End of the School Year

We are always thrilled to have Eric's former students come to visit. Alex, on the right, was one of the girls' favorite babysitters of all time and she just graduated from college. She and her sister joined us for dinner and had a hard time getting out the door due to all of the children hanging on them.

We have been so blessed to be at Sandy Hill for our children's education. This dear teacher POURED herself into Elizabeth's life this year and will never be forgotten. If we could adopt an additional grandma, she has been nominated. We're so thankful for the input she's had into Elizabeth and feel that our daughter is now a better person because of her. It was very difficult to say goodbye, but I'm sure she will get many visits in the coming years.

Ashlynn also had a fabulous kindergarten year. She has grown and blossomed under this wonderful teacher's direction. Having already taught Elizabeth, she has a special place in our hearts already and we hope she will stick around long enough to have Bryan. Oh boy, that may be the end of her. :-)

Elizabeth has now completed her second year of piano. She is playing beautifully and we all enjoy listening to her practice. This past week she had her second piano recital. Hopefully, there will be many more.

Elizabeth with her teacher, who was also my teacher when I was in junior high and high school.

Great Grandpa honored Elizabeth by sitting through the LONG recital. We're so happy that he
is able and willing to enjoy these special times with us.




Grandma Kregel was also there helping to keep the other children entertained.

And another big thank you to Grandpa and Grandma Tower for taking time out of their busy schedules to support our girl! We love you!

Fun in Indianapolis

As always, we had a wonderful time in Indianapolis with my sister, Shari's family. Aunt Shari and Uncle Stephen have become famous for packing our visits full of exciting and adventurous things to do. Shari is also an awesome cook and I think we're always a couple pounds heavier when we leave. Our first morning there, she got an "Aunt Shari, you are the best," from Elizabeth when she saw the elaborate breakfast we were having. :-)

One night, Uncle Stephen realized that Alivia and Bryan were playing near one of the sprinklers and decided it would be fun to give them a big surprise. The surprise was a hit and they spent the better part of an hour playing in the sprinklers while fully clothed. My family knows that this was much more likely to happen at Shari's than at my house (especially since Uncle Stephen had just cut the grass :-O ) which is probably a big part of why it is was such a hit.

Sprinkler fight

I'll get it away from her!!!

Alivia's turn to get Bryan.

Who will win????

The tables have now turned.

Ashlynn decided Mommy would be happiest if she tried to shower off.

OK, Mom, I think I'm done now. Can I have a bath????

On Sunday afternoon, Stephen treated Eric to a day at the Indianapolis 500 and the girls and children headed to the super cool Indianapolis Children's Museum. Here the kids are helping to excavate a dinosaur skeleton. They took their job quite seriously.

Aunt Brenda, can't you see that I'm busy?

Hey Mom, check this out!

The pro excavators.

Even James got to experience some of the fun.

Snack time to keep everyone happy.

It's a bit hard to tell from this shot, but Alivia is actually sliding down a ramp that has 3 inch boards nailed to it. The idea for the ramp is to get people up into a tree house, not down from it. She must have thumped down it 4-5 times, and to watch her you may have been fooled into thinking that it was great fun.

In all, it was a great weekend and it was very hard to say good-bye and head home. I don't suppose it's ever easy to say good-bye to people you love, but I'm so thankful that we're 5 hours apart and not 15. Thank you, Gray family, for an amazing weekend of making memories. We love you.

Last of the Birthday and a Trip to the Farm

It was a fun and busy week at our house last week. Bryan's actual birthday was Tuesday but it may have been a bit anti-climatic with all of the parties beforehand. We had a good day and Bryan was thrilled with his brand new bike. Now he just needs to get used to riding it.

Thoroughly enjoying his Costco cupcake from Grandma. He's actually enjoying the frosting. I think he decided that the cupcake wasn't worth the calories.

On Thursday, Ashlynn's class took a field trip to the Post Family Farm. It's a local farm that teaches kids about farming, taking care of the environment and just let's them enjoy being outside. It's truly a great place. My mom graciously took Bryan for the afternoon so that I could join her and we had a great time.

Ashlynn with her best friend.

A fun day together. Look at those cute sun-kissed cheeks. Believe it or not, she was slathered in sunscreen!

Ashlynn's kindergarten class

It has truly been a wonderful year for Ashlynn. She is looking forward to first grade while I'm starting to dread it. Bryan is going to miss his sisters tremendously. We're looking forward to a great summer home as a family before we launch into the next stage.

We finished up our week with a trip to Indianapolis to visit my sister's family. I'll post pictures for that in a couple of days. We had an awesome time with them as we always do and were already hearing, "when can we go back to Indianapolis?" on the long drive home.

Bryan is 3!!!

"Mommy, I'm ready to go. Are these the right feet?"

Eric's family joined us this past weekend for another birthday party for Bryan. This poor boy will be in shock when the festivities are over tomorrow.

"Dad, look at my cool new Spiderman backpack."

Hugs for Great Grandma and Great Grandpa.

and a big hug for Great Grandma too.




"That's my car cake!! Isn't it cool?"

Happy Birthday, Bryan! Today's the day and my baby is 3. The time is flying but we're enjoying every day that the Lord allows us to love and raise our precious son!

Bryan is almost 3!

It's so hard for me to believe my baby is almost 3. It's been a difficult week as we began it battling some flu-like symptoms and have ended it with possible allergy symptoms. Through most of it, he's maintained his sweetness as we enjoyed a lot of time around the house.

This is a picture I had to take because it's one of the things that I know I will one day forget. Every night Bryan asks, "Will you lay with me for one song, Mommy?" Of course, I can't refuse him, so every night we sing "Jesus Loves Me" together. For the past couple months, it's become extremely important that he have two "diapees," one for his head and one for mine so when I came in the other night, this is what I found.

On the seemingly long days when the girls are at school, Bryan has become my little helper. Here he is watering my rosebushes.

Part of the frustration of the week was that Shari came to visit and we didn't get much time together because of the illnesses. Fortunately our plan for an early birthday party for Bryan worked out and we were able to have my whole family here on Friday night. We'll be heading down to Indy for Memorial Day weekend so we'll be able to make up the lost time then. Here Bryan is checking to see if Grandma left him any frosting.

Our "almost" 3 year old with his monkey cake.

Alivia and Ashlynn were very willing to help with the unwrapping of the gifts. Here Alivia seems to be more interested in the wrapping paper than what is actually in the box.

Loving a Superman card from Grandpa and Grandma.

Any picture of Grandma during the evening would be likely to include at least one of her grandchildren.

James and Bryan enjoying the new toolset. Boys will be boys.

Shari and her little buddy.

Elizabeth is ready to hit a home run. She was heard saying that she's very upset to be a girl because it lessens her chances of playing baseball and football.

It's no wonder that these two are mistaken for twins every once in a while.

We love the opportunities that they have to play together even though they are few and far between. We love you, Alivia and James (and Shari and Stephen), and we'll see you in just 2 weeks!!!!

Cakes and Gardens

I'm afraid there aren't many pictures from the past couple of weeks as we've been extremely busy. We enjoyed dinner with my parents last weekend as we celebrated my dad's 59th birthday. After dinner and baths, it was a race for Grandma's lap for storytime.

One of the time-takers from the past week was my first commissioned cake decorating job. Elizabeth's teacher is convinced that I should go into business for myself and so she called early in the week with her order. Cake decorating is something that I really enjoy, as my mother did and still does occasionally. Where it goes from here, has yet to be seen.

The biggest time-taker of the week was this plot of land in the backyard. My garden has doubled in size for the year, taking it from 14' x 20' to 14' x 41'. In order to pull this off I had to remove the sod from the new area. We once just rototilled it under and I regretted it for the rest of the summer as all of the grass came back. This was much more labor intensive but will hopefully produce better results. Our lettuce is already coming up and our indoor seed station is starting to show some activity. I'm excited to have a lot more room to not only grow more but to create a kid-friendly garden for the girls to help with this summer. Hopefully, they will eventually reach a point where they're as excited to EAT the homegrown veggies as they are to help take care of them. I'm not holding my breath!

Hope you have a great week!