They're saying "YAAYYY! That was FUN!" :)

Seriously, Mom - get him away from me

Aliya looks thrilled

I wasn't in the room so I don't know but I'm wondering if Julie had some mercy on her daughter and took the BIG bucket away from Ben... :)

Heeeeave... let's try it again (her mommy's not stopping me so it must be okay)

Yeah... let's try this...

Hmmm...

Some cute bathtub pictures of Ben and Aliya... and I just want everyone to know that I was NOT in the room when these pictures were being taken. *I* would have stopped the little boy... ;)

FACEBOOK STATUS UPDATE:
Heather Kenoyer Anderson has just finished baking cupcakes (one at a time) in the microwave and icing them (also one at a time!) using Kate's new "Gourmet Girl" set... and now knows why Santa never brought me an Easy Bake Oven when I was little... b/c MY mom was SMART!!! :)

Here's Kate with her proud smile. We made a total of 5 cupcakes (which took over an hour) and she got to do a lot of licking since we had to refill the icing machine for each cupcake. When we were done we put them in her cupcake carrier to take to her brothers at basketball tonight. :)

I hope she always has fond memories of this experience...

... cuz we're never doing it again.

;) (just kidding)

Thank you, Aunt Tracey for the memory-making toy. (what was I thinking sending you that link?)

It WAS really cute to watch her. When we made the first cupcake, we were both surprised that it baked in the microwave and she yelled when she saw it "that is AMAZING!!" :) Then, right after this pic was taken she said "oh, that was so fun! that was awesome! the boys are gonna LOVE this!!" :)

That's my little "gourmet girl." <3

Oh, I forgot that I took some pics during the process... this is before we put the "counter" on top of it but you get the idea. The room in the background will be the new family room but it's serving as the tool room right now. Like how the tree is still up? Todd's parents are coming this weekend to celebrate a late Christmas with us so we couldn't take the tree down! Of course, now it's covered with a lovely white film of drywall dust. We're calling it a fine powdery snow. :) Hmmm... in that case... it snowed all over the entire interior of my house!! :D

Oh, I love it! It's so bright and light. The next day, we worked together and put the black island in place. Maybe I'll post a pic of that later -- but don't hold your breath... I am NOT the blog queen anymore! :) Besides... I'm busy renovating, man!! :)

My husband IS the best!!

For those of you who suffer from nausea whenever I share a "my husband is the best" story, please just skip this post... :)

THIS is what I came home to after only 4 days in Michigan with the kids (and he only had one of those four days off). I know... he's amazing... <3

This post goes with the previous one -- SO blessed! :) Thanks, my friend (Amy K), for coming over and MAKING me put up a regular Christmas tree this year. It looks beautiful and Kate is thrilled. Now... are you going to come help make take it down in a few weeks? And organize all those ornaments? ;) ... and drink some chocolate chai tea? Mmmm...

I am so RICHLY blessed to have sweet friends who love me and pray for me without judging... and encourage me along the way more than they even know. Misty gave me this last night... I think to say "your house will look this YUMMY someday!!" :D It brought tears to my eyes. (love you, Mist)

To ALL of my sweet friends -- "I thank my God upon EVERY remembrance of you..." I am so so blessed...

Isaac and Ben... awwww...

That water was COLD, man! :)

A story to go with the picture... (I just copied this from an email I sent to a friend during vacation...)

We went to the beach yesterday. Haaaaa ha ha ha! You should have seen it! It was hilarious. It was freezing cold but they still got in b/c, hey, it's the beach and we live in Ohio! :) We looked like such the tourists. But it was fun. But it was VERY windy (like sandstorm windy after a while) and like I said, freezing. And... the boys got a new Nerf football at WalMart and Todd thought it would be funny to make them run into the water to catch it... so he did that a couple times and then he went off to play with Ben so the boys were doing it amongst themselves. After a couple minutes, I looked over and Jesse's pretty far out there trying to swim after the football! There were moments where it was up to his neck and he was still trying to swim out further (and every wave pulled the ball further away from him). I freaked out and ran like a crazy woman down the beach screaming. It scared me to death!! So.... long story short.... goodbye brand new football. They were pretty sad. We watched the bright orange football being tossed around the waves and floating out to sea. It really was a sad sight. And Jesse was a little bit indignant that I didn't think he could go get it. I said, "Buddy, you're a little more important than that football!! It's just not worth it." So superdaddy Todd stopped by WalMart on the way back to the condo to buy another one. I told him it was his responsibility since he showed a poor example by throwing it into the ocean in the first place (though it sure was funny to see their faces as they ran into the cold water to get it). :)

Look who got a haircut!!! -- Cheeseball got a haircut! :) (long overdue)

... or this one (which is too bad b/c I love the background and the lighting - a beautiful setting)

Yeah... don't look for this in the 2008 Christmas cards

The FIRST day we got to Williamsburg, Ben woke up w/ a fever (shocking, I know). This beach trip was day 2 of our vacation and the poor guy is still running a fever. He's not so happy to be on the beach (his first trip to the ocean).

Ahh - vacation pictures! I'm going to take this nice and slow and not do too much at once (b/c I have a lot... well, a lot for ME anyway)...
We went to Williamsburg, VA for vacation and it was SO nice! We had to take a trip to Virginia Beach, of course... gotta go to the BEACH on vacation, right? Ha. Here we are before venturing out on to the beach. The sweatshirts are an indication... it was chilly! In the 50's and windy. Here's the best pic I got of all five kids. My goal was to get some good beach pictures for Christmas cards but you'll see how those turned out in a minute.