The Real Me

Our church has a great sense of humor, and we are always putting on some sort of performance to entertain our church family. From skits to musical performances, I always seem to get talked into making a fool out of myself for other people's entertainment. :) This past weekend, our church hosted a dinner and music evening with parodies of popular songs, rewritten into a Christian version. My character was Gloria Gaynor ("I Will Survive"), and I had a blast. It's not Oscar worthy, but it was so much fun! Click here to view the video!

Hula Hoopin' with John David

We play our Wii a ton, but lately we haven't been using our Wii balance board because we lost our Wii Fit disc. I was so mad about it, because we're always telling the kids how important it is to take care of our games and controllers, etc. We want them to learn responsibility and that taking care of our belongings is important. Anyway, our friend was babysitting the kids the other day, and found the Wii Fit disc in with another game. I promise you, I had looked in that case at least twice! Oh well! As soon as we got a chance, we pulled out the Wii balance board and has some fun. I got this video of John David doing the Hula Hoop game. So funny!

Not So Wordless Wednesday - John David's Spa Day

I couldn't just post these pictures without an explanation. It just looks too weird! :D The kids were out jumping on the trampoline in the heat yesterday (that's why they're all sweaty), and after they came in they disappeared to the girls' room. I went to check on them, and they had John David laid out on the towel. They were brushing his hair and his teeth, and rubbing his back. I love the towel around his neck! :)

When I asked them "what in the world are you doing?", Caitlyn told me that they were giving John David a spa day. She told me that they thought they would be nice and help him relax after being in the heat. The she added, "Since we haven't really been very nice to him for the past couple years." I had to laugh!

Luke Turns Two Today!!

A Blessing in Disguise

As most of you know, we traveled to Indiana a couple weekends ago for my grandmother's funeral. While the trip was a sorrowful one (especially watching my grandfather mourn the woman he has loved for over 50 years), it was also full of smiles and a gathering of family. It was a blessing to spend this emotional time comforted on all sides by those we loved. It was also the first time we had seen my sister-in-law, Crystal, since her bout in the ICU, and she was looking very good, which made us all breathe a little easier.

The Whole Crew

Grandpa and all the Great-Grandchildren

On the afternoon after the funeral, my grandfather joined me and my family, my parents, my sister and her new husband, and my brother and his family for a few hours of fun at a local park and then ice cream for everyone!

Aunt Rea and Caitlyn 

Kylie

Luke on the "big" slide!

Had to laugh at my dad sitting in Grandpa's walker! :)

After I took this picture, everybody decided they wanted to see how many people they could get on the slide at the same time...

Here we go!

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, almost 8!

Getting down wasn't as easy! :)

Luke got bored with all our monkeying around and decided to take himself for a walk.

Sweet Uncle Clay came to his rescue. :)

Jeremy and I

My brother, Andrew, and his wife, Crystal

Joined at the hip - Kylie and my niece, Haley

My nephew Lanning

Since we were there in Indiana, we of course stayed at Nanny and Michael's (my aunt and uncle), which meant late nights of playing cards! My brother, a natural card shark, creamed us all of course, and if you were lucky enough to be his partner, you got to win too! :)

Nanny and Michael

Fun playing cards! From left to right: Uncle Joe, Jeremy, me, John David, Caitlyn, Nanny, and Aunt Leona