Family

After looking through all the pictures we had made as a family, I have found one I LOVE!


I doubt it's what my mom and mother-in-law were thinking when they asked for a family pic, but it is *us* to a tea!

We're on the mend!

We have had a round of sickies this week (again), yuk! Abe is recovering from a double ear infection and bacterial conjunctivitis (pink-eye), both the result of the nasal congestion that has plagued him recently. Piper also had pink-eye but, Praise God, her body is fighting the infection without medication. Everyone is snotty and congested. What is it with this year, my kids are normally soooo healthy???

I am looking so forward to Thanksgiving this week. We have a celebration at Nanny's Thursday, my Mother-in-Law's Friday and my house Saturday! Lots of good eating ahead...

Piper's 6th Birthday

Before we left for vacation Piper celebrated her birthday at Funigan's (a smaller, somewhat more grown-up Chuck E. Cheese). Please forgive the picture quality, I don't have a great digital but it sure beats these disposable prints!

Here is Piper climbing the rock wall.


Here is Piper with her Lilo & Stitch cake. She picked out the cake design and frosting colors and it turned out pretty cute, although I don't think she has ever seen Lilo & Stitch, the movie?!?


And opening presents, we LOOOVE Uno, and Uno Spin has been a lot of fun too!

Here are Cohen and Elijah! They are "best friends" Cohen says. There are just 4 months between them in age.

Halloween pics, at long last

The picture quality is terrible but the kids were so cute at Happy Night @ church! Cohen won best costume in his age group (he LOOOVES Buzz Lightyear) and Piper was a runner-up as Batgirl. Abe was an adorable frog (all 3 of my kids have worn the same frog costume on their first Halloween)! You can see Chad behind Cousin Donna in the last picture, he was supposed to be Woody from Toy Story to complement Cohen's costume.

We did not go trick-or-treating this year, which suited me fine. Piper had Rotavirus all week and it seemed the worst Friday (I actually took her to the doc, which I never do) on Halloween. That day she was in the shower vomiting for the hundredth time (it seemed) and said, "Mama, I am not going to get to go trick-or-treating, am I?" It was so pitiful to see her feeling so yucky. The vomiting had stopped Monday so I thought she was better but returned late Thursday night and continued through Friday; the doc said Rotavirus occasionally behaved that way.

I recently made the statement that my kids have never had Rotavirus and low & behold here it came! I know better than to make statements like that!

Action photos

We had some cute action photos of Chad throwing the kids in the air from our "family photo shoot."




Chad looked at me like I was crazy when I told him to throw Abe up in the air too, but he loved it! He just chuckled and smiled the whole time!



And here is Piper in one of her signature moves, the cartwheel (in a dress, mind you). She is constantly cartwheeling at home, in grocery stores, in parking lots, you name it! She even cartwheels on the soccer field every time she scores a goal!

Family Pictures

So we were trying to get a decent picture of the three kids for our Christmas card and a decent picture of the whole family for my mom and mother-in-law. After several hours spent with my now photographer best friend, we came up with almost nothing (not her fault)! It is so hard to get 5 people to look at the camera at the same time, let alone smile! And the kids were so wild and trying to wrestle each other which in turn made Abe cry. All in all there are some good pictures but they are not exactly what I was aiming for!

And we messed around with the lighting on some of them, that's why they look so different! None of these are the current front runner for the Christmas card, so I will not ruin it for anyone :)

We will miss you, Maddie (too)

It has been a bad week for pets at our house. Yesterday Piper went to Maddie's (hamster) cage to give her a treat and after shaking the cage and grabbing at her (she sleeps under a ledge in the cage where it is hard to see her) Piper came to me. I realized pretty quickly that she had died in her little sleeping nest. Piper was so upset and wanted Chad to bury her immediately. She has dealt with way too much death in her short life, having lost 2 great-grandparents and numerous pets.

I was sad to see Maddie gone too. She was a great, low-maintenance pet and really cute. Piper insisted that we pray safety and health over the other pets, Max and the 4 cats. I love that she is so comforted by prayer. She really can pray about something and hand it over to Jesus to 'worry' about, something I struggle with myself. It's amazing what we can learn from our own children!