Dear God, Today is My Birthday...
That is how Timothy began his prayer tonight at dinner...you know, just in case God had forgotten and wanted to give him an extra special blessing today =) In all seriousness, Timothy has had a great birthday. He got five dollars in the mail, some books and puzzles, a super soaker, and ice cream!

My dad had some meetings in Ohio, and he was able to drive over our way to spend a little time with us before heading back home to Tennessee. The kids were VERY excited to have Papa here! (So were we.)
I signed Timothy and myself up for the birthday club at Cold Stone Creamery. (Sign up and get free ice cream on your birthday.) So we had dinner and headed over to enjoy a birthday treat. As you can see, Timothy didn't want to let even one drop get away. It was delicious!
Well, that's all I have for tonight, I am tired and need to get some sleep!
-shannon

Summer Fun with Friends
We've been keeping busy lately out in the sun spending time with friends. In the picture to the left Madeline and Timothy are playing in the pool with our friends Kevin and Jenny's boys. Well, actually Madeline is protecting Timothy from the rapid fire of Drew's super soaker. This picture reminds me of the time I slid across the floor of the kitchen in front of my sister Heather telling mom that if she was going to spank Heather, she would have to spank me first...which she did =)


Here's a picture of our little friend Cora. Cora and Mindy spent the day with us on Tuesday of last week, and as you can see in the picture, Cora is ready for the pool. She hated it though! We had a little baby boat thingamajig and everything, but to no avail...she hated the water. You can see more pictures of Cora if you check out Kevin and Mindy's blog.

What Cora LOVED was our trampoline! She is starting to cruise along like big stuff, when she is able to hold onto furniture or any other stabilizing object, and the net around our trampoline provided just what she needed to make her way around with an occassional bounce. She giggled and giggled and smooshed her nose up to the net. It was too cute!

Something else we have done a lot of is taking bike rides up to the park. (We arranged a bicycle trade between Madeline and our little friend Olivia, and Madeline has since enjoyed our rides significantly more...just don't ask her about biking to Timothy's speech class on Monday!) Here are some pictures of the kids, as you can see, I finally talked Timothy into the big kid swings, and he loves them!




















Here are a couple pictures of Madeline with my friend Lisa's son AJ. We've been spending a lot of time with them this summer and have had a lot of fun together.





And here is one more picture of Madeline....she LOVES the pool! At least she used to love the pool. She is not feeling very well right now because she has contracted double ear infections. They started as swimmer's ear and have made it into her middle ear, so she is on antibiotics (oral and ear drops) and has sworn off the pool for good, or at least until she recovers and I persuade her that earplugs will prevent recurrence =)
Well, it's a big day for Timothy tomorrow.....FIVE YEARS OLD!!! I can't believe it. I took him to the doctor yesterday and we survived kindergarten shots. He was a real trooper and has been doing well today; I'm pretty sure he still loves me in spite of the fact that I subjected him to so much pain. We're going to head over to Ohio this weekend and down to Tennessee the following weekend, so I am sure we'll have plenty of birthday party pictures to share.

Until next time!

-shannon

VIB

YAY!!! Evidently I am a VIB (very important blogger) because as soon as I expressed frustration with being unable to post videos to my blog, blogger (who hosts my blog) added a video uploading feature that makes it easier to add video to your postings! So....below you will find Timothy's long awaited rendition of "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything." If you are wondering why he squirms about in his chair at times during the song, it is because that is what Larry the Cucumber does in his recliner when he is singing the song. While Timothy may not know all the words, he does have rhythm, and I think you'll find his remix to be quite an enjoyable one =)

I think video posts will make for some interesting additions, so keep checking back =)

-shannon

VIDEO =(

Well, I am having some trouble figuring out how to post video on the blog, but I do have a couple new pictures.

We picked up Madeline from camp last night and, not surprisingly, she had a blast! Here is a picture of her with some of the friends in her cabin. She took a disposable camera with her, so hopefully we'll get her pictures developed soon and I can share a couple of those with you. We'll see what kind of photographer my little girl is =)

Madeline enjoyed giving us the run down of everything she did during her busy two day camp experience. I'm sure if you ask her next time you see her, she'd be happy to give you the full report!

The kids also enjoyed some time in the pool with Michael when he got home from work. They kept fighting because they didn't want anyone to splash them so Michael invoked the policy "He who splashes gets dunked by Dad." Timothy didn't care for the new plan, but Madeline thought it was great and splashed Michael all the more. The problem for Timothy was that he just wouldn't learn....he didn't want to be dunked, but he sure didn't want to stop spashing either!

The kids and I took a bike ride up to the park today. Timothy rode in the trailer attached to the back of my bike and Madeline pedaled mightily on her much too small for her bike all the way there. We really need to get her another bike; she was completely exhausted by the time we made it there...those little wheels just don't get the job done very efficiently. We had fun though and made it all the way home without too much ordeal.

I hope you're enjoying your summer as much as we are!
-shannon

Summer Camp

I brought Madeline to summer camp this morning. Her first camp experience! The camp, run by our church, is called "maka maka" which means beloved friend in Hawaiian. It is only two days, one night, but she is very excited, to say the least. We packed her bags, including bright colored clothes for a luau tonight, a camera to take pictures of new friends, and a journal to record her memories.

Since Madeline is off on a new adventure, I thought I would crack down and start a new adventure of my own...blogging. I have several friends who blog, but I have just never made the time. I figured with kids as cute as mine it would be an injustice to not allow them some web time....so I've started my blog. Hopefully I will be able to update it frequently with pictures to keep our family in the loop. We'll see how it goes when the school year starts...ha!

Here are some pictures of the kids playing out in the sun during these first few weeks of summer. We got to go visit Mindy and Cora, so that was a treat, and they are loving the trampoline. Michael just got the pool up yesterday, so that will be nice for some of these hot days.

Timothy came home from dropping Madeline off at Praire Camp, and sat down to make some "notes." He was singing the whole time, and I thought it would be fun to record his renditions of Veggietales "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything" and the ABC song. I may be biting off more than I can chew posting video, but I'll see if I can figure out how to post that too =)

One more thing...I sent off my application for medical school last week. I submitted it to amcas, an organization who will submit it to all of the medical schools I choose to have it sent to. Starting June 21st amcas will have applications authenticated and begin sending them off. I selected 11 schools that will be receiving my application. If a school likes what they see, they will send me a secondary application with a new set of hoops to jump through, and if they like the way the secondary looks, they'll invite me for an interview. The whole process will take months, but I'd appreciate your prayers as I start on this new step in the journey!

Hope you enjoy the blog!

-shannon