutie

Gracie & Mommy

Gracie & Daddy

Gracie going in for the kiss on the nose

Changes on the Frontier

In November, we found out Mike Gardner, the head coach at Malone University was going back to coach at Tabor College, in Kansas. This meant for an interesting situation for the rest of the coaching staff. Malone opened up the position and welcomed over 100 applicants. Malone University is a great school to work for and has a lot to offer. You may or may not know how this works. Most of the time when a new head coach comes in it can mean that he will bring in all of his own staff and the current staff would be out of luck. God blessed us and brought in head coach Eric Hehman (press release), who at one time worked at Trinity when both, Troy and I attended. He is most recently coming from Greenville College, where Troy’s brother’s Kyle and Jake both worked for him.

Troy has the opportunity to stay at Malone University and work with Eric Hehman as the Assistant Head Coach and several of other responsibilities. This is a really great opportunity for us and our family. We have really come to love Canton, our friends here and are more then happy to stay. One of the bonuses to this new situation is that we will be adding more family to the area which we are excited for as well.

So many of these new changes have been an answer to prayer and we are excited for all that is to come. With the 3 new families coming to Canton this brings in 4 kids all under the age of 4 and they are all boys. This will make for some interesting games and although Gracie is the only girl I will not excluded her from the mix because she will most defiantly want to be included in the running around and playing so she will learn to keep up with the boys very quickly. This will make for a very exciting season and lots of moms running around. I am sure the individuals that read the schenk blog will enjoy the stories to come.

15 Months

A year ago, my baby girl Gracie was 3 months old and I was heading back to work.  It was a hard couple of months leaving my baby and visiting the daycare everyday at lunch to feed her.  Gracie is now 15 months and everyday she has a new thing that we add to her cute little personality.  Her new thing tonight is she tried onions and loved them, I wonder who's side of the family that comes from? 

We went to the football banquet a couple of nights ago and I was excited to take a family picture since the last one was a year ago.  It is so fun to see how much she has changed in a year.  She defiantly enjoyed her self a lot more running around and having so much attention on her.  She did great and ate plenty of food.  It was a fun little even for us.  I have to admitt Gracie and I did eat and run.  There was no way we could have sat up front.  She wants to run all the time there is no holding her back.  So, the 2 of us headed home for naps which made for a nice day. 

This was taken at the banquet in 

Jan 2009, Gracie was almost 3 months

Jan 31, 2010

Very red faces, maybe we should not have been

sitting in front of the fireplace for so long.

All dressed up for the party minus the sippy

Always happy!

Gracie enjoying the fire, her little cheeks were defiantly warm.

January = 14 Months

This past month was not good as far as pictures go.  I did not take as many as I usually do but I did manage to get a couple of cute ones, that I loved.  This would have made her 14 months.  Crazy, time just flies by.

This little chair use to be mine.  I brought it down from the attic

for Gracie and she loves it.  She carries it all over the house. 

It just needs a piece put back on which Troy will do some day

when it warms up and a cute paint job.  I have not decided

what colors yet but I am sure it will be ones

that are already in her room.

Uncle Steve sent Gracie another Apple shirt,

which I love!  Thanks Uncle Steve

Cutie running around church during game night.

My little wild thing in the morning, lovin the hair!

This is my favorite, Gracie with pigtails carring her little

piglet around the house.  I loved.  I think she is

ready for some farm time with Grandpa Schenk!

I love her hair in piggies.

Gracie before School.