*Mother's Day 2016*

Has everyone given up on me?  I feel like it's been forever since I've updated our blog but for part of the time, it truly was impossible.  We spent 8 week during, February-April attending language school away from home and the internet was not high enough to load pictures.  But we're back how (3 weeks ago - big smile) and I'm going to pick up my one thing that I love to do - blogging - again!

Thanks to the little push from my friend, Mandy, that I need to find/make time for it . ;)

So pictures from the past few months will come, but today, on Mother's Day, I'm going to put pictures on here of my beautiful blessing and the reason that I can celebrate being a momma!

These little people are my absolute favorite in all the world!

12 years ago, God brought a beautiful baby girl into our life and things have never been the same.

20 months after she arrived, God blessed us with a sweet, pudgy baby boy.....

21 months later, a sweet black haired bundle of sweetness arrived and......

20 months later, our little Jeren came.....

16 months later, our caboose came and what a ride it's been.

I wouldn't trade it for anything!!!

Now my babies aren't quite babies anymore and are growing up too fast!  But I often tell them, "You'll always be my baby"

I'm so thankful that God chose me to be the momma of these 5 blessings, but most days I feel completely inadequate for the job.  I'm thankful that God fills in the big gaps that I leave and I pray that they will all grow to love and serve Jesus with all their hearts!

I'm also blessed to have this wonderful, godly man by my side. I'm so thankful that he's the daddy to my children and I wouldn't pick anyone else in the world to go sailing through life with.  Some days are smooth sailing and others days there's some waves in life, but together we've come through all the storms (with God's help) and each one has made us stronger.

On this day, I'm so thankful for my little family!  I'm thankful for my two mom's that have blessed my life beyond words with their encouragement, help, love, support and godly example!  

Happy Mother's Day to all my momma friends!  I hope your day is blessed!

Happy Birthday, Kristyn!!

It's so hard to believe that eleven years ago, our sweet, little black-haired baby was born!  Kristyn has been such a huge blessing to our family!!

Out of all our children, she has struggled most with moving to Guatemala, but over time, she has allowed God to really use her in different ways and in turn she has blossomed SO much!  We are so thankful for the ways that we see her allowing God to guide her steps.  She told us the other day that she wants to be a missionary teacher when she grows up.....a FAR cry from a few months ago, when all she wanted to do was "go home" with nightly buckets of tears.

Her birthday was on Sunday and I think she smiled the whole day long.  She said it was her best day ever.  I asked her what her favorite thing was in the last year and she said, "Youth Camp". Then I asked what she thought would be her favorite thing this coming year and she said "Helping in the school"

All the kids wanted to get her a gift, so she had a nice little stash.

"Aunt Mikah" (the missionary young lady here with us) gave her a water bottle.

Owen made her a card and gave her socks.....he was very proud of his card. ;)

Megan and Ashlyn made her a card and gave her a "free foot massage ticket"

She also got a box of pens, note pad, and sticky notes.  She was VERY happy with this gift.

She also got a pillow that she wanted.

This is how she spent the afternoon with her new pillow. :)

She wanted pudding with oreos instead of a cake.

We are so thankful for our girl and so happy she's part of our family!!

Thank you for helping us celebrate!!  :)

A L-O-T of Catching Up.....

Thank you for all the comments we got about our blog.  We never dreamed there were that many out there still following our blog.  I'm glad you're enjoying it and every once in a while, just drop a comment.  That makes it SO much easier and much more fun to post on here.

So here is what has been happening in our life the last few months......

The usual for April....mud!

 We got to meet some of our family and visit the Sights and Sounds Theater in Branson and see Jonah. 

We took our playhouse and chickens to Misty's where they are enjoying their new home. :)

Grandma and Papa got to be here for Easter. The next day Grandma and Grandpa came and we had an egg hunt before we started our trip to OH for IHC.  It was SO fun to all be together for a week.

 

 While at IHC we met with the EFM board and they approved us to serve under them as missionaries and they also approved KENYA as a brand new EFM mission field......what a HAPPY, HAPPY DAY that was!!!!!!  (for more of our story, you can visit our mission Facebook page - Keith Crystal Schaper)

  

May was Graduation and our sweet Megan graduated! 

 

We have some very special friends here at Troy that we will miss! 

The Grandma's and Papa got to come up for Graduation - so special!  

 

Awards Night was a special night!  We are so proud of our children for their hard work!!

 Mother's Day was a wonderful day. Keith fixed a turkey he had shot the day before - SOO yummy!!! 

 I squeezed in pictures of the kids.

This Miss was having difficulties with her pictures.....

 These boys are best friends! I love their pictures.  None of these were posed...they just love being together and making each other laugh.

 Our Little Man growing up too fast!

 Our sweet Young Lady

Our Bucket of JOY!!!

    

Our little Man-Cub!

 Aaaaaand the old Mom and Pops!! :D

 

Grandma helped us out with getting a Prayer Card picture...whew!! Glad that's behind us. :D  

More visits from Grandma which are always special and getting spoiled rotten by Mr. Ron!  He always brings goodies to clean-up day for camp.  He brings Twizzlers for straws and then they can eat their straw.....  Thank you for taking an interest in our kids, Ron.

 

 Okay, believe it or not, that's not even a tiny bit close to all the pictures, but I think I'm done for right now.  We are in an extremely busy time in our life, but I don't see it slowing down any time in the future months.  I will do my best to keep up as we go along.

Prayers are GREATLY appreicated!! Our blog is personal. Our FB page is mainly mission related, so I may not put certain things on that page.  Please pray that God will give us strength this summer - it will be very busy with MANY miles on the road. 

I hope to not wait so long to give an update again.  I REALLY, REALLY do like comments, just to know who is out there enjoying our pictures and interested in our life....that's not too much to ask, is it?  :)  

Thanks for hanging out with us!!!

What to do...

I am not sure what to do with our blog.

We were advised to get a Face Book page for our missionary journey because it seems everyone is on FB now.  I'm not sure if anyone still looks at our blog and there is no way to know unless you leave a comment, which going by our recent post, it would seem that we don't have anyone looking at our blog.  Heehee!!!!!  Maybe you're just lurking out there.....  ;)

So I'm not sure if I will delete our blog....keep it going, if anyone still looks at it....make it completely private for only our close family to see (because I probably won't be putting very personal things on our FB page as it will mainly be mission "stuff")....I'm not sure what to do.

So until we decide what will be done, I guess it will stay like this. :D

If you have an opinion, we'd love to hear it....even if you're a lurker. ;)

January Re-cap

January was a hard month! Hard things happened that we didn't understand.  We may never know why things happen until we get to Heaven, but knowing that our Father has it all under control and HE has a plan has been comforting.

But we don't like to focus on the bad here on our blog, so we're going to share some of the fun things we've gotten to do this month and a couple of HUGE blessings! 

Enjoy!!!

First up, we went down to the Mississippi River to see the eagles.  They were far away and we didn't get to see them up close, but the kids loved watching them and hearing their "screeching" :)

As most of the Midwest, we got lots of snow in January!! Makes for super fun times!

I love watching the boys play!

 

We were blessed to get a Year Membership this year to the St. Louis Children's Museum for the cost that it would normally be for one visit for our size of family.  So we spent one whole Friday at the Magic House.  What a fun day!

Two very special things have happened this month that I want to share. 

I had a doctors appointment this month (no, I'm not pregnant, but thank you for your concern. ;) ). Normally, this appointment would be around $200 and we took our little "Dave Ramsey" envelope with us to pay for my visit. My dr. is the BEST dr. in the world and we love and appreciate him and all he stands for, but I do not ask for favors from him. Keith always says, "They have bills, too"  Nothing was ever mentioned during the visit with him about paying, but when I went out and checked with the nurse to pay for the visit, she said, "Your total is $10."  I asked if I would be billed for the rest and she replied,
"No, Dr. Jeff, said to just pay $10 and he'd cover the rest"

Keith and I were privileged to go on a date one evening while our pastor and family offered to have a "lego party" with the kids.  We went to Red Robin and enjoyed our meal and time together very much. When the waitress came to give us our "bill" she said,
"The manager said you're all taken care of. Your bill is paid"

Isn't God amazing? Even though some hard things have happened, we serve such an awesome God that loves and cares for us - even in the small things.  We are so BLESSED!!!

What are some blessings you have received recently? We'd love to hear about them. :)

Exciting Times!

The other evening we went out to clear the deer stand area for our mighty hunters to use during the season.  We have a few of them around here. :)

After we had the area and all the lanes cleared it was turning dark and I took a picture of Owen and Megan, not knowing how perfect the lighting (or lack of lighting) was!  Immediately I burst out - "FAMILY PICTURE TIME" to which I'm sure most of those involved inwardly groaned!

But that's okay - everyone knows that Momma Bear likes her pictures, so the better you smile the sooner we'll be done. :D

 So I grab the chain saw case and set the camera up on it.  Keith gathers the kids and lines them up, then comes to figure out the timer on the camera.  All set...?   Yep, even the bug was ready. :D

Say "Cheese"....oh wait, it's dark, "Never mind".....

Okay, just look normal....

Then dad says, "Wait, let's jump."   Uhhhhh, jump?

Okay - sure!

I don't think Ashlyn got the memo....

Nope, she didn't!

That's okay, Owen jumped twice, so we'll count one of his jumps for her....

All safely landed! 

Whew!  That was an exciting 20 seconds of my life.  :D  So what exciting thing is happening in YOUR life?  We love to hear from our readers. ;)