Serving the Lord Together: 2016

Thursday, September 8, 2016

Summer 2016 - Post 2

This picture is from the spring - I wanted a picture of Julia wearing the little boots - she outgrew them almost right away...This is funny to look at because now she is taking steps, getting teeth (3), and wants to be where her siblings are :)

Esther and Anna - also in the spring -

The sisters -

Julia looking like she's reading :)

Julia -

Anna, Julia, and Esther on Easter morning -

Aaron Joseph wearing Daddy's apron :)

We had to go to a meeting in April, so we decided to make a day of it and visited Itasca State Park - I had been there before, but not the rest of the family - it was pretty cool out though, so we ate our sandwiches as fast as we could and walked around for a few minutes.

The headwaters of the Mississippi -

We all really enjoyed our little visit -

Esther would have gone off exploring if we'd let her -

Aaron and Aaron crossing the bridge -

Julia has two smiles - a little smirk, and a whole face smile :)

Julia and Grandpa

Aaron and Julia at the park - We met Aaron for a picnic lunch :)

Whenever they see the camera, the girls want a picture too!

Julia -

Esther lost her first tooth! She was pretty excited - and I feel like my baby is growing up...

We had the S. cousins here over Memorial Day and had a tea party -

Aaron Joseph started out the summer walking all over the yard on his tricycle - Now he can pedal it for real :)

Esther and Anna excited about their "new" dresses :)

All the girl cousins having lunch at my parent's church's VBS -

One day the girls had a princess tea party :)

Julia and Samuel playing in the back of the church -

Esther said 10 extra verses :)

It was the castle theme this year, one of our favorites!

Program practice - Anna and Esther are in the middle

We went to a family reunion in Canada and on the way home, we saw a mother bear and two cubs - we watched them try to climb the telephone pole and the tree for a few minutes. The mom walked around slowly, but the cubs were pretty fast!

These pictures are at our VBS - on the last day we had a program and family picnic - this is Anna with a snocone -

Esther climbing around the bouncy house -

This is not VBS - it's a family picnic and these are the cousins :)

Aaron's parents came up for VBS and Grandma did the girls nails -

This year we had a underwater theme -

The youngest group - Anna is in front

Aaron teaching a Bible lesson to the middle group - our coat closet is our Bible Study room :)

Snack time -

Craft time -

Eli and Aaron leading "Stop" - one of Aaron Joseph's favorite songs -

Me doing a review activity with the middle group -

Sarah helped some with the babies - as well as other things...

Game time -

Anna working on a verse -

Anna said her verse!

The middle group -

One more picture of Julia in her pigtails :)

Summer 2016 - Post 1

So these pictures from the last six months are all out of order, but at least they're here :) This is us visiting a lady in the nursing home.

There's lots of pictures of Julia in these posts, so I hope you enjoy them as much as I do! She's big enough to bounce in her bouncer here -

We were going to dress up in our wedding clothes for our anniversary, but we were traveling then, so we did it for my birthday instead.

The girls thought it was pretty exciting!

Me and the children -

Julia and I making our lists for the week :)

So I keep wanting to take pictures of Julia in each cute outfit she has - this one used to be Anna's, but Julia only got to wear a couple times before she outgrew it.

Sticking out her tongue :) I think these were from this spring.

This picture is from a week or two ago - I told Aaron I wanted a wagon for my birthday and it's come in very useful for the garden harvest. Everyone seems to like digging for potatoes best...I think I'm done canning pickles for the year and freezing beans and corn, so tomatoes are the big thing left.

This is also a recent photo - Aaron took the kids canoeing at the state park just down the road from us - the mosquitos were really bad, but it was so calm and beautiful otherwise.

I stayed at the van with Julia, we thought she was a little young - the kids were a little scared when they got in and out, but enjoyed it a lot!

You could see the sky perfectly reflected in the water -

I know the date on this one - it's July 4th! Esther and Anna wish there was a parade every day of the year :)

Anna and Esther and Ellie waiting to head back to the farm for more picnicking -

The farmer across the road from us planted a big canola field - so bright and cheery looking!

This is July 6 - Aaron's birthday - the children thought we should put candles in the cake, so we had seven to represent thirty-seven.

Aaron Joseph really wanted to help blow them out :)

Esther is a such a good big sister to Julia and a big help to me.

I took the children to Nathan's church's VBS in TRF - it was at a park.

We went to the fair for just a little while on the last night, but were there long enough to see the animals, play a while in the soybean box, get hand paintings and hear the Wordless Book, see the fireworks, and eat ice cream :)

At the end of July, a group of friends from Minnesota and Wisconsin came for "Hands of Hope" at our church. We did 2 block parties - one here and one in TRF (games, prizes, bouncy houses, candy, hotdogs, snocones, popcorn, etc.) and a few construction type projects in our community. These pictures are from our block party - this is Anna taking her shoes off to go in the bouncy house -

This is Aaron giving out door prizes -

This is Steve making snocones - it was a beautiful evening and there was a good turn-out, so we were happy to be able to meet a lot of people and share the gospel with some of them.

Wendy and I did registration -

They did some painting at the local historic pioneer village -

The kids were able to help me snap beans!

For something special, I let the girls play with a couple of my dolls and they wanted a picture taken. In the background is our stacks of books - bookshelf building is on the list for this winter :)