Photo Class

This morning Rebekah and I took a field trip as part of a photography class we are taking.
(I stole this pict. from her blog- Thanks Rebekah)


I LOVE taking pictures. It has always been one of those things that I thought, "Maybe one day I will do it as a side job" (after my kids are grown and out of the house :). I got a DSLR camera last winter and have not taken the time to learn about it. This class has been a great tool. It was great to get out and try some of the techniques we have been learning. We had a great time taking in nature and capturing its beauty. Here are some of the shots from today. (You will notice that some of them look similar to the pictures on Rebekah's blog...(we were practicing together) I was playing around with black and white and other tones also.

Eva Kay turns ONE!!!

In my previous post I mentioned we had two birthday parties for Eva. Here are pictures before the flood...

Waiting for her cake













Eating her cake...










Getting Messy...














Time for presents....

PARTY #2
Last week I called the fire station to find out when the EMT's that deliverd Eva would be on duty, so we could go and see them. (They asked us to bring her by on her birthday).

Tuesday I get a all from Pete, one of the EMT's and he asked if we could come to the local township board meeting to tell Eva's Story. The meeting fell on her birthday and many of the fire fighters were going to be there. So I said sure we would love to come. Well, we had no idea what a night this would turn out to be.

Chris, myself, the girls, and Rebekah ventured out to the meeting last night. When we arrive the board members are sitting at the front of the room, ready to do business. We say the pledge of allegiance (to start the meeting) and take our seats. There are about 30 people in the meeting. The meeting starts they are approving previous meeting minuets, approving treasurers reports, going over some business about a garbage contract etc. It does not take long for the girls to get antsy. You can hear a pin drop in the room, and I am waiting for one of the girls to let out a whine. After a few min. they have to approve with a motion stop the meeting to introduce us. Pete, one of the EMT's gets up and tells the story of Eva's birth. I stood up and he introduces her and she squealed and started clapping. The timing could not have been more perfect. What a precious sight. Pete was beaming from ear to ear. For a job that is filled with tragedy most of the time, this event brought life and joy to these men. He then presents Eva with a gift from the Fire Fighters Union. It was such an honor to be there. Then it is asked if the meeting can be adjourned for a five min. break to have cake and coffee. This is approved and seconded, and we head off into another room for cake. I was again amazed at the joy that this little life could bring to so many people, who do not even know her. I thank the Lord that the her name means "life" and that even in one year she has brought life to so many. I look forward to watching her life unfold and the calling the Lord has for her. The local paper was there taking pictures. They are going to do an article on the event. Her birth story was in the local paper one year ago, and this will be a follow-up story. After having cake and opening the gift, we headed a few blocks away to the fire station. On the back of the ambulance is a stork, symbolizing the birth. It will remain there for the life of the ambulance. It was such a special night.

The cake they had for her...


















Her Delivery Team...1 year later

Opening the gift...it is a pick ride on horse...really cute








Pete and Eva... How precious








The stork...













Melia on the fire truck...(we have the same pict from 1 year ago)

The Great Flood

Well it has been an eventful week...We had a birthday party, flood, and another birthday party.

Eva Kay turned 1 yesterday. It is hard to believe it was a year ago that we (Rebekah (Heart Cries) and I) were speeding down the road in an ambulance when after only 30 min of Labor Eva came into the world. You can read the full story in a previous post. We celebrated her birthday over the weekend and had a wonderful time with family and friends. The party was winding down and guests were leaving. Only my parents, sister and brother-in-law and best friends were left. The guys were watching football...when the FLOOD happened. Ben, (Rebekah's husband) described it in an email like this...

GREAT ROMEO FLOOD OF '08.
"So, I'm sittin there enjoying Jets/Pats with Rayner, Dunfee, and Pa Riddle when you hear kind of like this sloshing crash come from behind us. Chris jumps up and notices water leaking in from the window. Huh. Get some towels. Upon further inspection, there's three feet of water in his window wells. Upon further, further inspection there's a freaking lake in his backyard/under his deck, with a rushing torrent all headed straight to the lowest point, the window wells. There is just water pouring in now. The rain falling looks like some sort of disaster movie. I would have thought they were shooting The Perfect Storm in my man's back yard. So Chris sprints outside and starts hooking up this small like half horse water pump that he has for the pool while the rest of us grab 5 gallon buckets and shovels and go into disaster relief mode. Here's the problem though? What the frick do you do with the water? You can't just dump it in the yard because the yard is funneling into the basement. The Pool! Ah ha! Rayner's pool is now a lake. Complete with sandy bottom and I think I saw a few fish. I don't know how many gallons a pool holds, (like 10-20k depending on dims) but we easily dumped 200 into it. Not to mention excavating half of the backyard. I don't even know how long this went on. Awhile. Eventually the rain let up some, the mounds of dirt were high enough, and the pump could get ahead. Wow. Oh, and we were all in church clothes. Woot. Very impressed with LD (Lindsey-my sister) out there with her husband bailing water. Meeg too. If Dunfee's back hurts this morning it's because he spent the first 20 minutes lugging trash cans of water out of the wells. (estimated weight between 125 and 150lbs, picked up 3ft below your feet no less) My body did not want to get out of bed this morning.
Overall, we learned 3 things.
1. It's all about the root system when stopping water. You gotta find the dirt with tons of weeds.
2. Chris's basement is the absolute lowest point in Macomb county. Frick. (no lie, there were like people kayaking bye. It's like those dessert films where an Oasis forms after a rain. Well, that Oasis.... Chris's backyard/basement)
3. I'll do anything for free Jets pizza."


The side yard of our house. The water was up to the middle of my calf.


We then rented a gas powered pump to get all the water out of the backyard. It did the trick, but lets say I am pretty tired of WATER. This is not the first time we have had water issues in the basement. I am thankful that the wall and carpet did dry out and we should not have to replace anything.

Thankfully we had people to help us or we might still be bailing buckets of water...

Where all the water was coming in...(this was after we spent a long time bailing buckets out of this three foot hole)

A Picture Post

I have taken a lot of pictures over the past few weeks and thought I would share some. Hope you enjoy them...

Stop to smell the flowers...

Eva is 11 months old...( a few weeks ago) She turns 1 next week!!!!

Peach Fest parade...
Feeding the goats at Frontier Town Labor Day Weekend...

A ride "On and In" the Tractor...

Last pool day for the summer...this past weekend...the water was COLD...Melia decided it was more fun (and warm) to soak up some rays... a girl after my own heart...


Not cold enough for 1 1/2 hours of pool Volleyball...


During the Volleyball matches the girls (and mom) played in the sandbox or should we say mudpit...(what happens when the lid is left off the sandbox and it rains)...












































Melia dressing herself (and changing her baby)...who says bloomers for a hat won't be the next fashion trend...She also has a tie on (so she could be like her daddy)...


This past weekend we spent time with family to celebrate my nieces dedication...The girls were sporting their new bows and headbands that I made (a new hobby)...

Wisdom: To have or not to have

***UPDATE*** I am home and all went well. I had one top tooth removed which I cannot even feel. The bottom two are definitely more painful, but the drugs are great. It takes the pain down to a dull ache. There is not much swelling, but ice packs have helped with that too. I slept for a few hours when I got home and got up to see the girls and help get them to bed, and eat some applesauce and mashed potatoes. I will spare you the graphic details, but the blood and gauze was the worst part. The bleeding has stopped and now I just wait for them to heal. In my head I had prepared for the worst, so to my surprise it has gone much better than I thought.

By 2:30 today I will have the three wisdom teeth left in my mouth out, some thing I have been putting off for a long time. I am not looking forward to thins at all. The kicker is, not thinking when I made my appt, I cannot eat or drink anything all day today. Nothing 8 hours before surgery, so unless I wanted to get up at 5:00 this morning to eat or drink something, my last meal and drink was last night at dinner. A morning appt, would have been better in this regard.

Interesting facts about wisdom teeth:


1. Wisdom teeth are given their unique title because of the period in which they grow inside a person's mouth. As a matter of fact, wisdom teeth don't appear in the mouth until a person turns 18 or 20 – the age which marks the arrival of formal adulthood and along with that, gives rise to an additional extent of wisdom and sagacity.
2. These teeth have been known as "dentes sapientiae" (teeth of wisdom) since the time of Hippocrates.
3.The average adult has thirty-two teeth by age eighteen: sixteen teeth on the top and sixteen teeth on the bottom.
4.the average mouth is made to hold only 28 teeth. It can be painful when 32 teeth try to fit in a mouth that holds only 28 teeth.

A New Project

I was perusing a craft show this weekend, and came across these adorable headbands and bows. I have seem them before on kids and always thought they were adorable. The headbands with the huge flower or bows with all the curly ribbons. They wanted $13.00 for a headband. I debated for several minuets, took their card and walked away. This spawned a new project.

I thought, "How hard could it really be to make them, and I bet I could do it way cheaper than $13.00"

Well, I went online and found the same headbands in a pack of 12 on ebay for $8.50 shipped to my door. Off to the craft store and $3.60 later I have enough flowers to make 12 headbands for the bargain price of $12.10 total. (Still waiting for the bands in the mail to complete this project)

I also wanted to make a set of the "korker" bows. So here they are my first complete set. I can't wait to see them in Melia's hair. It is finally getting long enough for little ponies.