New dresses made by Granny!

What a blessing to have a mother-in-law make our girls such beautiful dresses. The girls were very pleased with them. Granny is amazing at sewing and we are all the happy recipients of her talents!!

Levi's Party Pictures

Race car time!!!! That was fun to watch! Especially when Liisa passed Kenny....LOL

The line up.....getting ready to go fast......

Jonathan, happy as can be.

William....he really got into the racing and was determined not to let anyone pass him...it was pretty funny.

Levi and Mailee

Jared, Jonathan, Abigail, Drew, Murren, Will and Mailee

Will and Levi

Time for Levi's presents!

Bumper boats........Kaila and Will, Ellie and Kolten

Karissa and Murren

Cassie

Hooray Levi is a year older! A big 7 years old! We had a great time at his party. Thanks again (as always) to Grandma Dot and Grandpa! The kids did bumper boats, race cars and video games. The cake was yummy and ice cream too.

We have internet back! I am so happy! Here are a few pictures from a little while ago.

Family, Friends and Daddy's 40th Birthday!

The birthday boy!!! The greatest husband, father, friend and 4o year old in the World!!! It was not easy trying to pull off a surprise with this guy, but we did pretty good! It was soooo much fun! Everyone was awesome to come, thanks for making it special. We had some entertainment by the audience (karaoke) , yummy food (thanks to mom, Liisa and her girls), great fellowship and yep Steve got some great gifts! Steve felt very loved thanks so much.

One of Steve's favorite fun things is Karaoke...so Kenny set it up for the party! And along with that Kenny has some AGE appropriate jokes ready to fire off! What a surprise! He never stops!
Steve sang wonderful of course, it did not matter that he turned 40 years, old he can still make me smile big and proud when he sings....ahhhhh I love him! (This is Tami typing ya know!) :)

Aaron and Alexa Sleadd did great, must have learned some tricks on singing from their daddy!!

Twins Mailee and Murren had fun at the karaoke too!

The girls sang together....I guess less stress with more friends singing along :) Emma, Tessa, Mercy Anna, and Ellie.

Mr. Sleadd was a true hit! Wow what a great voice! I think he has had a little practice singing...it was great fun!
Of course when they are together and their is an instrument or two these friends love playing music! Dylan, Tait and Alex.

Wonderful friends Dan and Sheryl, we met them at the Growers Market a couple years ago. We love them like family!
Steve and little sister Jackie with her sweetie Helen


Sisters with baby on the way! Jackie, Kelli (both Steve's sisters) and Tami (his wifie). What a blessing God gives in the gift of life and babies, but how great it will be to be done and holding the little one in our arms!! Jackie 8 weeks #2, Kellie 35 weeks #2 and Tami 37 weeks pregnant #8.

Goldman's (except for Alex) and cousin Helen

Day after the 40th birthday party Daddy still makes an AMAZING breakfast! And this time he was looking really fancy in his new Over the Hill hat! And apron made by Anna.

Happenings

Here was a project the kids did. It's so great, I give them the book say do this experiment and boom they do! Smarty pants! We were studying rocks and Rome (don't they go together? ) Well it was a great unit study! We still are needing to have the Rome party, keep posted to see some pictures of that! :)
Collin reads the book and tell what is to be done! What a man!

Cassie does the pouring of the Epsom salt!

Anna will stir the ingredients!

As you can see in Cassie's face the smell was not that good! They did super....though the outcome a few days later was not as perfect as the book pictures, they still learned and had fun too.

Next we have another project!


Anna and Cassie did some really great volcanos for school the other day. Since it was Granny's birthday we set them off in honor of her! The girls did great! I love to homeschool! OK most of the time!! HA The fun stuff is awesome!

And lastly on my thoughts is AMO!


Today Amo (our cockatiel) has flown the coop and left the family. Really I sold her on craigslist. She chirped one to many times right in the middle of us recording our CD. She was a good bird....WELL, Steve hated her, and she really only liked me :) but it's quite around here tonight without her. Amo means 'love' in Latin, although there was little of that love in her....I know maybe she did not speak Latin! HA
Goodbye Amo. By the way this is Murren with Amo on her head. She did love to be on peoples heads should I tell you the ones she pooped on? Only a few. :)

Happy Birthday Kolten!

What a great guy this Kolten is...."Everybody loves him, nobody hates him, guess he's really cool"!!! :) It's true-- he is fun, sweet, always willing to give a great hug, and funny as can be (reminds me of a mix between Kenny and Jason, really a bit more like Jason). Now that's gotta be a really cool person!
May the Lord bless you Kolten and continue to lead you down the straight and narrow way. Your sisters are lucky to have you around to keep them safe and happy. You are sooo awesome at playing your hammered dulcimer....I can't wait to see your new one that you are getting, how exciting! We had fun at your party tonight.
Kolten we all love you tons and are soooo glad you are our nephew/cousin! Happy Birthday

Do you all love the 'bright light antlers' above Kolten? HA I guess he had a bright idea.?!

Cassie's Tea Party Pictures

Cassie Marie with her new birthday doll.

Don't they all look so pretty. Anna did not know she was to dress up...oops.

Yummy food and sweet tea manners. :)

Murren, Katrina and Mailee. Notice the chocolate on Katrina's face...sooo cute!

Esther, Cassie and Mercy - Cousins - Friends Forever

Wintergrass 2008 was awesome!!!

United with the Dewgrass again!!! Yeppee!!



Cassie, Anna, and Kaiti.

Kids jamming room.

Youth jam hiding in the hallways...they say the sound is better. It was hard to hear in the main areas because so many different jams happening.

Yep, it was AWESOME!!! Tons of music, beautiful motels, fun time spent with Grandma Dot, little sleep, great concerts, watching the kids jam, seeing old friends, meeting new friends, and getting inspired to play more and get better!!! Thank God it all went fabulous! Thanks again Grandma Dot for taking us and spoiling us! :)

Happy Birthday Cassie!

My little Cassie Marie is 10 years old today!! WOW!! She is such a sweet little thing, but is growing up really fast! Here she is in this picture with her new full size birthday fiddle purchased at Wintergrass from Grandma Dot and Grandpa Ken this last weekend. Boy was she happy to get that! We had an awesome time at Wintergrass with Grandma Dot, she spoiled us a whole lot! I will post more about that later.
Anyway, we are very proud of Cassie, and are blessed beyond words for our 4th child and 2nd born girl. She is so helpful around the house, she has a tender heart, she loves the Lord and wants so much to do good and please Him. She loves to draw, create artsy things and play with her sisters. She is doing so very awesome in school and is learning fast and well. She is always ready for fun, the joy that is in her is so overflowing. You really never have to guess how she is felling, she wears here feelings on her sleeve (so the saying goes). I love the life she has in her, it's fun, it's exciting and it blesses my socks off! I pray as she grows older she will continue to serve the Lord and follow Him with her whole heart. Happy Birthday Cassie....we Love you!!!

Chess Tournament!

Here are all the cousins that played today! They all were awesome!! WINNERS!!! We were so proud of them.
Emma, Ellie, Jared, Devin, Collin, Murren, Kolten and David!!!!!! Great job you all!

Winners!!!! Kolten's trophy will have to be mailed he did get one (they just ran out).

Team chess club in that age group....won first place!!!

Devin and Collin tied for 1st place!!!!!


Collin....he won!!! Oh yeah...that's my boy!!!! :)

Ellie and Kolten. Can you tell Kolten is scared to death!!! HA! He won!

Ellie and Devin playing with the others.

Murren deep in thought! She did good! No trophy this time but did win some rounds, we are so proud of her anyway.

Everyone did tournament a great job today in the chess tournament! Most of them are qualified from todays wins to go to state! They are also qualified to go in a few weeks to a team chess tournament that their chess club won. They all had great attitudes and were sweet to the others.

On the way home I rented 'Searching for Bobby Fischer' It is a true story movie about a young amazing chess player. After that we all played nerts! It was a great evening. Really good because we got Steve and Alex to play nerts with us! What an awesome family I have!! I love each one of the kids and yep, all the cousins are super too! God is soooooooo great!!!!