November

Big News!!! Rosalyn lost her 1st tooth! All we heard about for weeks was how her tooth was about to fall out and how bad it hurt. She was so proud to lose her tooth and receive a visit from the tooth fairy!
I love to take fall pictures of the kids in the leaves. I went to one of my favorite trees at the Eudora Welty house, which is in our subdivision. Knox didn't want to smile in any of the pics I took but the girls did good.

September and October

September was a fun month as Rosalyn turned 6 years old. I posted those pictures awhile back.
Knox ate his first popsicle and at first didn't like how cold it was but got the hang of it. They became a good snack on the hot summer days!

Katie learned her catechism questions for Sunday School and received her crown. She worked really hard to learn them and I was quite amazed how she had already learned alot just by listening to Rosalyn. We're so proud of our little Katie!

October started out with Katie's 4th Birthday! We had lots of fun partying for her.
Below is a picture of a family that we became really close to while Nate was in Seminary. They now live in Louisiana.The oldest daughter, Hannah, was born a few weeks before Rosalyn. They now have 4 kids. All 7 kids got along so well the day we visited with them. I wish we lived closer to them so we could always have playdates!

Rosalyn and Hannah

Some of our really good friends gave us tickets to the MSU game one weekend in October. We had the best time tailgating and watching the game. It was the girls first football game!

August

Catch up time!! I am finally posting pictures from August til December. I feel as though so many important things have been missed but blogging just hasn't been on the top of my list for awhile.

August

The night before Kindergarten started for Rosalyn and preschool started for Katie, we did a supper and present time. I think they felt very special!

Katie opens her special preschool gift. It's the book Jeremy by Jan Karon. We read a chapter at a time of this book during preschool time for the first few days.
Rosalyn got her Kindergarten bag personalized. She was so excited!

The girls special first day of school supper...cheeseburgers, french fries, chips and dip, fruit...and of course chocolate cupcakes.

A little fun time with daddy

Katie doing her preschool work
Rosalyn on her way to school in her uniform. What a big girl!

Boston

Nate and I were able to go to Boston Oct. 28 - Nov. 2 with Brad and Cindy Mercer. We had the most wonderful time and went at the most perfect season. The leaves were beautiful and the weather was perfect. (Besides the first afternoon we got there. It was raining and windy and we were all soaking wet. But it made great memories!) The Mercers rented a car while we were there so we drove all around Massachusetts. We stayed in Rockport and drove to Concord, Lexington, Stockbridge, Deerfield, and of course, Boston. We took so many pictures I decided to do let you look through a web album so you could enjoy them also!

Boston 2009

July

Life seemed to slow down a bit in the month of July. And apparently I didn't take many pictures!

Science Museum (and my boot)
The girls have always loved going to the science museum but this was Knox first time to actually enjoy it. It was fun to see him watch the fish and look all around at everything.

These pictures are out of order...but in the one below you can tell Knox was a little skeptical of the fish but in the one above, he was full of excitement!

Here's the boot pic - When I had my wreck in May, I hurt my foot/ankle really bad. I thought it was a sprain so I didn't do anything about it besides keep it wrapped and medicate it. But as time got closer to go to Peru in June, I decided to do x-rays. The x-rays showed no broken bones which was great. I decided to not do anything else til after the missons trip. On our hiking trip in Peru, my foot got much worse and it was difficult to walk on. The week after I got back, I went to see an orthopedic surgeon and found out I had nerve damage to my ankle. I had to wear a boot for a month and take nerve repair medecine, which had bad side affects. But today, I am so thankful to say that it feels much better. I still can't wear high heels or flip flops, my 2 favorite kind of shoes, but that is fine. I'm off the medecine for now. I still feel discomfort in my foot but the doctor says that it could take several months to heal.

Knox had his First Haircut!
I was so sad to see his cute little curls cut but he was actually getting frustrated with his hair touching his ears. He did so good.

Fun at the Braves Game

In June, we went to a MS Braves Baseball game and had a really fun time. It was Katie's first time to go and Rosalyn's second. My dad and step grandpa, Gene, went with us.

The Girls Ceiling

Remember the "bubble" we had in the girls ceiling because of a major leak from the roof? That happened in the middle of May and it was mid June when we got it fixed. It was much worse than we had anticipated and took much longer to fix but we're thankful to say that the girls are happily sleeping under a new ceiling!

This is what we discovered when the first layer of the ceiling was removed....mold. And water was still dripping at this point and it was a month later!

Another picture of the mold

Several days later once those boards dried out, the rest of the ceiling was pulled down only to find more mold. The odor was so bad.

All the ceiling down. New boards are up.

I don't have a final picture of the ceiling and the girls are in bed sleeping right now so I can't go take a picture but it's complete now and looks great!

Katie is 4 years old!!

We celebrated Katie's 4th Birthday on Oct. 4. She was so excited about turning 4 since Rosalyn had just had her birthday. We had a small party at our house where the kids painted pumpkins. Katie loves to paint so she loved the idea. I've really enjoyed my time with Katie since Rosalyn is in kindergarten. I've seen her grow and learn lots of new things. It's also sweet to see her play with Knox. There relationship is fun as she plays rough with him but then also sits and colors with him and plays cars. I'm so thankful for my sweet Katie!

Katie waiting for her friends to come over!

Knox and his friend, Jack, painted pumpkins with water!

Painting the pumpkins...they all did so good!

The party table prior to friends arriving

Katie's birthday cupcakes. This was the only picture I got of them.

Rosalyn and Katie. As you can tell, Rosalyn got a haircut! I went in thinking maybe an inch off but she decided at the last minute to go really short. I think she got about 8 - 9 inches cut!!

Opening the presents that Nana and Pops brought

My plan is to now start updating the blog regularly before the holidays begin and the year is over! It will go back to June til now but I want it to all be on here for the kids to look back on one day.

For you, Aunt Ellen

My sister, Ellen, lives in Canada so she sent Rosalyn her presents early. Ellen called early Thursday morning and Rosalyn was on the phone with her as she opened them. Ellen - she loved the Bendaroos and has played with them alot. Perfect!

Rosalyn's 6th Birthday

We celebrated Rosalyn's 6th birthday on Sept.3. I just can't believe that she is already 6. The moment she was born, she changed my life and I have loved every moment of getting to know her. She is definitely a first born in the way she "likes to lead" aka bossiness, she likes order and structure. But most of all she has a heart for God. I pray God has chosen to save her and will use her in many, many ways for His kingdom.

For her party, we went to Harry the Potter and painted pottery! She invited 8 friends and really had a great time.

Early morning gifts

Birthday Streamers!!

A wonderful present from Nana and Pops...a real vaccuum for
both girls to use! Love it!

The cupcakes are overpowering here but I

didn't get a great picture of them

Very intense little girls painting

Nate had to finish painting Rosalyn's giraffe because she was trying to be

very precise and the other girls had already finished their item.

Opening presents. I loved hearing the girls talk

about the gift they brought. So cute!

Peru Mission Trip

One of the members on our trip to Peru put together a great slideshow of pictures from the trip. It does a good job of capturing the sense of the trip. Please click here to see the slide show.