Adoption Benefit

Our church put on an adoption benefit for a local family. It was a great success! Not only did we raise a good amount of money for them, but many people were made more aware of the plight of the orphan!


This family is such an inspiration to so many. They started out with their biological daughter, and then proceded to adopt 3 little girls from China (some with disabilities.) Now they are in the process of adopting 2 little boys from an Eastern European country... one with Down Syndrome and one with Cerebral Palsy. They guys are awesome parents and have such a burden for children around the world without families to love them.


Currently the mom and her bio. daughter are in Europe visiting their 2 little boys. They spend 5 days with them and then have to come home. In a few months, when everything is finalized, they will be able to go back and bring the boys home with them! If you want to read about their amazing story, you can on their blog, A difference to this one.

You can also make a tax-deductible donation to their adoption by following the Reese's Rainbow Sponsorship link on their blog. Every bit helps to bring these two boys home!!

The Proud Parents, Greg and Jennifer

We spent most of the day getting set up and practicing

Jimmy Passwaters came and sang in 2 bands and helped with sound
Greg and Jennifer

Ryan's family helped a ton - here we are having a decorate the basket contest :)

Ryan's wife and mom :)

They put on an amazing dinner for the benefit!

The Pickin' Pals with Jimmy Passwaters

some bluegrass gospel!

The Bay City Quartet

Greg and bio daughter, Morgan, singing along

I love this photo!

What a blessing to know these children!

Two of Greg and Jennifer's treasures with my Olivia

Our church praise team rockin' out!

Greg, Jennifer, and Sharon D

Myself and Jen :)

Birthdays and Halloween

We spent Emelyn's 11th birthday in VA, visiting Garr's Mom Linda and her fiancee Buddy. It was also Mom Linda's birthday!! And it was Halloween too. We had a great time. We came up with some creative gifts (read: inexpensive) for Mom for her bd and Eme got an ipod from Mom and Buddy. She loves it! We have recently gotten a membership at the YMCA and it is so cute to see her working out with her ipod strapped to her arm. :) Buddy agreed to dress up as a pirate with Abby - he's so much fun :) Daniel had a costume but refused to wear it (as usual.) He did carry a sword though... Here are some photos from our weekend:

Eme was a SWAT member

Eme and Abby battling

Pirate Abby
She was so cute posing!

Olivia was a Snow Queen

Daniel is too cute!

This was so funny!

Daniel kept bopping Buddy on the head with the sword

and they were both belly laughing!!

Buddy and Abby dueling it out!

We went to a car show trunk or treat

Buddy, Mom, and the kids

The best photo of all 4 kids taken that weekend,

with one of our favorite neighbors, Ms. Shirley

Danny waiting to trick or treat

Our snow queen

From July -- Olivia's Birthday!

We've had a very busy past few months! I'm going to try and play catch-up over the next few days so you can see all the cute pics I took and so when I finally get around to scrapbooking, I'll know when these photos were taken :)


In July, we celebrated Olivia's 7th birthday! It's hard to believe she is 7 years old already. She is a bundle of fun and energy - a very happy, loving child. She is all about "fashion" (as she calls it) and makeup and clothing. Although lately she's been telling us that God is talking to her heart and trying to tell her something. She feels that "maybe God doesn't want her to make fashion so important." It's really sweet how open her little heart is to God. Garr and I haven't said anything to her re. her interest in fashion so this is all coming from her. She is also a natural little gymnast! You should see her do cartwheels -- and if you are close by, I'm sure you've seen her do many! She cartwheels her way around. We would love to get her into gymnastics classes eventually as she seems to have a real talent for it. She had a pool party for her birthday and a bunch of her friends came. They had a great time.

A pool photo

"Poor" Justin was the only boy!

Having lunch

The birthday girl!

Probably not the best choice - but it sure was cute!

Dancing to the Seeds Family Worship!!

A little music by a couple of the dads :)

Daniel enjoying his cupcake

Emelyn

Abby

Liv - missing a tooth!

Justin - rockin' the frostin'!

Yay! Makeup!

Wow! Barbies!

Matching dresses from Grandma

A little "before bed" snuggle time with Mama

Mining

My MIL took some photos while we were mining and sent them to me today. They turned out pretty cute :)

Abby, me, Liv, and Emelyn...

identifying and trading their gemstones.

Livy and Eme
Abby and I

Daniel and our nephew, Cole

Isn't this the neatest photo???

Music

We may have a little musician on our hands also. He likes to stop and dance to the music whenever it's on. He also loves to practice on the guitar and watch out when he gets some drum sticks in his hands! No, really, watch out! He likes to drum on anything ... sisters included! :)

Playing guitar with Daddy and Mr. Ryan

He didn't like playing this way - it's not the way Daddy does it!

Couldn't resist a cute 4th of July photo

Squinting in the sun!

Garr has recently started playing music again - he is playing bass on our church worship team. They are amazing. We have an acoustic guitar, drums, bass, saxophone, and a lead guitar. They have this jazz/rock/pop sound. It's really great! They have played outside the church a couple times now, most recently at the 4th of July festivities in town. I took a few pics to share. Unfortunately their time slot was late in the day and a lot of people had left. Many of our church people came to support them which was so nice! Not only is it a great group of guys to play music with, they are also very supportive of each other - faith/work/hangout wise. And the wives and kids like to hang out too, which makes it even better!

The little groupies :)

Garr

The band, Garr, Ryan, Ryan, Jim, Jim

hmmmm... we need another Garr :)

nevermind, I'm sure many would agree,

one Garr is enough :)