Photo Montage of July 4th

Scrambled Eggs

LIFE Vineyard hosted our 3rd annual, GIANT community egg hunt extravaganza today...it was a huge success.  Hundreds of people showed up to find eggs, win prizes, eat free food and play! And, despite Hannah's paralyzing fear of the Easter Bunny, the girls had an absolute blast. Here's the proof.

Hannah was staring off into the lake, lost in thought :)

 

Best Friends Forever

Aly and Adalyn

 Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

This. Is. Sooooooooooo. Fun.

 This is my favorite 'Hannah face'...it is contagious!

  Sliding together...

 Pure joy.

 Look out below...

 Friends

 Is it time yet?!?!?!?!

 Ready...Set...Scramble!

 Hannah wasn't into doing it on her own so it took a little help from Daddy.

 Picking up two at a time...that's the way to do it!

 Wow! Look at all these!

 Going on a scavenger hunt around the park.

 Little Miss Sassy

Fun was had by all!

Spreading {a little} Christmas Cheer

Last year Dan and I reconnected with a few of our old YL club kids from Grove City at the 40th Anniversary dinner.  Now they are married, college grads with a beautiful baby of their own!  We have spent some time with them since getting to know them and enjoying their friendship.  Then, out of the blue,  Matt sent Dan a text asking if we were home because they wanted to drop something off to us for Christmas.  I thought they had baked us some cookies or perhaps a gift card for a night out...neither of which were necessary.  I got a text about an hour later saying they had left it on our front porch, but that we would need to bring it in soon.  I almost fell over when I opened the door.  

It was a BRAND NEW 42'' PLASMA TV - Are. You. Serious.

Dan called Matt when I told him what it was and he just said, "They just wanted to spread a little Christmas cheer." 

They are nuts...in a good way!  It is humbling and makes me want to do something for someone else.  Their generosity is amazing, and generosity like that makes others want to follow Jesus.  I hope some day we not only have the money to be as {or more} generous, but also that we have the heart to bless people the way they do.  We are so thankful for their friendship and their hearts for the Lord...oh yeah, and our new TV ;)

Two for One

Teri and I have been best friends for almost 18 years.  The kind of friends who were always together, get mistaken for sisters, went on vacations with each others families and were each others maid and matron of honor.  We have been there for each other in some really hard times, have laughed until we cried and shared too many great times to count.   We didn't know what life was like without each other.  After we graduated high school our friendship started to evolve.  We were in different places in our lives.  Sometimes I wondered if we would always stay in touch, but somehow time has held us together.  And even though we went different colleges, have experienced many seasons of life apart and continue to live in different cities we can still get together and talk as though we haven't missed a beat. 

One things I was really looking forward to was experiencing motherhood together.  Last summer Teri finally joined me on that journey when Caleb was born.  I guess she felt like she needed to catch up because only a few moths after he was born she told me they were expecting again!!  I could not wait until she found out the sex.  I knew she was wanting another boy, but having two girls I was secretly (or maybe not so secretly) hoping for her to have one too. When she finally called to tell me I was not at all expecting to hear, "It's another boy...times two."

Twins. 

Due in August.  

One month after Caleb's first birthday.

Oh. My. Gosh.

I know all the things that went through my head in that moment so I can't begin to imagine what was going through hers.

As luck would have it, the twins were born when we were on vacation.  Then school started shortly after so we didn't get to go see them.  Finally, yesterday, we got to meet the twins and we got to spend some time catching up on life.    

They are beautiful and perfectly healthy.  The girls were so cute with them too! Hannah wasn't really sure what to think and Aly loved helping my feed them.  However, they both let us know they did not want one of their own :) It was surreal to see her with THREE babies and watch her balance them so skillfully.  She is such a great mom and has way more patience than I do!  Thankfully she also has an amazing, involved husband who loves her and doesn't just sit back while she does all the work!   

It was refreshing and exhausting all at the same time.  Unfortunately, we didn't take any pictures because we were to busy talking and feeding babies to do that...or even order pizza.  But, hopefully when they come up next weekend we can at least get together for a shot of us with our 5 CHILDREN!

Now that both of our families are complete, we talked about the future.  Hopefully that includes more time with our families together and some Bender-Petit vacations!  I am so thankful for our friendship and the time we got to spend together last night!  And, Teri, remember the house behind us (and beside us...and across the street from us) is not sold yet...