Hearts and Hands Quilt Project

Here is a photo of the quilt square that the girls made at their school for the annual Hearts and Hands Quilt Project. About 30 families were able to draw their own square, and when the quilt is completed it will be given to an orphanage in Bolivia, our school is able to make a quilt for them each year. Because the children in the orphanage don't have many toys, our school also got them one of those huge gymnasuim parachutes that each of the children drew on and signed as a gift from all of our students to theirs.

Missions Convention

During the month of October we have a Missions Convention at our church and the children were encouraged to celebrate by dressing up in an outfit from their favorite missionary country.

Indiana University

Earlier this month, Dave and I went to Bloomington, Indiana for the weekend to see the Iowa v. Indiana football game. Here we are in front of Assembly Hall, where Indiana's basketball team plays (the school is much better known for their basketball program than they are football).

Welcome to Our Family Blog

Hi Everyone! I have been wanting to start a family blog for a long time to make it a little easier to share some of the many photos that we LOVE to take. I had a hard time deciding where to start, we had so many fun pictures from the summertime that I wanted to include. I quickly discovered that you can't sum up an entire summer in just a few short posts, but I did backtrack a bit in the photos posted. You might have to click on "older posts" or the individual posts to see everything I have posted up to this point. From here on, I will try to go in a more chronological order.

Waking Up the Morning of her Birthday

Rebekah loves Blue's Clues so for her birthday, Alyssa and Emma spent a lot of time making cute birthday decorations with her favorite characters on them. Here she is admiring their artwork and excited about her presents.

Enjoying a Red Robin Birthday Sundae with Grandpa

Yum Yum!

Playing at the Water Park for Rebekah's Birthday

We celebrated Rebekah's birthday by playing at a waterpark. The girls enjoyed the waterslides a lot. Alyssa isn't pictured here because the tube slides she liked were all covered and not easy to photograph. They played so hard that they were exhausted when we got home.

Make a Wish and Blow Out Your Candles!

Cake time with Grandma.

Peek A Boo, Birthday Girl!

Rebekah absolutely LOVED this pink polka dotted hat she got for her birthday (thank you, Aunty!) She played peek a boo with it so cutely!

Goodfield Fun

We visited a place that builds really cool themed playgrounds (among many other things like, garden sheds, gazebos etc.). The girls had fun on their boat playground! PS: Click on the photo of E and R on the yellow swing, they are looking at each other so cutely :)

More Fun Lakehouse Pics

The girls also enjoyed the pool at the Lakehouse! It is hard to see in this photo because it came out so dark, but Emma always has a constant smile on her face, even as she's splashing into the pool off the diving board (if you click on the photo, you can see it a bit more clearly). You can see both girls demonstrating their natural gymnast tendancies on the playground equipment. It was a lot of fun watching them play!!

Summertime at the Lake

We enjoyed visiting my parent's lakehouse at Lake Wildwood very much! The girls were SO excited to spend a week at Grandma and Grandpa's house AND a week at the lake. Alyssa and Emma took turns riding and "driving" Grandpa's golf cart and 4-wheeler. They had looked forward to this all summer, and it was such a great way for them to celebrate the end of summer vacation, and gear up for a busy start to the school year!

Wedding Picture

The girls haven't been to that many weddings, so I wanted to take the opportunity to get a picture of them while they were all dressed up. They had so much fun dancing and running around at our cousin's wedding, and it was great to see family that we haven't seen in a while!

Back to School: September 2, 2008

It's been about a month now since Alyssa and Emma started school, and they are enjoying it very much. Alyssa's German is quite good now, it is harder for me to keep up than it used to be. Emma sings a lot of songs in German, and seems proud that she knows all her colors and some animals.

Sweet Strawberry Smile

I loved this picture, it reminds me so much of summer! It was taken a few weeks ago, and now that our weather is cooling off, I doubt we'll have many more days of sitting on the back porch eating fruit.