Family Portrait

Our family has not had many portraits done over the years as a group. In the past 11 years we've had a family portrait done only twice! Once was 3 years ago done by a lady that went to our church who was a photographer among other talents. Then just this past Sunday, while Autumn was here to visit, I hopped on the opportunity to get another. Each year it may be more difficult to have us all together, so I want to take advantage of every opportunity to do so now that I realize that.

We went to Sears and I am pretty happy with the results overall. It is so hard to get perfect photos for a large group and I know better than to hold out for that. HA!







We ordered a huge 16x20 I believe for our great room. It truly is so nice to be able to gaze at my whole family together throughout the year. ;0)

~Summer is in Full Bloom~

The beautiful Spring has that you saw just a few photos below has withered away, and early summer is now in full bloom. Take a look:

My baby left high school....forever!

On Saturday, May 20th, 2010 my first born child graduated from PVCS highschool!!! We are so very proud of her and blessed to have her for a daughter.
<3 <3 <3
I am excited to watch this momentous moment in her life and eager to watch her take the road ahead! She is entering a community college this fall to work on her core courses while awaiting entrance into the RN program.

Here are some pictures of the special day:

last time in the school bathroom, after the graduation

singing The Prayer (she is front row middle in white)

we wrote "seniors" using a '10' in place of the 'io';-)

receiving her diploma

Her entire graduating class, yes, all 35 of them!!

Mommy's Day 2010

Mom's day was a sweet day. We had ordered pizza the night before for Mike's birthday dinner, so breakfast in bed consisted of Mike handing me 2 slices that were leftover. haha Which actually worked out GREAT because I am an early riser and love to putt around and make my coffee etc,.. and normally when they try to cook me breakfast I feel tortured, banished to my room and waiting, waiting waiting bored. Sorry! That is just how I am. This was great..haha

Then all the children had printed me out cards and coupons for various chores as gifts. Mike gave me a huge hanging pot of flowers, which is on our front porch. It was all very sweet. We went to church and enjoyed the service, came home and relaxed. I watched the Bridges of Madison County while the kids played together. The movie, not what I normally watch, was a good movie and it broke my heart on SO many levels. :( Then my man and I enjoyed a couple glasses of Adesso wine with a few bites of dark chocolate. It's red and very sweet, dessert like. It was a tame day, and nice.

I wanted to get a picture with myself and each of the children alone. I thought they may appreciate that some day when they are grown, yet I only succeeded to get two taken that way. We can only take pics outside until I buy my external flash and it was SO COLD that day!!

Sometime in April we learned of a Mother's Day contest on WGRZ, thru Westermeier Martin Dental. The grand prize was really far out: pick up in limo, free dental work, limo for the appointments and back, spa, total makeover, night out etc,... etc,... followed by a big reveal.

Well, I found out that everyone who was entered, won the "second prize" which was a free tooth polishing, free bleaching (to be done at home) and a goodie bag, prize worth $450+ How fun!! It's a half hour drive from home, but I have to drop the kids off at Mike's work in order to go anyway, so it's half hour to Mike's work, then it's half hour from there.

The dentist office was the NICEST one I had ever set foot in, no joking! Everyone was uber friendly, leather chairs, smile photo albums with before and afters, the whole 9. I had my cleaning with a super friendly hygienist. After that she made molds to my teeth. What a fast yet WEIRD procedure, and this stuff feels very strange coming off your teeth as it hardens relatively quickly. Then it turns into stone and they chisel and fix 'em up, eventually making bleach trays by using the molds. What turns out is a perfectly fitted silicone-like tray which you put the bleach solution in, and then put on your teeth. This way you can leave the bleach on for 30-60 minutes and still talk, and have a pretty normal routine. I have done two treatments so far at home. SO COOL! I didn't think I was going to even do this at first, because for the most part I am into natural ways, and there is nothing less natural than whitening your teeth with a whitening solution. However, I threw caution to the wind and say hey let's try it! It's mom's day and this is a WICKED COOL free gift. Yes, I am from New England, hence the "wicked cool". ;-)
Here is a picture after two "bleach" treatments:

~The night's Aglow~

p.s.
I am unveiling the latest swap I've participated in on Saturday so stop by to take a peek. The box was mailed today, so the post should be safe by then. ;-)

Time of Thanksgiving

I always love Thanksgiving, as it's my favorite holiday, but this year we enjoyed a very special Thanksgiving. Autumn slept over the day before and helped with the cooking, and we took tons of pictures. We also had Mike's brother's family here as they are staying with us for awhile.
It's eerie knowing that life is about to change dramatically, so eventhough this time is always a very special time, being my FAVORITE holiday, this year it is bittersweet and monumental for me, us.

I have not been online that much in the last several months, so I may not have previously shared that our family is moving to Georgia for Mike's work shortly after my eldest daughter, Autumn's 18th birthday. <3 She will be staying here with her father to finish school. Here are some pictures of our day:

~Harvest Birthdays~

This weekend we celebrated Aiden's 5th and Felicia's 15th birthdays. We planned a Harvest themed birthday party. We had baked ziti, kielbasa with peppers, onions and Barbecue sauce, buttered garlic ziti for the picky bunch, garlic bread, cheese pizza along with pepperoni pizza, a variety of chips and sodas, as well as 100% juice. Ooh, let's not forget my caramel apples!


Ryan ended up sick with a fever the day of the party, so 17 people that were supposed to join us did not come for not wanting to get sick themselves. We decided to go ahead and celebrate anyhow since we already had all the food and it would not last for next weekend. Incidentally, after the Tylenol kicked in, Ryan wanted to join in. Today he is totally back to himself, so whatever he had was fast moving thankfully!!

The first order of business after eating lunch was apple bobbing. Boy was this a F-U-N activity! We had a barrel of laughs as each took his or her turn. Even though it was just us, my daughter's friend, my eldest daughter's friend, a neighbor, and Mike's brother's family there was still enough of us for a fun time.






Next up was cider donut eating from a string. No hands allowed!!! We secured a rope going from one end of the swing set to the other, clothesline style. Then we hung the donuts with ribbons from the rope. All the children lined up and had a rip roaring hilarious time trying to eat these without the aid of their hands.






We ended up letting Aiden and Felicia open their gifts on the patio and kind of rushed that part along since it became very dark cloudy and a few drops began to fall sporadically.


We then ushered everyone inside for cake. We got a great big cake, very unique and perfect for our harvest theme. It had a tree off to the side with all the pretty fall colored leaves. I added Brach's pumpkin creme candies along the bottom for a pumpkin patch look, and some candy indian corn (it has brown instead of yellow) along the side border. We sang the song, the candles were blown out and the cake and ice cream served up.



Surprisingly, as ominous as the weather looked, (and it did look weird, I even took a picture of it because the trees looked silver as the leaves were turned in the increasing wind, and the sky looked slate gray) it cleared up again very quickly and we headed back outside to play.

I had a quart mason jar filled with candy indian corn and Brach's candy pumpkins. Each guest was to take a guess at how many were in the jar, and the guesser that came closest without going over won. There were 190 candies in the jar, and uncle Justin won with his guess of 144.

Every child got to take a cone we made with scrapbook paper filled with goodies home, and also pick a pumpkin from our "patch" in the garden to take with him/her. What looked like a disaster to start with, ended up being a memorable fun birthday and my son didn't even know that anything was off. He had the best birthday, and my daughter had expressed the same. It made me thankful that they are easy to please, and can find pleasure in smaller scale things. What a blessing that was to me!