Isabella Rose & Suzanna Faye

I couldn't be happier how these pictures turned out.....

I especially loved the black and white pictures with the color blocking.


You'll have to excuse all the pictures...you see I had over 100 to pick from. It's so hard to try to decide which to post on our blog, because they are all so good.

Can you see the color blocking done on Isabella's eyes??? Awesome work by the photographer, who knew just where to put a splash of color.

Thanks to Sherri...our very talented photographer.

Quote of the day:

me: "Jack hurry up with the dishwasher so we can go to the pool."

Jack: "What if someone fights with William, are we going to stay home?"

me: "hmmm...are you planning something, Jack?"

sneak peak.....

a sneak peak of what my "cousin-by marriage" Sherri did on Saturday for us.....
as you can see she has a gift of photography.

I wanted to have the girls' pictures taken for their birthday's.


She emailed me a few pictures...just to wet my whistle.
And the rest of the pictures are coming on CD in the mail.
WOW! I can't wait to see the rest.
What do you think? Does she have talent or what??

keeping the kids up late....again.

take me out to the ballgame.....

Tonight Donovan's company hosted a customer appreciation outing for their customers. For several years it has been in Ft. Wayne, this year it is also being hosted in South Bend.

This also means supper, which is why I'm all about going. This catered meal included-

hot dogs & hamburgers

brats

bbq chicken halves

baked beans

potato salad & coleslaw

cookies & ice cream sandwiches

pop, lemonade, & iced tea

Mmmmm....delish.

The salesrep for our region that works with Donovan is Travis K. Here is his wife, Kristen. She makes Sealed Air functions fun. I've really enjoyed getting to know Kristen better on the trips we've been on together for Sealed Air, and functions like tonight.

Here is Donovan, Dave (the Regional Sales Manager) and Travis.

What a fun night...but wow, to bed late AGAIN. Donovan just put the kids to bed and it's 11:00 p.m.!! How do you balance doing all the fun things of summer and keeping any sort of bedtime ritual? Hopefully they will all sleep in tomorrow morning and not make me pay for keeping them out so late. I might as well bank on paying for it...that way I'm not disappointed.

Quote:

William: "For my birthday I'm going to pick to go to the park. But don't tell the kids."

Me: "You want to go to the park?"

William: "SSSHHHHH!!! Don't say it outloud.!"

behaving badly about blueberries

I have a confession about a certain wife behaving badly on Tuesday. We won't mention any names. Tuesday night we had planned to go blueberry picking. I knew they closed at 7, however somehow I did not communicate that to Donovan. (I'm sure I did-he probably forgot) I called hubby to see when he was going to be home so we could leave. He thought 4:30. I thought, WOW that will push us....but we'll make it work. (the patch is 45 minutes away) So I packed a picnic supper and got the kids ready and we were all waiting in the driveway at 4:30 for daddy to get home. And waiting.....and waiting. At 5:10 he pulls into the drive. I might have been a little irritated. I might have said some unkind things. I might have behaved badly. I can't remember all of the details. So off we went. I was trying to cool off, trying to re-group. Donovan thought I knew he was helping friends of ours with a painting project. I didn't know, he forgot to mention that part earlier on the phone conversation we had.

By this point in the above picture I was practicing "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." But kept praying for kindness to shine through. To bury the hatchet. To move on. And you know what?? God is in the business of hearing our cry for help. We got out to the patch and there was Donovan's Uncle Sam and Aunt Cathy with their children. I might have vented a little to her, and she told me..."you know I think it works best when you only have an hour or so to pick. It's the coolest in the evening and the kids don't last for long amounts of time anyways" Just the encouragement I needed to pick my pouty pants off the ground and move on.
Herschel feeding the accused. Who is loudly exclaiming with moans how good the blueberries were.
Here is another cousin, Shali. Our kids had so much fun playing while occasionally picking a berry or 2.
Little Suzanna kept stealing berries out of my bucket and cousin-Shali saw this. So she started picking blueberries by the handful just for Suzanna to eat.
One of our children did pick.
Here are some of the kids having a high ol' time on the wagon that takes you out to the patches that are farther away.
You know what we picked 25 lbs. in that small amount of time. It's too bad I got all worked up for nothing. God is still working on me. He is still showing me things everyday that I need to be thankful for, despite when things don't go just as planned. Patience is not my strongest virtue. You may have guessed.

Let's move on.....
Here is the quote of the day....

Jack: Boys who have earrings like "rat" music.
Dad: You mean "rap" music. That music is trash.
Jack: What? That's rap. It's not trash, I love that stuff.

birthday girl

Celebrating 8 years with Isabella Rose....

Hard to believe that 8 years have passed since we welcomed our very first child. From the time my water broke until my c-section was 56 hours! She took her time. I had been telling her a little of our birth experience in an "8 year old version" the last couple days. And telling her yep, I was still in the hospital and waiting for you to come. :)

Today was a fun day of celebrating. This morning we invited a sweet "grandma" from our church for breakfast. She is not our grandma, but we adopted her. Ida also had a birthday today and she turned 81. Ida is a pure gem, and it was so fun to have her join us this morning.

We also had another visitor this morning. (who I forgot to get a picture of) My cousin came down for a visit with sweet gifts for Isabella. Thanks Rosetta for thinking of Isabella and the visit we had.
And then we took off to my sisters house....This is the sign we saw when we drove up to her driveway.
The kids could hardly think about lunch...because after all they have a pool. Thanks Holly for making Isabella's day special & for lunch.
We had thought we would take Isabella to the fair for her birthday....but if you read my previous post you will understand why a change of plans was necessary. I asked Isabella, "how about we plan something else for tonight...since we've already been at the fair 2 times and plan to go to the rodeo on Friday night." She said, can we just go to the park for a picnic? Perfect! And for a fraction of the cost and stress here we are. What a great night to have a picnic.

And here is a video...that I have been spending way more time on than I should have. I contemplated not even putting it on the blog. There are some pictures that are duplicated. The song is way longer than the amount of pictures I have. It's just not the way I wanted it. The perfectionist in me would want to get it just right. But after spending hours on it, and still not having it come out right...I just want to be done. I need sleep. So here it is, as imperfect as it is.

Got milk? Wish we did.

Thanks to Isabella and her 4H poster contribution we have free admission into the fair all week. Remember when I posted back in May...how we got free passes? This years fair has made me feel more like I was at a circus than a county fair. Which is pretty cool to combine them. One of the free mini shows they have is a Tiger show. Pretty cool. The kids enjoyed all the facts the trainers told during the program.

There was also a "thrill show" which involved a little dog show, a trapeze artist, and other stunts by very talented people. Again free. The performer pictured here was amazing. She actually pulled herself up by the long pieces of fabric you see hanging. And then proceeded to twist and bend and hang by various limbs. Someone with that much strength is amazing to me. Then again I can hardly do a push up. And I am serious.

Fair food at it's finest. I love fair food! This year they added a roof top dining experience, Because of the fire that took out the previous building at the Relief sale last fall. Unlucky for us, there were no elevators for our stroller. But it was worth it to lug all fair paraphenalia up there. What a cool sight to be on the roof top. And to think we fed our family for $25. Gee what a bargain. Cough. Cough. Choke. Choke. That's with stopping at McDonald's before to feed the kids, and taking our own drinks. I need to find a way to get free passes for the food now. Geesh.

In case you are noticing that we are all in different clothes, let me assure you we do not take extra clothes along for different photo opportunities. I am obsessive about taking pictures, but not quite to that degree. Although with all the sweating I did last night, I would've loved a dry shirt. We were at the fair both Friday and Sunday.

We also got to watch cows being milked...which made me wish we would've brought our empty milk carton. Because we are out of milk again today. Did you know that a cow can give as much as 20 gallons a day? Way to go Bessy.




































And then there were the rides....the blessed rides.And at $2.50/ride per child....we were thinking one ride per child. Yes, we are cheap. So the 3 youngest decided to ride the train. It seemed just right for Suzy, who seemed like she was way too little to go on any ride by herself...but was oh so very proud with her Miss America wave every time she passed us. The boys were a little less excited to say the least of the train ride. Sorry boys. And almost 8 year old sister decided she was "too big" to ride the train. That's all well and good. So we waited and waited in line for the bumper cars for sister bear. Except when she got to the front of the line, she decided maybe she didn't want to go on that ride after all. Really? Because we've only waited a 1/2 hour for this ride. And I totally don't mind waiting in another line. Most rides were 2 tickets, but most of those rides were geared towards the "younger" size of child. We figured that out after we purchased 2 tickets per child, where we waited in line for the tickets. So we went and purchased yet one more ticket, so Isabella could ride something a little more her age. So she ended up doing the "fun slide." And I am smiling in the picture above because I am truly very excited to get out of the kiddie land and ride area. And what did Isabella say as soon as she got off the slide ride? "Can we get cotton candy now?" We have some issues with thankfulness I tell you. This was after we had ice cream, donuts, and a deep fried twinkie.

So on the way home Donovan pulled out of his hat a story from his childhood. And I quote from Donovan: "When I was a little boy, do you wanna know how many times we went to the fair?"

Isabella & Jack: "How many times, daddy?"

Donovan: "Never. We didn't go. So you should be thankful you got to go, and on and on...."

It's kinda like the story about Grandma & Grandpa and how they had to walk uphill, 6 miles to school every day.

Lucky for us.....God is in the business of healing.

Ouch !

Monday of this week our little family was on a bike ride here in our sub-division. The kids all wanted to go down the "biggest hill." So we went up....and as we went down William got going too fast and had a bad accident. He just learned to ride without training wheels, and didn't realize how dangerous it can be when you get going too fast.

How horrid to pick him up off the ground and see so much blood. Blood on his shirt and blood all over his teeth. I wasn't sure if he even had front teeth when I first picked him, because of all the blood. He was shaking and so was I. He was 1/2 way down the hill when he crashed, So I carried him back up to a friends house and she came running outside when she heard him screaming/crying. She told us to come in, and was happy to get us rags and all that we needed to get him fixed up. We were trying to figure out if he needed stitches or not for his lip. He also tore his little flap just inside his upper lip. The poor little man. My friend Kristin suggested to wait and see how the skin heals together in one hour, and then make the decision to take him to the ER or not. Boy, was I thankful for a sound judgement call at that point. I was still shaking and emotional about seeing him in so much pain.

The bleeding had stopped within 20 minutes and by an hour he was doing better. We decided to stay at home. He sat on my lap and just cuddled. Later that night while he was sleeping he woke up crying in pain 3 times. Poor Guy!!

This little guy is amazing. The first thing he said to me when he woke up the next morning (Tuesday) is..."Mom, God healed me! I'm better!" Wow, what an example of an optimistic attitude he is. I know he still hurt. However he chose to smile, despite how hard it was with the bad swelling he had. He chose to be happy, despite his circumstance. I can learn so much from this little guy. He chooses joy everyday.

Today we were at the pool over on the Amish Highway, and I really do think the pool chemicals, sun, and play were healing for him. Thanks Cindy! I took these pictures when we got home. He looks so much better!
What's the worst accident you ever had to clean someone up from?

Quote of the day:

From William yesterday: "Does God heal teeth too?"

love at first sight

WOW! You ladies are totally cool. I had no idea I had so many friends with so much good advice. I have enjoyed reading each and everyone of the comments from the previous post on pots-n-pans. I thought you all would tell me stainless steel or non-stick. Well, it was pretty much decided that I needed to go the stainless route. However wow- SO MANY choices with stainless steel.



One reader who did not comment....chose to call. And boy, am I glad she did. That friend- Who we will call "Donna" had an entire set of stainless cookware in her basement. Donna owns a store in Ship-she so thought she might eventually give the set as a gift or sell it at her business. Donna had a set that she had used for several years and loved it, She also was interested in selling the "set in the basement" to me if I wanted it. The stainless steel set is Mastercraft and happens to be the *T304 surgical stainless steel* that Joyce commented about. So totally cool. The good Lord did not want our family eating little black harmful flecks in our food for one more day. Donna told me to take them home, try them out, talk to the husband, etc.. Let me tell you girls, when I saw this in my kitchen....








It was love at first sight. No more flecks. All the varieties of sizes. All the matching lids. No more cringing each time I pull open the lazy susan to get a pan. All this stainless steel was enough to set me into a cooking frenzy! These babies had found their home. At what point in my life did I start to become so overly excited about kitchen products? I might be scaring some of you by this point, others will totally understand. Anyways....I've used at least one of these pans every day since I've got them. LOVE. LOVE. LOVE. them.




So there is the verdict. Thanks so much for all the comments. It made the decision so much easier to hear what really works in the kitchen for you all.



On with the quote of the day. Which in many ways is very disturbing to me. It will need some foundation, so let me lay it for you.



When our 3rd child was born we chose my grandpa's name for him. His name was Lewis William. Only we turned it around and gave our son the name William Lewis. Donovan's brother loves to harass us and call him "Bill". "Bill" does not work for me, no offense to any of you out there. My own Dad's name is Bill. I'm just not fond of it. As our William grew and learned to talk.....Nasty brother-In-Law loved to try to teach him to say "My name is Bill". This is how it went....


Jon: "Hi, Bill"

and I taught him to say......

William: "I'm not Bill, I'm William" only at 2 years old it came out more like this....

"I not Bill, I Wiwwiam"


So this brings you up to date. Here is the quote from Sunday when I overheard a little conversation William was having with a friend he was meeting for the 1st time.


William: "What's your name?"

Friend responds: "Isaac"

Isaac: "What's your name?"

William responds: "My name is William, but you can call me Bill"


Very Disturbing to say the very least. Looks like we need more brainwashing to take place on the home front.