Morgan: 13

As of 3 weeks ago, we have a second teenager in the house!  I finally got to take Morgan's birthday pictures this past weekend.  She wanted them taken at our church, I love that she loves our church!

Morgan is sweet as sugar.  She loves to work hard and has grown so much this past year.  About a year ago she realized that she was messy and unorganized and has spent lots of time bringing order to her corner of the world and taking more initiative with her responsibilities.  As a mom, how satisfying to see God working those things in her heart!!  Morgan has a very soft heart towards God and wants to grow and please Him.

Morgan is also very patient and kind. She takes tons of initiative towards her younger siblings and plays, plays, plays with them.  She is also a great friend and confidant to her big sis!!  Morgan plays the piano beautifully and still loves to climb.  Someday we're hoping to find her a job at a ropes course.  :)

Morgan, we love you so much and are so grateful for your life and your role in our family.  Happy 13th!

Birthday G

Yesterday was our sweet Greta's birthday.  Hard to believe that she is already 7! I don't have any pics from her celebration to post yet but I love these recent shots of her and Josiah.  Homemade headbands and buddies for life!!

Swim lessons

One of my highlights of the summer was taking Aaron and Greta to swim lessons.  They were the perfect age for it.  Not fearful, wanting to learn, etc.  We found a wonderful teacher who did lessons at her home and they both learned a lot.

Their teacher was very impressed with Greta's backstroke.  She was fast and strong.  Even her big brother said, "She is so fast, I can't keep up with her!!" 

Love this, Aaron flinching out of G's way!

Stamped concrete

Steve recently laid a slab of concrete...I honestly don't really know what for.  Currently it's housing the wood for our fire ring.

The kids (except Claudia who was at work) were all able to put their hand in.  Exciting times.

Buds

Out of the Mouths

I was telling Josiah he needed to clean up his toy mess.  He was sporting his bright orange Tonka hard hat.  His reply:

"Construction workers do not clean up."

Me: "Yes they do."

Jo: "Well not this one."

Midnight Drama

I recently woke up around midnight and saw bright flashing lights outside our bedroom window.  Looking out revealed a massive scene in our front yard.  Apparently a horse and buggy was coming down the hill in front of our house and the horse got "spooked".  The buggy flipped and landed in our yard and a young girl was thrown and flew into our flowerbed (quite the distance).

Thankfully everyone was ok, there were some serious injuries but nothing life threatening.  It was a bit scary to realize this all happened in our yard and we almost slept through it!!  Well, one of us did sleep through it.  :)

What you can't see on this picture is the massive group of Amish in the yard, they were on the other side of the tree.  It was quite the scene.

Morgan's 13th

I gave Morgan the option of having a bit of a different 13th birthday party.  When her big sis turned 13, we did a day at the beach with some friends. Morgan was dead set against doing the same thing, she wanted something different.  She really, really wanted to do an overnight at her favorite campground. For awhile I told her it just wasn't going to work because there was no way I could haul a van full of girls and all our stuff.  After giving it some thought, I invited my mom to come along so we would have an extra vehicle to haul all our junk.  It worked out wonderfully to have my mom along to keep me company while the girls had their fun!

It was a wonderful trip.  The girls were so sweet and so much fun.  They kept busy swimming, boating, mini golf, hanging out, walking around, and a super fun scavenger hunt that my mom made.  What a treat to be able to spend a couple of days with them.

The boy in the background of these pics is driving me mad!!  Wishing for some photoshop...

So bummed my mom didn't make it into this picture.  I was using a borrowed camera and could not figure out how to use the self timer.  But mom was kind enough to get me in!

Camping

We had another year of successful camping with my family.  It is such a great weekend for the kids, they love being together and love being outside.

Early morning around the fire pictures are my favorite. Messy hair, sleepy eyes, and beautiful lighting!!

The angry bluebird

Josiah said to me, "Mom, take this picture because we are buddies!