Sleeping Angel Miracle

no words

to describe the awe of glancing down and seeing an angel of glowing beauty in your arms

for the surprising reminder that this beauty is always there, always hers, always present but not always seen

to encompass the pride, love, admiration a mother feels at being part of such a lovely creation

for the overwhelming sense of humility and responsibility knowing, for a small moment, she's mine

no words

Indian Summer

My three sweeties enjoying a warm autumn day.

Guess Who is 4 Today??

Happy Birthday, Daila!!!! I know you can't read them, but her antennae say "Brithday Princess". Ben brought them home from work and they are delightfully wiggly. Daila loves it!

Halloween Fun

Horseplay

Thanks to our friends from church, the girls were able to get some hands-on learning about horses with the girls in their Achiever's group.Precious is very tame and an excellent mother. She was abslutely wonderful with the kids. She is being rewarded with a graham cracker.

These next pics are of Precious from Daila's point of view as I gave her a turn with the camera.

And the winner is . . .

Anna Voelkel has been elected as the 2009-10 Student Council Treasurer!!! *crowd cheers wildly* And according to her, that makes her "famous". :)

A few of our slogans:

"A little change is a good thing"

"In Anna we TRUST"

"Respectful, Responsible, Reliable, and Here for YOU!"

Campaigning was a family affair. Here we see campaign headquarters in full force as Anna and Janae design posters. Even Daila made a few posters! And Anna and I totally used Janae to get the 3rd grade votes. 3rd, 4th and 5th graders voted, but only 4th and 5th graders could run for office. So Anna and I agreed that not many 4th graders would have a sibling in 3rd grade who could push the votes for them. So we definitely exploited that advantage. And Janae LOVED the status that gave her. lol ;-)

Campaigning included a speech which Anna had to deliver in an assembly with all the 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders. She was the first one to speak! Sheesh! But she was AWESOME! This was a great learning experience for our entire family and the first of many school extra-curricular activities. CONGRATS ANNA!!! We are SO proud!Somewhere between all that campaigning, Anna got braces. Busy gal. Speaking of busy, Anna and Janae have also started a beginning strings class before school two days a week. It's completely free at this point. Ben and I are really curious to see if the girls will take to a musical instrument. We're excited about the exposure they'll get to music education through opportunities like this violin class.

Down at the Lindsey's Farm

Our clan went to the farm with some close friends. Here's a few pics of our adventures: We drove in as far as we could but with only some roughed out "roads" and bumpy terrain, we had a chance to walk a bit too. We parked by a monster corn field and walked down to the creek and thought, "hmmm . . . what now?" None of us really had a plan when we left that morning so our girls were wearing school shoes. So we decided to build a "bridge" (which just became a lil waterfall). So the above picture shows how Daila decided to try out the bridge. :)

The women-folk and the children are enjoying the beautiful surroundings.

What can I say? *blush* We were having a very laid-back, carefree day and Daila was having sooo much fun with her friends. :)

The big girls are bringing down a log to add to a bridge/waterfall.

They worked and played very hard that day.

The lil one was having fun in the water all afternoon with the luxury of stripping down to her diaper from time to time. Daila was doing well at staying dry but I think she finally had enough of it and decided to go all the way.Oh yeah . . . this is fun. Now THAT'S how you play in a farm creek. :)


Ben is roasting a hot dog and the fire was just SO hot. So this is the solution. What a clever guy.


The big girls crossing the bridge.
Maintaining the waterfall by removing debris. She was ever-so-diligent at this task.