Poker Night

So once a month we play Texas Hold Em with some friends. There are about 10 of us that are regulars, but sometimes others join us and there can be as many as 15. I never thought I would like poker so much that I would actually look forward to it. There even is a traveling trophy now that the champion gets to keep for the month that they won. You may laugh... but we even have a poster with all of our names on it and you get a star sticker next to your name if you were 1st, 2nd or 3rd place. (even first person out gets a "special" sticker too)

Henry is my archrival in poker, so it's taking a lot for me to post the picture of him holding the trophy. Hope you enjoy it, Henry, because it won't be happening again anytime soon.

Finished Living Room

I'm so excited that we finally got our living room & entryway painted. The whole house needs a paint job bad, but we decided to start with the living room area since we just bought new furniture for that room. We love how it turned out! Thanks Melinda for helping me pick out the colors! Now if we can just get something for the walls....

Bunny, Bear or Dog?? You be the judge!

When Madison was born her Aunt Sheila made her a "bunny" blanket. She was pretty attached to it like any child's blankie the first few years. (when I say pretty attached I mean REALLY attached around the age of 3. I considered breaking into the church when we left it in the nursery one Sunday night.) Even though she can live without it now, she still does cuddle with it when she's sick or because she has to go to her room for a punishment. Well she has been cuddling with it the past 24 hours because she caught that flu bug going around. We started looking at the so called bunnies closer and wondered if they were really bunnies after all. I can't imagine after almost 7 years that the beloved "bunny blankie' doesn't really have bunnies on it. What do you think??

Piano and Basketball

Madison started taking piano lessons two weeks ago. She seems to love it so far so we hope she sticks with it. Here she is with her teacher Miss Sarah.

Austin and his teammates celebrating their first win. 24-11. This season should be pretty exciting.


Number 11 is the cutest one on the team.

Happy Halloween 2007!

SCARY!!!

Miles, the cutest fuzzy wuzzy bear, joined us for Halloween this year.

Madi was a snow princess and Austin was a scary creepy guy. (that's what madi called his costume)

Austin and Madison cleaning out the pumpkin. We baked our pumpkin seeds to give to Nana.
The end result.. not too bad!

Just a few highlights from the past couple months

Lucas waiting patiently for his food to arrive on the train at Tyler's Tender.

We loved our visit with Lucas, Lilly and Melinda. Come and see us again soon!

My mom and dad came with us to the apple orchard. We had fun at the petting zoo, wagon ride to the apple orchards to pick yummy apples, and the corn maze.

Here is the Before and After picture of when we cut that ugly pine tree down from in front of our house. What a huge difference, don't ya think?

The kids won us 4 free passes to Deep River Waterpark from a coloring contest at Pepsi. So our last family fun thing for the summer was a trip to the waterpark. Madi loved every minute of it. Austin on the other hand we had to talk into going down some of the slides with us.

Only a month after we moved into our house our street flooded pretty bad about a block away from us. The neighbors said that hadn't happened since the 80's. We were lucky and didn't get any water in or near our house.

First Day of School. They were both a little nervous since they were starting at a new school this year. They both have adjusted well and love it there. They have more friends now than i ever imagined they would have. We love this neighborhood!

Bad Storm

For those of you who have noticed, I haven't been blogging lately. We went through a week of bad storms here for awhile. One of them knocked our power out before we could properly shut down the computer. After the power came back on our computer has been messed up ever since. All of my picture software was on that computer so I can't do anything with photos until we get it all fixed. It's been killing me to not be able to post all kinds of fun pictures. The kids first day of school...the big flood on our street...new furniture for our home...no more ugly pine tree in front of our house. Eventually I will be able to blog again with pictures. but for now this will have to do. Leave me a comment so I know who is still checking on our family blog.

Camping Trip

We took our first (and probably only) camping trip of 2007. It was hot, and very wet on the second night... but over all we had a great time. 7 adults, 7 kids and 3 dogs. We had fun hiking, bird watching, swimming at the beach and just hanging out around the campfire. I had one too many smores myself.

How many siblings does it take to set up a tent?

The kids had fun digging a big hole with Aunt Cassy.

One last girls picture at the beach!

Madison and Faith roasting marshmallows.

The hummingbirds were fun to watch at the Nature Center.

One of the very few pictures Austin and Brandon would let me take of them. They had to stick together since they are the only boy cousins.

Marilyn, Kelsey, Carolyn and Kylee relaxing around the campfire.

One of the many pictures I took of my adorable niece Kylee.

Even Coco got to go camping with the family.

Brian has been working 12 hours shifts, so he wasn't able to camp with us, but he did make it up there one night for hanging out around the campfire.

Our first overnight guests

Carolyn (mom), Cassy (sister), Michael (brother) Kylee (niece) and coco (dog) are here all the way from Florida to visit us for a few days. I've taken so many pictures already that I have to post them. Austin showing Coco around the new house. Coco loves our fenced in backyard... and we love having her here.

Cousins getting ready for their first slumber party together.

Austin reading Kylee a bedtime story. (Did you notice that Kylee poses for every picture? SO CUTE!!)

We took Kylee to "Tyler's Tenders" where the choo choo train delivers your food at the snack bar and you can take train rides for only a dollar. Here comes our food!!!

The kids just adore their Aunt Cassy. (so do I)

Madison decided she wanted to pose like Kylee. What a cute cousins picture.

Rub a dub dub... three kids in a tub. Thanks for letting us cool off in your pool Aunt Marilyn.

Stay tuned for more pictures...

New Home

Our last family picture at 833 Arbogast.

Well I think it has been 12 days since we have moved into our new home... and to say the least it has been crazy around here. Most of our belongings came in a POD that we packed. Other items were stored at my parents house and a friend's garage (thanks mom, dad and Tim) until we had posession of our new home.

Off to a good start packing the POD Bringing the big stuff in makes it a little more tricky.
Quick throw the mattresses in and close the door.

Saying goodbye to our old home and neighbors was kind of hard for me. Austin was only 2 and Madison was 4 months old when we moved into our home in Griffith. We had so many memories there. So the last night in that house me and the kids slept on the floor with some blankets and I cried.

We moved in with my mom and dad for a week before we were able to get the keys to our new home. Thanks mom and dad for letting us take over for a little while. We had fun staying with you guys.

Thanks to all of our friends and family for helping us move all the furniture (especially the very heavy piano that I don't think the guys will soon forget about)

The kids have adjusted well to the new home. They met a boy next door that they have played with everyday. They also enjoy picking apples from the apple tree in our backyard.