The rest of our life the last two weeks

The last couple weeks have been fun and busy. In addition to school, we've had fieldtrips (to the zoo & the planetarium), art lessons, play dates, mother's day celebrations, ballet party, orthodontist appointment, & Awana awards. Our big event is that we have a sweet friend staying with us while her parents & older sister are in Russia adopting her new sisters and brother. We are so excited for them and are thoroughly enjoying her visit.

Below you can see some photo highlights. :) (You'll see few photos of K. She's become our resident photographer and took most of the pictures.)

Here's a science experiment testing glider styles. (For the record, the experiment didn't turn out right but it was fun anyway.) ;)

This is just a sweet picture of J posing in the kitchen. She loves this dress.

We had a fun play date with some friends of ours to celebrate her 6th birthday. Happy Birthday, H. :)

We had a great mother's day celebration with both our moms. (My mom Saturday & his mom Sunday.) Here are some cousin photos. (Forgot the camera on Sunday.)

Piano Recital - May 4th

The first weekend of May was really a big recital weekend for us. Saturday was the dance recital followed by the piano recital Sunday. L & K both did great. Here they are. :)



Here they are with their teacher. She's retiring this year. We sure will miss her.

The King Is Exalted Ballet

The girls danced in a beautiful ballet Saturday. It was beautiful, God was glorified, & the girls did great! :)

Here's a picture of R & J's group dancing.


Here's a picture of L & K's group dancing.


Here's all four of our sweet girls! (We love you girls!) :)

The House This Week :)

We have new windows throughout the house. Yeah!



It' so nice to have light in the house after 2 months of plywood over some of them.

Also, L now has sheet rock instead of panneling.


The sheetrock finishers are still working. (They're also resurfacing our bathrooms where we removed the original 1978 wallpaper - along with some of the wall.) Hopefully they'll be done and the window trim inside finished the first half of next week - then we'll be able to start painting in the back of the house. (They're painting the front of the house and we're doing the back. The part we're doing wasn't really damaged but needed updating and now is the perfect time.)
From what I understand, they'll start building the cabinets soon. Also, the doors are here (not sure when they get put on) and the siding should be pretty soon.
I'll try to post pictures as the house progresses. I'm really excited that soon we'll start seeing the fun parts inside (the new kitchen, etc.) :)

Ra's 9th birthday

This week's been filled with birthday celebration for Ra's 9th birthday. We are so thankful that God's blessed us with her and know that He's got wonderful plans for her life. She's such a joy to be with and keeps us laughing. :)

Last Saturday was her party. She had a great time planning it.
She wanted to decorate her own cake. Here she is hard at work and here's the finished product.



We then decorated the house and waited excitedly for our party guests.
Here she is, ready to party! :)



We had a few of our sweet friends and cousins over and had a great time with them. She asked each of them to bring a favorite stuffed animal. They came in and made name tags for the animals. They then went to a "grooming station" set up in the hall so they could get their animals ready for the pet show. When all were ready, each child got to introduce their animals on a stage Ra made using a box and bandana's for curtains. After the show, she gave each child a prize coming up with a category each animal won. (She made these up off the top of her head - things like "the most brets" - it was hilarious.)
After the animal show, we played animal sound charades. The children hid behind a blanket we held up and made animal sounds while the others tried to guess the animal. Then we played pin the nose on the dog. :) (Ra made a cute dog face on a poster board.)
Then she opened gifts. Here the kids are all gathered around.


She was thrilled with every gift. The funniest thing was that she received 4 mouse webkinz. Great minds think alike. She was thrilled and loves them all! She also got a kangaroo webkinz that's gone with her lots of places since Saturday (along with the mice) and a great rock painting kit that she began using right after the party was over. :) Here she is with two of the mice.



After gifts it was pinata time! Lots of fun!



Finally cake time! Believe it or not, she requested trick candles. They did trick us because only 1 of the 9 relit. :)



It was a great party. Well done, Ra, on the party planning.

Thursday was her actual birthday. She wanted to open her gifts before R left for work. She recognized the cone as part of her pinata right away. (I thought I was being so creative in my gift wrapping.) :)

She enjoyed one more webkinz (racoon) and has absolutely loved her pogo stick. She's gotten really good on it!

Happy Birthday Ra!