Hallie's Baptism

This girl just makes me melt. Hallie had a very special day on Saturday. She was so excited but even more nervous about her baptism. Everything went great and she ended up loving every minute of it. I'm so greatful for Andrew, for the great dad that he is and that he is able and worthy to baptise our kids. I guess I take so much for granted that it's not until I step back and look at our family and this huge step for Hallie that I'm just so appreciative. Hallie came home and wrote in her journal that night (something I still need to do) and it was so cute the things she wanted to write, like "when I went in the water I really wanted to swim". She's a doll, we got so many cute pictures I had a hard time picking my favorites-!

Happy Birthday Hallie!

Our big girl turned 8 last Thurs. & I do not know where the time has gone! She is growing up way too fast, even in just the last year. She likes things like Hannah Montana & High School Musical instead of Barbies and dolls. I love to watch her learn new things and try to be so grown up. This year we had a pajama/breakfast party since there was no school that day. Grandma came and helped us cook and grandpa came and made balloon animals for all the kids. I think she had a great time and even got to have a picnic with more friends for lunch. That evening we watched her new Camp Rock movie and Andrew made her brownies (she doesn't like cake!). She is just so sweet and such a good girl. We love you Hallie!!!We made sure we made muffins so she still could blow out her candles :)There were 16 kids at the party (I wish I had taken a group picture), but these are her 3 best friends- Tabrie, Alexis, and Riley. Oh, I forgot to mention, of course Gizmo was invited! My mom was half way here and had to turn around and get her, Hallie would have been devastated!

Weekend in Boise

This weekend we went to Boise to visit Andrew's family. His brother Nathan was there from Louisville for his friend's wedding. We always have fun there and try to cram as much stuff into 1 day that we can. Sat. morning Susy (Andrew's mom) and I went and got manicures & pedicures (fun, fun!) then we all went to a Scottish festival at their fairgrounds. Andrew's mom is part Scottish so she wanted us to see some of her heritage. It was very interesting. There were different strength competitions, dancers, booths, and a well-known band called Wicked Tickers. They were awesome playing thier bagpipes, diggery-do's and other instruments. After the festival Nathan wanted to take us ice-blocking on the hill of the governor's mansion. Probably the largest grass hill I've ever seen! Hallie & Janessa of course LOVED this! Andrew and Nathan climbed to the top for one last race and half way down they both fell off and started rolling down the hill with their ice blocks! They were talking about making ice sleds with several ice blocks next time- oh dear!

This is Jasmin and Jim, Andrew's sister and here fiance'. They just got their offer accepted on a new house that we got to go look at Sat. night. It is beautiful , we are so excited for them!

Mother/Daughter Tea Party

A couple weeks ago our "Girl's Night Out" group had a mother/daughter tea party. Between the 14 of us, we have 19 daughters!! The kids had a great time and we all enjoyed great food!! We started out 3 years ago playing Bunco every month, but it got kind of old, so we started doing different things instead. It's definantly something I look forward to every month, we have so much fun!! Here's all the pretty princesses-!

Steven's birthday

My youngest brother, Steven is on a mission in Manaus Brazil and his birthday is coming up so I thought I'd get a picture of the kids wishing him happy birthday. Not easily done with 3 kids. I took probably 10 and not one of them was perfect, but Steven knows them all well enough and I think he'll think they're pretty funny. He is such a fun uncle, they love him so much. Hallie & Janessa always pray for him and can't wait until they are 9 and 6 1/2 so he'll come home :)

Boating

Saturday my sister called and wanted us to go boating with them and I was like I don't know... We went all the time when we were younger but I was really nervous taking our kids out on a lake. I was glad she talked me into it 'cause we had a great time. I was super paranoid but it went really well until Andrew & Tyson fell off the tube and then I was ready to GO!! -But thanks for the fun day Steph & Bryan! It really was a lot of fun!

Randomness...

These are all very random pictures from the last week. My grandparents are trying to sell their house so they had us over for dinner last Sun. and I wanted take pictures of their house so I would remember it. They've lived there since I was born so I have alot of memories of playing there when I was little. My grandma is so cute. She would rather play with the kids then talk with the adults. Her, Ness and Malarie were playing with Lincoln Logs (do they still make those?) and they started being silly- This I thought was just so cute. I looked out the window and they were all swinging together so I hurried and grabbed the camera. Good thing 5 years ago we got the one with 3 swings, eh?- Tyson fell off his bike and got this scrap/bump/bruise-. Well OK, it was actually our fault. We were going to go pick up Hallie & Janessa from school on our bikes and the tire on the bike trailer popped so Andrew found a metal bar and attached it from his back tire to Tyson's front tire (I wish I had a picure..). Anyway, it worked really well and Tyson loved it. We made it all the way to school and back and were turning into the drive-way and he fell off. I felt so bad!- Andrew had vacation last week and all we did was work in the yard and other no-so-fun things so we decided to go camping at Heise Friday night. Andrew's parents had let us borrow their trailer so we thought we'd get one more use out of it before we took it back. Andrew cooked a delicious tin foil dinner, we swam in the hot pool, roasted s'mores and looked at the stars. Definantly made some really neat memories for the kids! Again, I wish I had taken more pictures-