Thanksgiving!

We began our Thanksgiving trip on Wednesday.  We all headed for Nana and Papa T's house, while I snuck out to go see the last Twilight movie with my bestie and sister.  It was so much fun!!!  If I had been on my game, I would've taken a picture of us there, but my picture-taking began on Thursday. :-)

We woke to the most beautiful Thanksgiving Day that I can remember in years!!  It ended up being almost 60 degrees and sunny.  Fantastic!!  The kids went outside with Pete to play a little basketball, while I helped Nana get the food ready.

Pete is the mashed potato king.  He mashes them every year and did another great job for us. 

There was a smaller crowd this year, but we still had fun.  The food was, as always, delcious and we really had a nice time sitting around and chatting. :-)  We missed Nancy's deviled eggs though!!!

This is the newest addition on the Trolinger side.  We haven't seen little Drew since he was just a few weeks old.  He is a smiley, happy baby.  Such a cutie!  He really enjoyed his food that day too.

What he didn't eat, Tater took care of for him. ;-)  We hung out all afternoon, but Andy and Francy had to head out to her brother George's house for another Thanksgiving and I needed to head up to Goshen to get some Black Friday shopping in with Em and Jeff!  Pete stayed in Warsaw, so he could go shopping with his mom and, later, his Uncle Scott.

Em, Jeff, and I went Black Friday shopping on THURSDAY!  Why?  Because the stupid stores decided to open at 8 and 9pm that night.  Lame, but whatever.  We still went.  Got some good stuff too!  Papa D was in charge of all the grandkids that night, but thankfully Kendalyn was already asleep and my kids soon followed after watching a movie.  The next morning we headed out for breakfast together at Ihop.  Bestest cousins!

Jeff's Aunt Deb made the girls the cutest hats.  Had to take a picture of them!

We did a little more shopping with the kids, then headed back to gather our stuff.  Noah had to say his goodbye to Sherm.

We stopped very briefly to see mom.  She was eating her lunch, so we chatted for a few minutes, before dad moved her back to her room.  She was VERY excited to see us!!

Even got the kids to sit still long enough to take a photo with them!



I had to work today at 5:45am, so we had to head back on Friday afternoon.  We went back down to Warsaw for a short time, before loading up and heading over for another brief visit with Andy.  Noah has always told me about how he wants as many tools as Uncle Andy and now I know why!  Check all those out!  We had a really fun, yet very short visit.  Looking forward to going back again over Christmas and spending more time with everyone. :-)

Our Pets

I posted a picture of Tater the other day on Facebook and thought I'd post a little entry about the other furry members of our family.  They are as involved in our daily lives and as loved as everyone else in this family of ours.

This is our sweet Tater.  Haven't posted about him in a while.  He is nearly 2 yrs old now and just the absolute sweetest guy ever!  His favorite thing to do is lay on our bed and sleep the mornings away.  I often times have to kick him off, so I can make the bed.  And, honestly, I don't think he likes when I make the bed, because he doesn't get to curl up in our pillows when I do that.  This day he curled up on our living room pillow and just looked adorable!  Took me 12 yrs of marriage to convince Pete that we needed a dog and we've never looked back since we got him.  His favorite thing, other than his constant need for food, is to play frisbee with his dad.  If I say to Tater, "Is Daddy home?", he'll run to the front window and look everywhere for him.  He ADORES Pete.  He wants to be everywhere he is.  So funny to see, considering it took him such a long time to even want a dog in the first place!  



This is our kitty, Olive, and she rarely gets any face time on here.  We rescued her from under a bush next to a very busy road in downtown Goshen over 5 yrs ago now.  Hard to believe we've had her that long!  I'll admit my first year with her wasn't my favorite.  She loved clawing my feet when I would make a bed and she'd run by and attack the kids as they were playing, and even once wiped her poop on my wall.  And, I won't even mention the vomiting.  It was a bit of a love/hate relationship for a while there.  But, she's really calmed down a lot in the past couple of years and has become a nice cat.  She's still a cat, which means, she likes to keep to herself, especially with Tater around, since she still hates us for bringing him home!  But, she'll rub up against our legs now if she wants something and loves being petted.  She too loves sleeping the day away on a bed, but it's usually Noah's bed, because she gets to lay in the sun.  I took this picture of her today, because she looked so cute laying in the sun by our patio door - her paw covering her face and all.  I grew up with many animals over the years, finally getting our long-time companion, Hobbes.  And, each animal brought a little extra love into our family.  Well, maybe not the birds.  They were just dumb.  But, our cats and dogs over the years brought us lots of joy.  Both Tater and Olive make our family complete and just a little bit more wonderful. :-)

Operation Christmas Child

For the past 3-4 years, I have lead the Sunday School kids in giving to Operation Christmas Child.  This is a program that was brought to my attention by a mom that comes to our church.  They did it in their family and wanted to see if we wanted to do it with the ZONE (aka our Sunday School) kids.  We did it the first year and really had a lot of fun with it.  This year, I finally decided to get some of the materials from Samaritan's Purse about this program.  I received a DVD that had promotional videos on it.  For the first time, after doing it for those 3-4 yrs, I was able to see what an impact it had on the children around the world that receive a shoebox.  These kids have literally nothing, so when a shoebox filled with toys and candy and clothes comes to them, they are beyond overjoyed.  It was so impactful to me as a leader, let alone as a mom.  When I showed my own kids the videos, they too were struck by the joy coming from these kids.  We wanted to make it a bigger event than we had ever made it before.  We wanted to give even more to these kids than we had in years past and today was the day we made it happen.

I started asking for shoeboxes way back in August, knowing that I wanted to make it a church-wide event, instead of just a Sunday School event.  We had over 60 shoeboxes given to us!  I talked to our Pastor to see if I could make an announcement to the congregation and share a video with them.  He said, "SURE!", so I took those 60 boxes, piled them all around the pulpit in two huge mountains of shoeboxes, showed my very favorite video (posted on my fb wall to those interested), and offered the opportunity to our church family to be a part of this program.  I'm not joking when I say that after the service was over, nearly every single box in that mountain of boxes was taken.  Couldn't believe my eyes!  People were taking 2-3 boxes each and carting them home.  I knew we weren't going to walk away with 20 boxes this year.  And, boy, was I right!  You see the picture above?  Those are happy, excited kids, because we collected tons of boxes today!

In another effort to make this day special, we decided to bring the boxes first thing in the morning when SS began and then take a walking field trip down to our local coffee house.  We made a circle around the boxes and prayed for God's blessing to go to each of those children receiving them, that they may learn to love Jesus and invite Him into their hearts.  Then, we left to go get some hot chocolate and cookies!

God surely gave us a beautiful day today too!  The walk down there was perfect!  The kids?  So excited!

They filled up the place, finding seats where they could - talking and laughing and having fun!

Pete and our friend, Brian, walked down before we did to get the hot chocolates ordered, so when we arrived, we just needed to start passing them all out.  Worked our perfectly!

Noah and his buddy Ryan had the best time hanging out.

My friend, Laura, made us lots of yummy cookies to eat while we were there.  I bagged them up, put on a little ribbon and an Operation Christmas Child sticker and gave them to everyone that was there.

We had nearly 20 kids show up today (our normal attendance is around 10-12) and several adult helpers.

Look at this great group!  There were even more adults than are pictured here.  They were just camera shy. ;-)  It was a fantastic way to celebrate the gift of giving and the generousity of our kids!

After church today, I went through all the boxes and counted them up.  We have a couple people who said they will bring them this week, but in addition to those coming later, we had 65 boxes.  SIXTY-FIVE BOXES!  Last year we had 20!  People were bring 2, 3, even 4 boxes each.  One family brought 7!  When I decided to make this a bigger event than we had made it in years past, I never thought our small church would come together and pack so many.  I was humbled by their generousity and thrilled that we could be a part of spreading the love from our church and the deep love of our Saviour!  What a special day it was!

Growing Up Brings Electronics!

I'm the first to admit that I have fairly strict views about how quickly I should expose my kids to the modern-day advances in technology.  And, by "technology" I'm basically referring to cell phones, facebook, etc...  I grew up without all that and was fine, but I've come to realize (with the help and insistance of my bestie, Michelle) that today's world is different than the world we grew up in as kids.  My biggest concern with cell phones was the whole issue of texting.  I love texting as much as the next person, but when I walk into a room of Jr. High girls and no one is talking, because they are all texting, it makes me sad.  My favorite memories as a kid are of sitting around after practice and chatting and laughing with my friends.  Didn't want to see my kids sucked into the whole texting thing before they were ready, because I wanted them to form real bonds of friendship and, honestly, that view hasn't changed a whole lot, but I recognize now that the way kids form bonds now is different than it was when I was a kid and won't be changing back anytime in the future.  So, I've begun to realize that a cell phone was something that wasn't just a luxury, it was a necessity.

*Cue* a VERY excited 11 1/2 yr old girl!  After sending my cell phone with Madie on a few occasions, most recently on her first away game for cheerleading, I realized that if I wanted to keep my phone with me, she needed one of her own.  So, I talked to Pete and we realized that it was time to add her to our plan.  She didn't get anything fancy.  No IPhone 5 here or anything, but we got her a cute little phone, that allows texting, and got her a little green phone purse to carry it in.  She was thrilled beyond words and just couldn't stop hugging us or telling us she loves us.  Guess we know what makes tweens love you more, huh?! ;-)  She sat with her dad and got her phone numbers saved and changed her ringtone.  She even sent her first text message to Noah that said, "I love you". :-)



I realize now that with growing up comes responsibility... and electronics!  And, Madie is definitely growing up.  She may be little, but she's all tween and we know that she's a responsible young lady that deserves to show us that she can start handling some of these new things in her life.  So, if you find a strange number pop up on your phone, it might be from her.  My sweet little girl is growing up!

Peoria Trip

Since Noah's diagnosis, almost 2 yrs ago, we've had to make regular trips to see his doctors in Peoria.  This is about a 2 hour car ride and usually takes up all of his school day.  Pete wasn't able to go on this trip, so it was just me and Noah.  We had a fun time spending the day together, even if it was for a doctor's appt.

The Pediatric Diabetes Resource Center (long title, huh?!) is in the hospital there in Peoria.  It's a nice, big hospital and the diabetes center is a really fun place for kids to visit.  Everything is decorated with kids in mind and they make it a really comforting place to be.  This is the waiting room, where they always have Disney stuff playing.  Noah is sitting by the board that shows all the doctors, nurses, and other staff members for this department.  They really try and focus, not only on the physical health of the child, but also the emotional health as well.  We fill out a new form every time we visit (every 3 months) and he has to fill out a section all about his emotions.  Thankfully, he always says he's doing well. :-)

We got to go in the Space Room this time.  Last time we were in the Fish Room.  He's holding the bear he was given when he was first diagnosed.  He takes it with us every time.  Since his doctor is on maternity leave, we met with the doctor he had the very first time we visited, just 2 days after his diagnosis.  He is a really nice man and gave us a great report!  Noah only had minor changes this time and everything seems to be right on track.  They gave us the schedule for next year about taking a pump class - something we've been wanting to do for several months now.  We were going to go to the class in Sept, but Madie was diagnosed with her fake chickenpox, so we had to cancel.  Hopefully we can do it sometime in the spring.  We are now starting to give him insulin BEFORE meals, so it takes a little more planning on our part, but hopefully that will help keep his numbers in range even more than they are now.

About 30 min away from the hospital (on the way home) there is a McDonalds with a play area.  We stop here every time we go down for a check-up.  Noah always looks forward to it, as do the girls when they come with us.  Next check-up is scheduled for Feb.  That will officially be 2 years since his diagnosis.  Hard to believe it's been that long.  Sometimes it feels like just yesterday, but other times it feels like there's never been a time when he didn't get shots because of food.  We're pretty used to our new routine now.  He handles it like a pro and it's become our "norm".  But, I don't think there will ever be a time when I get used to seeing bruise marks all over him from the shots and see lumps under his skin from the scarring.  But, despite it all, we are thankful for a healthy boy that came away from his last appointment with high marks!  Hope all his future appointments end as well!

Cheerleading

My Madie Moo is a cheerleader!!  She's been going to 6:45am practices for over a month now and just started cheering at the games this week.  She was so excited!!  I was so excited for her too, because I remember how much fun I had being a cheerleader at her age.  I knew she'd love it!

When I was a 6th grade cheerleader (the only year I actually was one), we had the lamest uniform ever.  A super-old skirt that was maroon and white with a white t-shirt we bought at 3-D and that's about it.  I was a "Monarch".  We only played other teams from our school.  Madie gets to wear an entire uniform, head-to-toe, like regular cheerleaders and they actually play other schools.  Her first game was last night and it was at a different school, so we didn't go.  Noah, Madie's friend Katie, and I all went tonight.  You can see from the picture above that she was adorable from the bow on her head to the Nike's on her feet! 

The 7th and 8th grade girls were playing the big gym, so the 5th and 6th grade boys had to play in the multi-purpose room.  There wasn't a lot of room for them to move, but they did a great job anyway!

Madie was doing such a great job!  She was right on the mark with all her moves and was so impressive.  She even got those special cheerleading jumps down.  I think it comes from all those years of dance.  It's all paying off!

Between the 5th and 6th grade games, Katie got to chat with Madie and their friend Ashleigh.  So glad Madie has so many friends on the cheer squad.

After the 5th grade boys finished their game, the girls lined up and did the "We are proud of you" cheer.  The 5th grade boys lost unfortunately, but the 6th grade boys WON!  They won by 1 point at the very end and it was such an exciting game!!   It's so fun for me to watch those boys play too, because I remember them as these little kindergarteners and now they're playing basketball.  So fun!



They even got to do a halftime cheer in the middle of the court.  We had the best time watching her cheer and watching the boys play.  Going to games is something I did all the time as a kid.  By the time I was in high school, I went to every home and away basketball and football game and was involved in girls basketball, softball, etc... So, getting back involved in the school sports - this time as a parent - is such a surreal, yet amazing experience.  Can't wait for Pete and Livie to go tomorrow night.  She has another game then and because Livie had dance, Pete had to stay back, so he could pick her up.  Looking forward to a fun season!