poco and the bear

poco stares down the teddy bear. he looks like he's about to pounce! he's not though, he's much too lazy for that...

often times poco will go and get his teddy bear and just set it in front of him, waiting for us to notice so we can be impressed with his toy. it never works. (although, it sure is impressive!)

he looks like he's some sort of hostage here, huh?

poco's other favorite passtime when he's not playing with his teddy bear: looking out the window.

he spends almost every waking moment (and all the moments he's not awake) chillin out in his favorite blanket!

cover the walls

papa stands on the arm of the couch and screws the anchor into the wall for our clock.

a couple more pieces that went up: a sign above the door way that says 'faith * family * friends', and over the dining room table, one of diana's pictures from where she used to live.

a couple paintings in the kitchen above the stove.

looking down the hall into the kitchen you can see all the pieces that went up: the two above the stove, one that says 'la dolce vida' (italian for 'the sweet life') over the door way, and a really cool framed set of six images of marriage that we put up in on the wall to the left.

decoration shopping

walking the isles of menards, one of papa's favorite places to shop. well, not the menards down here by us- that place is old, dilapidated, and gross!

we were wandering around cabela's with mom and papa, and for some reason, we always get drawn into the cool taxidermy they have there. when we finally came to, we realized mom and papa were almost on the other side of the store!

diana found a furry hat that she really liked- super cute, huh?

deck the halls 2

diana and i stand proudly by our first christmas tree! aw, so cute! oh, and the tree looks nice too... we shut the blinds and plugged it in: ah, now i'm feeling a little bit of that christmas spirit!

deck the halls 1

unpacking the tree from the box, we set it up and diana gave strict instructions that she was the one who got to 'poof' it out.

poco, purched on the chair arm rest, surveys the area that the tree will reside. he gives it a thumbs up. oh wait, dogs dont have thumbs...

papa finds the perfect placement for it. remember papa, dont poof it, only diana gets to do that!

diana and i untangle the new lights jill and tim gave us to wrap around the tree. with the poofing now completed, we began decorating the tree!

sleepy turkeys 3

bubba was getting sleepy, but didnt want to admit it of course. he layed on the floor and threw a blanket over him. well, that seemed like an invitation from tweets to pester him!

tweets soon followed suit by grabbing a blanket too. this time it was aves turn to pester!

sleepy turkeys 2

as usual, the kids wanted to take turns with the camera. tweets decided she wanted to take a picture of her mom. its ok, but tweets, you are going to have to do better with light aperture if you ever want to turn pro...

bubba decided he wanted to take a picture of papa's moustache (ok, i may have given him a little suggestion on what to take a picture of...)

after getting a good laugh at taking a picture of papa's moustache, he wanted to follow it up with a picture of mine!

sleepy turkeys 1

after dinner the girls played memory at the table, diana played a little game with tweets, and jill played with aves.

bubba stopped by the table for a minute to see what all the fun was about!

aves was not at all interested in looking at the camera, but mema worked her magic- aves is powerless to resist a happy mema!

family thanks

tweets showing off her amazing dance skills!

its funny, all the toys that tim and jill have given bubba, and still his favorite are the bag of transformers i had when i was a boy!

aves decided it was time to roll around on the floor... mema even had a little treat for them, she had found a doll she used to play with when she was a girl! aves loved it!

looking good!

wear it with pride there, big guy!

perhaps aaron felt like we were not giving the sweater enough praise, so he made sure to puff up his chest and display it proudly.

thanks eve 2

jeffry lee and aaron mixing it up in the corner.

random picture of jeffry lee's forehead. he looks like some sort of creepy zombie, huh?

aw, so cute! diana looks good too... zing!

diggin' the facial hair, but you've got to stop shaving your head, man!

the happy couple, way past bed time!

thanks eve 1

freddie and i. i'm not mad, i guess i just look like it...

diana was a good sport, putting up with all of our silliness!

we obviously couldnt be bothered with actually cleaning off the table while we hung out.

another freddie shot before he left. he's been growing his hair out a bit, and i think it looks good!

organiza-shed

the shelf is along the back wall and about as sturdy as you can get!

i repacked the egg boxes (i got those over the summer from the grocery store i worked at- very helpful!) and put them up on the shelf- now there's plenty of room for diana's bike. and my guitar, apparently...

it might still look a bit messy, but now i know where everything is!

toy soup

the idea i had for the decorations was to make a bunch of kids playing on and around different outdoor equipment. since its getting late in the fall, i decided to make the kids all bundled up in their coats, scarves, and mittens. i made a total of about twenty kids.

i looked outside at the new equipment and saw all kinds of bright colors, so i used the same colors with the equipment i made. the blue polls, yellow rails, and orange slides are fairly accurate, and they are also some of our school colors! here is a fun twisty slide that one of the kids is standing at the bottom of.

another slide with children playing by it. i made about 8 slidey things that the kids were playing around, and it filled the room nicely. they had also gotten tons of balloons for decorations around the tables themselves. it turned out quite nicely! i was even thinking ahead and had the bundled up children decorations laminated so we can use them next time we have a soup supper fundraiser!

poco on the couch

our little dog poco loves his blanket. every day he spends hours on the couch wrapped up in it. some times he will just lay on it, but usually he likes to lay inside it! its the cutest thing ever when he is digging into that blanket trying to find a way inside it. once he is inside the blanket, he always likes to poke his head out from under it to peek out and see what we are up to. it is so adorable that i am often tempted to take a picture of him poking his little head out at us! here are a few pictures of our burrowing dog making his nest and popping his head out to see what we are up to:

in the house

everyone dug into the taco bell lunch, a favorite for the kids.

poco got a few taco left-overs, we figured he would be right at home eating mexican food...

a glimse of the chaos with trying to fit nine people into our small living room!

the girls were so excited to play with the barbie stuff! aves later said 'i like that aunt diana had all those toys just for us!' um, sure, just for you...

bubba and i played with transformers, he took the big good guy, of course, and i got the little bad guy. can you guess who bubba though should win?

raise the roof

papa and timmy starting the shingles. why is it that we always seem to wait until its really cold out?!?

timmy preparing for the next batch of shingles.

bubba picking up all the shingle scraps that the guys threw down- got to keep the place clean, after all.

bubba was a bit cold, so i gave him my jacket. i dont think it quite fit right...

barbara's gifts

barbara had selected the bugs specifically for each of the kids:

aves got a green caterpillar that slumped up in the middle as it walked.

bubba got an orange caterpillar that wiggled its little legs when you let it run!

tweets got a blue lady bug that twirled around when you wound it up!

thank you so much, barbara! the kids loved them, and jill was really thankful and thought it was really cool that you would even think of them! (barbara's scoring brownie points, and its not even her family!)

outdoors indoors 3

another attraction at cabela's was the shooting range! you put in a few quarters and shoot at targets, when you hit one something happens, for example, if you shot at the rabbits, they would hop a couple times, shoot at the lantern and it blinked on and off. bubba was confused about what it was at first, but after tim showed him what to do, he took a liking to it immediately- and he's really good!

the kids and mema in front of the africa exhibit.

they even had a full aquarium in the store! all the kids were amazed at how big the fish were!

jill and tweets overlooking the huge store- it was almost too much to take in in the two hours we were there. i've got a feeling that we will be heading there again next time the kids come down!

outdoors indoors 2: penny crunch

ah, finally the two quarters and the penny i gave bubba comes into play! we were walking around and someone noticed this little machine in a corner. its a penny cruncher! i love these things and have collected them for several years. showing the kids what it can do excited them as well. i asked bubba if he had any money we could use to crunch, and it just so happened that he did! what luck! we put the money in and he loved watching it do its crunching thing, and out came a stretched penny with an imprinted deer on it!

someone else happened to have some extra change, so tweets got one too! i think we have a couple new penny cruncher collectors in the family now!

outdoors indoors 1

bubba loved looking around at all the animals. here he's checking out all deer and wolves they have in a special hunting gallery.

also in the deer hunting area was a hunter! as you walked up to him he spoke, talking about the different aspects of hunting. it was kind of creepy, but the kids seemed to enjoy it. oh, and there was a squirrel next to him, which bubba really thought was funny!

as one would expect, the girls liked the animals, but were more interested in shopping! tweets tried on a fun hat which her mom caved in and bought for her because she was just so cute in it!

they also had a section of animals from africa, here is bubba growling like the lion behind him! he loved to look at them, but was also a bit terrified of them...

get a room

tweets, myself, and aves just hanging out!

as usual, whenever i pull out my camera the girls want to take a turn with it too. this one is tweets' silly picture of mema! their grandma is so much fun!

papa wanted to lay down for a minute or two while we waited for everyone to be ready. needless to say, he certainly wasnt going to get too much rest...

taking a dip

aves just seems to be trying her best to stay afloat!

bubba, mid-air, as he shows off his cannon ball abilities!

teacher convention 09

the highlight of the convention this year was getting to see my old 7th grade english teacher mrs. jager! she was always my favorite teacher, my friends and i were always misbehaving in her class, but she seemed to have so much fun with us! she is retired now, but still helps out at the convention. i think what surprised me the most was the fact that she remembered everything about me- she even asked how my old friends from 7th grade are doing! wow, i hope i can remember all that after i've been teaching as long as she had!

outside the centery center, heading in for another day of professional development!

the conference center itself is pretty cool, its got a huge area to sit and talk that overlooks the big river in south bend.

ladies day

diana and her favorite sister barbara.

the sisters allen, so happy to be together!

mom gets in on the picture taking fun!

poco found a new friend in gramma!

sunday dog day

the kids being brave enough to actually touch poco! as you can see, poco isn't even all that interested in the whole tramatic thing.

relaxing after dinner with the kids.

bubba and jill on the couch.

before the kids leave mema and papa's house they always get a little treat. for some reason aves thought it would be best to put her treat inside her socks...

make a steak 1

mom and papa at the grill getting ready to put the meat on.

timmy doing his grill master thing!

going back to get mom and diana's steaks just right.

orchard hay ride 2

the girls in the pumpkin boxes!

diana and i took a little walk into the orchard ourselves for a minute, it was really beautiful. and so is she!

the apple orchard from the entrance.

orchard hay ride 1

tweets, mema, bubba, jill, aves, and tim waiting in line for the hay ride. papa gave bubba his coat so that he wouldnt freeze on the ride. the jacket may be a bit large...

the girls were ready for the ride, but werent quite so sure about petting the horses.

up the steps, finding a good place to sit.

looks like they found a good view to enjoy the hay ride from- bundle up, its going to be a cold one!

autumn orchard 2

they say you should clean off the table after you are done eating...

the kids watch as they make fresh apple cider.

the apple pulp gets put into the squeezin' machine!

the traditional photo by the giant apple out front of robinettes. you cant really come here without getting a photo of the apple, right?