Little cooler day at the Nazarene National today.

102 at Rumpke. Hot day at the Nazarene Nationals Softball Tournament. 1st Naz is 1-1. I am 2 for 4.

Down at the crik @ Knobels.

Harvest time.

Anna has learned to ride her bike

Day at Disney

We all met Mickey and Minnie!!



Ashlyn LOVED "It's a Small World"



We had fun on the tea cups.



Flying through the air on Dumbo.



Posing in front of Cinderella's castle.



Cinderella's castle up close.



We even managed to stay until the fireworks!!

Our summer project: A garden at the Reffitt's.

A Good Day

Yesterday was a really good day. Up early and out to Honey Run Park to work on the trail out Leadership Knox group is working on. We finished the bridge, carried the wood for the bench up the hill and put that together as well.

Came home after that to get the girls and let Amber go scrap booking. The Dean's were nice enough to let Ashlyn come over for her nap and me the older girls went back to the trail. Jeff and the crew from Kenyon finished all of the grubbing. It was all done well enough that the girls and I were able to walk the whole thing with no difficulty. (Just a few thorns, roots and trees left to be cleared.) We then walked the other trail and made good use of the new bench as we sat on it to have our snack of oatmeal creme pies and capri-suns.

We then went and picked up Ashlyn and went to Taco Bell for dinner. We dropped off some dinner for Amber then stopped over at Hiawatha park and had a good time there for a little while. Than it was home for bath time and bed time snacks.

It was long tiring day, but one of those good kind of tired. The goodness has continued on to today with church this morning and watching Wendal for the Dean's as we went to Bob Evan's for lunch. Now a time of naps for the little ones (and Amber), playing outside for the girls and watching the Phillies win and Tiger making the Master's quite interesting with his big push today.

So glad that spring has finally seemed to make it here.

Daddy/daughter date at McD's.

Honey Run Waterfall

Not quite cold enough to stop the waterfall.

So now I can update my blog via text or email. Hopefully I will more often.
Here is a pic of the girls after their 1st stay in a hotel after getting stuck in bad weather on the way home for Christmas. (Yes that was a very long run on sentence) :-)

Re-committing to this blog

Ok I am going to try and recommit to this blog again. It is great to look back and see the things that were going on with the girls as they were growing. I don't want to miss my chance to talk about the thing Ashlyn is doing as she is growing.

For example, right now when ever you ask her to say Daddy or Mommy, you instead get "endal". Which is for Wendal. Wendal is the son of Ben and Sarah, Sarah is our babysitter.

She is also one of hungriest babies you will see. She has already had a doughnut, a piece of bread and a banana this morning. Plus she just now went into the pantry and brought me the poptarts wanting one of those. (She is not getting one.) She wasn't suppose to have a doughnut, but she snuck that one on me. (And here she comes with another pack of poptarts since I took the first pack from her and did not give her any.)

She is also really great about going to bed. You make here bottle and she starts to head for the stairs. I remind her to give mommy a kiss first and she heads for the couch to find Amber and gives her a kiss first.

She really is a very cute lovable little girl. I lover her wild curly hair. I love the way she runs to see me when I come home from work. -My other girls use to do that. :-(

I should probably also note that I have recently been made manager of department and that Amber was recently hired to be a regular ed. 5th grade teacher next year. Also a week ago Friday after 14 years of driving the same car, I bought a 02 Jeep Grand Cherokee.

So lots of changes going on around here. Hopefully I will stick to my commitment and continue to update on here the new things that are going on in our family.

Family Portraits

Wow, where did the summer go.

The entire summer went by and I did not post a single thing. Facebook is just way easier I guess. Well here are a few pics to show what has gone on this summer since I last posted.


Ashlyn has been getting bigger.


We went to Delaware and hit the boardwalks.


The girls and I camped in the backyard.


I went to my cousin Jen's wedding.


We stopped and saw Pap Pap Anderson's Campsite.

Easter Egg Hunt

Finally loaded pictures from the camera to the computer. Will start updating things that have happened since. Starting with a few pictures from the big Easter egg hunt the girls went on and a two for one where at the hunt Anna shows off her missing teeth as well.

Happy Birthday Ella!!!

My sweet Ella has turned 4 years old today. Happy Birthday Ella, Daddy loves you!!

My Favorite 6 year old

My daughter Julianna is my favorite 6 year old going on 16. I think the picture conveys her sassy attitude. This morning she told me that her black pants and her Hannah Montana shirt with her zebra socks (oops I was informed they were tiger socks not zebra socks) and new green trimmed sneakers were "radical". (Where did you hear radical?...I don't know?....Oh yeah...Backyardigans) Then the other day she comes home from a field trip, that involved a lot of walking around a nature center, with sore feet. We propped up her feet and gave her some ice. That apparently was not good enough. Twenty minutes later when that had not taken immediate effect she asked Amber, "Mom, can you go on the internet and look up how to make my sore feet feel better?" Yes indeed, she is a part of a new generation of children.

She is very frustrating at times. Like at this moment where she is reading what I am typing and is instead suppose to be going to bed, but I love her dearly. Sometimes I am jealous of those with the quiet shy kids. But then in her truly good moments with all of her personality, I realize I would not trade any of the rambunctious times for those. Yes indeed, she is my favorite six year old!!

More stuff in my office

Okay, so a long while ago I started a series of things that
are in my office that most people don't get to see. This is
one of the shelves in my office. It is filled with some of my
favorite books. Below is a picture of the shelf cleared off of
everything except one of my favorite books
"Where the Wild Things Are" and a couple of Wild Things
I have managed to find at yard sales.As you can see I also
keep my Boba Fett Pez dispenser up there and a game
ball given to me from a church all-star softball
game for hitting in the winning run.

Then here below is a set of my favorite books
"The Chronicles of Narnia". I have an updated set,
but I love the look of the old set. I bought this set
at an auction at the local public library.

Well hopefully this has given those who read this a little more
insight into me. A little more insight into why I love the Narnia
books; I read almost the entire set in one summer.It was the summer
I spent with my sister and brother in law in Iowa. It really first
opened my eyes to how enjoyable reading could be and
how much imagination there was to be used.
Tim really helped me withthat as well that summer.

My Niece's birthday

Well a year and half ago I told you about my nephew on his birthday. Well today is my niece's birthday. My niece is a very kind, sweet and loving person. As I mentioned in my blog about my nephew, she too is one of my favorite people in the world.

We practically lived in the same house the whole time she was growing up. She has always been very loving and a lot of fun to be around. She is quick to laugh, even if she doesn't alway get the joke. (She is a "blonde" and would be the first to tell you so) She is married now to a good guy named T.J. and has a very sweet little boy, my great-nephew, Carson. Well I just wanted to introduce you to this important person in my life and to wish her a Happy Birthday!!

Love ya Rach!!

Where have I been?

Apparently on Facebook. I hate that it seems that I have completely abandoned my blog. Facebook is quick and easy and tells everyone one of my friends every little thing I do. I now have 98 "friends". Most of them are people I went to school with who I now know any better than I really did when I went to school with them. Any of my real friends are reading this blog. It takes time and effort to click on the link to my page or check their css feed if they are that good of a friend.

Well today I am pretty well snowed in at work and have ordered a pizza to be delivered. So I do not have much to do with my free hour at work. So I thought I would go ahead and give an update since I apparently have not done that for awhile.

So what's been going on. Ashlyn has had her surgery. It went really well. The surgery was less than an hour long and we were able to leave the next day. She has already returned for her follow up and she is fine and needs no more follow ups.

We went home to Delaware and then stopped by PA at Amber's family for Christmas.

My friend has talked me into trying to train for a half marathon with him.

Then yesterday I rolled my foot and sprained it. Hopefully the training will still be able to start soon.

So those are the main highlights for now. I will try to post some new pics of the girls sometime soon. I also promise to try to keep my blog updated a little more often. Thanks again for those of you that still check back. Hope you are having a great new year!!