Savannah & Sophia

I've made it a priority this summer to photograph each of the kiddos on a regular basis...to document their personalities and jot down some of their favorite things...to remember them as they are right now. It's hard to capture the essence of a person in a single paragraph or series of photos, but oh well. It's a start! :)

I love these girls. Everyone loves these girls. As soon as you meet them, you love them straight away. They're incredibly beautiful, sweet souls and so grown-up, always so eager to help with whatever they can. And when they really do grow up, they want to be mommies and princesses. :) They're best friends and do absolutely everything together. They spend the majority of each day giggling, they can navigate an iPad better than I can, memorize Scripture faster than anyone in the family, love to help cook in the kitchen, and their favorite thing to do is swing on the giant swing in our backyard. I asked them what one thing they would like to do if they could do anything in the world...and they said they wanted to ride their bikes to Dairy Queen for ice cream and then come home and read Farmer Boy. :) Bicycles, ice cream, and old books? Girls after my own heart!

I sure do love you girlies. I'm so incredibly blessed by God to have two such little rays of sunshine and long golden hair and endless giggles in my life...

An afternoon at the lake

We absolutely love to visit the peninsula at Lake Erie. It's about an hour-and-a-half drive for us and we usually visit every couple of weeks throughout the summer months...It's one of our very favorite places to be. In fact, we'd live there all summer if we could! Yesterday was a perfect day for spending an afternoon there swimming and building sand castles together... :)

Niagara Falls!

Our family hadn't visited Niagara Falls in nearly fifteen years--Samuel, Seth, Silas, Savannah, Sophia, Shiloh, and Spencer had never been there--so it was high time we made it there to see it as a family once again! We decided that Aleita's visit would be the perfect opportunity to journey to the Falls...so we chose a lovely day, made a picnic lunch, and drove the 3 hours through New York. We ended up visiting the Falls only two days before the famed tight-rope walker, Nik Wallenda, crossed the Falls, so the whole city of Niagara Falls was busy with preparations for that event. We had a lot of fun! Thanks, Aleita, for the great photos! [since I failed to remember to put my memory card in my camera before I left home. oops.] :)

Happy News!

We're really, really excited to announce the up-coming arrival of this avocado-sized little one...That's right, folks! Stefanie and Ethan are having a baby, due sometime late December! :) We've known for a little while, but had to keep it a secret until now...and we wanted to share the exciting news with all of our closest friends and family [that's you!] before it became FB-official later this week and the whole world knows. ;) We're super thrilled and can't wait for grandbaby #6's Christmas-time arrival!

Summer Morning...

Familiar scenes of a summer morning at our home...fresh lavender, gifted hens [yes, they've already all been named :)], blueberry arnold palmers, a growing garden, swollen feet from bee stings!, children playing... It's fun to take a few minutes every once in awhile and photograph anything and everything that catches your eye. It gives you a second glance at your normal, everyday view and turns it into something extra-special and unforgettable. :)