So...She's Her Own Stylist Now

Jess woke up this morning, saw Annika, and thought, "She looks a little different." After blaming it on lack of sleep, we found some of Annika's hair in her desk drawer next to a pair of scissors. Last night, instead of sleeping, Annika decided to give herself a bang trim. Amazingly, she did a great job. It was pretty straight and not too short. She just saved us $15 from a trim, but we're hoping this is a one-time burst of hair creativity. Of course, with her, we just never know! (She wasn't too thrilled about getting her picture taken - I had to bribe her with chocolate!)

Daddy's Little Helpers

It been a LONG time since I washed the cars. Even though we pretty much always have good weather for washing cars around here, with three months of pollen blooms, it seems kind of a like a lost cause. Well, I decided to wash them on Saturday, and to my happy surprise, Annika and Sam wanted to help and were generally helpful. We cleaned the minivan and car in about an hour and had a pretty good time doing so. We even waxed them. (Grandpa Jim is smiling as he reads this!) It's nice to have the kids at a point where they are at least mildly interested in helping out with gardening, yard work, cleaning, etc. Maybe we'll be able to get them into good work shape yet! (The last picture is of Elliot being too lazy to wash the car. He owes me. Can't believe he chose playing over cleaning...)

May Day

Jess likes May Day, and so for the past two years, she and Annika have given flowers to our neighbors on May 1. It's fun for a couple of reasons. First, the neighbors get a kick out of getting the flowers, and, second, we have so many things in bloom around here from March through May that we don't have a hard time picking out blooms. The first picture below is from May Day 2008. The bottom picture is from this year. Kids grow too stinkin' fast.

The Great Outdoors

We had a quick family visit from Trevor, Daphne, and Quentin this past week. We took them to the driftwood beach on Jekyll Island one morning, and we all enjoyed hanging out on the beach, climbing the wood, and marveling at how stunning the scenery is. The kids enjoyed seeing enjoyed each other, and we had a great time seeing family.

Annika and the Woods

As usual, we have some catching up to do. I'm hoping to put up a new post each day for the next few days to give you a sense of what we've been up to - so stay tuned!

Annika and Troy went on a family retreat with the church last weekend. It was Annika's first time "camping out" - and by camping out I mean staying in an air conditioned cabin with showers. She loved it all. She loved hiking through the woods - we probably put in 4-5 miles of hiking on Saturday morning. She loved playing games. She loved seeing wildlife. The only thing we didn't really like were the millions of mosquitoes that were enjoying the wet and warm weather of southeastern Georgia. The pictures below are from one of our hikes. The first is at the low ropes course, and the second is by a lake that is really close to the Savannah River.

Sam is Two!

We're still kind of in a state of shock, but Sam has just turned two. We've really enjoyed his first two years - most of which have been spent on St. Simons. (When we moved here, he was three months old! It's hard to believe that Elliot is already older now than Sam was when we arrived.)

We had a nice, relaxed day for his birthday, with some friends coming over for some dirt cake in the evening. Everyone got a kick out of Jess' creative use of a truck for the dirt cake. (We just had to keep Sam from dumping the cake out of the back of the truck!) Here are a few pictures of the birthday festivities.

Resurrection (of Blogging)

We've made it to the other side of Easter, and so it's time to give you a quick update on how things have been going (at least in pictures). We had a busy but wonderful Easter. It's a bit strange to celebrate Easter when it's such a big work day for a pastor. Troy was out the door by 6:00 a.m. to help lead a community sunrise service. That meant that he missed the kids getting their Easter baskets (sniff). Jess got all three kids to the church so that she could run the three nurseries she set up for today. Church was followed by an Easter egg hunt, so the kids had a blast grabbing as many eggs as they could. This could have been an awful day because of how much was going on, but - God be praised - it was really great. Enjoy the pictures.