Wordless Wednesday - One Happy Senior!

They killed the suspense by adding "Admitted Student Information" on the outside of the acceptance letter. But they sure made Anna happy.

See other Wordless Wednesday participants at 5 Minutes for Mom.

Resourseful

Doesn't everyone use their school issued laptop as a light box?

Busy weekend

The weekend started with our MS youth group participating in a 30 hr Famine. If you are not familiar with that the kids get pledges to go 30 hours without eating and the monies raised get sent to World Vision to help feed hungry kids. We plan a lot of fun activities to keep the kids busy while they aren't eating. The picture below is of broom ball at a local ice rink that we went to Friday night.


On Saturday we split the kids up and went through the local neighborhoods on a can/food drive for a local organization named Love INC. That cares for people right here in our community.

Mark called Saturday afternoon to let me know he had shot a deer. He had been up north hunting from Friday until Sunday morning. Yeah for success!

Sunday after church we celebrated Kaylyn's birthday with my family.


My parents requested a picture of Emily to go with the other school pictures of their grand kids so my sister had asked me if I could take one for them. So after a lot of pictures like the one below from an unwilling Emily...


We did finally get one that I believe is frame worthy.

After the birthday party we had hurry off to a soccer game for Anna. She played great! The game ended in a 1-1 tie. She is #39.


Funny story... Mark was sleep deprived from hunting and I was from the 30 hour famine so we were both really tired Sunday. Anna has to be to the soccer field 30 minutes early. When we got there we got a parking spot right in front of the field. We decided to just wait in the car. Well we both FELL ASLEEP in the car and woke up with the game 10 minutes into it. Opps!

Thankful Thurday - Sisters

I have 2 sisters and I am so thankful for the both of them.

This is my sister Jodi and her husband Randy.
It just happens to be Jodi's birthday today.
Happy Birthday Jodi!

And this is my sister Julie and her husband Leo along with their daughter Emily.

What are you thankful for today?

For more "Thankful Thursday" posts go to Spiritually Unequal Marriage.

Wordless Wednesday - Emily Faces

Emily was showing Libby and I her "different faces and smiles". Oh I do love this little blessing!

See other Wordless Wednesday participants at 5 Minutes for Mom.

Courageous

My husband leads a Men's group at church and he put out an invitation to the group to join us with their wives Saturday night to see the movie Courageous. Four couples showed up to watch the movie with us. It was such a great movie. I highly recommend it but don't forget to bring tissues.

Milestones

Kaylyn's 16th birthday is coming up at the end of the month. She has been bugging me to have a birthday party that weekend. We have always celebrated birthdays with family and so have never really done the birthday party with friends for any of our kids. Since it was her 16th I did desire to make it extra special for her but it is impossible to keep anything from Kaylyn. She is known for asking a million questions and badgering you like crazy for the answers.
So a couple of weeks ago I asked the mothers of her closest friends if their daughter's would be free Friday night to come to a SURPRISE birthday party/sleepover for Kaylyn. They were all available so I started my planning. I made plans for the rest of the family to be out of the house. Mark took Anna up north hunting and Libby went home with my sister when she picked up Emily from me. The nice thing is since we have never done birthday parties I knew there would be no grand expectations to live up to. That made it much easier. We kept it a secret from her girlfriends until after youth group this past Wednesday so that only gave them 2 days to keep the secret.

It was a TOTAL surprise to Kaylyn and she loved every minute of it.



Here is the house decorated waiting for her friend to bring her home after school. I had picked up the other friends so they were waiting inside and ran out the minute they pulled into the driveway.


Here they are opening gifts. The one she is opening in the picture was really neat. It was 16 things that stand for Kaylyn. Kendra also filled out a little book explaining the meaning of each item.

Her is Kaylyn wearing part of the gift. This gift was "because Kaylyn is always silly". She was told she had to wear the crown the entire time. She even wore it out to the restaurant. The waitress thought we might be having a bachelorette party! Yikes! No they are 16!

Here are the girls ready to head out to dinner.

Here are the girls getting in a little shopping after dinner.

Here they are back home making caramel apples and decorating cupcakes. Kaylyn had asked me a couple of weeks ago, when Mark brought home a bushel of apples, if we could make some. I stored that in my "good idea for the party" list.

And here is the birthday girl with her cupcake.

Saturday morning I made them a big breakfast including Kaylyn's favorite... bacon. Then I dropped them off at the mall (with some cash of course) for a couple hours while Mark, Libby, and I grabbed some lunch and watched the MSU vs. Michigan game. Then I picked up the girls and took them to Cold Stone Creamery before coming home and letting them hang out for a little while longer.

I think it was as much fun for me seeing how excited Kaylyn got as it was for her living it.
Great memories!

Wordless Wednesday - Not on my watch!

I'm glad she did this with her mother and not her Aunt Jen.
Note to self: don't take my eyes off Emily while I'm taking care of her.

See other Wordless Wednesday participants at 5 Minutes for Mom.

Tough and Pretty!

I can't believe it is another Senior Year in our house. My oldest daughter will be saying goodbye to HS and hello to college. I have had so much fun watching her grow and mature. She is one determined young lady and when she sets her sights on something she gives it all she's got.


She had a soccer game Saturday. Oh boy was it hot but that didn't keep her from giving it her all. Here she is getting ready to give the soccer ball a header.


Here she is helping to defend the goal from a corner kick.


Here she is... okay here she pretty much just looks confused but then again so does the referee.


And here she is all prettied up ready to head off to her last Homecoming dance. Doesn't she clean up well?

Perspective

My daughter's and I tried our hand at square foot gardening this year. We had much success in some things and it was a learning year in others. One thing that we had been told and then forgot when we planted was to not have melons near squash/cucumbers/zucchini. Yesterday we harvested the only two watermelons that we got.


They look pretty don't they? Well the next picture will give you a little "perspective" on how they really looked...


Oh yes we were laughing. But Libby still cut them open and ate the larger one and said it tasted really good. But the smaller one smelled peculiar almost like... cucumbers. I told the girls next year we will have to work a little harder on placement and giving the gardens a little more consistent TLC.

{Top Ten Tuesday} Fall Favorites

In no particular order...

1.football

2.colors

3.school
*because I have a chance to regain control of my house*

4.apples
*however I have to be careful since I'm allergic to some*

5.pumpkin everything

6.chai

7.family night at church
*especially when Libby sings*

8.snuggling up and knitting

9.bible study

10.crock pot cooking

I think fall might be my favorite season. How about you? What do you enjoy most about fall?

Youth Hunt

The other weekend our youngest 2 girls got to participate in the youth hunt. This was the first time that Libby got to hunt and she was successful!

Here is Libby and Kaylyn with Libby's 6-point.

Here is Libby with Mark.
And here is Libby back at home showing Mom her kill. She was one happy girl!

ArtPrize 2011

We are so blessed to live right next to Grand Rapids, MI and all that it has to offer. Today we went and checked out some of ArtPrize. What a beautiful day to walk downtown and look at art!

One thing that became obvious real fast is that we would never be able to see as much as we would like to in one trip so we are hoping to get back next week and see more. I especially want to get to a local artist, Lisa Lehmann. She makes beautiful silver jewelry and has taken her amazing talent and branched out into art displays.


We started at the Gerald R Ford Museum to see "Grizzlies on the Ford" and they did not disappoint.


Anna thought I just had to have a picture with this running girl "Yellow Streak" since I ran a 10k this morning before we headed out. I never go fast enough though to make my hair fly out behind me. Wink!


My baby is getting so old. I couldn't resist taking a picture of her. Isn't she beautiful?


A lady offered to take our picture while I was getting a picture of the girls. I'm so glad she offered. I love family pictures even if we are missing the big kid. Opening day of bow season was more attractive.

I know it is supposed to be about the art but I love taking every opportunity to get pictures of my kids because they aren't always so willing.

"Metal Monkey Mania" on the Blue Bridge is getting a lot of publicity around here. I love how whimsical they are.

Hopefully the weather this next week will behave and allow us to get back one evening to see some more of ArtPrize without the crazy amount of tourists in the area.