Lilly's Birthday

Lilly had a pretty good birthday yesterday. Instead of me telling you all about it, I thought you might enjoy hearing it from her...



We sang her a song...



And watched her open her present...

Caught on Video

For a second year we have caught Santa in the act... but this year we happened to have a video camera handy!



P.S. Can you tell I got a new toy for Christmas! ;-)

Christmas Eve, 2007 - Pajama Time

Every year my family gets new pajamas from Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. This year our friend Tennille (no Captain) was here with her two youngest. You can see the excitement...

December already!?

It is hard to believe it is already December. Where has the year gone? We are all well and we keep busy - go figure.

Katherine is doing great at school, she loves it and Math and Reading seem to be two of her favorite subjects. She continues to grow in her love of Art too and it is always a treat to see what she will bring home. Her teacher encourages her a lot as she has faith that Katherine has great potential in that arena. As of late her mummy picture was even one of the ones' chosen to be in the glass display case in time for conferences. It is really unique, while everyone did a pretty traditional sarcophogis she did a cat one. It is beautiful!! We have yet to get her into piano lessons but she loves to play it on her own and has begun picking up some basic reading skills of music and in any given week she plays at least 5 days.

Lillian also is loving school. She has grown immensly in her reading in the few months she has been at school and it is best described by my Dad that if there weren't so many funny rules in our language she would have it down pat. Lilly is following along in the art department as well - she really enjoys dabbling in it on occassion. Lilly is as social as ever, the daily phone calls for play dates slowed down finally!

Our kitten is not such a kitten anymore. He is growing right along and provides us with tons of joy - well maybe not ZoeMay, he seems to annoy her to death! He is always after her, biting and carrying on. Once he calms down he is a real love. He always greets us at the door when we get home, he begs to be picked up and once he is he purrs unendingly and then he also loves to give kisses!!

Mark enjoys his new job - although the drive he would happily do without. It seems to offer him a lot of opportunities already - he gets to build his own team of employees pretty much from ground up and really have people he feels are compitent and able in the job. Always a good feeling.

I am still at the same job, working in a school of children with disabilites. I attend school a couple evenings a week while I am working on my Masters' in Special Education. The girls and Mark and really tolerant of me being gone these evenings - actually I think the girls love it as they have two great sitters that come and sit both evenings until Daddy gets home.

A Very Elvis Wedding

Click the slideshow to see the pictures in the web album (full screen and quality).

What a fun Month

What a fun month we have had! It seems September slipped us by and October is quickly passing as well. The girls are both doing well.


Katherine is enjoying dance class, making lost of friends, and having fun all around. Lillian is also enjoying dance class and has tons of friends - she seems to particularly attract the boys...

Lillian has already been cheering at football games...




Oh and by the way - this is Lilly - for those of you who knew me as a
small child, there is little difference. I will scan a photo soon and
put them side by side for you.

School is under way...

School has been in session now for nearly two weeks and the girls are enjoying it immensely. They even brought home their first homework a few days ago.



Katherine has the same teacher, Mrs. Sparling and thus the same classmates as last year with a few exceptions as there was some redistricting that took place this year. Katherine is at her first sleep over at a friends tonight, one of her girlfriends from last year and this, Valeria. The only challenge is that her family is Spanish speaking - her Mom speaks no English and her dad limited so her brother was in charge of interpreting for us. What a nice family and Katherine was very excited about the event.

Katherine is dancing again this year - tap and ballet as well. She is enjoying both thus far and has picked right up where she left off from in tap - ballet seems to be coming to her just fine even though it has been a while since she has taken it. She is also participating in Girl Scouts again this year.


Lillian has Mrs. Siarto and will again next year as they do looping (same teacher 1st and 2nd grade). She has lots of new friends and went to the first of what will likely be many birthday parties today. Also, the very first day of school she came home and announced she had given out her phone number and sure enough a little boy called mere moments after we walked in the door that day - and every day for the week!

Lillian has decided to resume dancing, ballet to be exact. She is thrilled to be back into it again. She is also in Girl Scouts again this year, in Katherine's troop.

As for Mark and I we are keeping pace with the girls, or at least trying to. We keep pretty busy with their schedules and I have returned to school to work on my Masters in Special Ed. so that ties me up a few evenings a week. Thankfully golf is over for now so Mark is home each evening. He tries to sneak to the course )or elsewhere) when he can...Just today he went to the U of M football game with Joe - yes you read right, Mark went to football, he is even planning to go again next weekend...if they can get tickets. I will be at adult Girl Scout camp as I am the girls' leader and very active in scouting and it is the annual scouting retreat if you will that all registered adults can go to so we can learn about fun activities to do with the girls and have fun being girls ourselves.

Made it through the first day and loved it.

The girls had a great first day and are looking forward to a great year.

Dawn of a New School Year

Our Summer Vacation is Flying By...

We are really enjoying our summer vacation together! What is not to enjoy. The girls and I have been doing a little of everything from Vacation Bible School, visiting the library, swimming at the neighborhood pool, and visiting the local petting farm (Pinka even did that with us.) Daddy has joined us on a couple adventures including the big summer kick off of spending all day at the local fair on the first official day of our vacation together and as of this past weekend we went camping and we even caught a 10 inch bullfrog - we think he was bigger but he fought being measured. (yes we really measured him - we were trying to win the contest.)

Here are more details:

The official kickoff was the local fair - we arrived late morning and stayed ALL day and had a blast it was a perfect day and we rode all the rides we wanted time and time again as there were hardly any lines. The downfall - Lilly was about 1/2" too short for a few rides she wanted to go on - next time the pony tail will go right on top of her head. The favorite ride was by far a big water log ride. We went on it at least 6 or 7 times. Also, Katherine loved the Hymalain. She giggled the faster it went with the centrifical force pushing her into whomever she was riding with and could hardly wait to go again.

We kicked our summer off with Vacation Bible School with our church in Northville and had a reallly fun time. The theme was a country theme so the girls are always shouting Yee Haw about something these days.

Our local library has a reading link that you can track your minutes you have read and earn prizes from June 18-July 31. Katherine has more than 1400 minutes that she has read either on her own or someone has read to her - trust me most have been on her own - if she is being really quiet it is because she is reading to herself. Lillian has over 1200 as well. She is working on reading more on her own but still prefers being read to and Katherine often happily obliges.

Camping has been long anticipated - the girls have been bugging us all summer to be honest and we have been wanting to go as well but have had other things come up so we finally forced the issue and went. What a great time we had. We went pretty local - only about a 40 minute drive away. It was a really friendly campground. We rented boats for $5 for 2 hours and went out for a row boat ride -which is where we found or fabulous frog. Also, in the evening there was karaoke and both girls bravely participated and also there was a huge bonfire! We filled our jar with lightening bugs for a nighlight and had great fun all around. Oh and by the way the girls got to ride horses! We will definately return to this campground.

Skittles and Starburst

After helping Katherine do a load of laundry Skittles and Starburst
decided to stick around and check out the new washer. We think they got a
little sea sick watching all the water go in and really dizzy trying to
watch the clothes spin out. But, they really like being able to watch it.
Even Lilly's bunny Snowdrop hopped in and watched but she was too quick for a picture.

Tigee having fun at the Farm

The girls went to visit Pinka Farmer today when they took Grandma Dowler back to Uncle George's. Tigee (Katherine's latest Webkinz) decided she would like to stay at the farm and have some fun with Pinka.

Lilly & Nathan

It has been much too long since we last saw the Tinkhams... Jenny, Katie, and Nathan made the trek up from Indiana to visit and the kids got to play together. Katie is so grown up in her demeanor it will surprise you. Nathan seems to have matured quite a bit over the last several months.

The kids played at the local splash park and in the yard at Grandma and Pinka Trimmer's. After a pizza dinner from Mother's the kids and mothers went to the local township fair for an animal show, to ride rides and watch an outdoor movie.

What a day!

Katherine in the News

Last week Katherine's class had their first grade plant show. She and Jessica have been showing their green thumbs for the last several weeks trying to grow some small seedlings.

Katherine was pretty sad when she realized all she had were sprouts but it couldn't have been too bad since she made the school's web page!

Long awaited photos...

We recently visited Battle Creek and the kids went on the Gator with "Pinka Farmer" down to the woods mushroomin'. Unfortunately we were unsuccessfully but we did have tons of fun looking and the kids loved exploring the woods!

Lilly is forever picking up critters and while it is hard to see you can imagine my disbelief when she smiled up at me with her hands tightly closed and claimed she had an "itsy bitsy frog." It took a lot of begging for her to let me take a photo -she knew it would hop away, but after much convincing that it belonged in nature and now there would forever be a photo she agreed.






The left photo is of Hannah and I at the Mother's Day tea. She "cordially invited" me to be her guest. The kids sang songs and recited poetry as a group and then we went to their classes and had muffins (made by them) and lemonade. Each child also wrote poems for their parent. What lovely poems Hannah wrote for me... she is such a blessing and a joy.

On the right is Katherine and Natalie reading and Natalie was sure the book was over and wanted to be sure Katherine would be prepped to continue reading - no interruptions. My she is getting big.

Crazy week...

Just seems like I haven't made it to update the site and I keep meaning to, I just never quite seem to get to it. So at least you know I haven't completely forgotten. I have lots of great photos - I will get to them this weekend. In the interim here are a few highlights since last time.

We spent last weekend at my parents in Battle Creek and all the grandkids had a fabulous time together - especially the big ones hunting mushrooms in the woods - what fun to explore. Also a slumber party that made for 5 out of 7 at Gma and Pinka's house.

Lilly put her top teeth - almost - not quite through her bottom lip and is recovering well. How, getting off the bed, not even goofing around but bumped her chin just so. She has an abrasion of teeth marks on the outside to complement the hole on the inside so it just shows how close she came to going through.

Tomorrow night is the Spring Fling at school - annual fundraiser with games, raffles and tons of fun.

Bed time for my angels - gotta tuck them in as Daddy is golfing... Photos will be added soon.

Pom Pon Fun

A fun Saturday...

We spent Saturday at Novi Field House learning Pom - Pon, the girls loved it. What a ton of fun that was. They all did a great job and bought really cute t-shirts too. Oh and Lilly was soliciting and managed to get us a new babysitter as well - go figure.

Champions on Ice

What an opportunity! Friday evening Katherine, Lillian and I were arriving home from the grocery store when the neighbor stopped over around 6:30 and told me he had two extra tickets to see Champions on Ice at Joe Louis Arena would we like them - would we ever! I was thrilled. Mark and Hannah had just gotten back from girl scouts and after a brief conversation with Mark we decided after Katherine's time as a skater it seemed only natural that she should be the one to go. We joined the neighbors and their kids and then 7 of us were off.

What a great time we had.

A little blurry - but I caught the jump in mid-air, pretty cool!

Our neighbors tickets were really good seats - however we ended up with GREAT seats. There were a number of empty seats up close so Katherine and I sat in the front two rows -she loved it, and we got better pictures too. Oh, how wonderful it was.

Busy Week

Getting back to business after a week of vacation has been a real challenge. We have all struggled to get back into the day to day schedule of real life. It seems we all had a nice time on our vacations - Hannah enjoyed her trip to Florida and we enjoyed our trip to North Carolina. We were all glad to be back home though!

School isn't kind enough to ease us back in so it has been a full and busy week and we are all looking forward to the weekend. On Saturday the girls will be participating in a Pom Pon clinic sponsored by the High School so look forward to photos of that in the coming days!

An overview of our fun

Most of these photos are from the zoo - although the otters are from SciWorks - Molly and Ollie. They were one of our most favorite parts of the trip. The girls even purchased their own stuffed animals and named them after these cute little guys!

Easter Fun

What a wonderful Easter we had. Traditionally we have spent Easter in Michigan with Mom and Dad S. and this year we broke tradition and drove to N.C. to spend it with Gma Rice. What a good decision that was - the weather alone was worth the drive. I understand everyone else had cold yucky weather to deal with!! I have included some photos of the fun we had with Gma.

Almost Vacation!

Today was officially the girls last day of school before Spring Break and tomorrow is mine. I can hardly wait, it surely won't be here fast enough.

Dances

The Annual Girl Scout Dance was in April and the girls all picked out their own dresses. They also requested their own hairstyles to which I happily obliged.

The Daddy Daughter Dance was held in early February and the girls looked so beautiful in their dresses.

Welcome...

Everyone knows I am not too good at keeping up on these sites, gee could it be too many other things going on in life. Well, for now anyway I will pretend like I might just keep up on it at least for at least a few days.

Things are well here.

Hannah is doing well in school, she has adapted well to our family and fits in well. She has made a number of friends in school and seems to love it. She is looking forward to her visit with her Mom in Florida over Spring Break and she will get a chance to see her Dad then too.

Katherine really enjoys school still. She loves brownies and most especially looks forward to tap class once a week. She is always trying to find a way to add her own creative, artisitc flair to everything she does whether it be throught movement, song, writing, or drawing.

Lillian is talking up a storm - really. I think sometimes she might well create a tornado of words if we aren't careful! She loves to talk especially when someone else is having a conversation - she never wants to be out of the loop. She loves to sing and dance around the house and also loves to play with her babies. She too loves to be in brownies along with Katherine.

Mark, Katherine, Lillian and I are looking forward to our Spring Break as well all venture to see Gma Nice at her home in NC. We pray for a safe trip and nice weather while we are there, not to mention a little R&R, we all need it!