Easter and Miscellaneous Pictures

While I'm actually in the blogging mode, I thought I'd share a few recent pictures.

Our snowman, Frosty, from a few weeks ago:



Chris has always been a Dale Jr. fan, but up until this year, I have never let him wear anything Jr. because he was sponsored by Budweiser. So, now that he changed teams, Chris got he & the kids some new "JR NATION" gear.



There's nothing like have fancy new clothes for Easter. Here's a look at Mason and Makenna all decked out for Easter Service (take note of the matching purse and headband--accessories are a must for the princess):



One last picture for today...here's Makenna holding her cousin Gideon. How cute are they? If you look back in my blog archive, there's one from Christmas of the two of them too.



Well, now I'm having blog overload. Until next time...

Kim

Mason's 6th Birthday

What a full weekend we had over the 22nd-23rd! Besides Easter, we celebrated Mason's 6th birthday! Can it be that he is already 6 years old? I feel like he was just born a little while ago. Time flies when you're having fun! On his birthday (Saturday) we invited a few of Mason's school friends to a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. His friend Faith got the stomach flu that day, so she wasn't able to come. But we had a full vanload with Chris & I and the five kids. It was a crazy day! Those kids are WILD! Mason had a great time with his friend Nate, Braxton (whose last name is Beall -- no relation), and Alli. I was already exhausted about 10 minutes into the ride TO Chuck E. Cheese, so you can imagine how tired I was after the party!









But there is no rest for the weary. We had to gear up for another party the next night, Easter Sunday evening. We had Mason's family party at our house on the 23rd. As always, Mason got a TON of cool presents! Games, puzzles, a rocket, new cowboy boots, a magnetic dinosaur, Legos, movies...just to name some. It was a fun evening to spend time with both the Beall family and Engbrecht family.





Happy Birthday, Mason! I love you!

Our New Addition...

We welcomed Max David Beall into our home on Thursday, March 20. Nope, he's not a baby...he's a shepherd-mix puppy we adopted from the pound. Max has been quite a handful over the past few weeks, but we are starting to get the hang of this whole dog thing. He is five months old and he is very cute. He's a little stubborn, but that just means he fits into our family just fine. We had been promising to get a dog for the kids, so we decided that Mason's 6th Birthday would be a good time to take the plunge. Here's a few glimpses of Max:

Happy Easter!

Stay tuned next week for big birthday news and pictures!

Winter Wonderland

I bet you all have been wondering what's going on at the Beall household in the last 22 days since my last post, haven't you? Well, we're just trying to keep our head above the water...literally! I'm convinced that this is the strangest winter ever! We've been hit with so much flooding around our area over the past few months. We even have a pond in our front yard and field beside the house. (Actually it is a snow-covered skating rink right now!)

So, I normally just blog about the happenings of the kids, but when I was looking at the pictures on our camera I came across one that I wanted to share with you. Other than being a mom and wife, I think my next most important "job" is leading worship at Mill Creek. I am so blessed to have an INCREDIBLE team.

We have a girl in the church who lives in a group home in Rochester. She has been our biggest fan! Over the last year, her parents have been trying to find a new home for her that would be a little closer to family and a little more challenging for Jenny. They recently found out that there is an opening for her in a home in Indianapolis, which is where Jenny's sister & family live. So, she will be moving soon to the big city. We will miss Jenny dearly, but are excited for her to be closer to family. Here's a picture of our Worship Team with Jenny a few weeks ago:



Front Row: Jenny Archer (biggest fan!)
Middle: Kim Beall (worship leader & keyboard), Mark Lewis (sound), Julie Hiatt (vocals)
Back Row: Allen Sayger (vocals), Ryan Gady (acoustic guitar), Arturo Rangel (electric guitar), Eric Backus (drums), Rick Van Cleave (bass guitar), and Jason Shafer (electric guitar)


Next, I wanted to share a little of Mason's writing with you. His teacher says he is an excellent writer, and I just can't believe that he is already writing in Kindergarten! Here is a little illustrated story he wrote:



If you can't understand it, it says, "My Grandma used to have a hamster." How cute! I love the spelling "yos" for "use"...he's so smart!



On to the grand finale...Makenna's debut performance of the "Pledge to the Flag" at the Tippecanoe Valley boys basketball game last night. Her preschool and the Mentone preschool all lined up along the baseline and said the pledge. Of course there were two different groups saying the pledge at two different times (on top of each other), but it was still good. I was very proud of Makenna. Here are a few pictures of the moment:







And here's while the class was waiting to go in...





Just a note...Makenna is not the smallest one in the class, she is actually surrounded by kids from the older class!

Until next time...

Holiday Happenings

So here it is! The long-waiting blog has finally come! Here's an update on what's been happening over the past few months at the Beall household.

After six years of working for no paycheck, I am now a part of the paid workforce again. I started working at 1st Source Bank (Rochester) on December 3rd. December was quite a stressful month due to the fact that I was training full time in Wyatt and the weather was horrible! Things calmed down a little when I actually started working my normal 20 hour weeks in Rochester. I work 4 afternoons a week from noon until 4:30 and most Saturday mornings (3 of 4) until noon. We decided to put Mason in extended day Kindergarten (which he loves) so he is in school until 3:15 PM. We are so lucky to have Makenna spend time with her BFF Lola two afternoons a week. She loves going to the Brady's and usually cries when I come to pick her up! Thanks Beth! She spends the other two afternoons with daddy. On Fridays she goes to the church with daddy and plays Sunday School. She puts stuffed animals and dolls around the table and gives them all color pages. Then she goes around and colors each paper for her "students" while she talks to them. It is really quite amusing!

The kids have both adjusted well to this change and I am finally starting to get into the routine. It has been a big adjustment. I am so glad that all the gals at work (there are only 7 total in our branch) are easy to get along with and fun to work with.

Chris and I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary on December 19th. We went to Ft. Wayne to Biaggi's for an incredible dinner accompanied by 9 red roses from Chris (thanks!) and then attempted to do all of our Christmas shopping in one night! We managed to get most of it done, and left Toys R Us at 10:45 PM! It was quite a night.



Makenna enjoyed her 1st Nutcraker Ballet this year with Grandma Beall, Mom, Aunt Allison & Aunt Sheri. Even baby Samantha (pictured above) enjoyed it too. Makenna now does ballet on a daily basis at home. She loved it!

As always, we enjoyed lots of family time with both the Beall's and the Engbrecht's. Mason and Makenna got to meet their new baby cousin, Gideon. It was so much fun to hold the new baby! By the way, Makenna is wearing a Dora the Explorer costume in this picture. She is all about dress-up now!




At the Engbrecht Christmas, the kids had lots of fun playing with Trace and Maya. Maya bought Makenna a Hannah Montana wig and microphone, so we've been enjoying concerts on the fireplace on a regular basis. Here's the only picture I have of the wig so far...



To wrap up the holidays, we enjoyed 3 days & 2 nights with the entire extended Engbrecht family at the Farmstead Inn in Shipshewana. We checked in on New Year's Eve and had a blast! The kids lived in the pool the entire time! Mason even learned to swim without wearing his wings! He was jumping into the deep in all by himself by the time we left the hotel. It was so much fun to be with 39 of the 40 members of the family (We did talk to Chad on the phone from Afghanistan.) There are now 13 great-grandchildren (10 girls, 3 boys) all under 10 years old. We made lots of fun memories together! I didn't take family pictures with my camera, but Liz has one of Grandma & Grandpa Engbrecht with the 13 kids on her blog -- www.reimercrew.blogspot.com

Here's a few pictures of the kids swimming:




Mason just got his report card yesterday and I am so proud of him. He did so good! He has already mastered all of his Kindergarten sight words, so Mrs. Good sent home 1st Grade words to start working on. We looked at them yesterday and he already knows most of them. I am amazed at what they are already learning in Kindergarten! Mrs. Good also made a comment that Mason is an excellent writer! Good job Mason...I think you deserve a trip to the big CEC! (Chuck E. Cheese)

Well, that's all I've got for today! Hope your family had a great Christmas!