Summer Pictures

So I've been dying to get the kids pictures taken, especially the Gabsters, but we have had lots of unexpected house bills and couldn't swing it. Luckily Grandma L bought a new fancy smancy camera, lives in the beautiful country, was willing to let me use it, and I just so happen to have majored in photography a million years ago, so I decided to do it myself. Disclaimer: I put the camera on automatic and can't really remember much technical stuff so I did my best. But, I think we got some cute ones. Here are some of the favorites.

The kids are all doing well, the big kids are loving school and Gabbi's going to be turning on very soon, which seems so crazy.

I wanted to share this adoption blog giveaway, mainly for selfish reasons because I get entered into a drawing for a awesome camera if I do. But, it's always nice to support an adopting family, right?

Happy Birthday Heather!

I'm hijacking the blog today to wish my lovely wife a happy birthday. You are loved Heather, and if we don't let you know that every day, then at least we will today.

Milestones!

This big girl is officially a kindergartner! She was really excited this morning. She asked when the bus was coming 589 times, and unfortunately the bus decided to not come it all, so it was a long, sweaty morning.

So humid that I couldn't get a picture without the lens foggy up.

Mr. 1st Grader, and Mr. I'm going to tell Bella everything there is to know about kindergarten until she screams at me to stop.

So the morning got off to a slightly rough start because of the bus snafu, but they got to school eventually and settled in fine. Gabbi and I attended the boo hoo breakfast and met some other mama's and babies then came home to a very quiet house. I think I probably would have teared up when Bella got on the bus, but since the bus was a no-show and we had to rush to get to school I didn't have time to think about it. I'll miss both of them, but they were ready to go. Plus my workload just got a light lighter!


This little girl turns 11 months old today! Now I am crying!

summer happenings

We've been hitting the parks, pools, and bbq pretty hard in an effort to get as much summer in before the kids go back to school next week. This week we headed out to clinton county to spend time with the grandparents and take swim lessons.

I've been learning to sew and made the girls some matching pillowcase dresses. It's so much fun to make cutesy girl stuff.

Not sure what she's doing, but she likes to get her arms out of her pajamas during nap times.

I'm a little embarrassed that she is wearing the same unmatching outfit in both of these pictures (they are two separate occasions).

We've been having fun but the older one's have decided to push each others buttons this summer, so mommy's a little ready for the break that school will bring.

Happy Birthday Bella!

5 years ago today our sweet Bella arrived. I can't believe how fast the time is flying with these kids. In 2 weeks this baby girl is heading to kindergarten! Thank goodness for Gabbi or I would be sobbing right now.

Bella at 8 months

9 months
1st birthday

We've been celebrating the older kid's birthdays all month long whenever we can get together with family. This weekend Brian's family came over for a BBQ, slip and sliding, and a pinata smash. This year the cake theme was little mermaid. I was informed tonight that next year it will be Cinderella. Nothing like planning ahead.



Silly us made the mistake of putting lots of chocolate in the pinata and letting it hang outside too long, so lots of smashed, smushy candy.

Bella is still super girly, and loves being a big sister. Doesn't love being a little sister much, though. She enjoys cooking up tasty meals in her cafe and driving the tractor, as long as she can look like a lady while doing it. She also enjoys tea parties, swimming, and root beer.

The children are obsessed with fried shrimp, so we went out for a birthday lunch to the cracker barrel (close to daddy's office so he could meet us), and then onto the park. We finished the day off with some pizza, cake, and a bubble bath. Fun was had by all.

Happy birthday big girl!

VBS

We had a fun week of vacation bible school last week, the theme was Egypt and we studied Joseph's life. Bella made some buddies and ate lots of good snacks.Gabbi stayed in the nursery so I could help out with the big kids. She took lots of buggy rides,

and a few naps along the way. Usually the babies in the buggy are happy, unless they spot Mommy along the route. So, throughout the day, you see mother's diving into stairwells and under desks if the buggy comes by unexpectedly.

This is the power team (the kids who lead worship) and the drama team. I help with the power team because I'm so, so very talented at singing and dancing. Or maybe no one else will do it.

We had a really good group of kids this year, I think it was the best year so far.
My friend Desi feeding the nasty birds her daughter rescued.



Songs and drama.

Bernard with the rascally rat Runihura.

It was nice to have a change of pace and vbs was a lot of fun this year, but we are all a little worn out. Next week is our first "normal" week with all the kids out of school. I have some grand plans for the 5 weeks they are off, but not sure if I can actually accomplish them or not.
This week the big plan is six flags. Pray for me.

The big man on campus

is now 7 years old. He is now officially a 1st grader (gulp) and Bella is officially a kindergartner (double gulp). Since we had a lot of snow days this year he was able to celebrate his birthday (a day early) at school. He got a birthday crown at school and wore it the entire weekend. Morning, noon, and night. It might of accidently gotten buried in the bottom of the recyling can.

We headed out Breese for the weekend and celebrated with the family.

Bern's becoming quite the lego engineer. Brian's got him building us a lego shed in the back yard.

Spider man cake (again). Lots of smoke from all those candles.

Birthday dinner. Starting to run out of room around the table, guess we'll be using a leaf soon. Uncle Jason's feeling a little camera shy.

While the girls hit the pool,

the boys fished.

and they caught some!

Bernard thinks he going to leave the whole removing the fish from the hook thing to Grandpa. Maybe when he's 8 he can handle it.