The Wedding Singers

Tonight Sola Gratia sang at the wedding of one of our members.

Look – I’m in the program!

I’ve known Kelly for a loooooong time – I’m so happy for her!

We were sitting up in the balcony, hence the picture taken through the railing.

I kind of like the effect though.  :)

The reception…

She just looks so pretty!

And now she’s moving to Australia!!!  I told Meredith we need to go sing in Perth for Kelly.  I think that’d be a very good tour for us!

Congratulations Kelly!  You looked so beautiful tonight, and the wedding was just wonderful!  I’m so happy for you and Jaret, and I can’t wait to see what life has in store for you!!

Various Things this Week

James likes to dress up, just like his sisters.  It’s on my list to collect some more gender neutralish sorts of things to dress up in.  :)

For now…

Little Dutch boy!

He is a pretty sweaty boy, even just hanging around the house.

I LOVE what it did to his hair!!

Speaking of hair, I’m having drama with mine (but what’s new?!)  The other night I washed it before bed and then braided it.  The next day I was attempting to take a picture of it myself with the big camera.  It was hard.  :)  You can really see my very brown roots here though. 

I forgot to take a picture of it after I took the braids out – I love it all big and crinkly.  :)

The girls went to Vacation Bible School at Good Shepherd this week.  They’ve really never gone anywhere like this that wasn’t at our church, so it was a new experience for all of us!  They had fun, and it was kind of nice just having one or two boys at the house in the mornings.

This was their last day on Thursday:

I had to get a picture of Natalie’s T-shirt “ponytail.”

I think this was in the evening, which is why the light in the picture is so bad.  James found Natalie’s pink flower sandals and put them on himself.

He cracks me up.

James has recently discovered this “boy” thing of driving the cars around the house on his hands and knees – I love it!

Joanna was really concentrating on playing Anna’s guitar.

Kimberly was at Lisa’s house yesterday with her three, and I got to grab this one and love on him for a little while.

While my hands were full, though, James was being super-cute so Kimberly grabbed my camera for me.  :)

I loooooooooooove me a sweet three week old baby Eli!!!!

{And look – no more dark brown roots!}

Playing outside… last week

So apparently Matt’s mom called him to ask if I was okay.  I haven’t updated the blog in a little while.  :)

I could say “Oh, I’ve been so busy with the children”  or something like that, but I would be lying.  I watched the entire third season of The Vampire Diaries between Thursday and Tuesday.

I’m a little ashamed. 

Clearly not ashamed enough not to admit in front on all you nine people who read my blog though.

And speaking of all you nine people, I really really love getting comments on the blog.  Even if you just say “hi Jess” it really makes my day.  It’s like getting a letter in the mail when I see I have a comment.  Especially when I’ve worked really hard {ahem} taking pictures and occasionally but not often editing them and typing and hitting the backspace button a lot.

Enough about me though.

Last Thursday we went out back in the morning and I filled up the water table.

It looks like they’re having a tea party or something!

On Friday Lisa invited us to the Hunter’s Ridge park and she suggested we might like to walk there.

So we did.

There was exactly one not-broken baby swing, which everybody wanted to ride in.

This girl sure can throw a fit when she wants something. :)

I can barely look at the merry go round without feeling nauseated, but I did snap some pics of the kiddos riding it.

At one point Lisa was pushing Natalie on the baby swing and James was getting too close.  In her efforts to stop him from being kicked in the face, Lisa {gently} pushed James over.

He got such a terrible “What did you just do to me Miss Lisa?” face on.

This girl could sit in the baby swing all day long… longer, if someone was pushing her.

Big boy in the big swing!

A couple van loads of big ol’ kids came after a while.  Anna and Joanna enjoyed watching them and riding on the merry go round with them.

I can’t believe how well James is holding on here – he’s so happy!

It was a fun little trip over to the park.  I don’t know that I’ve taken many pictures since then, but I’m sure I’ll end up with a couple of posts over the next day or so catching up with my week.

Or not.

I have been awfully busy.

New Bike!

Joanna was getting pretty tall for her 12” bike and I wanted Natalie to start learning how to ride it, so I knew it was time to look for a new bicycle for Joanna.  I wasn’t opposed to getting an actual new one from Walmart or something, but my favorite new things (especially for children) are second-hand.  So last Friday afternoon (a week ago Friday) I started browsing Kingwood Yard Sales, thinking I would put a watch out there for what I wanted.  About an hour before I started hunting a lady up in the front of Kingwood posted TWO 16” boy’s bikes!

I ran up there with all the kiddos and picked one out for Joanna!

We got her a pretty green Schwinn 16” with training wheels.  It’s cute, it’s almost new, and it can hopefully be passed all the way down to James!  (No pink princesses.)

At that point we only had one helmet so only one girl could ride at a time.  Natalie sat on her bike to watch Joanna ride.

James really wanted in on the biking action.

He’s got his grumpy face on and is trying to pull Natalie off the bike.

Now he’s screaming at her.

I love a good toddler fit.  :)

James rode his little pink pony for a bit.

Every time I point my camera at this child, she poses.  I have her so well-trained.

The sun was just starting to get glowy and delicious, and I really don’t yet know how to use it to it’s fullest!

She was asking Matt about something, I think.

James and Natalie managed to find some sticks and dirt in the street to play with. : )

I LOVE this shot!  Matt is obviously telling her something important!

Oh the glowy sunshine!!

Natalie got her turn with the helmet as well so she could try out her “new” princess bike.  Yay!  Joanna took the opportunity to help her brother out a bit.

Oh, the posing… oh the gooey sunshine!!

The girls really need practice with their bikes, but they’re doing so well!  They may also need to rent another mother for the summer in order to get that practice.  It is SO HOT.

She’s so cute!

He’s so cute too!! 

It will make him a stronger man, all this riding around on pink and purple toys… right?