Christmas with Santa 2009

Nearly frostbitten......

Last Saturday was our town's annual festival of lights parade. I had gotten called off of work that day so we had decided to have a fun family evening together! The parade was to begin at 6pm. We wanted to get a good "curbside seat" so we got downtown about 5:30pm. Jonathan dumped Parker and I out to set our lawnchairs up and get ready for the show! He and the twins parked in the parking garage and found us a few minutes later.

The weather was a frigid 29 degrees and the parade ran late as usual. It didn't begin until about 6:30pm! We quickly found out why such a good curbside was available! It was right under some type of a tree that had dripped nasty sap and gummy junk all over the sidewalk and road. Our shoes were completely nasty!!!! The parade was good, but extremely long. We enjoyed seeing the different types of floats and band instruments all decorated! By the way.......kudos to Columbus Regional Hospital for winning the grand champion for the best float in the parade!!!

The twins kept crying because they were having trouble grabbing the candy before other kids got to it. We tried to explain to them to keep their gloves on and we would buy them candy afterwards. That didn't matter! (By the way, once we got home from the parade, they haven't asked for one piece of that candy since!!!)

2 frozen solid hours later.....we headed to our vehicle. They were going to light the mayor's Christmas tree and have the musical fireworks, but we opted for supper at a local Mexican joint instead! The kids didn't realize how cold they were until we were on our way to the car, then Peyton decided to cry and let the whole town know!!! After sitting in the car quite some time, our fingers and toes began to tingle and we knew we were finally thawing out. It was a fun family night and we had fun being together, making memories!!!

Thanksgiving 2009 at Mom & Dad's

Thanksgiving 2009

Click on the above photo for more pictures of our day together. We had Thanksgiving together on Sunday afternoon this year. Jeff and April had her Mom over for Thanksgiving, we went to the Walden's and Mom and Dad went and ate with some of the Thompson's.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving 2009
Our little family

Our three blessings!

From our family to yours, may you have a wonderful Thanksgiving spent with family!

Photos taken by Daylin Richardson

How far would you go to save your lost tooth???

Last Saturday, I took the kids to McDonald's in Greenfield, Indiana for an early lunch. Jonathan was practicing with the quarte,t and the kids and I were starved, so off we went. Parker got his usual, Fish Sandwich combo meal and was almost finished eating when he said, "Look Mom, my took is about to fall out!" Sure enough, he was right, it was bleeding and just hanging there by a thread. He had a bite still in his mouth so he said he was going to the bathroom to spit out his food and would come back and let me pull it out at the table! Yuck...... A few minutes later, he came out of the bathroom grinning from ear to ear and holding up his tooth! He said that when he went to spit out his food his tongue hit his tooth and it went into the toilet!!! He quickly stuck his arm down in the toilet to retrieve his treasure!!! He said he had to get it so he could put it under his pillow! After hearing his story, the first words from my mouth were, "Did you wash your hands after putting it in the toilet?" His reply, "Well, NO!" I immediately sent him back in to scrub his hands with soap!
The tooth fairy did find our house on Saturday night and we had a happy little man on Sunday morning!

Welcome Hunter!!

Hunter Drew Dunn arrived in this world today t 12:15pm to Montie and Elaine Dunn. He was born via C/S and both mommy and baby are doing fine. Due to strict hospital visitation policy, big brothers, Collin and Blake are not able to see him until he comes home. :( I'm sure this is very disappointing to these little guys! Hunter weighed 7 pounds and 11 ounces. Daddy forgot to tell me how long he was. I'm full of germs myself so I won't be going to visit for a few days either! Congratulations to the Dunn family on boy #3!!! You are outnumbered now!!! :)

Happy Fall Ya'll...

National Quartet Convention 2009

Once again, we were able to attend part of the National Quartet Convention in Louisville, Kentucky. We thoroughly enjoy going and would love to be able to attend more of the convention. However, this year it was not possible. Our only night there was Friday evening. We got to see some of our favorite groups, chat with some of our friends, and pick up several of their new CD's. Here are several pictures from our view of the NQC. Some of them are slightly blurry, sorry about that! (I'm posting these for Jonathan to view up in Winamac!!!) Just click on the picture below to view all of the photos!

National Quartet Convention 2009

Happy 7th Birthday Parker!

Happy Birthday Parker man!!! We love you SO much! You have brought so much joy to our lives. We can't imagine life without you. It's hard to believe you are growing up so fast and are getting to be so tall. You'll soon pass Mommy up! :( You are a very sweet little boy and a great big brother to your "twins!" We're glad you had a fun party today with your friends. Mommy will have to try to post some pictures on here of your party. We love you very, very much!
Love,

Daddy, Mommy, Peyton & Paige

Please pray for our friend Todd Myers...

Many of you have heard about Todd Myers recent diagnosis of Lymphoma. There is a "praying for Todd Myers" page set up on Facebook where you can get frequent updates about his progress. Todd starts his Chemo treatments today and it is going to be an eight hour treatment this first time. I wanted to post this on here for those of you who might be reading this, but aren't members of Facebook. Please remember Todd in prayer, not only today but every day. He's got a long and difficult road ahead of him, and he needs all the prayers and encouragement we can give him!

Jonathan and long time friend, Todd Myers

(Todd played the piano for The Singing Friends when Jonathan sang with them and currently plays the piano for Convention Quartet.)

First day of school 2009-2010

Last Friday, was Parker's first day of First Grade! Parker is going to our Christian school, Bethel Holiness Christian School, and is loving it so far! He says "school is awesome!" His favorite part is recess of course! He loves the fact that he gets to go on recess 3 times every day! He loves his teacher, Miss Willard, and is enjoying making new friends! He goes to school all day, which is a first for us this year! The twins are getting used to Parker being gone and are settling into their own routine. I'm glad he's able to attend there this year and hope he'll learn a lot. I'm also glad he's getting a Christian education!

Another babysitter gets married...

Here are several pictures of the wedding that all 3 of our kids were in a couple of weeks ago. Once again, we've had another babysitter run off and get married on us! I'm a believer that if you're single and you want to get married, just come and babysit our kids! It's a guarantee you'll be married within a year or two! :)

The kids had so much fun dressing up and being in Seth and Alicia's wedding. They did what they were supposed to do, stayed in their dress clothes for approximately 10 hours and we made it through the day without any temper tantrums! Jonathan kept telling Peyton if he wasn't good he'd be "kicked out of the wedding!"

Click on the picture below for a glimpse of the wedding. I took over 200 pictures and didn't want to bore you with all of them!

Alicia and Seth's Wedding

Worn out...

This is how I found Peyton last night after a long, hard day of playing. The babysitter told me that the kids were tired, but I never expected to see this sight! :) He is always the last one to go to sleep at night and usually wide awake well after midnight! Not this time...I just might have to keep this babysitter!

Drama King...

Yesterday morning was the big day for Parkerman! His surgery was scheduled originally for 10:30am but had been moved to 10:55am. We reported to out-pt surgery waiting at 9:45am just as we were told and were ushered back to a small room. The nurse, Michele was very nice and tried her best to make Parker laugh. He was scared to death and afraid to hardly even talk to her! She asked him lots of questions, some were quite embarrassing to a 6 year old boy! :)She was finally finished around 10:30am and they let Parker's visitors come in to see him. His Grandpa Bob, Grandpa and Grandma Walden and Pastor Shockley came in the room! (Grandma Sheila was at our house, babysitting the twins!) Parker was happy to see all of them! They tried to make him laugh but Parker again, wasn't too cheerful! You could tell by the look on his face, that he was quite fearful!
Parker broke our hearts when Brother Shockley knelt down to pray with him before surgery! He started crying and had the entire room crying along with him! That had to be a scary feeling for such a little guy! Knowing that he had to go back to that cold OR without his Mommy or Daddy! :(

Parker is less than thrilled that he has to wear this silly looking hat and that they are running behind! He's getting a little frustrated by this point!

"Mom, I'm going to push this nurse button and see what's taking them so long!" Mom replies, "No, Parker don't!!!" :) They finally came to get him right at noon! Parker was so upset when he told us all goodbye that he had us all crying once again! He had to stop off and get sick on his way walking back to the OR! (Typical of little Parker!)

Smiling for Mommy and dreaming about food!

Finally home shortly after 1:30pm! His nurse asked him what his goal was for the day! He replied...."To go home!" He caused quite a scene in PACU from what I hear and they brought Jonathan and I back to see him and to help try to calm him down! I kept apologizing for how "difficult" he had been! He was surrounded by 3 nurses when we got back there and was hyperventilating! I looked up and saw his oxygen saturation was 77% I was determined that we were not going to have to stay on Pediatrics and was thrilled when he decided to calm down and breathe!! I was very shocked when the doctor came out to talk to us and told us that Parker actually had an ear infection in his right ear! He hadn't even complained at all! Poor kid, he's so used to that feeling, that he doesn't know any better!

Opening his present from Grandma Sheila and Grandpa Bob! As soon as he got it open, he fell asleep and slept the rest of the afternoon! Thank goodness...

Fun, "quiet" things to do!!!

Grandma knows what Parker likes!!!

Reading his get well cards!

Very happy that Grandpa Bob came to see him once he got home!
After his nap, he awoke to visitors! Amy, McKendra and McKiah Shearer brought him balloons and a gift!

Parker appears to be back to normal! Luckily, it's raining cats and dogs today so I don't have to worry about keeping him inside! Hopefully, this will solve all the ear problems and he can get "Perfect Attendance" this year at Bethel!

Thanks everyone for your prayers! We appreciate it very much!!!