Final 4-H Poster

The big kids have been involved in 4-H at school during both of their 4th and 5th grade school years. One of their projects has been the 4-H poster. Both of our kids have been successful in doing a great job on their posters and placing 1st place in their class competitions and moving on to the county competition.

This year is Rebecca's final year in 4-H. They can do it as an elective in Middle School but I doubt either of ours will. Below is Rebecca's poster for this year. She did a great job on it and won 3rd place in her class. We are proud of her!

Rebecca's poster

Rebecca with her poster!

Rebeccas New "Do"

Rebecca has been growing her hair out all year long. She said she wanted to grow it for Locks of Love and we supported that. But as time has gone on, we've gotten awfully tired of ponytails every single day. It's okay when you're playing sports and it's fun to do fun things to your hair but hers consistantly ended with a slicked back ponytail.

I asked her the other day if she would get it cut and she said she'd think about it. She came in from school and I asked her and she said, "Well..." and I said, "I'll let you get bangs" and she said, "Okay, yes!" :-) We both agreed no short bangs, but long would do and before you know it, we literally left for art lessons early, walked into a place and had it cut right there. She looks great. So I wanted you to see both before and after pictures of it!


Before - front view

After - front view

Before (wow - we didn't realize it was this long - never looked that long in a ponytail!)

After - she had some layers put in the bottom because her hair is so thick!!!

2009 Christmas card photo session

You know it's never very easy to get good photos when you want them. We didn't do a Christmas card last year and I really wanted to do one this year. I also wanted to get a picture of the kids in it but didn't want the hassle of it. One night, the kids were literally heading to bed and I said, "Hey, wait, let me take your picture in front of the tree." Below is the final product - most of you will probably receive this in the mail.

I thought it would be fun to post some of the other funny pictures we went through to get the good one. By the way, if I had planned it better, I would not have had the pink and red in the same picture but again, if I had planned it, we probably would never have gotten the picture!!

The good one

We were waiting on Rebecca and these two started goofing off...

More silliness..

Oops - my hand was over the flash

So silly

This one was GREAT - until we noticed Chrisitan's eyes - dork boy did that on purpose!!!!

Having a little fun after we got the one we wanted!

What a goofy bunch of kids I have!!!!

Julianna's 1st Christmas performance

Julianna's Mother's Day Out School had a performance recently on Sunday night for her class and a couple other classes. They've been practicing for a while and Julianna was very excited about going. She's not done anything like this and we had NO idea how she was going to do. She looked precious and we were so excited for her. Turns out she did wonderful and we were SOO proud of her. Here are some pictures of that night.

Julianna at home before the program.

As soon as they got on the stage - so far, so good!

Look at Camden - poor thing - I was just glad it wasn't Julianna!! :-)



Julianna's sweet friend, Angela



Julianna & Angela after the performance. What a wonderful night!!

Thanksgiving Day

This year for Thanksgiving, we stayed home and got to spend a day and a half with my family. Justin, Mandy and James were able to head this way and we were excited about all being together (of course sad without Rachel!)

We had a great visit. Cassie & Tim organized a Father/Son Football game that morning and invited some of their friends over. Then of course we had a wonderfully, yummy lunch and lots of talking, napping and football during the afternoon.

Below are a hodge-podge of pictures for your enjoyment!!!

Ruth & Julianna - two peas in a pod!

Rebecca & Anna Blair

Hebet was there and the girls loved playing with her hair. Rebecca had never seen hair that long!

This is Anna Blair's hair - some of Hebet's masterpiece

My sweet sister-in-law, Mandy and her precious son, James

Christian playing football

Caleb had to take a break so I was pulled in...and yes, my hair is chopped off. It had been for 2 days here and I wasn't okay with it yet. But now you know!

Matthew, Tim & Caleb

Christian, Matthew & Tim - it was cold!!

My studly brother, Justin

Don't be fooled by the squinty eyes in the picture - this was the one moment of the morning that the sun even came out!!!

Rebecca with James

Julianna, Ruth & Leah

Little Josiah was all tuckered out!

Peekabook Lydia

Like Mother..... Like Daughter??????

Okay - so at Julianna's birthday party, the employees at Monkey Joe's "ran" it. They served the food and cut the cake and made sure the things went smoothly in the party room. We had been to one party there before and Monkey Joe himself arrived. Wow - my daughter went crazy in fear - crying, hiding, upset, etc. So our request was that Monkey Joe did not make an appearance at her party.

So it's time for cake and without warning, the lights go off and it's pitch black and the cake is brought to her. Well, she freaks our - partially for the fear of the dark and partially for fear that Monkey Joe was going to show up. We quickly turn on the light and get all the kids calmed down and bring the cake to her. Well, the kids start singing, but she's still upset and pouting....so Mom to the rescue - I quickly try to explain to her that all her friends and family love her and want to celebrate with her and to quit pouting and that Monkey Joe was NOT coming. Finally she did settle down and was okay. Below is the picture we caught of this moment:

Well, during the Happy birthday song, I looked up at my Mom who was across the room and she was pointing to me. I laughed because I knew EXACTLY what she was going to say to me when she could..... Sure enough, I was right. Below is the picture - and here is the story. When I was in Pre-K 4 year old class, my class celebrated my birthday with me and for whatever reason, when they began to sing Happy Birthday to me, I covered my ears and this picture captured that moment. So I just had to share the pictures and the story with you!

The caption Mom wrote on the back of the picture says, "Katie doesn't want to hear "Happy Birthday" song"

Julianna turns 4

Our sweet Julianna turned four on November 17th. We all got up early to celebrate with her before school and open present.

We decided to give her a "real" birthday party this year and since we've been so busy lately, we decided to spend the extra money to have someone else do her party. We went to Monkey Joe's which is a huge room with a whole bunch of inflatibles. She invited her class for school and friends from church and her cousins from Franklin and we filled up the place. She had a great time and so did the rest of the kids (notice I didn't say the adults!) :-)

Our precious 4 year old

She loves her tent - hopefully she'll stop pulling out every blanket and pillow in the house to make her own tent now.

Julianna and Kaitlyn at Monkey Joe's

Julianna and Cayman enjoying the slide

These 3 girls were so funny - they were really zooming down that slide

Aren't these sisters precious? They are 2 of my nieces!

Julianna wasn't thrilled with having to sit in the big inflatible chair so Christian had to sit with her. She eventually lightened up!

I love taking pictures of these girls. Anna Blair has such beautiful blue eyes and Rebecca has such beautiful brown eyes - they are great cousins and great friends!

Some of the boys at the party - all are such great friends of Julianna's

Angela & Lily Grace - sweet girl friends from church

I had to include this pictures - it's funny. She got the same Barbie doll twice and this is her reaction to the 2nd one! :-) Fortunately we were able to return one and she loves the one she kept and now has a really cook pizza to play with for her kitchen because of the other one!

Trying to get a group shot especially with balloons and telling them it was time to go was tough but I thought this one turned out pretty good

Julianna and Taylor, a good buddy from school (his Mom took this pictures - love this shot!)