The LORD's day~

I made 'Mocha Truffle Brownies' for snack time at the Sturtevants. I really enjoy decorating things with chocolate. :p (I also have the recipe for those interested. :)

Pastor Bordwine, Papa, and Mr. Lind are all praying for Mr. Berkompas, our new elder. :)

~ The Elders of Westminster Presbyterian Church. ~

(I am sorry for the terrible quality of these pictures. None of my cameras have ever done well inside the Church.)

At the Sturtevants house, we all played 'obstacles.'  A game where you have a whole bunch of junk on the floor, one person blind folded, one person to lead, and one destination to reach. There are partners, who, one blind folded, and one un-blind folded, have to reach an object on the opposite side of the room, with out the one with the blind fold touching anything on the floor. The one with out the blind has to describe how far you need to move, what you will be crossing, and basically, be your eyes.  The picture above is Michael and Heidi making their way across the room. They eventually made it. Hurray!!!!

Caitlin and Christopher were the second ones to try. They beat Michael and Heidi by 14 seconds. :) oh, so close! (By the way, Michael took most of these pictures. Just to let ya know. :)

Next up, Brian and Caleb......who did not quite make it past half of the dresser. Which makes sense, because we made it SUPER hard for them. :)  Sorry guys!

Now......Joe and Christian! They, eventually, made it as well. Congratulations!

P.S. Notice Caleb in the background, watching with hawk eyes, hoping that he won't be the only one who lost. :)

Well, Caleb and Brian were not the only ones who lost. :( Me and Josh did too. But I have to say, we got a WHOLE lot closer to our destination. Right next to my foot was the water bottle that we were supposed to be getting. *sigh*  Maybe another time. :)

All of the on lookers. :)

And......what we had to get past. Wow, pretty hard hu?

The day ended with joy and thanks that the LORD gave us wonderful brothers and sisters in Christ, such as these. 

~Jess

Suff I have been doing lately~

I have always wanted to make a card that had real espresso beans on it. So, today it set to work! I thought it was kind of cute. <3

I also made some 'lemon poppy seed bread.' (Which I also have the recipe if you want....you just might be suprised what is in it. :) It was REALLY good.

Nice and moist. :P

Slowly fading away. :)

AND I made some home-made pizza. Adding the little smiles.

:D

Now, I doubt you have seen THIS. It looks like a cute little flower pot with a fake flower in it....right?

<3

Here is what it is~

There is ice cream at the bottom, crushed oreo's at the top, (For the dirt) and then a fake flower in it all. So it makes an adorable flower. :)

Just some stuff I have been doing lately. :)
~Jess

ONLY IN AMERICA....

....do banks leave thier doors open, then chain thier pens to the counters.

~Jessica

Ranch Style Chicken~

I mixed all of these ingrediances together for the marinade, and then let it set with the chicken in the fridge.

Whoa! That sure is looking good! :) After 3 hours of marinating in the fridge, I cooked the chicken till it was browninish/blackish. I don't know about you, but I think it looks like it had been BBQed!

Oh ya! Yummmm. The chicken turned out a whole lot better than I had expected!

I HAD to serve it with fresh home-made bread..

Some georgeous beets..

And lovely green beans. (I would have had baked potatoes with it too, but we did not have any and my parents were out to dinner....so I stuck with what I had. :)

EVERYONE LOVED IT!

Another great recipe!

P.S. If any of you want it just ask and you shall recieve! ;p

Thanks for looking!

~Jess

Pretty fancy...

My Grandparents bought these new garbage cans for us. They are too kind! <3>

I know, garbage cans is a really wierd thing to put on the blog, but I just thought that they were pretty cool. :)

~Jess

TODDLER PROPERTY LAWS

1. If I like it, it's mine
2. If it's in my hands, it's mine
3. If I can take it from you, it's mine
4. If I had it a week ago, it's mine
5. If it's mine, it must never appear to be yours
6. If  I'm doing, or building somthing, all of the peices are mine
7. If it looks just like me, it's mine
8. If I think it's mine, it's mine
9. If it's near me, it's mine
10. If it's broccoli, it's yours.

Extremely hilarious, and true. :D Please tell me what you thought of it....I might have a few more coming soon! :)
~Jess

What has been going on for the last few days....

Having fun in the sun.

Having an absolute BLAST at the park, playing volleyball, frisbee, and baseball.

Having group on Sundays. And enjoying mama's 40th birthday. :)

Potty training JQ. PRAISE THE LORD!!!

:D

Cooking fun snacks.

And one last thing.....JQ and Levi's VERY FIRST mower!!!! :P An old lady at one of the places that we landscape, gave Caitlin and I this mower. Old, tiny, but cute. <3 Since Caitlin and I already have a mower we gave it to the little boys, as thier very first mower! They were SO excited. There is a handle bar for JQ on the bottom and one for Levi on the top. ***Brothers***

Oh so cute! <3

I took this last picture of the boys before Levi heard his favorite words..."LUNCH TIME!!"

JQ stayed to pose for more pictures. :)

'Better than sugar.' While I was baking bread, marcus convinced the little boys that the flour on the counter was 'sugar.' So they started licking away at the flour on the counter. I was suprised that they did not stop as soon as they realized that it was not the 'sugary treat' that they expected. :)

More another time. :)

~Jess

Well, the Cookies were wonderful! They tasted kind of like snickerdoodles....but better. I added to the previous recipe-
Egg
Baking powder
Baking soda
Milk
And then dipped the tops in sugar.
Yummmmm......

experiment~

Just a couple minutes ago I experimanted a little bit with my own 'rum spice' cookie dough recipe. I only tried the cookie dough, and it was REALLY good! I put in~
Butter
Flour
Sugar
Baking powder
Ginger
Cinnamon
All spice
Ground cloves
Rum extract
vanilla
And then I mixed it all up, and tadda! Cookie dough! Simple recipe, but fun to make up! I will try baking them, and then I'll tell ya how they taste. :P
~Jess

Like my background? ;p Or do you like the other one better?

More pictures of the Beach...

JQ and my loving Grandpa Leider~

My beautiful Mother, who is loved very much. <3

While I was sitting on a log, just watching the ocean,  I was amazed by the fact that GOD thought of everything when he made this world, and that everything fits together so perfectly. We sure do have an awesome GOD! 

I am awestruck at his out-standing creation! 

Grandpa and Grandma Leider~

 

Papa and Mama, who love, care, and make the perfect parents for the Koch Kids. :)

Grandpa's wife, Grandma's daughter, mama's husband, Papa's wife. Thank you LORD for showing me mercy by putting me in a Family like this, that I love so dearly. 

~Jessica

***CANNON BEACH***

In the car~ Oh, those are good times!

The very first thing that we did was eat at Moe's. It had been a tradition for many years. :)

At night my family and I watched the film, 'UP.' This was the first time Papa had seen the movie, so I had a fun time watching his emotions at the funny parts. :) Thus, this day ended~

A new day~ Levi and I had our picture taken before we headed our for the day. He is such a boy...:p

Yep, %100 boy! We went to a really cute store called, 'Ter Hairs,' and they had some really wild glasses, that we all had fun trying on. ~

Strawberries~ <3

Caitlin and I bought a dress at this store, while the boys waited outside. Handsome little fellas. :)

There was also a hat store that has some pretty wild stuff in it. This is a shark hat on JQ. Cute hu?

He he he he. ;) This one is really cute too! Crabs....

Well, I gotta get a picture of haystack rock! When any of us kids look at this rock, we see...CANNON BEACH!

The hotel, thank the LORD, had a really nice pool, which we enjoyed very much. :) I took this picture of Felicity, not very good quality, but I still like the outcome. :) P.S. tell me what you think!

This is too dark, but, as I said before, the picture looks cool.

The next day~ Papa took this picture of me getting ready for the day. Caitlin was with me too, but she is really scarred of the camera. (Notice how there are hardly any good pictures of her.)

 The beach...

Papa, playing with the camera. :)

And A wonderful family Photo! (Taken by Grandpa Leider)
Time has fallen short, so more pictures will be coming soon! So, stay tuned faithful followers! ;p
~Jess