we're goin to the zoo zoo zoo...

as we began kira and gray just hopped up and sat here and smiled as if to say, someone take our picture, luckily I wasn't very far and didn't miss this keeper
I love this picture! I wish it could be my Christmas card. Now granted all of the children in it are not mine and even one that is isn't even looking at the camera but still It makes me want to go back every year to recreate this picture I just love it

just for fun

here are the girls comparing a humans vertebrae to a giraffes, cool

hooray for the new braces!

this one makes me smile

here is gray hanging over the edge which would have dropped him right in to an animal cage yep but he said "hey mom come here I have a great idea for a picture" so I snapped very quickly and after he was down advised him that it probably wasn't a great risk to take for a picture. His guardian angel must be exhausted

cousins

cousins

cousins.

you get the idea

oh boy

we had a lot of fun on this giant frog

and if you could see right under Gairettes feet is a sign that reads " do not climb on sculpture" oops you can't see that when you are 4 feet back taking 11 pictures!

getting weary

this was my favorite part of the whole day seeing how the kids measured up to a bear

love this one as well. if you have 7 kids you should go and take a family picture here

never to far apart ,

some fun with family

my grampa got to see Jesus this week and that means we got to see our family. Infact our intire family, here on earth, were together even if it was for only 2 days we loved every minute together here are a few highlights
Jenna told Dave " I know yots of yilly faces" so he showed them a new one, the one where you put both fingers up your nose- good one Dave!
I'll tell you what this huge pot was the most popular toy all night. They made stew, cookies hot tea, nice hats, music and here is a jenna soup who knew ?

grammas little shadow

now we were all worried to let these two be together because of, well, they are both WILD,
we were so wrong! they were so calm cute and quiet, It's absolutely true!
I guess it's because they understand each other and none of us really do.
yummy leftovers

"sames" this is so awesome because I can remember dressing "sames" with erin, love it!
silly or yilly depending who you talk to the perfect end, a game of cards ah good times.

It's just that simple

live your life sold out to Christ and hundreds of lives will be changed.

it's a tradition

we went down to the chicago marathon and we ran in to Colby first. Mr. important with his media credentials, he was filming the race super cool!
David got a promotion this year to the 2 minute elite car22 years of volunteering paying off

this year Luke rode with David which fun and they even matched outfits, ahh.

we met up with the Strom 3 for a day full of fun. we prayed in the morning that our grandpa would "finish his race" before this race was over and while standing at this fence we got the call " grampa's is heaven" we were celebrating together praising God . Courtney and I were so blessed to have been together right at that moment. we stopped to take a picture to always remember that moment together, that pic will be on Courts blog. then a photographer stopped to take pic's of jackson to bad we didn't ask him who he worked for our mind wasn't in it just then.

the boys kept busy



this right in the middle of the city and oh it smelled so good!
no marathon would be complete without bunny ears

when I asked the boys to leave to move to another spot caleb asked "but will there be dirt there?" oh the worries of a 3 year old. here we are we found more dirt!
finally we all assembled at the finish line together
perks for wearing crocs
sweet hats

Chris let liv keep his bell to continue cheering and how cool is it that it has the date grampa finished his race stamped right on it
more dirt
oh man as we were walking back we found this cool truck spraying mist all the way across the street. David stopped to look at chicago fire dept's toy sighed and said " oh I love this city!"
we made this sign for our favorite race finisher of the day! He finished well!

another Chicago marathon in the books