Costumes

Our Halloween costumes are ready.



A duel to the death

until the good fairy says, "stop"

An odd mix of witch and scarecrow.

A cute giraffe
A fairy princess

Link from Zelda
A Wizard

First Day of School

Derek started Kindergarten today and Joseph started 1st Grade. They both had a great day.

Fun at Grandma's

Trips to the waterfall, dinosaur museum, and park.



Jason was so pleased with himself to be able to climb all by himself just like the older kids.



Croquet game with daddy.
Jason the woolly mammoth.
Lorelei asked me to take her picture with the t-rex head.

Joseph had many questions for the student working on this paleontologist stuff.

Airplane Trip

We took a trip out west to visit with some family. The trip to went really well. The kids were well behaved and we got there ready to play. The trip home was much more exhausting so almost all the pictures are from the 'to' trip.

Here we are after parking our car on the shuttle bus to the terminal.


We see our airplane and are waiting to get on.



Jason had his own seat this trip. I can't believe how much better that made the plane rides.

I bought each of the kids their own mp4 player so they could watch videos. They were well worth it!



Major disadvantage of sitting in the back of the plane is having to wait for eternity to get off.

This last picture is on the way to the airport going home. car seats car seats and more car seats. lol

Happy Birthday Derek

Derek turned 6 years old on July 16 this year. He was so excited for his birthday this year. Each night a week before his birthday he told me he was glad to go to bed so it would be closer to his special day. Finally the day came and he got a bike (with a broken pedal so he had to wait a few days to ride it) and a bunch of legos. He also is old enough now for his own library card.






This year Derek asked for a Vanilla cake with vanilla frosting. For my own sanity the kids get to pick the flavor/type of cake they want but not the shape. Derek is such an awesome kid he was simply thrilled with green sprinkles. I LOVE this boy!!

All dressed up Saturday night for a baptism.

Summer Paper Crafts

This is what the kids and I made today.



here Kathy is the website: http://cp.c-ij.com/en/contents/2024/list_15_1.html

End of the Year and Happy birthday Jason

Joseph's kindergarten class.
Joseph and his teacher Miss Shipp
Derek with his preschool teachers, Miss Collyn and Miss Lynn.


Joseph won a couple of awards this year: Terrific kid and music recognition.


On June 6th My little man turned 1. Time seems to have flown by. He's a walking, talking (ok not talking more like screeching) wonderful monster.



my my.. I think he liked his cake.

Family Photos

It's been 1 year and 8 months since we last had family photos taken. I kept looking up at my wall and feeling bad that Jason didn't have his picture up there. So we drove the hour to the studio and braved the Saturday crowds. I bribed the kids for their good behavior ( there is no shame in this) by going to chuckecheeses after. I had fun with the pictures, the kids had fun with the games, and frank..... well... luckily has the day off tomorrow with nothing planned. We all win!

Rather than post all 86 photos taken, I'll post some of the more Interesting photos... aka the ones I didn't buy.


Ok, here we have "THE REACH". Neither Frank, me or the photographer noticed Jason had to touch my arm for the next 6 shots.



"THE ONE-LEGGED BOY" So Joseph had an itch and took his shoe off in the middle of snapping pictures to scratch it. lol



When we first got there Christian was very nervous and wouldn't be his normal self. This is the best one we had when we were looking at all the photos and I asked the photographer if we could actually go back and get some better ones of Christian.



And that produced "THE GROWL"