Thanksgiving Preparation

As you can see in the photos, we have been getting ready for Thanksgiving and Gabbie, Lily, and our neighbor, Claudia helped by decorating some special cookies.




Will and Jake "helped" with the cookies also.?!

It's always sunny in Michigan?

This weekend, our friends shared their kiddos with us while they were out of town. We decided to take them on a wild adventure to my parent's playland in their backyard. The kids had a blast and we felt like the day was a success because we all played hard and nobody got hurt! (Well, there we no serious injuries, anyway).

Gabbie and Sophie tear up the pavement on the go-cart.

Sophie takes a wild ride on the zip line.

Contrary to what you may think, your seat cushion will NOT serve as a life preserver on John Deere tractors.

Sara quickly got the hang of the dirt bike.

For more pictures
http://picasaweb.google.com/ctiesma/20091110?authkey=Gv1sRgCLb4nOjC5KfSYA&feat=directlink

Trick or Treat

We had a ton of fun celebrating Halloween. My wonderful wife made a great meal and planned a whole day of fun with her parents and brother's family joining us.

This year, Lily was particularly excited about halloween. She has been asking for about three weeks "Is it Halloween today?" And finally, we could answer in the affirmative. When we went out to Trick or Treat, she would run between houses and yell "TRICK OR TREAT!!!!" Then, of course, all of our neighbors gave her candy.

Could life get any better?? I submit that it cannot!

Gabbie as Lucy Pevensie, Lily as a "Buzz Buzz", Max as Mr. Incredible, Will as Jedi Luke Skywalker. My neice, Sarah, dressed as an adorable HSM Cheerleader and Matthew dressed as Harley, the biker.

Twitter will kill you, DCB rocks!!!

Will's 10th!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Things have been going very well here. School has started. Summer seems to have finally arrived (I know it's September). And we celebrated Will's 10th Birthday!!!!
Will is such a great guy. He is fun to be with, confident and talented in many ways. We spent a lot of time this week remembering great stories from Will's first 10 years. What excites me more than looking back, is the thought of looking forward. I am confident that the next ten years will be full of even more wonderful stories.

More Wedding Pictures

Gabbie asked me to put some more pictures from Scott and Kim's wedding on the blog....

So here they are.

A weekend of celebration!!!

It seems as though summer is rushing by and I am just barely keeping up. This summer has been filled with a lot of traveling, a lot of family time, and many wonderful memories. There are so many things that I have wanted to blog about and haven't. However, I really want to make sure that I post these pictures and take a minute to write a few "mushy" sentiments about this amazing wedding weekend where we celebrated my wonderful bother-in-law marrying an amazing, sweet, fun, and beautiful (inside and out) woman. We are so happy for the two of them!
The wedding was very much a "storybook" event. They were married on top of a mountain overlooking Lake Superior. After the ceremony, a beatiful rainbow appeared in the sky. It was truly a lovely day. God has been very good in bringing these two people together.
It was a very long way for our family to travel, but it was worth every minute of time in order to be there and share in their joy.

Here is Scott with his beautiful bride, Kim.

Max and Lily had a great time celebrating!!

Gabbie (12) and Will (almost 10) are seeming so grown up now days. They had so much fun seeing their uncle get married. Also, they are pretty excited about their new "Ahnt" (in Minnesota, they don't say "aunt", they say "ahnt"....yes, a bit confusing, but we are working on it!)

On Fire!