The Wedding Helpers

One of the things that was most amazing to me about hosting the wedding this past weekend was how God used it as an opportunity for the body of Christ to help each other. So many people helped not only Clair and Ben, but also helped me. God truly sent me a helper every day last week. I didn't seek these people out, but they offered to play with my children, pressure wash my driveway, bring me breakfast, decorate my yard, and more. It really helped me not feel overwhelmed. I guess God knew I needed the help.

My best helpers were my children though. They have been so patient while I worked on cleaning inside and outside the past few weeks. They (mostly) happily rode their bikes while I pressure washed the driveway or planted flowers or weeded the yard. They even helped clean inside and tolerated my craziness when I started organizing everything in sight. Hey, you just never know who may look into your linen closet!

Clair had so many sweet friends who came to help prepare things last week--put out candles and jars, hang sheers, add ivy to the arch, make wedding signs, direct traffic, bring food and drinks for the wedding party, and just take care of so many details.


We know that this wedding was covered in prayer by so many people, and one of the ways that was obvious to me was by the help of everyone involved. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

The Wedding!

This weekend we hosted a wedding for our good friends Ben and Clair at our home. It was such a great weekend of worship and thankfulness from not only Ben and Clair, but their family and friends too. We are so excited for them to begin their marriage and are so glad that we got to be part of the celebration.

We had lots of fun decorating and planning the ceremony. Everything looked beautiful and natural. A great friend from church decorated the entrance to our driveway. The driveway was lined with mason jars that had candles in them and raffia tied at the top. Underneath the patio we had sheers draped to create an entrance area where guests signed the guest book and then were seated by the groomsmen. Everything looked so festive that I'm hesitant to take down the decorations.

Clair has been babysitting for us for months and our children love her. Catherine stayed here for the wedding and was so excited about being with Clair and the bridesmaids all day.
The beautiful bride
The wedding ceremony was wonderful--worshipful, encouraging, personal--all as the sun set in the trees behind them.
The wedding party
We love celebrating marriage and are so glad this worked out for us to host their wedding. (I don't think this will be a common occurrence, however.) Congratulations Ben and Clair!!

To check out more wedding pics, click on the link below:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2367214706693.2141480.1440191938&l=ccbd1d1276&type=1

Let's Dance

Catherine started dance last week. She was so excited to be back with her great teacher and friends. The other night she asked me to play a song on the piano for her so she could dance. Of course, Anna decided she wanted to play the piano too.

Catherine danced beautifully to the music.

Then Anna decided to dance with her.

Sweet sisters!

Anna's checkup

We went this week for Anna's 15 month checkup. She's actually 16 1/2 months old; somehow we got off track. But we're scheduled now to go back in 6 weeks for her 18 month checkup so we'll be accurate then. Overall, she is doing great. He weight is just under 22 lbs, which puts her in the 20-25%. Her height is 33 inches, which puts her in the 90%. Our tall skinny girl! I have a feeling that one day she will be much taller than her mommy. She must have inherited those tall Hatten genes. (Jay's grandfather was about 6'6".)

The only strange measurement is her head circumference. In her last visits it has increased from the 40% then to 65% and now to 85-90%. We don't know if she is just genetically supposed to have a big head or if there is something else going on. She isn't showing any signs of anything that would be concerning with her head size--no developmental delays, seizures, vomiting, eye problems, etc. So we're going to measure her head again in 6 weeks and see if anything has changed.

She continues to be so much fun for our family. Catherine and Will are her favorite friends. She has lots of fun with them every day. As much as they love her, I think at times they get annoyed by her. She constantly wants something of theirs--Will's shoes, Catherine's baby, etc--and she pulls their hair, ears, and nose while we ride in the car. But they tolerate her antics well and take turns playing with her when she is being difficult (which really is usually when we're in the car).

She also pays attention really well and imitates whatever they're doing. One day Jay was practicing shaking hands with Catherine and Will before we went to Milwaukee. He practiced with each of them a couple of times. Then he started to walk away, but Anna went over to him and held out her hand just like they had. Another time, they were standing up next to me to see how tall they were. When they stepped away, she came right over and did the exact same thing.

She discovered Catherine's old bike helmet in the garage and thinks she's a really big kid now. She wears it around frequently. It may not be a bad idea for her to wear it since she has also figured out how to climb on kitchen chairs, the couch, and anything else that looks interesting.
She is so sweet. I love this stage--still sometimes babyish but also learning so many new things. She's learning about one new word a week right now. Her current vocabulary includes "brother", "baby"--which she says as Bay-BEE, "up", "more", and we're working on "please." She also understands communication very well. I can ask her to go upstairs and get her shoes and she'll go get them and bring them down. Or if I say I'm going to take Eli out to potty, she goes to get his leash.

She also is pretty strong willed. We've had a couple of "i'm not giving in or going to obey" confrontations. Thankfully Jay and I didn't give in either and after many tears on her part she eventually cooperated. All over minor things--like handing us the camera case she put on the floor or returning diapers to the diaper bag she got out. I predict more of those confrontations to come. We better prepare ourselves.

It's a blurry picture--but this captures how she's always moving around and always has her green blanket with her (and how I'd like a new camera that focuses better :)
We love you Anna! I can't believe you're growing up so fast!

Beach 2011

Last week we were at the beach for our annual Hatten family vacation with Mimi & PopPop and Aunt Wissa, Uncle Andy, and baby Marshall. The kids, especially Will, had been counting down the days until we could go to the beach. We always have so much fun and this year was no exception.

On the first night we were there, PopPop found a boogy board. (I don't know if that's how you're supposed to spell that.) Will declared that he knew how to boogy board and was going to do it in the morning. "Sure...." we all thought. And sure enough, the next morning he went out to the ocean and promptly started riding the waves. He was much braver in the ocean than he is in the pool. He had a great time jumping waves, riding waves, and playing with Jay in the ocean. He spent lots of time in the ocean. And I tried not to worry about the reports we heard about sharks and jellyfish!

Anna had a great time playing with Marshall. She currently loves baby dolls (learning from Catherine I guess) and says "baby" all the time. I'm pretty sure she thought Marshall was a really fun baby doll. She'd chase after him while he crawled all around and they kept getting into all kinds of mischief. They'd go up and down the stairs together, into bathroom cabinets, and bang on the window (notice the low window in the laundry room that was just perfect for them). On this particular morning, they decided to help with laundry and threw laundry all over the place.

Catherine loves being with her family so much. She cherishes the role of big sister and cousin and is quick to organize everyone's activities. She loved the pool more than the ocean--she's my girl and cries if she gets saltwater in her eyes. But she did enjoy drawing pictures in the sand. She also did lots of puzzles, played games, collected lots of shells that we're now making crafts with, and watched Disney movies.

On the last night we decided to take a sweet group photo of the kids. Look at these precious children! And sweet little Marshall is so much fun. Our kids adore him. At times they overwhelm him with their adoration I think.

After a couple of photos though, the sweet photo shoot was going more like this.

Crazy fun, I say.

We can't wait until beach week next year!

Happy Birthday Eddie!

Our dear friend Eddie turned 4 on Wednesday. It's hard to believe he's already 4 and that Will will be 4 in less than 2 months. We love playing with Eddie and are so glad he's our really cool friend.

Birthday Candles

Crazy Kids

Silly boys

Baby Curls

Pure sweetness

Milwaukee

At the end of July we headed to Milwaukee for our annual Northwestern Mutual meeting. Jay had some committee meetings a few days before the real meetings, so we were there for almost an entire week. We had a great time--probably our best Milwaukee trip ever. The most difficult part was getting there. Anna isn't a huge fan of sitting still on airplanes. Let's just say that I was very thankful God surrounded us with gracious people on the airplane. At one point they were all singing "The Wheels on the Bus" to her to try and console the poor child.

We had a little mix-up with our hotel reservations, so we were at one Marriott for 2 nights and then moved over to the other Marriott. Our kids loved this big window that looked out on the river at the hotel. They were very happy watching boats and kayaks and people walking down the street on the morning it rained.

One of the annual highlights is the race on Sunday morning. Will was looking pretty handsome in his race gear. Definitely the cutest racer I've ever seen.
Catherine and Will did the one mile walk with PopPop, Mimi and Anna did the 5k, and I ran the 10k. (Jay had to head to a meeting and couldn't race this year.) Catherine was very excited that she didn't fall down and get a boo-boo this year.
On Sunday night, Northwestern rents out the entire Milwaukee zoo and has a big Garden Party. This year our kids especially loved the carousel. Will pretended like he was a cowboy on his horse and named it Rob and kept petting it and talking to it.
This was Anna's first carousel ride and she loved it. When we got down at the end, she climbed back up and wanted to go again.
On Monday and Tuesday mornings we went to a couple of museums. The kids always have so much fun. One funny story: we do a lot of walking in Milwaukee. Pretty much everything is within 1/2 mile to a mile so we definitely get our exercise. After we walked to the museum on Monday morning, Will started complaining about how much his foot hurt. I took off his shoe and realized he had a huge blister on the back of his foot. I had been thinking that he probably needed bigger shoes soon but had put it off. So he walked around the entire museum with one shoe on and I carried him piggy-back down the street when we left. We walked to the nearby mall to buy him some bigger shoes. The shoes he had on were a size 7. They measured his feet and said he needed an 8.5! No wonder his feet hurt!
We enjoy having Mimi and PopPop with us in Milwaukee too. Jay's dad also works for Northwestern so it's a lot of fun that we get to go to the meetings and dinners and events together. They were both very, very gracious to us and watched the kids a lot this year so that I could go with Jay to some meetings and dinners.
We love our annual trip to Milwaukee. Sounds crazy, I know. But Northwestern is fabulous. We love the work God has given Jay to do and the company he works for is the best there is. I'm glad our whole family gets to be a part of it!