A Guide to Disney Princesses

Elsa 

Pocahontas 

Tiana...with a shirt that is WAY too big.

Inseperable

Cousins

Way back at the end of August.  Still only one walker.

The level of excitement these two reach when they see each other at each gathering is way beyond adorable.

Olivia would stand up and "run" and Charlotte would start her "scoot back while sitting" routine.

But then Olivia got all confused and would come back to "inspect" Charlotte.

"Hey, look what I can do!"

"Hey I can too- oh, wait, were we done doing that already?"

She finally realized that Charlotte wasn't ABLE to walk and so came back and sat thisclose to her.

Chillin.

Starting to run and going in crazy back-up-mode again.

They so desperately wanted to be outside with the big-kids.  Note who is taller!

All the cousins!

Spiders

This year has been CRAZY for spiders in our neighborhood.  They were not inside, just outside, but they'd make these HUGE webs.  They were beautiful, but made it very hard to use the garage (covering 1/2 of the doorway!!) or the deck (the whole doorway would be blocked) or the swingset (from one-end to the other, I'm not exaggerating) or walk under a tree (from one random leaf to the grass).  It was insane.  Samantha eventually learned to look where she was walking and to find a stick to "clean" the playground before she played on it.  I, personally, learned a LOT from watching them.  This kind was super-fast at making webs.  We'd watch them "fix" their webs while we ate dinner or just check-up on them if they were in an out-of-the-way spot.

Such concentration...I loved the toes!

What, I have a web?  What?

Bookworms

Although they are almost three months old, these picture still ring true to how 80% of down-time is spent for the girls.  Samantha reading Baby-Blues and Charlotte snuggled up somewhere with her "B" (means both "book" and "binky")

New Career

Jeremy and I have been discussing for YEARS now what Jeremy was going to do after youth ministry.  Most youth ministers last 2 years.  He finished with 14 under his belt.  We were ready to move on. With a growing family, it was getting harder and harder to juggle the out-side of the office commitment that is required. However, the HUGE looming question just hung in the air for years.

What would he do next?

It was quite the ordeal, with lots of roadblocks, but- like it always happens- the road that we took ended up happening almost too easily.  Jeremy kept trying to apply at one particular place and kept getting rejected, only to have another place CALL HIM and ask him for his resume.  Then they offered him the job THE SAME DAY of the interview.  The hours are 8-5, the pay is exactly what his previous two jobs combined here (he was working part-time at my high-school as a tech assistant).  There's room to grow, and although he was really uneasy about starting something in a completely different field, he l.o.v.e.s. it.  Seriously, I get texts almost every day about how crazy work is and how much he loves it.  What is it?  Desk-top help.  The details are "ho hum" but it's like God created a job and said, "I shall call this job ".  

Anyway, the downside currently is that he's a contracted position, so that means no benefits. And a contract that has to be "renewed' every few months.  Which means NO flexibility for time off (one of the HUGE benefits to his previous two jobs).  Plus there's the whole learning to live on a weekly paycheck of hourly pay vs monthly paycheck of salary pay.  But, we've been blessed with great health so far this semester and have only needed me to stay home twice.  

And even though he doesn't have any days off like he used to (snow-days and holy days) he says he actually feels more relaxed due to being able to come home and be "off" and having two full consecutive days "off" every week.  It's been an amazing change and we feel so blessed.  It's also a huge relief that we didn't realize was there- not knowing what was next.  But here we are!

One of the last Sundays with donuts with the teens!

Zoo 2014

Ok so I think it's pretty well known now that I really don't do the zoo thing.  The smells are just too much.  So it's become Jeremy's thing.  This year he went with the Hnosko kids and father as well.  These three spent a LOT of time together this summer!

I don't know what was going on in these (honestly, I'd forgotten that this event happened until I was looking for picture to post to catch up here.)

So, sans captions, here they are: