Hurrah for Vacation

I have decided...




That family vacations...



are worth their weight...




in gold.




Because this week, we traded this...



for this...



And traded this...



for this.



and it was...well,



wonderful.



We headed to Great Wolf Lodge in Williamsburg, Virginia to hit the water slides, but I think the beautiful, warm sunshine...



was every bit as much of a blessing to us.



Favorite slide of everyone OVER the age of five...(yes, it really is a six story drop swirling around inside a huge funnel)...



the Howling Tornado





General consensus among everyone but Daddy...Daddy's howling made the Howling Tornado even worse.



Daddy, Mitchell, Matthew, and Christian

For little Miss Five and Under...



It was everything BUT the tornado.



After all, she's not over four feet tall yet!



And Gracie-Lou (why is it kid's REAL names are not what usually comes out of Momma's mouths?)



Gracie...



Who I could tell is growing up when I went in the bathroom after she had unpacked and found this:



Gracie, who thought Momma should ride the Tornado in the dark at night like she did.



I did not.
I stuck to daylight.






There was the surf rider



the surf rider that Christian spent so many hours conquering, that he needed help to get his shirt on because his shoulders were so sore. How is it that I don't have one photo of him riding it? It was a Momma slip-up. So here he is doing, well, other things.





Matthew and Faith


Matthew, Mitchell, Christian, Anna Grace


There was the bakery with the mammoth cupcakes that were too rich for our blood pocketbooks.



There were big boys eating hot wings.



REALLY HOT wings!



And then it was time to head back north









But not with out two very special stops.

First stop, and oh-so-very special to me, meeting my sweet blog friend Mandy from over at "adoptedandappointed.blogspot". We'd been talking for a number of months via our blogs and email and what a sweet joy it was to meet up in person. If I remember correctly, what first spurred our interest was that we both have an "Anna Grace" and are both homeschool moms. It was so sweet to meet up.



Faith and adorable little Lily, who looks like a little doll baby.



All the girls: Faith, Anna Grace, Anna Grace, Lily, & Ally



and finally, just before the home stretch, it was our "travel treat". We don't have them at home so we look for them when we travel.

Steak and Shake









love this photo so much!

Oh, these boys. What in the world would I do without them.



and this boy too...

Happy 16th Birthday

Not sure how it happened.

But my dear sweet little guy...


...the one who could be so very ornery and so very irresistible at the same time...

...the one who would have given you the shirt off his back...
...the one who took care of his little brother as if it were his responsibility...



...the one who knew how to pick at his big brother even at a very early age...



...the one who told me that he had a hard time concentrating on "stuff" because all he could think about was fishing with his pappy...



...the one who was disappointed by any gift that was not a train...




...how is it...that my dear sweet little guy...


...Is now a dear sweet BIG guy. Matthew turned 16 yesterday!







He is a gem. He is seriously one sweet guy.



Makes his momma proud.



Giving and considerate, and spends literally hours a day reading his Bible.



Matthew, I am so glad to be your Momma.



Happy 16 Dear Matthew!

I really need to get Nathan onto our blog and thus, into the kids scrapbooks.
Nathan is a long-time friend of Mitchell's that has been living with us for a little over 3 months now, due to the fact that he needed somewhere to go...and we just happen to love having a full house...and we love Nathan. One can never have too many teenage boys in the house. They are soooo way cool and soooo fun :) And besides Nathan is a genius and fixes all my computer problems. I told him its only fair...I wash his clothes, he fixes my computers.

So here are Nathan and Faith...hmmm...it appears they are both Asian!
Nathan likes to say he is related to Faith. He has the coolest (fake) Asian accent which he uses to do things like, jokingly tell us at dinner one night that he thinks he's going to open an egg roll stand in the mall. (Now the rest of the kids joke and say that when she's old enough, Faith will work at Nathan's egg roll stand.)



Nathan having you is a blessing. I'm grateful.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from our family!





My dear dear big boys!

My little sweeties!


Faith's new tutu. After a year of wearing the one Gracie got her from 2000 tutus (and wearing it everyday I might add!) she was in desperate need of a new one!


Hanging out with the cousins.



Every year on Christmas and my Dad's birthday, Christian writes a story about my dad. He gives them to my dad as gifts and they are always absolutely hilarious! Christian takes all the little quirks about my dad and weaves them all into this hilarious saga that is continued from one holiday to the next. Here is dad reading aloud the the family, his new story. In the stories Dad experiences all kinds of mishaps and crazy situations.

As a new twist, my dad has decided that once a year, we will have a "literature appreciation night" where we get together and read all of Christian's stories about dad all at once, back to back. We had one a few months back and sat with tears running down our cheeks from laughter. No one else would even find them funny because they're all inside jokes and you just have to know my dad to even understand them!! :)


Gracie's two dear sweet little friends, Pastor Mark's daughter's Mariyah and Kiahna. Love, love these girls!!



The Mrs. Claus dress!! When Gracie wore this dress, she called it her Mrs. Claus dress. I cannot believe its been that long since she wore this! Couldn't believe how little it was when I pulled it out. Seems like it was just last year that Gracie was wearing it!



And of course sweet cousin Jennie and Fai-fu!



Merry Christmas everyone!

Just for my sweet Grace

Just for my sweet Grace, I surprised her with a trip to see Britt Nicole. Now, this girl is one serious Britt Nicole fan. During her free time, she can be found doing one of three things, either sitting at the piano playing Britt Nicole songs, youtubing Britt Nicole songs, or Karaoke-ing Britt Nicole songs. She was so thrilled and I just loved being able to do something so special with her. Here are a few photos of Gracie with Britt....so cute.



When we told her that Gracie sings too, she prayed with Gracie that God would use her voice for His glory. Really special for my Gracie.



A few weeks ago, Gracie did a Britt Nicole song an an outreach event. She sang it with the guys from my worship band. It was her first time singing with a live band and she did so great! She was soooo excited. I got my friend to video it from the sound deck. At the end of the bridge my friend accidentally covered the mic on my video camera with her hand for the remainder of the song(love you anyways Andrea!) So, here it is in all its shining poor quality.... but I'm glad I have it. Hopefully I'll get to make some more and try to do a better job of video taping...
(Oh, and the guitar player singing some backup vocals is Mitchell, and the drummer is Matthew.)

Birthday kids and the Gift gone wrong

Well, another teenager joined the crew. Christian is now thirteen. Cousin Jennie made him a waterslide cake.


All he really wanted for his birthday was a cell phone. I think I had him thoroughly convinced that I was NOT getting him one....but I did.


We had a campfire.



Here's the story about the next photo: My dad is fabulously great. He is so fun and the kids have so much fun with him. Well, the week before Christian's birthday, we were sitting in church, and Dad leaned leaned out across the pew and told Christian, "Um, I went a little over budget on your gift. You see, I budgeted $2.00 for it, but with the tax, I went over...So I was wondering if you could re-imburse me for the tax." Well, of course we all rolled with laughter and it started a string of events. You can see here - Christian holding up dad's gift with a "12cents due" sign on it! Then, a couple days later, my aunt called my mom and said, "If we go over the price limit on our family exchange gifts, can we just put a bill in the gifts for the amount due?" Oh goodness, we have had fun with that (just like we do just about everything my dad says!) My boys are musicians, and one time a bunch of years ago, my dad told Mitchell, "Did you know when I was younger I had a band?" Mitchell's eyes widened and he sat up straighter and said, "Really! What did you play?" "Nothing," my dad said, "It was a gumband." That joke has been re-told and laughed over so many hundreds of times it really shouldn't be funny anymore, yet as I sit here typing it, it makes me laugh. Oh, how I love my daddy.




Then...Little Miss Fai-Fu turned the big 5.

Of course, Jennie made this lovely cake. "Chocolate, with pink flowers," was the request.


Doesn't she look gorgeous!






My Gam got Faith a Beauty and the Beast dress up set.
She loved it! Little pink heels to click-clack around the house in, and a long Belle wig.


Faith wanted to go the the local pizza shop to continue her party. So we did...



Now...the part about the birthday gift gone wrong.
Oh dear...so remember I said Gam got Faith Beauty and Beast dress up clothes. Well, Faith changed into them and was excited to (as she put it) look like a princess.
You know I can't quite put my finger on it, but it just didn't quite turn out like a princess. She looked strangely reminiscent of...well, Ummm.....Tina Turner???? Oh, my....