Yearbook yourself

Several of my friends have been posting pictures from the "yearbook yourself" website. I went there today and found it to be a wonderful way to waste time. :-) My sister Kelli and her family are over at our house since last night from Houston because their power has been out since hurricane Ike hit, so we had some fun. I didn't note the years for each of these pictures, but it is not too hard to tell the 50's from the 70's.

This one is my favorite- 1975 or so I think.

I thought this was a nice look too.

This would have been me in my Gene Wilder days.... :-)

And now for Kelli's family...

Kelli in the 50's
Jeff in the 70's
Naomi in the early 50's
Emmalie in an unknown decade ...

And we couldn't forget Indie as a grandma.

A big prayer

Yesterday evening as we were driving to AWANA, we were talking again about God’s perfection, and our sinfulness. She finally got that our sin separates us from God, and with a very frustrated expression, she asked “What can we do?” I explained that Jesus’ death on the cross is the payment and provision for our sin. All she has to do is trust Him for her salvation, and to help her become the person He wants her to be. I summed it up by saying that is what it means to ask Jesus into her heart.

She asked me to help her memorize what she needed to say, and when I told her she could say whatever she wanted to God, she asked me to turn down the radio so she could pray. Her voice was quiet, but I heard her express her thoughts and desires to God to go to Heaven, become who He wanted her to be, and thankfulness that Jesus died on the cross for her sin. What a precious day for a parent! Lord, please bring about fruit in her life...

Bath anyone?

On Sunday, we were asking Isabella what she talked about in Sunday School that morning. The topic was Jesus’ baptism, which apparently she didn’t fully understand from class because she asked what “bathtism” is. We explained it to her, and she asked if we had been baptized. Chris and I both described our baptism experiences. She then asked, "When am I going to be bathtized?" When we told her she had to go under water, she declared she thought she would wait until she was a little braver.

Pretend Jellybeans

I love pretend with the children. They are very creative—you never know whether it is bears (or hurricanes at this point) running around our house, I frequently am catching balls at mealtime, and Chris has written about Zach’s squirrels before.

Well, this morning, we were eating jelly beans (pretending to that is) at breakfast. I don’t like jelly beans, and told the children I didn’t want any. But I’m not sure how I feel about Zach getting upset when Isabella says she ate all of the jelly beans and there are none left for him. :-)

Visit from Grandma & Grandpa

Chris' Dad and step mom came to visit us last Sunday to Tuesday. We really enjoyed having them in town and so did the kids. There was lots of fun and lots of laughter throughout their stay. Here are a few pics from the time they were here...


Indy liked having them here as well. She spent most of her time on my dad's lap.

Here they are on the couch.

Liza took them down to the pond at the arboretum. Carla has pictures of all the grand kids with ducks, so they went to get a picture of Zach by the water. He did pretty well, but he wasn't quite sure what to do when a goose came right up to him...


Carla and Zach by the cows. They had fun playing there too... and Zach spent time trying to feed them the mulch. :-)

Introducing, Indiana

Not the state, but the dog. Indy for short. We picked her up from the animal shelter on Thursday and brought her home. She is a full blooded schnauzer and very sweet. They said that her previous owner had to drop her off because she had health problems that were making it hard to care for her. She must have been around kids because she is extremely patient with the kids and loves being around all of us. The kids lover her. Isabella fell in love with her when we first saw her on the 27th of August. I told her that her mommy had dropped her off there and Isabella said we just had to bring her home because she was so sad. Since being here with us, she has perked up and is already very attached.

When we went to pick her up, Liza saw her and said, "wow, she's an ugly dog." It was true. She was dirty, matted and flea ridden, but still very sweet. I knew that she would be beautiful once she had a day at the spa. I took her in today and when we picked her up she looked like a different dog. Here are the before and after pictures...

Zach still talks about Hoosier coming home, but he likes Indy a lot and is glad to have a dog again. So are all of us!

What did you catch?

Last night I was playing with the kids and a jump rope. Neither of them is big enough to actually jump the rope, so we found lots of other games to play with it. One of them was fishing. I'd throw out the line and one of them would grab it. I'd pull it in and say "I caught a Zach! I'll have to kiss him and throw him back." Eventually the kids wanted to do the fishing, so Zach threw it out and Isabella grabbed it.

He reeled her in and I asked him what he caught. "A whale!" he said. Isabella is not old enough to know she should have been offended. :-)

He knows he is cute

Tonight as I was putting Zach to bed, I said "Good night punkin." He said with a smile, "Don't say goodnight punkin. Say good night Zachariah."

I know he heard me tell people about the monkey comment so now he's being cute. I told him he was a goose. :-)

The boy is fearless

Tonight we went to Zach and Isabella's friend Katie's birthday party. It was at the YMCA pool and we first had dinner and cake at the picnic tables before swimming. Zach, once again, showed that he has no fear. First he decided to climb this thing...



You can see that he is quite proud of himself. I had to go get him because he couldn't get down by himself, but did that slow him down? No way. About 2 min later I was talking with some other parents at the party when I looked over and saw him hanging by the monkey bars. Then, he dropped (about 8 feet) and Daryl, who was right there, was just able to grab his legs in mid air and slow him down as he hit the ground. He came running over to me crying and I asked him if he was hurt or just scared. "Just scared" was his reply. I thought his might teach him a lesson, but it wasn't long before he was climbing the first thing again. I predict a broken arm before he is out of the house. :-)

Below you can see him with and Isabella with Katie as she was "blowing" out her candle. No one had any matches so she just had to pretend to blow it out. She was fine with that. :-)

Quote of the day

Today I was putting Zach down for his nap and I said, "Goodnight monkey."
As he was hugging me he said, "Don't call me monkey. Curious George is a monkey. Call me Zachariah. Say, 'goodnight Zachariah!'"

I said, "Good night Zachariah" and left the room laughing.