Surprises #2

We had a family surprise party for my cousin Corianne at her own house... this is her walking in.


Grandma was holding Lincoln (while Salyna hid around the corner). This is Cori trying to figure out whose baby it is.

Surprise!

All of the family hangin out.
Cori and her amazing husband, Marc, who pulled off several surprises over the weekend!
My cousins David & Gen who are expecting their 1st baby in a couple months... she will be the first girl in the family in 7 yrs!

Good thing Grandma still had some baby toys!

What a fun time we had!!!

A Weekend of Surprises

This past weekend Salyna and Lincoln flew to California. To make a long story short... Salyna's cousin Jenni (who lives in TX) was flying to California to surprise her sister for her 30th birthday. So Salyna decided to go too and take Lincoln so the family could meet him. Jenni was the only one who knew Salyna was going, so there were several surpirses throughout the weekend. Salyna, Lincoln, and Jenni met up at the Houston airport and sat together on the flight to California.

Lincoln's 1st airplane ride! He did really well on all the flights. (especially since he had an ear infection in both ears!)

Sitting next to Auntie Jenni was a HUGE blessing!

Grandma's reaction as Lincoln and Salyna walked in... Jenni was already there.

Grandma and Aunt Darlene being told that we were all on the same flight and had this planned for weeks... we pulled off a great surprise!!

Lincoln loved the sand, he kept kicking his feet in it... so cute! His 1st time at the beach!

We also saw Aunt Karen, Uncle Greg, Jacquie & Collin... and their dogs! There was mutual love between the dogs and Lincoln!

And then Great Aunt Liz got to meet Lincoln too! Thanks Grandma Molly for driving her!

**I am very frustrated with blogger and posting these pics, so there will be a 2nd post.

Fun and Fellowship... our Favorite!

We went to a great airshow a couple weekends back and here is the one pic we took, I just now noticed that even Lincoln was watching.
On Sydni's actual birthday we met with friends for pizza.

Over Labor Day we went to Oklahoma to vist with our friends, the Coons.


Seeing the babies together again was great! With being so close in age, it was fun to watch them both try to crawl or at least their versions of crawling. Caleb's army-crawl is too cute!!
We tried a little photo session of them...

Caleb was tired.

Lincoln was not.

Caleb - 6mo 2wks, Lincoln- 6mo 3wks

Grace used to babysit Andrew when he was this age and she was still single!!

We had the opportunity to meet, teach, survey, and just hang out with their youth group from Abell Community Church. We had a lot of fun and really enjoyed it. It has been over 2 yrs since we were part of a youth group and we miss it a lot.

It was so amazing to see how the Spirit is working in Sam & Grace's lives. What a blessing they are to us! Only a few years ago we knew Sam & Grace as single school mates. We watched them court each other and become one before God when they married. Now we are able to share in parenthood with them... and to have babies a week apart has been really fun.

We love you guys!

Day to Day

On September 10 we will have been in Wichita, with World Impact for 2 yrs. We are amazed at God's faithfulness and grace as we reflect over the past 2 yrs.

(These 2 pics were from our first trip to Wichita in July 07)

So after all the visitors and vacationing we have somewhat returned to a "normal" life.

The school drop off and pick up schedule is ruling the rest of the schedule.... We just wanted to share a little of what life is like day to day for each of us, let's start youngest to oldest.

Lincoln-is eating twice a day now and so far does not like any of the fruits he has tried, bananas nor applesauce. He is scooting and rolling and doing a kind of army crawl to get where he wants to go. He tends to just go with the flow of our on-the-go life.
Andrew-is still adjusting to the older kids being in school. He enjoys some time playing by himself but then gets bored, asking to go pick the kids up at school. We are trying another serious attempt at potty training! He continues to be "strong-willed" and some days in his own little world.

Davis-He loves 1st grade! While being a model student we still struggle with some behavior at home... hoping this is just a stage! He is excited about starting Karate this week! He has also been asking/talking a lot about baptism, something we decided to let the kids bring up and explore for themselves without pushing the idea on them.

Sydni-She will be offically 8 yrs old on Friday the 4th! She is growing up so fast and loves not only her little brothers, but all the other little ones around World Impact! She has taken after her dad with staying up late to read.

Salyna-Overall she has been doing well. She is trying a new medication to hopefully help with the fibromyalgia symptoms. She is looking forward to the upcoming women's Bible study on Luke and the great fellowship at Tuesday Connection. Some financial issues regarding her mom will finally be taken care of soon, bringing more peace. Although there is still heartache in missing Mimi, we all have moved on in the grieving process. Going through some "firsts" without her the rest of this year will still be challenging but we know the Lord is good and uses even these tough times for our good and growth.

Miles-He is still working as the Clinic Manager and really enjoys leading his team of employees/volunteers in devotions and discipleship. It brings joy to see the Lord work in their hearts too as well as patients. He has an opportunity to teach a youth group next week, something he misses and hasn't done for a long time. He will also be sharing his testimony at our church in September during both services. Both Miles & Salyna are glad to be back at work on Sunday mornings in the nursery. We have a new group of little ones so it is exciting and fun getting to know them.

This was our family pic in September 07... Oh how things change!

Prayer requests - For our family to stay focused on Christ and His work for us amidst all the daily activities. We pray that we would seek Him first and seek to please Him, not man, allowing His Holy Spirit to lead us.

Psalm 84: 11

For the LORD God is a sun and shield;

The LORD bestows favor and honor.

No good thing does he withhold

from those who walk uprightly.