Terribly Sorry.

For those two people who actually look at this I want to apologize for not updating this for months. We moved into a new apartment in April and have not had access to this webpage since then. We have internet but it is on our landlords server and they have a filter program that blocks access to blogs and other such things. I'm not complaining just explaining the facts. Web filters are great things in order to keep us pure before God and each-other. We will hopefully get things figured out soon and be able to post more pictures throughout the school year. It also didn't help that our camera broke and we were without a camera for a couple months of this time as well. Thank you Caleb for providing us with a great camera to take more pictures.

ConLai is growing up fast and enjoying being a toddler. Her latest favorite thing is to play outside(thats the farm blood in her coming out). In fact "outside" is probably her favorite word to say. She says it so perfectly and with a little bit of pity in her voice that her Daddy has trouble resisting her demands to go out and play. Her second favorite word to say is "hot". Unfortunatly she considers almost everything in the world "hot" and this causes some problems with her behavior, especially when trying to get her to eat food. Despite the sinful nature we see coming out sometimes we love her very much and she brings much joy into our lives with her smile and laugh.

Hope all is well with whoever is choosing to read this. We will be in Montana soon (Aug. 5-18) and hope to see a lot of our families while we are there.

Chicago Auto Show

Last Saturday some friends invited us to go to the Chicago Auto Show with them. It was fun to spend time with them and see all the new cars. Their son Isaiah is 22 months and loved seeing all the cars and trucks. I (Anthony) enjoyed seeing all the new cars too, especially the new 4-door Jeeps. ConLai and I sat inside a new Mustang just to see what it would feel like. I was wishing the motorcycle was really mine as well. The new Stingray Corvette also looked very sweet with the massive quadruple exhaust.

Tonight ConLai went and grabbed a pillow for Ronda since she was laying on the floor. Then she grabbed the other pillow and laid down next to her mom. She is definitly understanding a lot more these days.

Also, if you could remember to pray for us this next month that would be great. I am going on a Spring break trip through Moody to Oklahoma and will be gone for almost two weeks in March. I have a lot to prepare before then and it will not be easy for us to be apart for so long. Ronda's Mom will be here with Ronda for part of the time so that is a big help. On the trip will be ministering to smaller Native American churches during the week and doing a youth camp over the weekend. It should be a lot of fun and a chance to do a lot of challenging things. I will probably be teaching Sunday School as well as preaching a couple times and sharing my testimony. We would really appreciate your prayers during this time.

Hmmmm...

Can you believe spring is so close?? With a touch of summer a week ago, we are left in the cold gasping for warm air. Oh but it will come, turning winter into a memory, just as the heart turns from cold hard winter to the blossoming and budding of new life through the touch of Jesus.
So here we are still in the warm house attempting to find things to occupy, crawling under the couch being one of them (enjoy the video at the end) and cuddle time with Daddy which never fails. Though we did venture out to watch the Moody basketball team, especially Jason LaLonde (in the center) And where does ConLai get her fashion sense from??

Bellybutton!!

Videos

The Happenings of Late January

Well it's only been a couple weeks between posts this time. Thats definitly an improvement from 2 months but still not quite up to par I suppose. We have had a busy couple weeks as most of you probably have. Between work, school, and church there isn't a whole lot of time left for other things but we managed to squeeze some things in. Landon, Mindy and Abby stopped by for a night on their way home from Ohio. It was great to see them since it we don't get to very often. ConLai and Abby had lots of fun playing together.

Also, it has been snowing quite a bit this month and we were able to take ConLai out into the small yard behind our apartment building and play in the snow for a little while. It took her a bit to get used to it but after that she had lots of fun.

Another fun thing Ronda and ConLai were able to do was go to the Museum of Science and Industry with some friends from church. I (Anthony) wasn't able to go along because I had homework that was pressing. From what I heard they had a lot of fun. The friends from church have two young kids as well. Ben is 2.5 and Moriah is 7 months. ConLai especially enjoyed the exhibit which featured lots of balls and something to do with water. The amazing thing was that the museum visit was totally free. This particular museum had free admission the entire month of January.

ConLai has been doing some other new things lately that she seems to enjoy very much. She loves to take baths and would probably take one morning and night if she had her way. Recently she has been using an old water bottle as a toy in the tub and constantly dumping water on herself with it. She also has lots of fun playing with the spices from our spice rack. She takes the spices off the shelf and brings them to us so we can take the lids of and she can smell them. The daredevil in her likes to spin around and around in our arms. I'm a wuss and can't do it with her more than twice so Ronda usually has to do most of the spinning. The two videos were taken with our camera so sorry for the choppiness. And most recently ConLai had a fever for a couple days which required a trip to the doctor. She has recovered and seems to be back to her normal smiley and cheerful self. A quick glance at the pictures and it might seem that we are hoping she becomes a chef but we are just letting her play with the things she seems to like best. The video's aren't uploading properly so I will try and put them in a new post

More pics...

Rare postings and lacking in pictures

We have failed miserably in the blog groupie - not keeping up our postings. So here we shall try again. We had a beautiful Christmas, spending time with both the Olferts and the Linds.

The Olferts~

We celebrated both the birth of Hadden, the newest grandchild, and the welcoming of Becca Southern, Caleb's fiance, into our family. Dad and Mom O were so gracious in picking us up in Minn and taking us the rest of the way to Billings in sub....sub...zero weather. It was a blessing to be able to see all the family as Landon and Mindy and Dhana came down for Christmas and later Caleb.

The Linds~

It was a peaceful and quiet Christmas with Dad and Mom L at their house. We were able to travel to WY for a day to see Anthony's brothers and their families. We even got to build a snowfort! Steve and Bonnie came back a few days later and we were fortunate to see them for a few days too.

We are so thankful for our families, we hope to instill in ConLai the same love and grace our families had for us.

So....we just realized that we have no pictures of Christmas...we'll have to go beg Grandma for her precious frozen moments.

Wait! ...don't leave yet. We do have pics of ConLai's 1 year photos a friend of a friend took for us. Her name is Marianne Bach. She is a student at Moody and does a phenomenal job at photography. Please forgive us for the lack of phototaking at Christmas, hopefully the shots that Marianne took will win you (I have a feeling they will.)