Happy Wishes for June 28!

June 28 is a special day in our family for two reasons - Matt's parents' anniversary and our niece Faith's birthday.

Celebrate!

This past weekend, we attended two celebrations - a wedding and a birthday party...

First the wedding:
On Saturday, our sister-in-law Sonny's sister Shelly married Kent. As family friends, we had the privilege of attending the wedding. Our nieces were flower girls for Shelly and they looked beautiful in their fancy dresses. The whole wedding was wonderful - ceremony, bridal party, decorations, reception - we knew a lot of planning went into the day and it showed. Perhaps the funniest part of the day was when the minister pronounced Kent and Shelly husband and wife he said "what God has joined together, let no man CELEBRATE!" Oops, he meant to say "separate" - good thing he corrected himself since we sure did celebrate!! Here are some of my photos of the celebration:


Then the birthday party:
On Thursday (June 21), my Grandma turned 85 - so on Sunday, we had a somewhat-surprise birthday party for my Grandma. She knew that some of her immediate family was coming for church and a lunch afterward, but in reality, there were approximately 80 people that were going to be there for the lunch. We had a very yummy catered meal in the church basement and some of my Grandma's siblings were there along with other extended family and friends from church.

But perhaps the biggest surprise was that when we were standing outside after church, a white limo pulled up! My Uncle Don had arranged for a limo to drive my Grandma around to go pick up her siblings. I don't know if my Grandma had ever ridden in a limo before, but I think she enjoyed herself a little bit - she didn't show it too much though, since it was Sunday after all and she didn't think she deserved such a fuss.

Happy Birthday, Grandma - We love you!!

Why God Made Fathers

God knew that each one of us would need
shelter and guidance
Throughout all our growing-up years,
Warmth and compassion for all of our problems
And strength for our worries and fears...

He saw that we needed wisdom for living,
A knowledge of heaven above,
True understanding of life's deeper meanings,
Examples of kindness and love.

And so He made fathers to stand by our side,
To inspire us in every endeavor,
Whose faith and devotion will last through our lives
And whose love we will cherish forever.

Author Unknown

Happy Father's Day, Dad!

With lots of love, Livy

Wednesdays

On Wednesdays, my nephew, Henry, spends the day at my house while his mom goes to work. I'm usually exhausted by the time Matt gets home at 4, but the boys and I have fun during our day together. Levi is learning what it is like to have to share his toys and his mom. Some Wednesdays are better than others in that respect. Yesterday, it seemed the boys wanted to be doing the exact same thing the other one was doing, at the same exact time - even crying on Mommy/Aunt O's lap! Here are some pictures of our day yesterday...

Race Day!

As I mentioned in my previous post, Matt has been training to run in a 5K race and today was the day! The weather was absolutely gorgeous for a race. Levi and I had great seats near the start/finish line as we watched and cheered for Matt while he ran an awesome race - his first ever!! His official time was 27 minutes, 52 seconds - quite a bit better than his goal of a half hour. Way to go, Matt - I am so proud of you!

Here are some pictures from the race...

Still Here...Sort of

I know, I know - I haven't posted anything for a long time. Thanks to everyone who filled me in about that fact (like I didn't realize I wasn't posting) - you know who you are!

As for an explanation...computer issues. I know that sounds like a cop-out, but it's true. First we started getting popups when we were online, then we couldn't get online for about a week, now we can get online again (bypassing the wireless router) but the computer has contracted a virus, so now we have sent the computer off to my dad to see if he can help us fix our computer issues. It isn't that I didn't want to post anything, rather I couldn't post anything.

Tonight I'm over at my sister's house watching my nephew for the evening. Since Henry went to sleep as soon as his head hit the mattress (no afternoon nap will do that to a kid), I'm borrowing her computer to do a little online catch-up. Hopefully we will have our computer fixed soon and then I can get back to posting a bit more regularly.

Until then, here's what's been happening with L-M-N-O...

• We spent every weekend in May at a cottage - either Matt's family's or my parents'. We had a fun time cleaning, painting, getting things ready for summer, and enjoying a relaxing Memorial day weekend. For some pictures you can check out my sister's blog.
• Levi has started to say quite a few recognizable words: "pees" (please), "della" (Bella, as in his cousin), "moo", "baa", "a-doo-a-doo" (cock-a-doodle-doo), "no, no, no" (just today - not in context, but showing me what I must say an awful lot!).
• A new discipline technique for Levi - that worked for about 3 days. We have a decorative birdhouse in our living room that I put fake flowers in to go with the season. A few weeks ago, I swapped the Christmas flowers for some more summery yellow flowers. Levi discovered the new flowers and figured out that he could pull the flowers and buds off the stems. So, when we played in the living room, he started sneaking around the couch to the birdhouse. One of those times, I tried counting to 3 in a stern voice and to my surprise, Levi left the birdhouse and came back to playing by me. I was quite excited that we didn't have to start a "time-out" technique yet because it seemed like this approach might work for now. About three days later, Levi was again sneaking around the couch to "play" with the birdhouse flowers. I started counting in my stern "mom" voice: ONE...TWO... "tree" (Levi's voice from the other side of the couch). Now what? I couldn't help but laugh. So much for that discipline technique - now I can't even get past ONE without hearing "doo" (two) and "tree". We've decided instead to start working on counting and Levi is learning "four" and "five"...
• Levi tried broadening his cuisine... My mom came over for a day in May to help me weed our landscaping (a big help - thanks Mom!). After Levi got up from his nap, he came outside to help too. Under our deck in the backyard, we have an extra piece of wood laying on the ground, so I flipped it over to weed underneath it. We found lots of creepy-crawly things underneath and I pointed them out to Levi. I even went so far as picking up a worm with my glove to show it to him. He wasn't scared a bit, in fact, he took it from me(which I thought was kind of cool at that point) and then proceeded to try and put it in his mouth (not so cool!). Why did I think that the worm wouldn't go in his mouth when everything else he touches does? Perhaps the best part was that when I tried to get the worm out of Levi's hand, I nearly shoved it right into his mouth - way to go on my part!
• Matt has taken up running and is getting ready to run in his first race (a 5K) this Saturday. Levi and I are looking forward to cheering him on and showing him how proud we are of him for doing the race! Levi's been practicing saying "go, go, go" and "yeah, Daddy" - I think he'll be ready in time for Saturday :)

Well, that's at least a stab at getting things caught up. Now I need to catch up on my blog reading and see what everyone else has been up to. It's sad how out of the loop you feel when your computer is down...just kidding!