I hate blogger sometimes!

It's not letting me post pics AGAIN... so I'll try tomorrow. :) Have a wonderful evening!

I'm back!

My desktop has had so many problems... I'm so thankful for Tom and his ability and willingness to fix it for me! Thanks honey, I love you!

I must say I've grown so much in so many ways since I've been without my computer. My relationship with God has blossomed more in this time than the past two whole years of being a Christian. I have started keeping a journal that has helped me chronicle what God has been showing me in my reading and prayer time. I've connected on a much deeper level with two dear friends. It's been a cool time for me. I missed my blog and having the net at my fingertips :), but frankly it's such a distraction!! Though it was tedious sometimes, I've enjoyed this "vacation" from my computer. :)

Anyways - here a bunch of pictures from the last few weeks.

Prayer request

Please pray for Tom's grandfather. We just found out tonight that he's been in the hospital most of the day. Chris, my brother in law, took him in because he was coughing up blood. They think it's an ulcer, but I guess they are running tests and he'll be in overnight.

And to update those I asked to pray for Tom's dad, he got out of the hospital on Thursday - it wasn't a heart attack. He had lots of tests ran and the dr's told him he has the arteries of a 16 year old, despite having a family history of heart problems! Praise the Lord! We saw him on Monday and he was doing great. He can't lift heavy objects for awhile, and he said that's the only thing that's bothering him. :)

Thanks for lifting him up in prayer. Oh, Tom's grandpa's name is William Walker, but it seems that everyone calls him Grandpa Walker. :)

Park pictures

This weekend my family came to visit. They were bringing their piano to give to us! Taylor and I are so excited. (Thank you, Lord!) I took piano lessons for years but I haven't been able to keep up my practicing the past few years. I'm anxious to brush up and also start teaching Taylor. My old piano teacher who still teaches Noah and Hosanna, sent me a big stack of music to get us started. How fun!!! :)

Here's some pics of our visit to Kid's View on Saturday.


Mirah Sue Noel... the cutest little trouble maker you've ever seen!! :)

Chandler getting help from Aunt Erika.

Chandler - who won't stop talking long enough to take a picture - with Hosanna and Mirah. :)

Suzannah had a blast in the swing! She was cooing and smiling a lot! That's Micah with what they call his Gopher Grin. :)

Best friends for life share everything! Weird to think that Angel is Taylor's aunt. :)

There are more, but blogger is giving me error messages and I'm too tired to argue with it. I'll post more tomorrow when I get my desktop set up. It's been in the storage room that's off the playroom because we had to move the computer area to make room for the piano. I was too busy all weekend to think about the lack of internet. And today I was getting my house back in order after having 12 houseguests :) and also just plain too tired to stop and set it back up. :-P Oh, and Monday night I recorded bgv's (background vocals) for a friend who's tracking a song he wrote. It was an amaxing experience. ... but more on that later. Off to bed... is it really 12:06??? Yawn. :-P

My baby has a sty?!

I'm not sure what it is, exactly.. but a sty is our best guess. It doesn't seem to bother him. He'll still smile his cheesy grin and appropriately say "cheese" for any and all pictures. :)

Skating day

Our CHEC skate was Wednesday. We met some friends for lunch before hand at the park across the street from the skating rink. It was a lot of fun I usually skate, but today I wanted to let Chandler skate and be able to help him as much as he needed. Turns out he's a natural born skater! He had real skates on and didn't want to be held or hold on the the wall. He wanted to be out on the big floor "skating fast, mommy!". :) He did really well for his first time - he fell a lot, but it never fazed him. Taylor kept telling me he was hurt because he had fallen. :) He had the best time. Taylor made big strides too! She's been pretty timid about the whole thing and would always stay close to the wall, but I think seeing Chandler out there challenged her. She was doing so well be the time we left.

The boys made a new friend. His name is Joseph. He's Chandler's age but had the opposite personality and was very shy around him. Chandler wanted to hug him, but he'd just smile. He'd give Brayden lots of hugs though! He just loved Brayden. He wanted to touch his hair over and over. He was super sweet. :)

Skating day

Our CHEC skate was Wednesday. We met some friends for lunch before hand at the park across the street from the skating rink too. It was really nice.

I usually skate, but today I wanted to let Chandler skate and be able to help him as much as he needed. Turns out he didn't want/need my help at all! He's a natural born skater!

He had real skates on and didn't want to be held or hold on the the wall. He wanted to be out on the big floor "skating fast, mommy!". :) He did really well for his first time - he fell a lot, but it never fazed him. Taylor kept telling me he was hurt because he had fallen. :) He had the best time. Taylor made big strides too! She's been pretty timid about the whole thing and would always stay close to the wall, but I think seeing Chandler out there challenged her. She was doing so well be the time we left.

The boys made a new friend. His name is Joseph. He's Chandler's age but had the opposite personality and was very shy around him. Chandler wanted to hug him, but he'd just smile. He'd give Brayden lots of hugs though! He just loved Brayden. He wanted to touch his hair over and over. He was super sweet. :)

Sick again

I've got some sort of virus.... I went to bed last night unsure if I should risk being so far away from the toilet. :-P Then this morning, I threw up my coffee. I'm not happy. We were supposed to Tom's parents over for a cookout tonight. Crossing my fingers and praying that this is just is just a 24 hour thing and no one else gets it.. ugh.

It's official

Brayden is a bonafide walker! It's not yet his preferred choice of transit, but he takes off from furniture, stands from the floor to try and of course loves to walk between two cheering parents! :)

Hooray for Brayden!

Blogger stopped being crazy

Pictures looking behind our fence from the playhouse. :) There's a creek back there that the kids beg to "explore" all the time, so the other day I let them wander around a bit. I was in the playhouse keeping a sharp eye out, of course. I started to go too, but Brayden wasn't keen on the tall grass brushing his legs, so we went back to watch from up in the play house. :)

And Tom got home while were playing. Brayden was excited to see daddy. :)

Tom's latest project

Tom did all this AFTER the carnival on Saturday! You'd think he was the energies bunny!! We have trouble with our azalea bed flooding when it rains, so he came up with this solution. All the water will flow under the sidewalk, down the pipe to the end of the house to an underground hole filled with rocks, to be absorbed away from the house. Sweet, huh? Yes, my husband is a genius. :)


We've been working on our reshaping our flower beds since we moved in, but it got put on hold when winter rolled around. Tom's done an excellent job shaping them...Now he has to reroute the sprinkler system and then we'll fill in the ditch around the perimeter of the bed with weed block and rocks and build a retaining wall with landscape blocks on top of that. I know the end result will be fantastic, but it's hard for me to be patient. All I wanted was some bushes and flowers, for goodness sake! :) But I'm thankful for my hard working husband who thinks beyond the here and now to what's best in the long run. Sigh.... :)

Fun, fun day!

WHAT AN AWESOME DAY! We went to IHOP for breakfast to surprise the kids (they had chocolate smiley pancakes!) Then we took them to the carnival that's in town! I got the older kids to ride some of the big kid rides with me and we had such a great time! Chandler even braved the octopus and the tiltowhirl! I was impressed! Taylor rode the flying carpet, but I couldn't talk her into the Kamakazi. lol

Brayden rode a few and we all rode the ferris wheel together. Brayden was a little cranky about having to miss out on most of the fun - as seen here, right before we left. I'll let this little photo essay speak for it self from here on out - and btw, they're in reverse order. Not that it really matters... :)

(enjoying his bite of funnel cake!)

The Greatest Show on Earth!

Yeah right! :) It was ok, but way too HOT. Steff and I were a little bummed about the whole experience I think. The kids enjoyed it, but they were so hot, they readily agreed to leaving a bit early. :)

The only redeeming thing was the elephant ride... what a blast!... a very short blast, but a blast nonetheless. lol