Spring photos

We enjoyed a delightful couple weeks of fresh strawberries from our Mennonite neighbors.  I was capping them outside when I suddenly observed that Lydia had grabbed a box and was eating away!

I was working in my flower beds when Elisabeth went crashing through this bush.  

 This is our a new favorite way to ride.  Notice Lydia holding onto Elisabeth's braids.  :-)

 Happy Father's Day!!!!   

Daddy has been so exhausted, working many more hours a day than normal.  The girls interrupted his Sabbath rest as he waited for popcorn and deer sausage.

 June 18, 2014

Happy birthday, dear Elisabeth!!!!  

Our precious firstborn is 4 already!  With Daddy's work schedule being so ultra-heavy right now, the only time we could seem to find to celebrate was Wednesday night after church.  E. was so excited she could hardly eat, so we finally let her just get up and unwrap presents.  She just exclaimed THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU for everything.  It's such a fun stage, when they just have so much appreciation for the simplest of attentions and gifts.  We're not elaborate party people, and it was delightful to observed her inexpressible joy over her birthday!

 Grandma found a lovely tool set she can use to help us in the garden.  There's still a lot of digging and hoeing going on there, but we're sure hoping for some luscious produce before long.

 Whoa!!!! Aunt Lori must have been thinking winter!  Hard to imagine it being cold enough to wear this as we swelter through 90 degree temperatures at the moment!

 Elisabeth is begging to start school, and we plan to start as soon as the books arrive.  Mommy is as excited as she is!  Maybe this book will keep us going till we get our "real" books!

I'm adding these pictures the day after E's birthday, and a little while ago E. awoke and dashed into my room wondering, "Mommy, do you f(th)ink I'm still 4????"

some iphone pictures

We're having some fun playing around with Chris' new iphone he got for his work.  The speed with which it takes pictures is truly amazing.  But you have to hold your hand really still.  We never did claim to be great photographers even with a regular camera.  Oh well, at least these capture a few memories.  Recently we were looking at some pictures from Chris' growing up years.  There aren't many, and they aren't great photos, but they bring back such dear memories.  The scrapbook my family kept for me is of similar value.  Not a LOT of pictures, but they are precious.  I have to remind myself of that, because some people blog hundreds of pictures every year, and they are all studio-perfect and I get intimidated by them constantly.  

Okay, now isn't this enough to just make you smile right back?

 My niece Charity at one of the Christmas "concerts" we did with my sister Joella's family.  The 2 babies are about the same age, but Laura is just enough older that she wants to "baby" our baby!!!!  :-)

 Wow!  Should have cropped out the messy kitchen.  Oh, well.  Cute kid, anyway.

 Our girls with their 2nd cousins (boys) who very kindly let them share their fun toys.  I'll try to get a picture of the girls in their matching dresses I made them for Christmas, now that I've finally got a deeply-rooted stain out of Elisabeth's collar.  I really like Oxyclean by the way, although I'm not sure if it was just it or the combination of about 3 different soaps/stainremovers I used about 4 times over that finally did the trick.

 We daughters-in-law talked our parents-in-law and our husbands into taking a little trip to Southern Illinois over New Year's instead of doing such a large-scale gift exchange for Christmas. We stayed at Rimrocks Cabins (we rented 2) and it was truly a dream come true.  Might even become a tradition.  It was just a lovely getaway.  We played games, and ate lots, and took a couple neat drives, and just had a lovely, relaxing time.  My sister-in-law Lori and I share a dream for our children, to make memories from fun things like this that don't cost a lot of money and that don't take hours to get to.  It was less than 2 hours to drive there, and it was soooooooo much fun.

Chris and I and our girls stayed in this dear little cabin called Bear's Den.  There are 5 cabins on this property, each with the name of a different wild creature: the rest of the family stayed in Eagle's Retreat.

Chris took this amazing picture of the Ohio River.  Chris' family has made many memories down in this neck of the woods.  They used to go camping down here from time to time.

Lydia is "bothering" Grandpa.  He appeared to be actually asleep.  He loves his baby girl, and is quite tolerant, I guess.

Not being content with just teaching Elisabeth how to make faces, Chris is now working on Lydia.  She had this little hometown "eatery" in a fizzle with her antics.

Merry Christmas everyone!!!!  Ha!!!  Oh, well, it's nearly the end of January, and I'm just enjoying looking at some of the pix from our end of the year celebrations.  We tried to make sugar cookies this year, and the babies are checking them out in the oven.  Sorry we didn't get a good picture of the completed product.  They got eaten, but they were not beautiful.  Anybody have a great recipe for soft, chewy sugar cookies that don't require chilling?  I couldn't believe the bazillion different recipes that were online.

Elisabeth is at the age she loves to have her picture taken, largely for the sake of looking at it, but she gets all goofy for the camera most of the time.  I thought this was a dear shot, though.

Lydia received this doll for Christmas/birthday.  Or maybe Elisabeth received it.  Whatever.  Lydia claimed it.  She L.O.V.E.S. this doll!!!!!  As you can see from the next how many pictures.  It's a cute doll, but the hair on it can be an interesting issue.

Lydia is getting to be Grandpa's girl.  This is Christmas eve, and she was cuddling next to him for the longest time.  She's kind of pushing away from him in this picture, but this is still pretty classic.  Guess maybe now he'll forgive us for not having a boy.  Ha!!!