Helping

This happens almost every time I get the vacuum out...
My little dirt devil gets her little dirt devil out to help.

Facepainting

I only wait in huge lines and pay money for facepainting at a "Save Our Schools fundraiser".
This little girl sure appreciated the good cause!

My Vegetarian

Lila loves animals more than any kid I've ever known. Animals in public, on TV, in a zoo, at the aquarium, wherever - she just LOVES them! Treva, Ryan's sister, was noticing this during her recent visit here. One night we were all having a tiny taste of a cheesesteak (she was visiting from the Northwest - we HAD too!), and Lila asked what kind of animal it came from. Ryan told her, "cow". While she finished chewing, Treva said Lila would make a great vegetarian because of her love for animals. Lila swallowed her bite of cheesesteak and we all waited for her response.....

"mmm, good cow!" and she took another bite.

Apparently the only thing she loves more than animals is food!

Roller Derby

It's a good thing we own a lot of padding!

..the old pro...

She's doing it!

Tanta

Ryan's sister, Treva (known as Tanta to our girls), had her 20th reunion in our town last Saturday, so she decided to make a long weekend visit out of it. We had a fantastic time and were all thrilled about the rare treat of having her in our state - or on our coast for that matter! We tried to plan the perfect combination of down time home with the girls and fun outings, but it seemed like a whirlwind weekend regardless of our good intentions.

Friday, we went to Ryan's work for a visit. He wanted to show his sister around so she could see what he does. It was great, because I've never been invited to his work! :) So, it was nice to have Treva here since she was worthy of a tour!
Then we went on to Atlantic City for some outlet shopping. It was 70 degrees at home, but we forgot about the shore temperature change, so we were a bit chilly! After a nice lunch, we ventured out onto the boardwalk and beach. We had to let Tanta see the Atlantic Ocean, since she came all the way from Seattle! The beach was actually pretty warm, since the buildings blocked the wind, and the girls loved feeling the sand for the first time of the year.
Tanta is not really good about having her picture taken. I had a great one of her on the beach with the girls and I think I accidentally deleted it! So - Treva, if you have that one, could you please send it!

The rest of the weekend was filled with outdoor play in the gorgeous weather, soccer, and catching up with old friends and family - oh, and of course eating favorite south Jersey foods! We had such a wonderful time - the only thing that would have been better is if Brian (Tonto) and the boys could have come along. Next time!!

Miss Mary Mack???

This is Lila and Brooke when we went to visit our friends in DC. I love to watch Lila be the "big girl" with her friends. She was really trying to teach a new game to Brooke (who happily followed along), even though she had no idea what the real words were. :)

My Funny Dog

Lila, my camera-stealing photographer, has captured the essence of Trudy with this one:

Easter Week

I haven't been a very consistent blogger lately - I'm not sure what my excuse is, but I'll try to catch you all up here.

We colored eggs with the whole gang once again. Since I'm the only one in my family with kids so far, the aunts and uncles always want to come over for this seasonal festivity. Who doesn't love an excuse to dye an egg?

I think Uncle chris enjoys it more than anyone!!

We had been planning for weeks to take the girls camping on Good Friday. It was the only weekend Emma didn't have a soccer game, and it seemed like the perfect opportunity for Ryan to show his daughters how to hike, roast hot dogs over the fire, and sleep in a tent. Perfect until we saw the weather forecast on Wednesday - steady rain and overnight lows in the 30's. Yeah, not so fun.

The girls would have been very disappointed that our adventure was canceled, so we came up with an alternate adventure. Our great friends who are in the Air Force, now live in the DC area, and just had their fourth baby girl. We made a spontaneous decision to go see them for the day, and we're so glad we did! The traffic was terrible, and the 3+ hour drive took us 5 hours, but God is good - He had someone invent DVD players for the car! :) So the girls were fine, and Ryan and I enjoyed the chance to talk without the TV on!

Lila has been anticipating the arrival of this baby for a full 9 months! Our friends lived here when Melynie found out she was expecting, and Lila was Interested (with a capital I)! It was the first time she was old enough to think about it, and close enough to the family for it to matter to her. We've talked and talked and talked about the baby in Miss Melynie's tummy almost daily since early last summer. She even kept a family picture of them, where you could see Miss Melynie's tummy, on her nightstand! So she was ready for this moment with baby Morgan!!

There are six girls now between our families, and the older five sure had fun together!

I love this one from the back - too cute! Ryan and Brad took them all for walk after dinner. Brad's a Texan, and he smoked us up quite a BBQ feast for an early dinner.

Here we all are - exceeding the weight capacity for one couch! It was great to be able to see them even if only for a day. Next time, they won't have relatives visiting and we can claim the guest room.

Happy Easter! Ryan had sound at church this weekend, so the girls had to wait until about 1:30 to find their eggs. Well, actually, they both searched from the windows for quite a while before Daddy got home - cheaters!

We got invited to my mom's neighbor's house for their second annual hunt around the pond. It was a little chilly, but great fun. I think Lila won - she was on a mission to gather those eggs! Here they are with Aunt Becca.

"Do you want us to hunt eggs or ducks, because I probably go catch those two!"

We had Easter dinner at our house. My family came, as well as our neighbors, who were unable to get to PA for their extended family Easter. That's Emma's best buddy from school, Alexis at the kids table. Trudy wondered why she didn't have her own seat.

This is Lila's Easter perspective of me, Grammy, and Kim.

We had a great weekend of celebrating what God did for us through Jesus. By trying to constantly remind our children that Jesus died on the cross and rose from the grave and what that means for us, we were more focussed on the wonder of it ourselves.

"The rescue for sinners
The ransom from Heaven
Jesus Messiah
Lord of all"

Jello Instead of Juice?!

April Fool's!

We had an exciting impromptu April Fool's Day here. Around 5:00, a guy came to door to give free estimates on tree removal while the company was doing work in the neighborhood. We've actually been talking about having a huge dead tree removed, so after a bit of negotiation, a deal was made. They came back just before 6:00 and were done and all cleaned up by 7:00 as our minichurch friends were arriving! It was great dinner entertainment to sit at our table and watch them climb, cut, and stack! So now we don't have to worry about falling trees anymore, but my dreams of new patio furniture have been put on financial hold. :}

Here are some before, during, and after photos: