July pics

Reading with Ms. Kathy - a sweet lady from our church (who happens to be our pastor's mom and our life group leader's wife, along with one of our lead teachers in children's church.) Our girls really like Ms. Kathy and she brought them this book last week.

Ellie has been reading a lot lately. One night, we read "There's a Wocket in my Pocket" by Dr. Seuss. I didn't catch this, but at the end of the book, she said, "They never said 'There's a wocket in my pocket!'" I'm so glad she comprehends things as well as she does! Like I said, I never even thought anything about it, but she was right, other than the title.

Our sweet, sweet girls.

all the cousins in Murray for the 4th of July

Grandkids!
These are Jeff's parents and his sister's kiddos.

runnin' on the quad

Right in the middle of campus at Murray State, there is a big open area everyone refers to as the "quad". That's where the famous shoe tree lives, only it was hit by lightening and the top is gone. If you don't know the story, when people meet at MSU and get married, they go back and nail one of each of their shoes to the "shoe tree". Jeff and I did - we'll have to find pictures to post...

Avie playing "ride a little horsey" with Nannie

Happy Birthday, Tishie!
We love you!!!
Landy laughs and says Tishie is like a cat and has 9 lives...and that she still has several left!
We sure hope so! I want my kids' kids to know my Tishie and how special she is!!!

Daddy's girls on the 4th of July

my clone :-)
Ellie has had a weird summer. She is so influenced by some of her friends in ways that I don't approve of, but when she's with us she is such an amazing kid!
I have to find a way to have some balance and continue to teacher her how to make good choices, even when everybody else doesn't.

cousins at the lake
My brother's kiddos with mine at KY Lake on the 4th.

Ellie loves to help Jeff shave!
He's nice enough to let her put the shaving cream on his face...although it doesn't always all end up on his face?!?

Ellie painting her own room!!!
She's so grown up!! My mom said, "Ellie, how many 4 year olds do you know that get to paint their own room?" Of course, my mom went back over her work with a roller to "smooth it out", but Ellie painted her little heart out!

I'll post pictures of before and after, but my mom painted the girls' bedroom pink!
It's perfect - the girls love it and so do I! They wore rags on their heads to keep the paint off their hair, but somehow ellie's hair ended up with pink highlights! :-)

another pic of my brother's kids with mine at KY Lake
my sister-in-law made all the little girls tutu's!
(and my other sister-in-law - Jeff's sister - made my girls hairbows for the 4th)

So, my sweet Avie is highly allergic to mosquito bites! She got one right between her eyes and her whole face swelled up. I laugh so hard every time I see this picture, but it wasn't funny at the time. She looks like she belongs in who-ville with Dr. Seuss. I know some people have to go to the emergency room because they can swell up so big they cut the circulation off. Thankfully, we haven't had to go through that yet. Just lots of repellant and a benadryl after bite stick.