Lily in the Morning

She is something else in the morning.

Her hair is as wild and unpredictable as her mood.


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*On another note, I am slowly reading through a series of books I received a few years back, by Dorcas Smucker. They're just short stories about life (raising 6 kids and living on a farm!) by they are so therapeutic for me. Her perspective of having raised 6 (and yet remembering the REALLY difficult days) makes me remember that, as hard as some days are, this time is short with little kids.

I loved how she put it in one story, reminiscing about a few weeks one summer where only her two youngest children were at home: "The fewer kids I have, the better of a mother I am. Imagine how good I'd be if I had NO kids!" I loved that.

Moving Day!

(Oh, and did I mention this was over a month ago?)

Yeah, well, we moved.

We probably could've planned things a bit differently in regards to moving, fixing up a house, having another child, and 2 of our 3 cars breaking down...but hey, we like to live on the edge.

But here are the "day of" pics of us packing and moving--and thankfully, the weather was PERFECT.
(a baseball break)

And our caravan arriving at the new house...
Unloading...

*That evening, our small group came over to help us move furniture and boxes. And Aunt Marge supplied ALL 14 of us with supper. I almost teared up watching this caravan of people who we were just getting to know follow us from our old house to our new house...carrying all of our 'stuff', helping us move in. It was such a sweet moment and we are SO GRATEFUL to each of them for helping out!

I'm hoping to eventually post 'we're in the house' pictures... but that may be December before that happens.

Preschool Programs

They are FUNNIEST thing in the WORLD!!!

Ollie's end of the year program was a couple weeks back, and they helped tell the story of Noah's Ark. It was so cute. (Okay, actually, I was there as a teacher since I had my own class...but I'm showing pictures of MY little guy!)

They had just a few songs and some actions--but the highlight BY FAR was when the techies in the back engineered lightning during one song. The kids were SO SURPRISED and just laughed and giggled and could hardly sing! It was hilarious. Ollie was laughing SO loud Joel could hear him in the back row. Funny stuff.

Here are the pictures of my silly yellow giraffe and his friends:

Playing Together

Oh, these two are funny.

One day they decided to ride together on their bike...and they actually both liked it!




(It hasn't had the same effect since, though...apparently it's not as fun when your brother hops on WHILE you're already on it,)

Later, they made a "tree house". Here they are inside it.

Feeding the Ducks (a few weeks back...)

In one of the moments of mandatory sanity during the months of March and April...we decided to take the kids for a walk and feed the ducks.

It was a beautiful evening, and although we found plenty of ducks, they weren't interested in eating any of our bread.


(maybe whole wheat, no high fructose corn syrup isn't appealing to ducks?)


Much to their delight, Oliver and Lily got to finish the uneaten pieces of bread...which made the evening quite a success...