Family Carnival

Every year the company that Clay works for has a carnival for families of their employees. It is a very fun event that the girls look forward to. Their favorite part is the face_painting. This lady and her team are amazing! We make sure we are right there as they open the carnival and head straight to the face painting booth. If you don't get there quick the line gets too long.

First day of Preschool

Rebekah is so excited to be going back to preschool again. She will have the same student teacher as last year, Alexis. On the last day of school Alexis gave her the necklace she is wearing.

However, all that excitement made it very difficult to get a good photo of her:

The fort

This may seem like an odd photo. Underneath the blanket is our new computer armoire for the girls. Clay and I now have a laptop computer to share, so the girls finally got their own set up with our old computer. The funny thing is that both girls are sitting on one chair watching a movie in their new "fort".

Day of Service

Our church announced that they wanted every congregation to participate in a Day of Service to celebrate 75 years of the Church Welfare program. Here in Virginia, Gov._Bob_McDonnell proclaimed that Sept 24th would be a Day of Service and asked all faith-based, community, and civic groups participate in providing service on that day.

Our congregation decided to help clean up Balls_Bluff_Battlefield to get ready for the 150th anniversary and reenactment. The area was densely forested. The park authorities came and cut down a huge swath of trees to restore it to it's original state (was a pig farm during the Civil War). Our job was to clear out all the branches, shrubs, brambles and debris so that the park guys could come back and mow. We also drove in about 50 t-stakes to rope off the viewing area.

Clay was at the head of coordinating the effort. He did a great job! Here is everyone taking a lunch break. Our women's organization made sandwiches for everyone. It was a great service project that the kids could help with too. The girls are sitting on either side of Chris Monk, who happens to be one of Rebekah's sunday school teachers.

Here's Clay with Charles Thomas and Matt Coats picking up a REALLY BIG tree trunk.

Just half a cup, if you don't mind

This is what I found today. Emma accidentally dropped the little creamer pitcher we were using for syrup.

All I could think of was the March Hare during the Mad Tea Party (at 5:12 if you want to skip forward).

Color my world

I really don't like white walls. But it takes me FOREVER to pick out paint colors. We finally got around to painting our powder room and basement guest bathroom. The color is Amethyst_Phlox, it doesn't quite show up right in these pictures, but you get the idea.

sleeping better

Just had to take this photo of Rebekah sleeping with all her stuffed animals on top of her. I could hardly see her face when I walked in.

She seems to be sleeping much better since her surgery. The biggest thing that I have noticed is that she actually sleeps on her pillow. That may sound odd, but I usually find her sleeping in some odd position with her head tilted all the way back. I often go in and find her like this, or this, or this, or this, and of course this and this. Apparently all of these are signs of sleep apnea. Who knew? I'm just glad she is sleeping much better now.

Evan

This is Evan. Evan is Rebekah's friend that she wants to marry. Rebekah asked me to cut it out of cardboard. She then spent a long time coloring it. She said she wanted to draw Evan so she could hold him and hug him and kiss him. :)