Forty Years of Marriage

As mentioned in the post below, our family took a quick trip to MN a few weekends ago to celebrate my parents' fortieth anniversary with them. We had such a wonderful weekend - sometimes the spontaneous visits are the best kind.

I want to look this good when I'm celebrating my fortieth!

How embarrassing! Haha! Really I think it's cute!
We enjoyed a nice meal out, then went back to my grandparents' house for more celebrating. This is four generations of girls.
The kiddos with their great-grandparents. Noah is holding up his special treasures - a starfish from great-grandma and a turtle whistle from grammy.

Scenes from the MN State Fair

A few weekends ago, we made a whirlwind trip to Minnesota to celebrate my parents' fortieth wedding anniversary with them (more pics to come of that). We also were able to go to the state fair, which was so exciting to me because I LOVE the fair! The last time we were there was the day before we moved to Indiana, which was four years ago. But not much has changed!

Olivia trying on a coonskin cap

Chloe is ready to ride!
This pic cracks me up. We had just arrived at the fair, and I'm thinking "Wow - cool big bottle of pop - I'll take your picture with it Noah!" Only to find out it's actually a garbage can. So here's Noah with a garbage can. :)
Proving to Shannon that I had a pronto pup! Yum...it was good! Notice the really cool big bottle of pop in the background.
We are here! Mom, me, Liv, and Noah.
Noah looking out on the fair from up in the sky ride.
Daddy and Chloe in the sky ride.

I'm sad to see that I didn't get any pictures of Grandpa. He was too busy granting all of the kiddos' requests! What a softie! :) We love you Grandpa!

Noah's New Grin

Noah lost his first tooth on Friday! He was biting into an apple and his tooth came right out. We didn't even know it was loose! Olivia immediately grabbed an apple and tried to get a tooth to come out, but didn't have any luck. :)

The tooth fairy was kind and gave Noah eight quarters, since Noah LOVES quarters. He was soooo excited and has had quite the day at church showing off his new grin. :)

First Day of School

When your kids are dressing up like this, you know it's time for school. :)

The first day of school was yesterday. They were both soooo excited to start. Noah is in first grade, and Olivia is in kindergarten.
Olivia and her special friend Bethany.

We celebrated with a special lunch at "the peanut place" - Logan's.

I'm Back!

I am still alive! I haven't been blogging for awhile since my camera was water-damaged. We just now got a new camera, and I feel like I am complete once again. :) The warranty did not cover water damage (hmmm...how did they know??) But Panasonic did graciously offer to repair the camera for about $600. Um, no thanks. Their second offer was to give us a nice discount on a new camera, so we took that offer. And now I'm back in business, re-enacting all the events of summer so I can capture them on camera. Not really.

The day our new camera came, Olivia had an inspiration. She has been wanting new sunglasses all summer, but we haven't found ones to her liking. So she decided to make her own!

The Garage Sale Solution

We had a two-day garage sale on Friday and Saturday. We have had garage sales before, but this was our first time having a two-day sale. We had tons of people on the first day and sold lots of stuff. Yay! The second day was a bit slower, but Olivia was deep in thought, coming up with ideas of how to get the Friday people to return on Saturday.

Olivia: "Mom, I have a great idea!"
Mom: "What's that?"
Olivia: "We can go inside and change our hair so we look different and people will come back to our garage sale. They won't know they've already been here!"
Mom: "Do you think they might recognize that this is the same house they were at yesterday?"

The wheels of thought are hard at work.....

Olivia:"I know! We can go and get lots of new flowers, pull out the old flowers in the garden, and plant the new flowers! Our house will look so different!"

How can I argue with that?

I should have taken her advice. I'm sure I saw people driving past thinking "Look at those flowers...this is the same house I was at yesterday!" :)

Waaaaahhhhh!!!!!

My camera literally flew into a lake yesterday, where it sat for five minutes before we discovered it. We were visiting Paul's sister and fam on their vacation. We decided to go swimming, so I searched the area looking for a safe spot for my precious camera. It should be safe on the stroller, right? Little did I know that a huge gust of wind would send the stroller into the lake along with the camera. I wasn't actually there when it happened, so when I returned to the lake, we figured out what had happened and located the camera in three feet of water.

After a day of drying out, the camera does not seem to be working. It will actually turn on, but there is way too much sand in it and the lens is very spotty from water stains. So, I'm hoping we may be able to return it since it is less than a year old and is still on warranty. Wish me luck!

Of course, every moment of today was a photo opp. How will I survive???