Hello again...The first Day of School

Hello everyone, It has been a year since I have done this whole blogging thing...I am sorry. I will try to do better now that the kids are in school...but no promises. Today is the kids' third day of school..wow. They are so grown up. I miss them when they are at school, but at the same time, it has been nice to get my work done during the day and then spend time with them in the afternoon. I don't think that I really spent time talking with them before like I am now. They are really enjoying it....Jeremiah likes lunch and recess (no surprise there) and Dani likes meeting her new friends ( she is such a social butterfly). Here are some pics. from the first days of school. (These are just of the older two kids, but some of AnaGrace will hopefully follow).

I even made a "pencil cake" to celebrate the first day.
Here they are waiting for the bus. Their backpacks really gave off a glare. We all walked down to the bus with them...Daddy and Tucker included. We just don't have a picture of all of us.



Here my babies go...ready to go to school.


Finally on the bus.....I kind of think this is a sad picture of Miah...almost a look as if to say "You have betrayed me." Oh well, just a Mommy's perception I am sure. Dani sat with him for the first ride, however she now has made her own friends. Jeremiah always sits in the front (just like Dan did I found out)....Why? so you can watch the bus driver drive, of course. Also, if you notice, the bus driver is "Salty" (Sarah Jane Ferguson). She was my bus driver as a little girl. She also played softball in one of the women's leagues (Think "A League of Their Own"). Pretty cool, huh. She is a great lady...if she wasnt' their bus driver, I would probably be driving them to school right now. (It's okay, I am only a first time Mom sending my kids to school once in my life, so I am aloud to be overprotective and corny.)

Summertime Fun

How can you tell summer is finally here? Take a look at these pictures. We have been having a lot of fun this week and really enjoying the warm weather.

"DANI taking a dip"

"MIAH doing the same"

Summertime clue #2....tank tops and ponytails"

"Summertime clue #3---Strawberry jam"

Memorial Day

We went camping for Memorial Day again this year. This was our fourth year doing this and it has always been such great fun. We went with some of our friends from when we were little and of course, Kelly's brothers. Levi (Dan's brother) was going to join us, but unfortunately, Jess had to work. Maybe next year. Kelly's cousin Daniel joined us as well from D.C. Joel also flew in from Buffalo for this as well.



This picture is especially for Grandma. Cousin Daniel, Ben and Joel still enjoy playing wiffle ball....I'm sure you miss the times in your backyard aimed at the neighbors' pool, though, Grandma.



DaniRae thought it was fun to try to push Rachel and AnaGrace in the stroller. They sure were cute together (even if Rachel did steal AnaGrace's hat).



Here is sweet little AnaGrace smiling just perfectly for the camera. Jeremiah and DaniRae are especially fond of this campground because of the rock shaped like a penguin...Penguin Rock. That is where they are in this picture, although you cannot see it.




The kids had an especially great time riding their bikes. Dani really did great. We stayed until Tues. and by Mon. afternoon, the campground was emptied out. They had a blast.

Jeremiah is 6 years old!!!!!

I know that it has been a while since I have blogged, but bear with me. Jeremiah celebrated his 6th birthday in May. Wow, I really cannot believe it. He is getting so big. He is really into camoflauge right not---shirts, flip-flops, shorts, birthday plates, etc. He requested this Jeep cake as well. I guess there are worse things we could be worried about!!!!!

As has been tradition, we went to Knoebel's campground for the weekend. We had a great time camping and riding the rides on Saturday. The kids really enjoy this. Even AnaGrace went on her first Knoebel's train ride.

Jeremiah asked for a skateboard for his birthday. This is him trying it out. He really looks the part of "little boy" in these pictures. I can't believe how grown up he really is becoming....6 years old, riding a skateboard, going into first grade, .....of course, he just rolls his eyes and laughs when I tell him this.

And, finally, one picture of the three kids together. I hope that sometime I can get more of AnaGrace up. She really is getting big and alert and changing so much. She goes for her four month old shots tomorrow. Ugh. She has started rolling over recently. In fact, today I put her down for her nap and she promptly rolled over and looked up at me and smiled....so I put her back on her belly, she rolled over, looked up at me and smiled....What was I to do.....I picked her and gave her kisses and snuggles. I put her down again and she finally stayed down and went to sleep. She is so sweet. Anyway, maybe more pictures will follow in the next few weeks. Lots of love to all.

Easter Weekend

Here are some Easter pictures. We hope that you all had a wonderful "holiday" celebrating the incredible truth of Jesus' life, death and resurrection. Here is our little family dyeing Easter eggs. AnaGrace was sound asleep. A couple minutes after this, Grandma, Pah-Pah, and Uncle Ben stopped down. Pretty soon, everyone was participating. There is something about dyeing Easter eggs that gets everyone involved.

After dyeing Easter eggs, the kids went to the egg hunt at the Community Center nearby. It was soooooo cold and windy. Poor DaniRae......she had two eggs, but then they fell out of her bag and someone else took them. By the time I saw what was going on and told her to keep looking, the eggs were all gone. Thankfully, Jeremiah was kind enough to share and another little girl also shared with Dani. So it all ended well...she got some candy which was enough to make her happy.
And then the most painful part...PICTURES. The kids cooperated alright for this. Here is the three of them looking so cute and beautiful. It was all I could do to get Miah to wear a tie with pink, but he humored me for the morning. So, anyway, enjoy the pics.

All Smiles

AnaGrace is finally doing it...she is smiling quite a bit actually. Often you need to work pretty hard for it, but nonetheless, she is smiling. It really is melting our hearts. In fact, Grandma was holding her in church the other day, and AnaGrace was working her charm. I do think that Grandma paid attention to the sermon, but it was hard!!!!!!!!

She had her two month appt. yesterday. She is doing well, of course. She is 13 pounds and 13 ounces and off the charts in both height and weight. She seems to be doing well with the shots with no reactions or anything. So, here is one more picture of her beautiful gummy smile.

The Crayola Factory

Today we went to the Crayola Factory in Easton. We really had a great time. What a great day to go. It was not very crowded at all. We learned how crayons and markers were made and even got to bring some home that we watched being made. The children tried their hand at gluing the wrappers on the crayons like they did in the "olden" days. We did all sorts of hands on activities. This is the world's largest crayon. It actually is a real crayon, not plastic. It was very awesome. This picture was in the Crayola store...so cool. Off to the right of this picture was a bunch of crayons. DaniRae decided to fill a tin with the crayons she wanted as her souvenir. Jeremiah wanted a pack of Twistable crayons...also pretty neat.

Even AnaGrace enjoyed herself....well she was happy and content the whole time. This picture was taken in front of an area where Jeremiah and I "painted" with melted crayon wax (Dani was a little too young for this activity). It was actually pretty neat. The whole place smelled like a new box of crayons and filled with fun bright colors. For some of us, there is just nothing quite like the touch, look, and smell of a new box of crayons. We have so many more pictures that we would love to show you all at some point.
The upstairs of the Crayola Factory contain the National Canal Museum which is included in the admission. So that is where we went next. It was a very neat museum. The kids really had fun in this area. The children floated barges along this "stream" and learned to operate locks and inclined planes. They could stop and fill their barges up with coal or passengers. I tried to make it educational to the kids explaining and what not.....BUT this was water and they were given free reign....so, I don't know about what they learned. Jeremiah did figure out how to operate the lock systems. DaniRae, however, capsized her barge numerous times, but really didn't seem to care. She was utterly soaked by the time we were done. After this we headed home. However, we passed right by the Tannersville outlets....well we didn't actually pass them. It was fun just to go in a couple kids stores. We had dinner at Friendly's complete with ice cream. It was really an incredible day and the kids really want to go back again.
And...finally, one more picture of AnaGrace when we got home from our busy day. She is becoming so much more alert. There is debate about whether we have seen her first smile or not. Although it seems early, both Dan and I are convinced she has smiled at us...and that is all it takes for us. She is getting very big too...mostly in her cheeks. She is such a content little one. Today was a long day, but she did just so well. We are so thankful that God has blessed us with a content little one...it really made today even more enjoyable. What a fun family day....We thank God for blessing us with this opporunity. Good night for now.....Here's to a nice long night of uninterrupted sleep (that message is for Ana)...Lots of love to all