McKenna is 4!

Yesterday we had my niece McKenna's 4th birthday party. She actually isn't 4 until Saturday but she is getting her tonsils taken out Friday and wouldn't have been recovered enough for cake & ice cream so they just had it a week ahead. Here are some pictures (of course Aunt Andi took lots of pictures ;) to share.

It's the birthday girl!..I mean, birthday PRINCESS!

A pretty new dress for school!

She blew out all of the candles on her princess cake in one breath!

playing in the new sprinkler

Her big present was her "twampoline"

Hey, is that McKenna or Hannah Montana?

VBS 2008

This week was Vacation Bible School at Bethel. My brother was in charge of the games and I was the official photographer. Here are some pics of all of the fun games he had for the kids to play(I took pics of everything else too, not just games, but these just happened to turn out the best!). It was a blast and the kids were great. Looking forward to next year.

Dodgeball!!

Popcorn Races

The infamous Mentos and Diet Coke

The little ones loved Bear in the Air, there was a girls team and a boys team and only the girls figured out how to work together to get their bear way up high

This one started out about Jesus helping Peter be brave enough to walk through the storm, but quickly turned into a plain ol' water fight...

Ava with her science experiment. She is too cute!

Jo Jo's Nose

Well, it hardly surpises me that Jonah would be the first of my brother's kids to get a broken bone. This kid was born without a sense of fear and an incredible pain tolerance. It was just a matter of time. Aron and Dawn had a new bed and dresser delivered and set up Monday and it took about 30 minutes for Jonah to find the new footboard with his nose. It doesn't show up too well in the picture but you can see the swelling and the black and blue a little bit.


He was born with a daredevil streak like I have never seen (for some reason the older two missed out on it..) so I'm sure this won't be the last trip to the E.R. or the last post about a broken bone for Jo Jo.

Gil and Kermit

Fish and Frog are now Gil and Kermit. I was looking online and some people come up with some really out there names (Lady Lavender Mackenzie for a fish? It's a fish...). So I just went with plain ol' Gil and Kermit(thanks Charity!).

Fishy and Froggy

I've been planning for a while to set up a large aquarium and Monday I went out to Petsmart to price some of the equipment and on a whim, bought a betta fish. They were so pretty and I decided right then and there that I wanted one. Last night, I went back to buy a slightly larger aquarium (he was getting the water in the bowl dirty too fast) and on a whim, bought an African Dwarf Frog (can we say impulse buyer?). You can't keep other fish with bettas but you can keep these frogs. He's very tiny, about the size of the tip of my thumb. At first he just stayed glued to the back corner of the tank(as you can see in the picture) but as he got more comfortable he started swimming around some. If anyone has good suggestions for names please let me know. As of now they are called Fish and Frog.

Double rainbow & diplomatic brownies

Today it only rained for a very short time but nevertheless we were treated to a double rainbow outside of the hardware store.




On another interesting note, Jeff and I both LOVE brownies. However, I like mine with walnuts and no icing, and he prefers his with no walnuts and lots of icing. I had made a peach cobbler for my parents and since you're not supposed to return an empty pan, they made a half and half pan of brownies for us. My parents the peacemakers. I think all of the worlds problems could be solved with some diplomatic brownies :)

Happy 4th of July!

Happy Independence Day! Hope everybody had a great holiday. We had two nights of fireworks! On the 3rd we went to Glen Oak Park and had a great time watching the Peoria Municipal Band play right up until the first firework went off. Then last night we braved the downtown crowds for the Red, White & Boom fireworks show. They were both great displays. Here are some pics I got. The last few were taken with a longer exposure.

catch up blog- Canada October 2007

This is sort of a catch-up blog from my trip to Canada in October 2007. (It's also a chance to show off some of my favorite pictures that I took :) I went with my chorus for International Competition. A group of us went early and spent a week in Banff, Alberta, then spent the next week in Calgary, Alberta for competition. The Canadian Rockies are truly breathtaking! I highly recommend going if you ever get the chance.


The Bow River

Taken at Cascade Ponds

Elk eating on the side of the road

The Elk take over the golf course at about 6:00 p.m. every evening. Golf course grass must be extra yummy!

This was taken at Lake Minnewanka

This was taken at sunrise our last morning in Banff. The air current is blowing the snow off the slope of Cascade Mountain.

This is a shot of the Calgary Tower. When you get to the top, there is a glass floor that you can stand on and look down. My stomach did a few flip flops at first but then I was okay. We ate brunch at the revolving restaurant on our last morning in Calgary.

A view from the top of the tower.

Noah's T-Ball game

Thought I'd share a few pics from my nephew Noah's tee ball game the other night. He did a great job and can hit the ball without using the tee. Enjoy!

In the dugout.


Guarding Third Base

Getting a hit

running home




Jonah says "Go Cubs Go!"

Blogspot

Well,
I figured it was time to give this whole blogspot thing a try. I have MySpace and Facebook pages but it I like this better because friends and family don't have to have accounts in order to keep in touch. Plus there aren't all of those annoying advertisements to deal with. Hope you all enjoy!