Riley had a few friends spend the night at our new house for her birthday this past weekend. It was complete chaos because things were not close to being organized, but the girls didn't mind at all. In fact, they had a wonderful time and even helped Riley organize her room a little bit!

The water gun picture is from a friend's birthday party the day before. I was a little nervous with a full water gun pointed directly at me and the camera... but we survived! Riley just giggled and moved on to attack her brother with it!

Jon had the opportunity to go to Worthington, IN with a group from our church and help with flood relief. It was a great day and they were able to get a lot accomplished for the family they were helping. Jon was thankful for the chance to get to know the family better and help them in such a time of trajedy. A lot of people lost their homes and belongings this summer due to the flooding, please keep all of these families across the US in your prayers.

Promised pictures of Payton

Back in April, I wanted to scan in some of Payton's newborn pics and post them... well, I finally got our scanner back in 'scanning' mode so here are a few of him from April of 2002. I haven't scanned in the other birthday's, but maybe those will come soon.

"8" is so great!

July 12, 2000.... Riley Elizabeth was born! And now can you believe that she is 8? Wow! Is it really the year 2008? Where has the time gone? Happy Birthday, Riley! We love you so, so much!

summer fun in the sun

We had party, after party, after party on Saturday! With all the fun and trying to paint the new house we were all tuckered out by the end of the day! Happy Birthday Libby.... Happy Birthday Olivia... and thanks for playing Marcus!

06-07-08

What an awesome anniversary date.... 06-07-08! Here are just a few pics from Jim and Amy's wedding...

Announcing Jim and Amy Tindal!

We had a wonderful 'family' weekend June 5-9! We went to Iowa for Jim and Amy's wedding and it was a perfect weekend and a perfect wedding! If something went wrong, no one knew it. We got to meet/reconnect with Amy's family and all of the kids (Amy's 2 + her 6 nephews and 1 neice) had a wonderful time together! The Tindals and the Krobs have been great family friends for many years (35+) and after all these years, Jim and Amy were brought together by the Lord and fell in love! How fun! We got to spend time with Grandma and Grandpa "T", Uncle Joe, Uncle Jim, Aunt Amy, Payton, Kate, Sally, Paul, Grandma, Peach, John, Hunter, Henry, Hannah, Eric, Stacy, T.J., Teague, Thatcher, and Truman. We truly had a blast and can't wait for out next get together! (I'm sorry if I misspelled names and left anyone out!) Pictures are coming, I promise!

Grandmas are just lucky I guess!

Riley has been on a hunt for a true 4 leaf clover for as long as I can remember and usually has Grandma Bessie looking all the time as well! While we were down on the farm over Memorial Day weekend, she was of course continuing the hunt. She didn't have any luck the entire weekend, until we were down spending some time with Grandma Bessie before we headed home and lo and behold there it was - a true 4 leaf clover shining as if God had placed a spotlight on it for all to see, especially Riley and Grandma!

Riley is 6.5 inches lighter...! Oh, and boxes, boxes, boxes!

Riley went to get a hair cut the day before school was out and came home with 6.5 inches less of hair! It's really cute on her and she loves it! Payton was excited to tell us that his sister is 6.5 inches lighter now that her hair is shorter! Somehow he always finds a way to make us laugh!!!

What are the boxes for, you ask? We are moving!!! (again!) We were blessed to sell our house and now we are purchasing a new one! We close on it this Friday and we have a long road of moving ahead! Here's a picture of the new house... it's out in the country and has a nice, big yard! (almost an acre)

Happy 93rd Birthday, Granny!

Today is my Great Grandma's 93rd birthday! Her name is Kathryn Elizabeth White, but we've always called her "Granny!" I remember when I was little (somewhere between 5-8 yrs. old) I needed to call and talk to my mom who was over at Granny's house... I called "0" (back when they would just look up a number for you and not charge you for it--- what even happens now if we dial just a "0"? I might just have to find out, hang on a minute.... well that's no fun, it just went to our Comcast customer service) anyway, I was calling for the operator and asked for my Granny's phone number... the operator wanted to know what Granny's name was and I replied, "I don't know, she's just Granny!" I remember this story very clearly because I was really frustrated with this woman who didn't have a clue who the best Great Grandma named Granny was! We love you, Granny! Happy 93!

Thankfully, it's not strep!

The past 2 years, Riley has gotten strep throat in the month of May... so, when she woke up this morning with a sore throat for the 3rd day in a row I decided to take her to the doctor. We were very pleased to hear the word 'virus' and not strep! So, after lots of rest and not a lot of talking she started feeling a little better, plus having Mommy make you smoothies with bananas, strawberries, blueberries, and milk doesn't hurt either! Here are a few pictures that I snapped of Riley after I finished up with the Senior photos. She looks like she's feeling pretty good in the photos, but as soon as we got into the car she was asleep and snoring because of being all plugged up! Poor girl!

Oh, to be 6!

Have you ever known anyone who can change drastically from one minute to the next? Let me share with you what I was blessed to experience this afternoon. The kids went with me to do a Senior Portrait Session at Potter's Bridge Park, and thankfully this roller-coaster of a cute curly headed boy attacked after it was finished!

Here's Payton at 3:15 pm

Here's another one of him at 3:15 pm

Here's Payton at 3:16 pm

Why the big smile all of a sudden, you ask? Well, I explained to him that someday he would be graduating from High School, and I'd be sure to show all of the girls his sad, crying, fit throwing pictures at his graduation party! Worked like a charm -- instantly! Isn't it such an asset to be able to turn those fits and tears 'on' and 'off' in an instant? Oh, to be 6....!

I have to share a funny Barkley story with you... tonight after dinner while I was loading the dishwasher, he kept trying to get under the lid while it was down. I kept having him move and go lay down on the other side, but he would get back up and was very persistant to move back to the side with the dishwasher. When I was finished, I closed the lid and moved over to the stove to clean it off, not really paying a bit of attention to the floor. I heard him licking up something and turned to see what it was, and he was licking up water... tons and tons of water! Our dishwasher had been leaking the entire time that I was running water and rinsing off dinner dishes to load! I think I said something to the effect of, "Oh no Barkley what is that?" and he gave me the funniest little look as if to say,"I'm not sure I did this, but if I did I'm sorry!" It was so cute and funny. I had the kids grab some towels while I called maintenence (a comp lete plus about town house living!) and he continued to lick up water. I felt bad because he knew something wasn't right long before I did! What a good dog!

Happy Mother's Day!

Science Fair

Earlier this year (February to be exact), Riley participated in her 1st Science Fair at school. She partnered up with her friend, Grace, and they chose to do a digital photography experiment: How changing a photos color saturation changes the outcome of the photo. (I wonder where Riley gets her interest in photography from ;o) ???) The project turned out to be very nice and they were rewarded with a second place ribbon! Congratulations girls!

Kindergarten Field Trip

Today was the last field trip for Payton's Kindergarten class. They went to a local park's nature center and experienced 6 different learning stations: nature hike, leaf prints, animal tracks, bug bingo, bird observations, and 1 more that Payton can't remember. I was off today (someone needed me to switch Wed for Fri of this week!), so I went and was a parent volunteer at the Animal tracks station. The kids got a mold of an animal track, we pretended to be detectives to determine which animal we each had (there were 29 different ones!) and then the kids got to paint their molds. By the 5th and 6th group of kids, I was painted as well! We took our lunch and ate at the outside theater. The day turned out to be pretty nice, not hot and not cold, and definately not raining (unlike yesterday). Fun, fun, fun!

Link and Pictures

This is the link to see the entire shutterfly album of pictures from this weekend. Here are a few sneak peaks if you don't want to see them all...

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0EbuXLVq1bMWTO

long time, no post!

We've had a busy weekend and have tons of pictures to share! It'll take me a little while to get them posted.

It all started out with a surprise early birthday gift (I turn 30 on the 26th) for me from Jon on Friday evening of a new camera (the next one up from the one that I had), 2 new lenses, and a speedlight external flash! Yay! Thank you!

We had soccer games on Saturday and Grandma and Grandpa "T" and Uncle Joe came to visit and watch the games. It was a fun day to visit and freeze together as we all turned into ice cubes while watching Riley and Payton play soccer! The kids both played hard and were 200% excited to have the extras in their cheering section!

Late that evening we loaded up the kids' new toy, a TTR 50 motorcycle/dirtbike and headed to the country so they could play. Payton loves it and is doing really well on it, Riley on the other hand is a little scared of it. I tried to ride it behind her and help her, and at one point while turning a corner she panicked and gunned the gas instead of the brake and it was all downhill from there! She was scared, I was scared... I was trying to hit the automatic shut off button and couldn't get my finger on it on the left side of the handle bars... all while we were headed for the barbed wire fence that keeps the horses in! What a ride! She rode after that a little with Jon and calmed down a bit. We have a ton of pics to share from the weekend, so I'll probably add a link to a shutterfly album for those who want to see all of them.

We had to head home early Sunday afternoon, so we only had maybe 7 hours of 'awake' time while we were down there, but the kids had a blast! (Riley and I had fun too! After you see the pictures, this will make more sense! :) I love you Honey!!!!)