Thankful for family....

Each year for Thanksgiving (we think this is our 7th year) we take a road trip to Southern Oregon to where Bill's family is for Thanksgiving. This year we left Tuesday afternoon for the 8 hour drive and arrived in time to tuck the kids into bed.

Wednesday we headed right over to Uncle Jake & Aunt Jaime's house to hang out with them and the cousins!

Uncle Jake took the kids out for a ride around the neighborhood (and into the hills that overlook Medford) in their rhino. I don't really need to tell you that they loved it!!

It was awesome to get to spend some time with Jeremiah, we are always happy for each moment we get with him. Here's a great shot of all the kids lined up!!

Love this picture of Syrah!

Before we arrived we taught Sadie how to play the card game "13" which has become a family tradition anytime we hang out with family. Here is Sadie holding her cards at her official first game!

Monkey see - Monkey do! Grandpa Bill and Sadie

Syrah and her cousin Koen

Just love this picture of me and McKayla... she made me laugh and smile so much!!

Sadie & her Auntie Jaime on Thanksgiving! Jaime did an awesome job with Thanksgiving dinner... Thank you Jaime!!

Grandma Cindy and the girls... Grandma made the girls the aprons they are wearing and had a special day planned out for them. She is always so thoughtful when it comes to her time with the girls!! She also is a great hostess for us as we stayed with them for this trip! Thank you Bill & Cindy!!

Syrah baking cookies with Grandma Cindy

Sadie doing a little scrap booking with Grandma Cindy.

The kids... Jeremiah, Sadie & Syrah at Grandma Mary Lou's house.

We hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and found many things to be grateful for!

it's beginning to look a lot like...

4th of July fun with friends

I can hardly believe the fun we had on the fourth. Our dear friends the Caceres Family invited some friends and family to enjoy the sunshine day with water-slides, BBQ, chocolate fountain (yum), fireworks and fellowship. It was a blast! I had to get really selective on what pictures to share because we had so many and it was so much fun (did I mention that part all ready?).

They set up two big water slides and a pool for the kids to wade and splash in!

Of course the chocolate fountain; always a hit!

Back to the slides...

Samuel; looks chilled, but really it is the face of anticipation for the joy to come!

Tayrn and Syrah getting ready to take another round down the slides (do you see the fun yet???)

Morgan watching Samuel attempt a head first slide.

Just love this shot of Micah!!

Dayton and Abby splashin' in the pool (now do you see the fun?)

Dayton getting cozied by his Auntie Katrina


True Friends are PRICELESS!

Katrina and her brother Jerome got a little wet in the friendly balloon toss (which ended up with toss your sister in the kiddy pool, which ended up... if I'm going in little brother, so are you!) (fun...do you see it now??)

Sadie holding precious Amara

Time for tank wars!

Smore's anyone?? Thanks Smith family for the yummy treat! (I bet you can see it now!!!)

The mama's and the kids all curled up watching the fireworks show!

Love this picture of Dayton, he looks a tad puzzled, maybe intrigued, but certainly he is having FUN!

Master Fireworks Guru Michael!


Clean up time (even here there are smiles)

Look at all those fireworks.

Thank you to the Caceres family for the wonderful day/night/morning! Thank you to all who came and brought fireworks and yummy food. We had a great time with all of you!

A tad behind

Finding time to blog this time of year is always difficult, so you end up with a few weeks worth of pictures and a big long post. That was your official warning...

A week ago Saturday was a beautiful day outside... actually we had an amazing weekend! We had thought it would be fun to go to the zoo with my dad (who was celebrating a birthday) and Kelly!

Syrah riding the baboon!

So many of the animals were enjoying the sun it was fun to see. We often hit the zoo when it is less then favorable weather and never would I have thought we would have gone on the first nice day of the year, but I am glad we did because it was fun to see so many animals out enjoying the sun as we were!

Sadie has taken a liking to photography and you can catch her shooting pictures all day!

I loved this picture - this Tiger looks like the wild beast he is, however, he really was just rolling around playing with the branches like a kitten.

Only last year did we realize that the zoo had a Red Panda. Most often we can barely catch a glimpse of him curled up in the trees, but this day we was our roaming and marking his territory. Come to find out the zoo has four of them, but they become violent to each other so they keep them separated (hence why he felt it necessary to leave his mark).

One thing we like to do is sit in the open bird part of the tropical rain forest. I personally could sit there for hours. This little guy landed right where we were sitting. Sadie reached out not to touch him, but to show how close he came to us!

Hard to believe that is our little girl walking between her Grandpa and Kelly!

This was one of my favorite parts of the day. This little goose (come to find out this is some type of swan, looks like a goose to me!) was standing on one leg. We watched him for quite awhile stand with confidence there on one leg, still as can be.

The funny part was he was the sole swan in a sea of flamingos. It tickled me funny like the little guy thought that he was one of them!

We ended a great day with big smiles!

We were able to spend some time with some friends on Sunday after going to an amazing morning church service and we finished off the weekend with an evening service that gave us tons of truth to chew on all week!

This last weekend was obviously the celebrating of our Lord and Savior who took our sins from us and gave us life through his resurrection!

The girls ready for Easter service. Might have to have Syrah start standing on the stairs to get these shots!

After service we were invited to join our friends the Caceres's. Each year they host an Easter Egg hunt for the kiddos, but this year they decided to have a family hunt and an Easter Brunch. We felt very blessed to be included in their family time on such a joyful day!

Amara, Samuel, Dayton, Micah, Syrah and Sadie ready to start looking for some eggs.

I just love this picture of the handsome cousins!

Sadie looking for eggs - the smile says it all!

After the hunt each of the kids checked out what they found!

Sadie, Samuel, Micah & Dayton checking out their finds!

For the friends and family that stop by we thank you for being patient through the times in life that when things slow down we spend the time with those who matter most and that is each other. We pray for all our family and friends that the Spirit of our Lord be present in your lives each day and causing transformation with each forward step.

Strange email...

This morning at 11:26 I received a very strange email, I thought I would share it with you all. Here is what it said:

Hello, do you remember me? You put pictures on me, you write lovely things about your days and share them with your family and friends!!! I miss you and wish that you would give me some attention. I know you have children, a husband and job, I am just asking that you try to sneak me in a little on the side….. missing you, Love YOUR BLOG

I had NO idea that when you neglected the BLOG it had feelings, but I guess it is somewhat flattering to know my computer misses me! I wish I had some exciting news to share as to what we have been up to the last nine days, but really, I don't. We stayed up together on New Year's Eve (ever notice that it is easy to stay up until midnight on accident, but when you are trying to stay up it is very difficult). We did some projects around the house (Billy finished painting some rooms, we hung pictures, re-arranged shelving to make room for the growing number of books the girls have). We enjoyed the last few days of winter break... stayed up a bit later, woke up a bit later, just generally enjoyed being together. This last week we have been working hard to get back into the routine of getting up to an alarm clock and getting out the door in an organized and timely manner.

Last weekend we did get to have one last Christmas celebration at my moms to have some time with my brother Eric and his wife Lauren, who were in Lauren's home town of Nashville, TN over Christmas. We were surprised to be witnessing even more snow come down on that day and Eric got his white Christmas as he had wanted (kinda!).

Eric (check out those fogged up glasses) and Billy after making a trip to the car in the snow!!!

I am glad to say we are getting a break from the snow, but sure have been hit with some wind and rain since... please continue to pray for those that are affected by flooding (which are many!).

I would like to thank my blog for motivating me to get back here... I will do my best to update more often and not go 9-10 days absent!