Happy Father's Day Don!!!

We really are lucky around our house... We have the best Daddy ever and the best husband that takes such great care of all of us!! He is such a busy guy, but always makes time for his family!! He is an IT guy at Lawrence Memorial Hospital, a student taking classes to get his District Minister's License and the Campus Pastor and Music Minister at Wanamaker Woods Church of the Nazarene in Osage City. That's all on top of all the things he volunteers for and everything his family involves him in!! =)

Here are just a few wonderful things you need to know about my amazing husband...

He LOVES KU!!!! I'm not sure that's even a strong enough description of his love for all things KU!!

He LOVES his kids and will do ANYTHING for them!! He also LOVES to dance and upon hearing music, can literally NOT stop himself from dancing to it. It's a sickness!!

He loves volunteering for field trips and pretty much anything to do with our kids. Also, kids LOVE him and just seem to flock to him - probably because he is so much fun!!

He loves his boy! He and Taegan are so cute to watch together!! I love those two!!

He loves anything to do with peanut butter and chocolate! It gets even better if they are together!!

He actually likes to shop too! Probably not as much as me, but he really does like shopping and I do realize how lucky I am!!

He loves football! College, NFL, Chiefs, Eagles, and of course, KU!!

He loves his girls! There is just something about the bond between a daddy and his daughters. He definitely is wrapped around those two little fingers!!

He is a WONDERFUL husband!! He puts up with me and all my craziness! We have been together for 10 1/2 years now and he's still here. I'd say that's something!!

He is always willing to help Madison with any school project, no matter what it is or how crazy it might be!

He loves being crazy with the kids! Sometimes I think I live with 4 kids!!

He is such a Godly man and an excellent example for our daughters of how a man should treat them and for Taegan of how he should treat a woman. It is amazing for me to see how God is working in his life. God has called him to be a music minister and the doors are definitely opening for that work.

He is such a fun dad! He is always willing to get out there and play/skate or do whatever his 3 kids want him to. What else could a kid ask for?

Happy Father's Day to our favorite Dad!! We all love you so much!!!!

Kings Kids Choir Spring Musical

It's that time of year again. The kids have worked hard since January and last Sunday was the big performance. Madison practiced and practiced to get this one particular solo. She tried out and actually got it! She was so excited!! Then the new choir director asked us if Lily would be willing to do this one part where they needed a little kid to pretend to say "Oh No!" Lily was even more excited than her sister! She has wanted to be a part of KKC since we took it over. She still has one more year to wait, but she was so happy to get to rehearse with them!! They both did so great!!

Lily was so worried people were going to laugh at her, but she seemed to handle it well. She was SO funny!!! I think what cracked me up even more was how serious she looked!!

Madison has no fear in front of a crowd of people. I could never get up there and sing a solo! She must take after her dad!! She did so great!!

Now that both choirs are over we have our Sunday evenings free again for the summer. That makes this mommy so happy!!!!!

My Future Kindergartner!!!

A couple of weeks ago Don and I took our little baby girl (Who amazingly is now 5 1/2! How is that even possible?!?) to Kindergarten Round-Up!! I can't believe Lily is old enough to be leaving me in the fall. It still seems like she should be my little toddler playing around the house. Wow time flies!!

The theme for Kindergarten Round-Up this year was "Candy Land". The kids get to meet the teachers, play games, have a snack, ride the bus and do a little testing; all while the parents sit through a meeting! It's definitely better on their end! Everything was decorated so cute! Here she is all ready to go.

And another shot in front of the beautiful candy house. They go all out at Indian Hills!!

Lily had so much fun and now can't wait until school starts! I remember Madison doing the same thing. Madison even had me make a countdown with the days remaining until she started Kindergarten! Wow how things change once they actually go to school!! =)

Preschool Concert with Stephen Fite

As some of you may know, I recently had my hard drive crash. Because of this I thought I had lost all my pictures from the last couple of months, but when I was going through my pictures on my camera from Easter, I found some more! So... here is a couple of catch up blogs before Easter. Thanks for keeping up with us!!
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Lily's preschool class recently went to a Stephen Fite concert. I had never heard of him, but he obviously has quite a following with preschool age kids! It was held at TPAC and we had to get there an hour early to get good seats. So what did they all do while waiting that hour? Play on their DS of course! I didn't get a picture of Taegan too, but all 5 kids sat there like this playing DS. Crazy stuff!!

The kids really enjoyed the concert. He does have some pretty catchy songs. Here is Lily clapping along to one of them.

More singing.

Here is Stephen. He is quite the colorful guy!!

Any time they were told they could get down and dance, Preston and Taegan were so excited. Here are a couple of pictures of some of their dancing!

They have some great moves!!

Reese's 4th Birthday

She is 4 today. My little angel has been gone now for 4 years. For whatever reason, this year has been really hard for both Don and I. We talked about it and think maybe it is because more and more people forget as every year passes. It is so hard on this end when it is so important that no one forget that we had this beautiful baby girl, but as Don put it this evening, the world has moved on. You want to scream it from the rooftop! You want everyone you pass to know that you had 3 little girls before Taegan and that the last little girl isn't here anymore, but she still matters. I know what should matter is that we know and we celebrate her life, and it does, but it is so hard when others forget the one day you think about all year. Ugh...

This year my parents came up the weekend before her birthday and we all went to the cemetery on Saturday. My mom brought flowers and we purchased another little angel statue from us and a pinwheel from each of our kids. We always try and get a decent family picture, but this was as good as it was getting this year. Lily can't stand the sun in her eyes (or anywhere near her eyes) and Taegan just refuses to look AT the camera!

Her grave with the decorations we brought.

I thought it was a good idea to try and at least get a good picture of the 3 kids (ha, ha!) and this was as good as it got. The girls are great, but Taegan refused to leave his pinwheel alone! It had to be spinning!!

Later that day we got a knock at the door and it was these gorgeous flowers from my Granny in honor of Reese's birthday. I absolutely LOVE them!!

Tonight, on her actual birthday, we took the kids to buy flowers from us and pick out a balloon. Here is a decent picture of the Engel clan with the new flowers in her vase.

I wanted the pale pink tulips. They were so pretty!

Don picked out an arrangement with some gorgeous green and orange flowers.

Here is a picture of the balloon we all picked out, and Taegan HAD to carry out of the store!

Her marker before we left.

Afterwards we went out to eat and then came home and set off our 4 sky lanterns. The kids were all so excited about this and so was I. They turned out great! I just wish we would have had a few more hands to help. Don and I got them up and going and we trusted the girls to take pictures (Madison) and videotape (Lily). I think they did great.

Getting the fire going...

You have to wait about 45 seconds for it to fill with hot air and...

Away it goes!!!

We set off 2 pink and 2 white.

They looked so pretty lit up in the sky. I just wish we would have had more people to help and then they would have gone up a little closer together. Either way, it turned out great and we will definitely be doing it again next year!

As each balloon went up in the air, the kids yelled "Happy Birthday Reese!"

Here is the video Lily (and Don) took of the last lantern being lit and drifting away.

We really did have a nice evening, just us. And I can say we survived another year. It was a tough week, a really bad day yesterday and pretty emotional day today, but we got through it. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers for our family. I know they helped during those hard times.

We love you Reese! We are so glad God chose us to be your family. We miss you like crazy and we can't wait to see you again someday!!

Snow Day!!

Yesterday was our first snow day of 2011!! Don worked from home and we just had a nice day around our house and never got out of our pjs. The kids went outside and played in the snow 3 times in their nice, new snowsuits Grandma and Grandpa bought for our Minnesota trip!! Here they are before we put on their coats and boots...

And after the coats and boots are on. They look so cute all bundled up!!!

My snow angels!!

Here they are playing in the snow. Well, the girls are playing more than Taegan. I think he was just trying hard to walk in his snow boots and not fall!

My kids are obsessed with eating snow, I'm not sure why.

My CRAZY daughters!!

I told you they were crazy! Here is Madison, again with snow in her mouth! Lily with her tongue out again. (I have no idea why!) And poor Taegan looking at his sisters like they have lost their minds! What a bunch!!

So Very Far Behind...

Okay so it's been WAY too long since I last updated my blog. And honestly, it's not that we haven't been doing things, we have. I guess it's just that every time I had time to sit down and blog, I thought of 20 other things I should probably be doing instead. So, here I sit, still thinking of 20 other things I should be doing, but I'm going to at least get on here and say "hi".


Our family had such a busy month of December and January hasn't started off any slower. I will try to update about everything.


We had a fantastic Thanksgiving and a great Christmas season as well - it was VERY music oriented. December started off with both girls Christmas performances at church. Lily performed 3 songs with the Little Shepherd's Choir and Madison had a couple parts and a solo in the Kings Kids Choir at our church. They both did such a great job!! I just love watching the little kids perform in the Little Shepherd's Choir. It is a group of 4 year olds through Kindergarten and they are all so funny!! Lily has no fear and just gets up there and sings her heart out while doing all the motions. She just LOVES it!! Madison just amazes me every semester. Each time the choir has held try-outs since she joined, she has tried out and received at least a solo. I can't imagine at her age being able to stand in front of all those people and sing without any hesitation, but she does it like a pro. (She must take after her Daddy!)

Madison performed again at her school for their Christmas program and did a great job! They all look so cute up on stage and you can definitely tell they are getting better every year! Lily's preschool also had a Christmas sing-a-long. It was her first year and she had so much fun!! It is so cute to watch them all. Our church choir that Don sings in also performed 5 times (3 of which required them traveling somewhere). Add in fun school parties, celebrating Christmas with friends, our Christmas traditions of the TBC Light Show and driving around Topeka looking at Christmas lights and we had a fun (very busy) Christmas before Christmas even got here!

We traveled to Carthage for Christmas this year. My parents were so excited that our whole family, including my brother Eric and his wife Tiya, could be together at their house! My mom out-did herself with tons of homemade goodies, our favorite punch (everyday!!), lots of great games to play and wonderful meals! It is so nice to go relax with your family and enjoy their company. We had a FANTASTIC Christmas day!! Everybody got everything they wanted (and more)! It took our van, my brother and his wife's SUV and my parent's truck to get it all back here! We are truly blessed with such a great family! The girls got DSi XLs from my parents (their favorite gifts), Fur Real pets from Santa, a Barbie Dream House from us (my favorite gift of theirs!) and lots, lots more. Taegan got a huge train table and train from my parents, a ride-on train from Santa and about a zillion other train things!! Don and I got a new 50" TV for our living room!! Now you understand why we needed help getting it all home!

The night we got back we got together with Don's parents to exchange gifts. Again, we are so blessed with such terrific family! Madison got a new, bigger bike. Lily got a Razor scooter and Taegan got more Thomas stuff!! (I hope he doesn't outgrow this phase any time soon!) Don took off the week between Christmas and New Years and we traveled to Blue Earth, Minnesota to see Don's sister and her family. The girls were SO excited to go see their cousin and spend lots of time outside playing in the snow, sledding, and riding on the snowmobile!! The kids were great on the drive there and back and we had a great time visiting with everyone.

We celebrated the new year with some great friends. We always have so much fun and honestly you would never know we had 8 kids running around the house. We ate some terrific food, played games and laughed until midnight.

This new year is bringing a big change for our family. Don is starting his classes to become a minister and has taken a volunteer position of becoming the music minister and campus pastor for a new satellite church Wanamaker Woods is starting up in Osage City. We have been SO busy working on it. It is set to open on Sunday, February 6th. Don will lead a live worship service and then we will watch our pastor via a live feed from our Topeka campus of Wanamaker Woods. There will be a wonderful children's service called "JAM" (Jesus and Me) and a great youth group called "The Hub". We are so excited for it and are praying that it just takes off!! So, beginning in February we will no longer be attending Wanamaker Woods in Topeka on Sunday mornings and instead will be driving down to Osage City. The great part about this whole opportunity is that it gives Don great experience at being a music minister and at the same time we don't have to move or change jobs!! Plus our kids will still be involved with their choirs and everything else in Topeka on Sunday nights.

I think that about catches you up with our lives. I will post lots of pictures next!! I hope you had a great Christmas and are starting a great 2011!!!