Family Pictures 2013

The third time really is the charm!  We had to schedule our appointment for pictures once because the kids' outfits hadn't arrived, twice because of a thunderstorm, and the third time worked!  Heather (Heather Baber's Red Barn Photography) always does such a fantastic job.  We've had her take our pictures 3 years now and are always pleased with the results.  This year we met in downtown Goshen.  No, they're not perfect...but that's our family!!  LOVE!

One of my fav family shots

Doesn't he look so big?

Emerson's face = priceless!

This one's really cute too!

Here's Landon "shooting his 3 pointer"

Love her folded hands!

We got quite a few good family pictures this year!  It'll be hard to choose which one to put on the wall.  Here's the links to previous pictures:  Pictures 2012  Pictures 2011

Preschool at Union Center

The kids started preschool on August 12, 2013.  They were beyond the moon excited.  They each got to pick out their backpack and Emerson picked out her outfit (Landon didn't care!).  They both said they weren't nervous.  I'm sure it helped that they were very familiar with the building and they had a buddy to go with.  Their teacher is Miss Dee and Miss Tori helps in their room as well.  They love them both.  Emerson has such a knack for paying attention to things and people that she quickly memorized the routine and names of her new friends.  Landon is still working on figuring out his buddies' names! :)  We couldn't be more pleased.  

I drop them off before work at 7:30 and a grandparent picks them up at 11:30.  In that time, they get breakfast, playtime, preschool time, and lunch.  It's great.  What a wonderful blessing for our family.  And a wonderful ministry for our church!

Here are some pictures from their first day:

Remaining Summer Pictures

I had a few summer pictures that I didn't get blogged before school started:

4-H Fair

We had one day to go to the fair before we went on vacation.  Luckily it was a gorgeous day and Todd had some ride tickets, so the kids got to ride just about everything they wanted!

Dance Party
Emerson's fun summer activity was to make her brother dress up and they had dance parties.  She'd blast the music and they'd both dance and sing.  She picked out the outfits! :)

 Camping at Chain O' Lakes
The first weekend in August, we went camping with the Davis and Frye families.  Friday evening it rained, but the rest of the weekend was beautiful.  After we went swimming on Saturday, Emerson complained of her ear hurting a lot.  We figured she probably had an ear infection, but of course no doctor's offices were open. So thankfully we got a prescription called in and got her medicine quickly.  Other than that, we had a great weekend!

Waiting out the rain inside!

 Swim Lessons
The kids both took swim lessons at the Nappanee pool.  They LOVED it!  We signed up for August thinking it'd be warm to get in the pool, but we were wrong.  Most mornings were in the 60's.  But that didn't stop the kiddos from getting in and swimming around with their instructors!

Tree Accident

One evening, a few days before school started, Em and I were going to Meijer to get groceries.  A storm had just rolled through and as we were driving, a large tree branch fell out of the tree right on our Honda Pilot.  Thankfully we were fine, but the hood and headlight were pretty banged up.  Over $3,000 later (thankfully covered by insurance :)), we have a nice looking new hood and front end!

Notice part of the tree still stuck in the light!

St. Louis/Evansville Vacation

This year for our family vacation, we didn't want to go to far, but we wanted to go somewhere different.  So we decided on St. Louis, Missouri.  Neither Matt or I had been there and it wasn't a long drive.  Plus we could stop and see Nate in Evansville, too.

In years past on our trips, I used travel tickets with the kids to help them count the hours down.  This year, I decided to give them each a bag of jewels and every hour or so they could exchange them for a small gift.  I figured I could also take them away if necessary.  The kids did so great, we didn't even start the gifts until we were almost there!  Emerson was thrilled about getting new gifts.  Once Landon got his full size Magna Doodle to make mazes on, he didn't care too much about the rest.  We didn't get to them all so I figure I've got some stocking stuffers now!
We started our trip at Grant's Farm.  It's a FREE animal farm that is run by Anheuser Busch (so there is also free beer).  There was a $12 fee for parking but there is no fee for getting in.  The kids had a great time checking out all of the animals.  I think their favorite part was feeding the goats!

                                                                                                                                                                   

Landon's new thing is taking a funny picture after all of our "serious" ones!

Picture of the parrots for Gma!

Some goats were more interested in our clothes than the bottles

Landon had fun feeding the goats too

Later that afternoon, we decided to head over to see the Gateway Arch.  It is so enormous.  There's no way to really tell from the pictures.

We got tickets for the 4:30 visit to the Arch, so we assumed we would get in line at 4:30 and then be at the top a few minutes later.  Little did we know that we'd have to wait in line for over an hour to check out the view for 10 minutes!  But the kids did great waiting and it was neat to see the view from 630 feet up!

The next day, we were debating between driving down to the Ozarks or staying in St. Louis another day.  Matt really wanted to catch a Cardinals game, but I didn't think the kids were old enough and I knew Emerson wouldn't really like it.  So we didn't.  We did decide to stay in St. Louis.  We went to the Science Center (which was also free and our Hotel, Drury Inn, had free passes to the Egyptian exhibit and the Omnimax Theater).  The Science Center was a little too old for our 4 year olds.

Then, later that day Matt found a Cabela's nearby, so we drove there and come to find out it was attached to a mall.  So we did a little shopping!  Not only did our hotel have a free breakfast, but they also had free "snacks" and drinks from 5:30-7:00.  So we took advantage of that and ate 2 meals at the hotel. 

Then the next day (after swimming in the hotel pool AGAIN :)), we drove to Evansville to spend the weekend with Nate.  We had much better weather this year.  It was gorgeous!  We went to play mini golf and went to a huge outdoor playground in Owensboro, Kentucky.  The men even got to play some disc golf together. 

Of course, I didn't realize Emerson's hair in her face until AFTER I looked closely at the pictures :)

We had a great week together as a family.  The kids were wonderful travelers and great at waiting in lines.  Which makes me wonder where we'll head to next year.  Maybe we'll venture a little further away.  Any ideas??