LHS Article

Here is the article that was written about my mom and our family for the LHS newsletter.  My mom is pretty amazing, if I do say so myself! 

Each one of the sixty-one graduates in the Class of 2013 at Mayer Lutheran High School has a unique story.  Some have overcome great obstacles to obtain a high school diploma.  Three sets of twins, two of the identical sort, have stories that only they can tell.  Several of the graduates are the very first of a family to receive a MLHS diploma and a good number are the babies of their families.  Kristen Mielke, of New Germany, Minnesota, is one of those from the last group.

Kristen is the sixth child of Mary and Kendall Mielke.  Her older siblings are all MLHS alumni.  Rachel, the oldest, began her education at Mayer in 1996 and graduated in 2000, followed by Jonathan (2003), Laura (2005), David (2008), and Joshua (2010).  On June 2, 2013, at around 2:30 PM when Kristen’s name is announced, she receives her diploma, walks across the stage, and enters into the prestigious club known as Alumni of MLHS, she will have ended an era of history that saw seventeen straight years of a Mielke attending the school.

Mary McManus, Kristen’s mom, shared that those seventeen years did not come cheap.  “We spent between $120-140,000 on our kids’ education at LHS,” shared Mary.  “Their experience is worth every penny.  We would not have done it differently.”

Growing up near Fairmont, Minnesota, Mary had always dreamt of attending a Lutheran high school.  There were no such schools in her region so she considered moving in with an aunt in Waconia and attending Mayer Lutheran High School.  “I almost came to Mayer but at the last minute decided not to leave home.  I never in my wildest dreams believed I would live near Mayer.  I certainly never dreamt that my kids would be able to attend a Lutheran high school.”

But, the Lord had plans that Mary could not have predicted.  Upon graduating from Bethany College in Mankato, Minnesota, she took a job teaching school at St. Mark’s Lutheran School in New Germany.  A single girl, with hopes for finding a husband in a small town, Mary was not deterred.  “A couple of local guys told me that if I was looking for a husband, New Germany was the wrong place to move to.  Boy were they wrong!”

Enter Kendall Mielke, graduate of the MLHS  Class of 1977.  A farmer by trade, his love for music led him to become the organist and choir director at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church.  Shortly after Mary arrived, she was invited by another teacher to the choir picnic.  She saw Kendall standing next to his cousin, introduced herself, and they soon were engaged and married.  The Lord blessed them with six children.

When Rachel began school in 1996, the Mielkes paid for tuition by selling cattle.  “The tuition check arrived in the office from the beef processor,” shared Mary.  The “beef-for-education” program came to a tragic end when in 1998, while the Mielkes were on vacation, Kendall died in an accidental drowning.

“Kendall had plenty of life insurance,” continued Mary.  “His gift to Kristen and to the other kids was their LHS education.”  Shortly before the family left for their ill-fated vacation, Kendall answered the phone and was convinced by the solicitor to buy additional life insurance. “He hung up and told me that he didn’t know why, but he just agreed to purchase more life insurance.  We already had policies and we had thirty days to cancel his impulse purchase.  The policy arrived just before we left for vacation.  With all the commotion of getting ready for the trip, we decided to cancel it when we returned home.  Boy am I glad we did not cancel it before.  Kristen’s Lutheran High School education is a gift from her father.”

“When Kristen walks into the gymnasium on Sunday, the band will be playing Sine Nomine, the tune to the hymn For All the Saints, which was one of the pieces sung at Kendall’s funeral.  I’m sure it will be an emotional moment for me as it has been at the gradation of all my kids,” Mary shared. “Other than that, it hasn’t been an overly emotional year.  I’m not a sappy mom.  Kristen is excited to move on.”  Throughout the year, the Mielkes have experienced many lasts--the last volleyball game, the last Christmas concert, the last Prom. “As I sat in the Spring concert a couple of weeks ago, it began to dawn on me that this was the last concert of the Mielke kids’ career.  It got me thinking about the significance of Kristen’s graduation.”

Kristen will attend Bethany Lutheran College in Mankato, Mary’s alma mater.  She received the Luther Scholarship worth $26,000 over four years, which will help to pay for her tuition as she prepares to be a Lutheran elementary teacher, just like mom. 

Four years ago, Mary met Dennis McManus, a pastor from a small congregation in Benson, Minnesota, two hours west of New Germany.  They were married a year later.  “I believe in LHS, which is why I still live here,” Mary explained. “Dennis and I see each other as much as possible. When he retires in the next few years, he will join me on our farm here.”

Kristen Mielke’s graduation will be a bittersweet time for her and her family.  It will be the culmination of a family’s testimony of the significance of Christian education.  The seventeen-year reign of attending sporting events, concerts, plays and school events large and small to watch children and siblings perform will come to an end.  Yet, their commitment to their Lord and to the precious school He has placed in Carver County will continue for a long time.  In fact, Kristen’s nephew and niece are slated to be freshmen in 2023 and 2025.

Kristen's Prom, Graduation and Party

Ok I'm behind.  Way behind.  So I figure I'll start with the most recent...Kristen's prom, graduation and graduation party.  Most of you have possibly seen these pictures already from Facebook.  But for those of you that haven't, here are some for you! 

Prom:  Kristen looked gorgeous at her prom!  Everything from her dress, to her hair, to her lighted up corsage was just perfect!  Kristen and I went dress shopping and this was the very first dress that I saw and told her she should try it on.  She shot me down and proceeded to try on 15ish or so more, until I finally pulled this one off the rack and made her try it.  Low and behold, it was definitely the one - it looked great on her and fit her like a glove! 

 

 

Graduation:  Last Sunday was Kristen's graduation. This was such a bittersweet day for me personally.  To me, Kristen is always going to be my little baby sister!  And, it is so weird for me to think that she's graduated!  I was 14 when Kristen was born so I literally raised her for the first years while mom and dad were busy on the farm...fed her, changed her, taught her to walk, potty trained her etc.  And now, she is doing all of that for my kids!  This graduation was also weird for my entire family since she is the last of us 6 that graduated from LHS.  Sooo many years (17 to be exact) of games, concerts, more games, and more concerts, and plays and the list goes on and on.  And speaking of all of this, LHS's executive director did a phone interview with my mom and wrote an article for one of their newsletters.  I'll post that article in a separate blog post. 



 

 

This picture makes me smile! 

 

 

Graduation Party:  This past Sunday was Kristen's Graduation Party.  The weather was cool and icky but we all had so much fun.  She had a great turnout of people and barely any food leftover.  Mom said this was the easiest party of the 6 that she has prepared for and hosted...because she had 6 children to help out!

This was our present for Kristen.  I didn't want to 'just' give her money so I did a quick search on Pinterest and this was what I found.  Bennett had fun helping me crunch up the dollar bills to get them to fit.  I made sure to tell him a few times while he was helping me that this was the ONLY time we would ever crunch up money like this.  FYI - $40 fit perfectly! 

Baby pic, preschool, K, 1st

2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th

7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th

Senior Pictures

 

 Congratulations Kristen!



Easter Pictures

Easter was great.  I was extremely busy again with 4 Holy Week bulletins and 2 Easter service bulletins to do.  It was worth it though!...what a great week to work in a church!  Luckily I had some great babysitters again for my kids on weeks like this...thanks family!

 

Here are a few pictures from that week.  I unfortunately don't have any great pictures of the kids in their Easter clothes but since they'll probably both wear those clothes at the same time again many times this spring/summer, I'm going to attempt another picture.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ashley's Easter basket had a couple of dollar items from Target like the wand and crown and then her main gift was the doctor's kit. 

 

 

 

Bennett's Easter basket had a couple of Handy Manny DVD's that I got at a garage sale and then a tool kit with a tool belt. 

 

Easter Carrots - aka, white chocolate covered strawberries.  (add food coloring to the choc. to make it orange).  These were very tasty!

 

Awesome deviled eggs!  Boil the eggs, peal them, cut them in half and take out the yolk, put them in a glass of water with a couple of drops of food coloring for about 3 minutes.  They taste exactly the same as the normal white eggs....only look more festive!

 

I ordered this calla lily at church for Easter and had it in memory of Grandma :-)

 

My little beauty.  I got this dress at a garage sale for $3!  I actually found a 2nd dress for her too at another sale for $5.  I couldn't decide which I liked better!  The other one is very cute on her too and I'm sure you'll see pictures of her in that one also. 



Bennett - Alittle of This, Alittle of That

Bennett is growing and maturing so much lately!  Here are a couple of things he's been up to this winter: 

• He is officially trained to sleep in his own bed the entire night!  I couldn't be happier!!!  It took him a couple of weeks where he would still wake up and knock on the door for me around 2:00am.  But eventually that faded and he ended up sleeping the whole night.  After a few weeks of him sleeping the whole night, I took the child-proof lock off of the inside of his door.  Even with him having the ability to get out during the night, he hasn't!  One night in the past 2 months he snuck up to our bed - but he got carried back down to his room and he was ok with that.  Now, he has been sick this past week so he has made his way up to our bed a couple of nights but I was ok with that since he didn't feel good and it was easier for me to keep an eye on his temp that way.  But last night he slept the whole night again in his bed which was great.  I'm so proud of him for this.  I would imagine for a little kid to be away from everyone else for the whole night would be kind of scary but he's doing such a great job!

He has been cracking me up lately with the things he says.  Here are a couple of quotes from him that I was able to jot down:

• While watching the SuperBowl with him I asked him "Bennett are you going to play football when you get bigger?"  He said "Yea I have fast shoes and nobody will catch me and tackle me!"
• He got a haircut one evening.  The next morning, not sure if he forgot or what but, he looked at himself in the mirror and said "Mom do you like my hair cut?  All my hair's gone!  I'M NOT BENNETT FORD ANYMORE!!!"
• I said to him, "Bennett stop jumping on the couch."  He replied "But mom I'm exercising!"
• One night when we stopped at McDonald's and were in the drive thru line, I had noticed that the boys Happy Meal toy was really dumb.  When it was time for me to order, and they asked me if it was for a boy or girl I said "They are both girls."  Bennett, with a confused tone in his voice and said "Mom, I'm not a girl!"
• I was reading him a bedtime story one night called "Happy Birthday Thomas".  On the last page of the book is a picture of Thomas the Train with all of his wrapped birthday presents.  Bennett looked at that page and asked a very legitimate question:  "How does Thomas open his presents?  He can't open them with his wheel."
• Ashley's closet door came off of the track one day.  I was trying to fix it but couldn't get it so I just left it for when Mike came home from work.  Bennett was obsessing with the door though and trying to get it working again.  I yelled at him to just leave it alone before it really broke.  His response was "Mom, that's what boys do...boys fix things...girls can not..."  He has a point haha.
• He was helping me get supper ready one night but he was getting more in my way than actually helping.  I asked him to find me the whisk in the drawer figuring that would occupy him for a couple of minutes.  He replied with "Aye Aye Captain!"  And then to my surprise, he opened the drawer and instantly pulled out the whisk for me!

He is still enjoying Preschool and looks forward to it every day.  He has really had fun playing outside in the snow with his friends on mornings when its been nicer outside.  Here is a pictures of the projects he has done this winter.  They had a Winter Unit for a couple of weeks and then a Valentines Unit.  Right now they are working on a Numbers Unit and making a Number Book so he hasn't really brought an actual project home much lately since the project is going in to the book.  He has been learning to cut with a scissors really well too lately. Also, about a month ago he learned to write a "B"...just in time to write his name on the Valentines Cards for school!

He was being really goofy and wouldn't let me take a 'normal' picture of him...he kept closing his eyes...stinker.

Detox Water

Another Pinterest post...

I read about this Detox Water on Pinterest, tried it and was satisfied!  Basically, you mix up this water drink which includes Dandelion Root Tea, drink 60 oz. of this water a day for 7 days and lose water weight!  This originally comes from Jillian Michaels (The Biggest Loser show trainer).

Here is the recipe:

• 60 ounces of water
• 1 tablespoon of sugar free Cranberry Juice.  (you only really need 7 tablespoons so if you don't plan on drinking the remaining juice afterwards, just get a small single serve bottle).
• 2 tablespoons of Lemon Juice (the kind from the bottle will do - you don't need to fresh squeeze lemons)
• 1 tea bag of Dandelion Root Tea.  I found a box at Target for $5 which included 16 tea bags (enough to do this mix for the first 7 days and another round in a week or so).

You mix this recipe up daily and drink the 60 ounces of water for 7 days straight.  I mixed it up at night so that the tea bag was able to sit in the water all night to get the most out of the tea.  It works because it helps to flush out excess water weight that your body may be carrying around.  You could lose up to 5 pounds during the week depending on how much water weight your body has.  The tea itself is a detox for your liver and kidneys.  *Not sure if any of you need this or not but there was a disclaimer on the box of tea that does say not to drink this tea if you are pregnant or nursing.

So, I did this and it was so easy.  I was able to lose 3 pounds during that week.  I ate and walked regularly so it's not like I was starving myself or anything like that to lose these pounds.  I assumed I'd have to pee constantly but honestly that wasn't the case at all - normal.  The 60 ounces really wasn't alot or out of the normal for me either since I drink glasses of water all day long.  (60 ounces is about 3 water bottles full).  Now, one night I decided to brew up a tea bag and try that alone.  That was TERRIBLE tasting and I could only manage to have a few sips before dumping it out.  But, the 60 oz water recipe really wasn't bad tasting at all - kinda a mix between lemon water and cinnamon.  It was better tasting when it was cold - when it got to room temperature the root tea taste came out alittle bit stronger.  

Anyways just thought I'd pass this on if there are any of you who want a quick and easy way to maybe drop a couple pounds!  Obviously since it was only water weight, it could easily come back.  But I just needed a jump start to get a few pounds off...without starving myself!  

Here is the original link to the pinterest post http://lizspinspiration.blogspot.com/2012/06/pin-91.html

Also, here is a picture of the box of tea that I found at Target and a picture of my water pitcher to show what 60 ounces looks like...64 oz was the top marked line on the pitcher.

Candle Holders

I know people have been addicted to Pinterest for awhile now but I just started it this past week.  I saw something the other day and was like "hey that looks SO easy and I have lots of glass candle holders left from our wedding - I could do that!"  Can you believe that I actually carried through and did it!?!  - I'm shocked myself :-)  This really was so easy and very cheap - $1.43 for Epsom Salt.  p.s. - I was in the grocery store and was looking through the whole salt/spices area for Epsom Salt and couldn't find it.  Well, I found Shirley working in the health and beauty aisle and I asked her and she said yep, it's right here!  She said it is used to treat wounds or as a soak when you have sores etc. so it's in the health section instead of in the baking/spices section.  

 Take Elmer's glue (school glue) and mix it with just alittle bit of water.

 With a paint brush, brush the glue on the candle holder.

 Once you have the candle holder covered in glue, roll it around in the Epsom Salt.

 And tada!!  Easy as that!

 (Picture taken with the lights off)

Seriously such an easy project and a pretty way to spice up plain glass candle holders!  This candle holder literally took me less than 5 minutes from the very start to finish (with taking pictures in the process haha!).  Also, I barely made a dent in the Epsom Salt and have tons left to do more candles...or treat a wound :-)

Ashley 2 Years

This is Ashley's 2 year old post but since I'm sooo behind on this, it's technically a 25.5 month post!!!  I've been meaning to do this forever but since I knew it'd be a longer post, I kept putting it off...oops.

My oh my do I have a big girl on my hands!  She is such a smarty pants, a sweetheart, a drama queen and a toddler!  Here are a couple of her latest and greatest things that she's been doing lately.

Talking  = She is talking constantly and saying so many words and sentences.  She can pretty much tell me anything that she wants or needs and I actually do mostly understand her.  It's great being able to communicate with her!  Bennett enjoys it too - listening to them play together or carry on a conversation together is so awesome.

Playing = Ashley and Bennett play together pretty well.  But, she wants her way and so does he so most times when they are playing together, I hear lots of whining or "Moooommmm".  When she is playing by herself though, I don't hear a peep from her (which is sooo nice!).  Her favorite things to play with are Barbies, her dolls, read her books, dress up, or play with her pretend food and cook things for me.

ABC's = Ashley has known all of her ABC's since 18 months old.  This surprised us so much when we first found this out.  I'm not totally sure where exactly she learned them but she knows them all.  I can point to any letter and she will tell me what it is.  If anybody is wearing a shirt with words on them she will tell us all the letters on the shirt.  She does like the show Super Why and will say all the letters on the show but I don't really think that's where she learned the letters.

Numbers = She knows her number 1 to 9 but not always in the right order.  She loves to count things and will count out on her fingers but like I said, she skips numbers alot.

Colors = She knows all her basic colors.  I'd say pink is probably her favorite (go figure).  And she really enjoys coloring and "drawing".

Potty Training = Like I said in the post the other day, she is doing really well at this and hopefully it continues!

Eating = She is a great eater...much better than her brother!  She will eat pretty much any meal I make (or at least pick at it enough to get enough food).  Her favorite foods are pizza, string cheese, chips, eggs, raisins  chicken nuggets and hot dogs.  One thing she doesn't really eat to much of is fruits.  She'll sometimes eat apples or grapes but that is about it.  She also isn't really a fan of noodles but that doesn't surprise me because neither is Bennett...I thought all kids loved Mac n' Cheese?

She just had her 2 year doctors appointment this past week.  I had it scheduled but of course, it landed right on Grandma's funeral so I had to reschedule and just got her in.
-She is still my little peanut coming in at 26 lbs. which is in the 37%
-She is 35 inches in height which puts her in the 74%
-I just recently packed away all of the 18 months clothes and got out the 2T clothes.  Alot of the 2T is still alittle big on her but I was just getting sick of the same 18 month clothes that she's been wearing since September.  Plus, I had lots of 2T clothes that I got at garage sales that I was afraid won't fit her next winter.
-Shoe size 5 or 6  (p.s. - She LOVES shoes! She is constantly putting on different shoes throughout the day!)
-Diaper size 4
-Teeth - who knows.  I know she has a full mouth of teeth and that she is getting some molars that are coming in right now.  The only reason that I know this is because she had a fever and a couple of messy diapers last week.  Every time I try to check in her mouth, she bites my finger SO hard that it's not worth it to me to get an exact number anymore!!!

I honestly can't believe how big my girl is already.  She is such a bright part of my day.  I love hugs and kisses from her and her little giggle is infectious.  Love you Ashley girl :-)

My little sweatheart

This is a Polar Bear that Bennett made in school but Ashley loves using the mask too.