Back From The Beach

We returned last week from an amazing 2 week vacation in Carlsbad, CA. It was the first time we have every taken two weeks for a vacation and let's just say it was glorious. Particularly for Chris. I found he was able to wind down from work by the end of the first week and then we had the second week to just relax and have fun as a family.

Lots of memories were made and of course more pictures then I know what to do with were taken.

First up: Beach

There's very little in life I find more relaxing then sitting on the beach, listening to the ocean, taking in it's vastness and breathing in fresh air. Every time we went down to the beach I found myself in awe of God and his creativity. Blue waters as far as the eye can see, waves that form just enough for humans to surf, but not so hard that they are crushed by them, shells for little ones to find, sand that sparkles like gold and at the end of the day a beautiful sunset illuminating it all.

The kids enjoyed the beach throughly. I'm thankful that they now instinctively know not to go to deep into the ocean, yet they aren't afraid to wade in the waters and play. This was by far the easiest year we've had taking the kids down to the beach. Chris and I took it all in. Reading, talking, listening to music while the kids played for hours. Next year will look a little different :)












more pictures to come...

Packing Tip For Kids

This week we are gearing up for our annual trip to Carlsbad, CA. It couldn't have come at a better time either as it's a tad bit hot here in AZ. Thankfully we had a "mild" June and I'd say it's only been recently that it's been miserably hot. So with the lows in the 60's and high's in the 70's I can't wait to be on the beach for TWO WEEKS!

Something I started doing a few years ago, that has come in handy, was picking out individual outfits for each of my kids for the first 6 or so days of vacation. I place each outfit into a cheap ziploc bag. I also do a bag, or two, full or underwear and a couple bags for PJ's and one for toiletries. Not only does it make their little bags look nice and neat but I'm not having to arrange outfits for three kids every morning! And that's vacation :)

Happy 10 Years Chris

10 years ago I married my best friend. Today he is that and so much more to me.

Through the joys, through the trials.
Through the conflicts, through the resolutions.
Through the changes and stability.
You are the one I want to walk it all with.

Life with you is half as hard but twice as good.

Here's a look back...

25 Weeks

Hard to believe I'm a few weeks shy of my third trimester! The thought of having another baby, a precious little girl baby, has sunk in and I'm can't wait to meet her. So far she's pretty chill, that or I've been too busy to notice her moving around. However, once I stop moving she goes crazy for about an hour. Usually her busiest time is from 10pm-11pm. Hopefully that's not a sign of things to come :)

We are still working on names. The kids have decided on Violet. I keep reminding them that they'll grow up and Lord willing have their own babies to name but this one is for Daddy & Mommy. We'll see, if we don't get a name quick she might forever be Violet to them!

The 4th pregnancy has proved to be the hardest on my body. Typically I get pregnant and can eat whatever I want without stomach repercussions. Different from my normal way of living. But this time my stomach was doing well until I got pregnant. So it's been quite the feat trying to figure out what I can tolerate. This coming from a girl who just finished two bowls of Fruity Pebbles :) It's been a good day. My legs also aren't happy with my pregnancy hormones. I've been resisting the thought of wearing the thick, tight hose that I've been told will help my pain. There's something about 115 degree heat and thick hose that don't seem compatible in my mind. If these next 12-15 weeks go as fast as the last 25 I know God will continue to give me grace to the end and this little girl will be so worth any temporal inconveniences! I would love prayer as I take my gestational diabetes test next week. I'm 2 for 3 right now. First two pregnancies I failed and with Rylee I escaped the diagnosis. It would sure be nice to be free from all the stress tests involved with GD and too not have to check my blood sugars a couple times a day again. Particularly since we are paying out of pocket with this one. Another opportunity to trust God! Thanks for your prayers and excitement in another little Daukas girl joining the world!

One Crazy June

Well it's July 1st. Which means I survived June. There was so much going on in June. Lots to do and details that I wasn't sure would come together. Entering into it I had the thought of pulling the covers over my head and having someone wake me up when it was July. Instead I prayed, read the word and received much grace from God for a busy month. All with minimal meltdowns and tears :)

For the past six years Chris has been asked to lead worship for ADF's blackstone legal fellowship group. You can read more about who they are on their site. It's always been a wonderful experience and something we feel privileged to be apart of. It does make for a busy June. This year I was graced to be brought into the craziness in a way I've only done twice before. Joining the worship band. So that means, up at 5am for two weeks, out the door with Chris by 5:45 and home around 9:30. That's early in my world :) It was good though and there really isn't a better way to start the morning then hearing a devotion taught from God's word and after proceed to sing songs of worship for 30 min. It did my soul much good. And on a personal note I really enjoy playing and singing with this group of guys. Particularly my husband :) It takes me back to our old days of dating and early marriage. I returned home with three kids waiting and ready for my full attention and I often felt like all my creative energy had been spent. For this reason I'm thankful that Blackstone is a season and not my way of life.

In addition to Blackstone Chris has had the opportunity to help out another pastor in the area with a worship leading need. So Sunday's for June have been Chris leading blackstone worship, worship practice for this church and then on Sunday morning leading and afternoon preaching at Grace Church. One week we had blackstone in the mornings, a blackstone banquet one night, and then Chris and I leading worship for our friends church Sunday morning, home in time so I could practice with Grace Church band and then church that night. Much grace was there for that week :)

The blackstone band's wives:


The worship leader and me


The Blackstone band


After blackstone we began packing for Seattle. Chris left a few days ahead of me to get some time in with his twin brother and I met up with him on Thursday. Our dear friend Luz was getting married! I was asked to be her maid of honor and Chris officiated their wedding. We had so much fun this past weekend. Soaking up the 60 degree weather and making memories with friends!

Luz was the most beautiful bride! Seriously stunning.


She had each of us choose our own dresses with a few perimeters, ivory and cocktail dress length. Maybe in light of all I wrote above one will understand when I say I found my dress the day before I left. I had a backup but one that I wasn't super happy with. Ah the memories of dragging my kids into Macy's, Dillards, Ross, TJ Max & Kohl's while mommy tries on dresses. lol. It was nuts. I was nuts for doing it. There were a lot of ice cream, chocolate milk bribes and yes some sinning on my part. But Praise God I found a dress that worked with my growing belly, in my price range and worked with the other girls dresses as well.

If you know Luz, you know that she has to be one of the most creative, gifted, people around. I can't even begin to explain all the ways her wedding was different then anything I've seen. It begins with her creation themed ceremony. She has always wanted a wedding that would represent the 7 days of creation. So each girl was a different day. She had our friend Ruth make different headpieces that corresponded to each day's colors. For instance I was day 1. Light & Darkness. So my jewelry and headpiece was black and white. She also had a friend paint doors that represented each day. As each couple walked down they would reveal a door. The last person to walk down was Cole, representing Day 6. During the revealing of the doors there was a group of girls reading from Genesis and the music that we all walked down to was composed by her husband Cole.



Luz's friend and hairstylist had extra time to pin my hair back for me. I LOVE the result!


Here's a better pictures of my headpiece...



and I love how my friend Megan's turned out!


She made her bouquet by tearing out pages from St. Augustine's confessions and turning them into flowers.


There was no guest book, but rather a guest tree. A friend painted this tree onto canvas and each guest put their fingerprint and name on the tree.


She has been saving all the flowers she has received as a single women and once dried placing the petals into jars. As they left the wedding, their friends in the receiving line threw flowers from these jars! I LOVED that idea and just might have to start that for my girls!


After the wedding we went out with our friends Jeff & Ruth for some fresh seafood and a ferry ride. So much fun!



We arrived home on Sunday just in time to make Grace Church and welcome in July. July for our family means Carlsbad, California. We are all counting down the days!

Nancy Drew Party- The Mystery

This was by far the hardest part of the party. I underestimated just how hard it would be. It was Thursday night, 2 days before the party and I still couldn't figure out who took Jada, why and how I was going to leave clues for the girls. How does one go about writing a mystery for 8 year old's to solve? At 11pm it came to me. At least most of it.

Super Sleuth School ended and I declared them all graduates and ready for their first official case. We reviewed the ransom note, I handed everyone a picture of what Jada looks like and began presenting the suspects. This was super fun. I had made up suspect wrap sheets the day before for Trevor, Rylee, the grandparents, Chris and one for Blackbeard. Blackbeard is a pseudo character that Chris will slip into every now and then with the kids. It's quite funny! In the suspect wrap sheet I put clues that I would use in the mystery. For instance, "Trevor's favorite stuffed animal is his dog Jimmy, who's blue with floppy ears." I said something else like "Rylee's favorite thing is gum, she'll often get into Mommy's purse and eat an entire pack!" True story.



After handing everyone a suspect list the doorbell strategically rang. On the doorstep was a note left for Nancy. Oh you should've seen the girls excitement! They grabbed their super sleuth kits and hit the family floor to open up the letter. Inside was a letter from a neighbor saying they had found part of a note and thought it might have to do with Taylor's missing doll Jada. Beforehand I had typed up a letter from the person who took Jada to the person he/she wanted to give Jada to. Then I ripped the letter into four pieces. The first part said something like


"Dearest sweetie-
I was in the homeschool room reading a book when the most beautiful doll fell into my lap."

All the pieces of the letter were typed in 4pt font. So the girls had to use their magnifying glasses to read it. The picked up on the clue to search the homeschool room. While in there they find Jimmy on the rocking chair! They remembered that Jimmy was Trevor's and Trevor, who was following them around, said he didn't do it. My goal was to lead them to Trevor's room. It took them a minute or two to think of that.



In Trevor's room was a pile of waded up gum wrappers on the floor by his bed. They got this right away and rushed off to Rylee's room. On Rylee's dresser was a framed picture of Jada with a note attached.

You are a girl who is only 3 and therefore I think you should have as many dolls as you want. Here is a picture of her so you know what she looks like. I can’t give her to you yet for it has to be a secret! For now I’m going to listen to some piano music.




In perfect time they finished the reading the note and someone started playing the piano downstairs. The girls rushed down to find Papa D, a suspect, on the piano playing some parlor type music.

Also on the couch listening were all the adults/suspects. Minus blackbeard. Hard for Chris to be two people at once. The girls began questioning Papa D. He said he didn't know anything. And well even if he did he wouldn't tell them. At this point I need to say that there's a similar scene in the Nancy Drew movie. Where Nancy is trying to get some information and the man is not helpful. She thanks the man for his trouble and gives him one of her housekeeper's Hannah's lemon bars and walks away. I don't believe that bribing with food was in any books but this was one of Taylor's favorite parts in the movie we watched the day before. So during the school portion I explained that all the treats were made by Nancy's housekeeper Hannah. I also told them that sometimes Nancy would try to bribe people for information by using Hannah's lemon bars!

They all seemed to pick up on Papa D's line and one of the girls said "Thanks, here's a lemon bar!" and Taylor lead the girls in walking away. Papa took a bite and said "Wait a minute, come back here!" He told them he did see something suspicious while looking through Taylor's music book. She might want to check out Jack & Jill.


The girls grabbed the book and looked through the music trying to find the song Jack & Jill. Once there they found the last part of the note.

"Meet me on Saturday at May 29th, 2010 at 3:05 in the loft. But come alone.
Yours Truly"


The girls ran up to the loft and hid while waiting for the criminal. Up walks Chris into the loft all the while begins talking to himself about how he can't wait to give Jada away. Taylor pops out, with the girls following her cue and she begins to say things like "Where is Jada?" I wasn't sure how this part would go. But Chris played it out. He said he didn't know what she was talking about. Taylor looked at me funny. I said something like, well tell him why you think he did it. Taylor laid out her case and Chris confessed. Chris said he's give her back but they had to use their compasses to get to wear she is.


He lead them through a series of directions. Which was when I learned that the cheap compasses from Hobby Lobby didn't work all that well. And it didn't help that some of the girls were holding them upside down :) But they made it through and into the homeschool room where Jada and Taylor's cake resided.




Mystery solved, case closed :) Let's eat & open presents!




Well it was a blast hosting and planning this party! I'm so happy with how it turned out and more importantly Taylor said it was the best birthday party ever! I think I'll take that year break now :)

1 year ago...

1 year ago I was cleaning like a mad women getting our house ready for Grace Church's first meeting ever. It wasn't our official start date. We'll celebrate our 1yr in August. As my husband said to our church, in marriage you celebrate the anniversary but remember the engagement as well. Today we remember the engagement.

All month I've been reminiscing that it's been a year in Peoria. A year in this house. I am so amazed at how quickly and well we've all adjusted. It hasn't been without it's challenges but God has been so kind to bring friends for my children, give us neighbors to reach out to and knit our church close together in friendships & our understanding of the gospel.

Today Chris is having our church's first official membership class. We've added new members over the year individually. But today we're expecting from 20-30 people to be in the class. Very exciting!

I wish I could say that I've completely won every battle in my unbelief and that my faith never falters. But I'm still a sinner. It's gotten easier but battles still arise. I still have fears. I still look for my security in this world only to be redirected to Christ and all that he has secured for me! In the midst of it all though, I can say that I love our life. This is the most enjoyment I've had, dare I say ever, in our ministry life as a couple. And I can say that I have more respect and appreciation for my husband then ever before. I wouldn't want his job nor do I envy him but he is truly called to this and God's work in him and through him never ceases to amaze me!

Nancy Drew Party- Super Slueth School

After our girls arrived I had them sit at a table and explained to them that before they could solve "The Mystery of the Missing Doll" I had to make sure they were ready!

First off, and very important for girls, was to make sure they were fashion ready :) I had bought a bunch of headbands from the dollar aisle at Target. Then at Hobby Lobby I found some cute plaid ribbon and jewel stickers. Nancy Drew always wore headbands!






After fashionizing I tested them on their observations skills. A sleuther has to be able to take in her surroundings and remember details when solving a mystery! I had prepared a little hand out beforehand and paired the girls up back to back. They were questions like. "Are her ears pierced? What color is her shirt? What color are her eyes?" ect.



From there we talked about fingerprints and I had each girl do a fingerprint of themselves on an index card. Originally I had thought each girl could touch a glass and then I'd mix up the glasses and the girls could dust for fingerprints. In practicing the night before I had a hard time with my homemade coco powder and paintbrush dusting set-up. It wasn't all that easy getting a good fingerprint. Jeff, Ruth's husband, suggested to blow off the coco powder instead of "dusting" for it. That worked a lot better! So in the end we had Taylor touch a super clean glass and demonstrated how to lift a fingerprint from there. I think the girls found it really interesting and had fun using their magnifying glasses looking at each other's fingerprints.



After that I pronounced them as ready to solve a real mystery. I passed out pictures of Jada, Taylor's doll. One for each of their folders. We explained where Taylor last saw her and I had prepared beforehand a list of suspects. More on that and the mystery in the next and final post!

Nancy Drew Party- Decorations

There were a lot of different color options for Taylor's party. Somewhere along the line I heard blue was Nancy's favorite color. In the end we found these amazing black/grey plates at Hobby Lobby that had an old fashioned chandelier on it. The plates just said "mysterious". From there Taylor chose purple and yellow to accent the black.

I saw this idea on a blog and asked my friend Ruth, who's gifted in every way I'm not, if she could help me pull it off using our Nancy Drew theme. Well by help I meant help, but she had some free time and took the paper from me and did it herself. Thanks Ruth!! I think this was one of the coolest parts of the decorations but probably would've been the first part to go for me if I ran out of time. We hung some over the food table, our entryway into our family room and a couple over the table the girls sat out. We mixed in some purple & yellow streamers as well. I also need to give Ruth credit for the Nancy Drew image I used in the invitations and on the circles. She drew it in Adobe paint and I was able to use it in my photoshop documents.


Taylor picked out the food she wanted. Fruit salad, chocolate covered strawberries, "Hannah's Lemon Bars", that we used when solving the mystery, and crackers and cheese.



I found a picture of a magnifying glass cake that Ruth made for Taylor! It turned out so cute!


I made place settings with the girls character names around the table. They all brought notebooks & pens, as well as the file folders they received as invitations. I found mini magnifying glasses & compassses at Hobby Lobby that we used in super sleuth school and to solve the Mystery of the Missing Doll!

Swimwear...

It's that time of year again! One I despise almost every summer... trying to find a swimsuit. Ugh. Just when I found the perfect suit I get pregnant and my whole body changes on me :)

Well, this new site I found won't exactly help me this year but it might be of help to some of my friends and I most definitely will be checking it out for next year!

Check out some of these super cute Tankini Tops!





For more suits & prices go to Lime Ricki.

Nancy Drew Party- Invitations

So I'll be honest I flat out took this idea from this blog. I also found this idea on another blog that I really liked but in the end I let Taylor pick. And being that I had a short amount of time to pull it off I'm glad she decided to go with the first idea.

Taylor enjoyed the process of picking out Nancy Drew character names to give her friends for the day of the party. A theme we carried into the party itself.


Taylor cut out the letters for the ransom note and painted with lemon juice on the cards to create the secret password.




We put the folders in white manila envelopes and I printed out labels with the girls name and also some red "TOP SECRET" tags that we glued to the front.

If you choose to go with this sort of invitation/theme for a birthday party be prepared for it to come with high expectations from the guests :) I heard from mom after mom how excited their girls were and that each were researching their character's name and searching for the most perfect Nancy Drew like outfit! I'm not sure what kind of response I expected but I had very little plan for this party short of getting the invitations out so this type of response put me in high gear planning mode for the party! Next up... decorations!

Happy 8th Birthday Taylor

How do I begin talking about Taylor? Chris & I have looked at each other and said a number of times, "how did WE get HER as a daughter?!". She is one of the sweetest girls I have ever met. Her heart is soft towards God, she loves her brothers & sisters and is constantly laying down her own preferences to serve them! One of the highlights of her weeks is going early with daddy to church and helping set-up for our meeting! She is still my avid reader, devouring anything given to her. She even tried reading a few chapters in Augustine's Confession of the Faith. It was just a little to advanced for her to comprehend. But her even attempting is a sign of her brilliance. She has taken fairly quickly to learning the piano this year. She loves to sing, dance, draw and serve mommy!

It has been such a fun week celebrating her life. This was her year to skip having a big party. But in talking with Chris we remembered how last May she moved away from her home on her birthday week and there were a few months of praying, through tears, for God to bring her new friends. We had many wonderful people who moved and went with us for the church plant but at the time there were no obvious friends for Taylor. Well in thinking of who to invite to her party this year she had 10 new west valley friends to invite!! We thought that was worth celebrating in and of itself and made an exception to our every other year party decision!

Boy did we party :) I think this could've been the best birthday party the Daukas' have thrown yet! Taylor loves reading mystery's, particularly Nancy Drew. So with some help from the internet and my friend Ruth we threw a mystery solving themed party. I'll take a couple posts to show how we pulled it off! I don't want to forget as I've got two more girls behind her that will probably want to do the same sort of thing when they are her age.