Family Picture

One of Olivia's homework assignments this weekend was to bring a family picture to school. Well, as I started looking for a picture, I realized that we hardly have any of all 5 of us, especially recent ones! So, we had our neighbor's daughter (who often babysits for us) take our picture with our semi-broken camera this morning at church. I think it turned out pretty good, except Tessa's not smiling. She was too interested in watching Jenna with our camera, and what Jenna's sister was doing behind her (giving Jenna bunny ears to make Tess smile).

Still, I think it's a good one. We need to start making sure we take pictures of the 5 of us more often!

Nora's first day of her last year of preschool!

Needless to say, Nora could NOT WAIT to go to school this year! She was all-smiles when we took her to Open House to meet her teachers and see her friends. She enjoyed school so much last year, that this year we bumped her up from two days a week to three days a week.

Here she is with some of her best-buddies!

Tessa thought that preschool looked pretty fun! She played in Nora's classroom, and probably would have stayed there all day.
Just like one of the big girls...
Nora's going to have another GREAT year!

Indiana State Fair 2010

We didn't do the state or county fairs last year, but we went for the last day of the IN State Fair today with my family. Tess was a bit tired when we first got there.

Here she is laying on daddy, while knawing on some tenderloin that she is holding very close!
Nora & Livi enjoyed some corn dogs!

This was Tess's first fair. She rode on Pap-Pap's shoulders and pointed at everything!

Me & my honey-pie!
Nora was stuck to Aunt Val's body the entire time we were there!

Tessa called every animal there a "puppy". :) She did pet more animals than I thought she would.

Are you aching, for some bacon? Yep, yep, yep
Imagine how big THEIR momma must be! :) A fun time! Thanks for going with us mom (Nana), dad (Pap-Pap), Aunt Val, Nate, and Uncle Ray!

Double-Date Night

Granny & Poppie called and asked if they could keep the girls for the night. What a treat! So we made some dinner plans with the Williams, and the 4 of us went to our favorite place- Zydecos! We had lots of yummy food and 2 pitchers of hurricanes!

We got friendly with our waitress who took this picture (and ended up in several of our other pictures)
Then we took our party outside of the restaurant, where we had a great time...until I dropped and broke our digital camera! Luckily, it still works (but the battery is being held in by scotch-tape).

We had a G-R-E-A-T time! Thank you Williams for treating us to dinner and for the very fun evening! And to Granny & Poppie for taking on "team-girlies" for the night!

First day of 2nd grade!

Look at my big, beautiful second-grader!

Nora was not too happy about her big sister going back to school. That's her best-buddy.
The four of these girls have played together ALL summer long. Poor Nora had to see off all 3 of her play-buddies.

Tessa thought they were having some sort of front-yard morning party!
Now Tessa's starting to realize that something is about to happen.

Oh, here comes the bus (in the background).....and look at Nora's reaction!

Bye, bye big sis!

Jonas Brothers!

So the the weekend before school started for everybody, Olivia's friend from her class last year won tickets to the Jonas Brothers concert on Radio Disney and gave us 4. Terry and I took Liv and Nora. They L-O-V-E-D it! Their first concert ever.

It was soooo hot, so Terry and I sat for part of the time and just let the girls stand on our legs so they could see.

It was packed! We didn't stay for the whole thing (since for one my girls are still little, and for two Mommy had to start work the next morning). It was very fun!

More Vacation Pics!

Megan sent me the pictures from her camera, and I think they are much better than ours. I love the black-n-white ones!

BEAUTIFUL!!!!!

Summer Vacation to Gatlinburg, TN

As an end-of-summer hoo-rah, we took the kids on a trip to the Smokies with some friends from church who also have 3 daughters. Terry & I have been to TN together 3 times now, and it has become somewhat of a tradition to kiss the wild-boar head on the wall of the Pancake Pantry. This trip was no exception, only this time Tess got to.

Well, sort of!

Here we are riding on the Tram (big box with glass windows) up the mountain at Ober Gatlinburg

Then we rode on ski lifts further up the mountains

We actually rode a slide down the mountain, but we couldn't take pictures while we were driving our little tobogan-thingies.

Megan & I took the babies (Danielle-6 wks, and Tess) shopping one afternoon at the Tanger Outlet mall (a BIG thank you to our husbands for that), while the guys took the older 4 girls sight-seeing. Olivia did the rock-climbing wall at Wonder Works

They stopped at a look-out to take these beautiful shots


We enjoyed our cabin in the mountains with the hot tub, the Dixie Stampede dinner show, and lots of other yummy eating spots. On the last night, we took the kids to Ripley's Aquarium. This was, by far, Tessa's favorite part of the trip. Most of my pictures are of her in absolute awe of everything there!



Here is our friend Megan, and her pretty girls: Gabby- 7, and Sarah, 4 (same ages as my girls)
Here we are touching some horseshoe crabs
There were several tanks there that you could crawl under and poke your head through. We thought these were fun, and great photo opportunities!

Tess liked it, anyways! :)
Lots of good spots for picture-taking...

A very fun trip, and well-needed vacation before school starts back up! I return to work this coming Monday (the 9th), and Olivia starts back on the 18th. Summer is quickly coming to an end. I will miss all of the concentrated time I've gotten to spend with my kiddos this summer. With Tessa being a little bigger this summer and able to swim, play, and participate in what we do, it's been really fun. I guess it will be nice to return to a routine for our bedtime, mornings, evenings, and meals once the school year begins. Yet, there are 4 faces that I will miss for many hours of my weekdays for sure! We have had a blessed summer, thank you God!

FYI, teachers always measure their years from summer-to-summer, rather than January to December. So, this is my "Happy New Year"! Looking forward to another great year. :)