Growing Up

My oldest boy turned 9 this year. It's hard to believe how fast time has flown. Where does the time go?

Now that's a sharp looking young man! I love this picture of him.

Cousins

My kids love their cousins so much and always look forward getting together with them. These are some photos I took at a neighborhood water park the kids went to this summer with most of their cousins.

Ordinary Things

Yes that is a leaf on the back of his head and holding it in place is a large rubber band. This is my 5yr. old pretending he's an Indian.... and that leaf is supposed to be a "feather." This must be a more modern "bow and arrow" this young Indian is using :)

Pretending to be pirates! AAAAARRRGGGG!!

Painting for FUN!!

Every year when Father's and Son's Outing comes around my husband takes our two boys and I have a girls night with my daughters. The same night as the outing I had a "face-in-hole" painting I was making for a church carnival.

I was well aware that my daughter was looking forward to our girl's night together so I asked her to tell me what she wanted to do for our outing. She said, "I want to paint with you!"
I said, "are you sure... because we could do lots of things, we could do each other's hair or paint nails, go for a bike ride or watch a movie?"
"Nope, I just want to paint."
"Ok," I consented.
So I got out some paper and paint and she sat next to me working on her picture as I worked on mine. After she finished a few masterpieces she curled up on the couch continuing to show a great deal of interest in my work. I asked her if she was bored.
"Not at all!" was her response. "I could watch you do this forever."
And well, maybe it wasn't forever... but she did stay up and watch until almost midnight.


Here she wanted to take a picture of me with my face in it before it was done. It's kind-of a strange angle because cardboard is lying flat on my floor.
This is the final product. Can you see it? I based it off a Title of Liberty painting from one of my favorite Christian artists, Walter Rane.

(pictured above: my 5yr. old boy)

(pictured above: my 9yr. old boy)

(pictured above: my 7yr. old girl)


(pictured above: my 2yr. old girl)

Dress Up

These two are always playing "dress up". Here they have made their own crowns and jewelry out of paper and are using a pillow case and blanket for a royal robe.

Candles of Firecrackers?

You would think she would be so happy to be receiving her birthday cake for her 2nd birthday?

But no.... she was terrified!!

Why?

Well... just a few days before we were lighting little things like these in our driveway for the 4th of July and they exploded... Our sweet little 2yr. old thought these were firecrackers too, poor thing. I'd be terrified too if someone lit those and shoved them in my face!

It took a while but she finally warmed up to the candles and realized these we not going to explode :)

Manna From Heaven

I could hear my 5yr. old boy fumbling around in the kitchen and humming to himself. I peeked around the corner to see what he was up to. He had found a bag of hamburger buns and was carefully drizzling honey on the bread. He looked up to see me standing there watching him and proudly said, "look mommy! I'm making manna."

Bottle Addict

No this was not a planned pose. We just often find her this way, hidden in a corner, sneaking two bottles at once!