Sunday Service

After attending our church's early service, we made our way over to my brother's church in Helena, Christ Community.  He was ordained as a deacon yesterday and it was such a touching service.  Tears were shed and we enjoyed special family time.  I'm happy for you, Bro.  I'm happy you've found a great place to worship with meaningful friendships.

a little baby shower

We hosted a baby shower for my next door neighbor.  Elizabeth Dawn is due in 4 weeks, so we had to get our party on!  It included the six of us prayer group girls along with spouses and kids: 12 parents and 17 kids.  We had tons of fun.  The kids played and the parents enjoyed visiting with each other (when we weren't refereeing the kids).  We got a group shot to remember our fun evening...

fooling around

mohawks and colored pancakes

new hairdo

She gives this look often.

Laney doesn't want her hair done very often, so I was glad to fix it when she asked for a braid "like that girl had".  Glad I knew who she was talking about...

random pics

Laney is growing up and trying to do things on her own...like pull up her pants and wash her hands.  Such cuteness!

Luke did gymnastics over the summer and had a great time.

Laney got to go golfing with her daddy.  I dressed her up quite nice for the outing.

We went to Bela's ballet recital at the end of ballet camp.  She did a great job!

Laney loves spending time with Ron.  She was happy to have her own pick to play the guitar.

Off to the store with her babies and Li'l Snuffles.

Tennessee vacation

We took our second annual trip to Wilderness at the Smokies and it was just as great as we remembered.  Our room overlooked the course...the kids loved watching the golfers.

Laney loved life, as usual.  She has been cracking us up lately.  Funny girl!  A not-so-funny thing happened on vacation.  I could try to give you the short version, but there's too much emotion behind this story.  I had just gone down a water slide and was waiting for Laney to come down afterwards.  Parents go first.  The life guard on the top lets the child go when the life guard at the bottom is ready to catch.  Well, an idiot guard who wasn't paying attention and on his 3rd day of the job realized Laney went down the slide.  He tried getting my attention, but I thought he wanted me to get the guard at the bottom so that she would be ready for Laney.  So I'm walking away from the slide when I hear my sister-in-law screaming "Laney's under water".  My baby girl had been under water...I don't know for how long.  Maybe 20 seconds?  I'm looking for her everywhere.  Can't find her.  All of a sudden I see a little head on the other side of the pool; a strong current had brought her back to the top of the water.  I swam over as fast as I could and scooped up my little girl.  And I held on to her for what felt like forever!

I'm just glad that happened the day before we left, rather than early on...  Got the kids cleaned up and we tried to pretend like it never happened.

When we got back home, B and Pops were ready to see the grandkids.  They came over for a short visit...

McWane

The kids had fun at the Dora and Diego exhibit as well as playing in the big bubble.

Bubble Mania

We made it to Bubble Mania at the Hoover Library to see Casey Carle do some crazy things.  He made an ice-cream cone out of bubbles, used household stuff to make bubbles, filled bubbles with smoke, and so much more...  The kids loved it!  I might have loved it even more!  ☺

iPhone images

i saw this beautiful thing walking in to sam's pediatric ophthalmologist's office a couple of months ago.  after researching it, i found that it's an american five-lined skink.  i told the boys all about it since they weren't with me.  crazy enough, me and the kids had to run by there a couple of weeks ago and it was there again.  they were so excited to get to see it in person.

we've had lots of fun this summer with the doss's.  leah has invited us over several times and we have loved playing with them in their pool.

luke was diagnosed with asthma, so we're learning a little about breathing treatments and taking care of our little guy.

i took the kids with me to get an oil change.  it may have been their favorite thing this whole summer.  they've never seen a car "lifted up" like that and they loved it.