Jade's first birthday pics...

Jade will turn one on May 10, but she got her pics taken a little bit early.


The cake was especially a hit. Isn't she so cute?

Zoo time....

The weather has been so great, so we have already taken a couple of trips to the zoo. Ashley wanted to bring a friend, and I wanted a friend, so we took the neighbor girl for Ashley and I convinced Rhoda and Elizabeth to go. :-)

The trees are beautiful right now. That is one thing that I definitely love about Cincinnati. They have so many beautiful flowering trees.

Riley really isn't cross eyed, not sure why she looks like she is in these pics. LOL This is the one and only picture of baby Brooke. She didn't really care all that much about the animals at this point, so she mostly stayed in the stroller.

And here are two very tired little girls after a good afternoon at the zoo.

Maria at 7 months!!!

Mary got Maria's pics taken this weekend. She is changing so much. She still looks a lot like her Daddy though. She is not fond of strangers at all. As soon as the photographer got in her face, she started crying so I consider this pic a miracle. It is the only good one of 5 pics that they took. She definitely gave them a hard time. But, this one is pretty cute, so I thought I would share. :-)

Volleyball stuff

We had our volleyball regionals which meant that we stayed the night in Columbus. We went to dinner at the Elevator and had our steaks brought out on a steaming rock and then the rock cooked our steaks right in front of us. Interesting....


Here is most of the team without our power hitter!



Here we all are. From Left to right--MO (our strong hitter), Carissa (middle) Leah (outside), Andrea (off side), Laura (middle), and Myself (setter) It was a great tourney which we should have won. We beat the first and second place teams once each earlier in the day, and we had a game and a half on the first place team in the semi finals when we just let go and lost it all!!! UGH. But it was a good day and we did a lot better than I thought we would, so it was a lot of fun.

Thanks to some great friends.....

I don't know about everyone else but I have been very blessed with some very good friends throughout my lifetime. I have always gravitated towards having a couple of close friends rather than a bunch of not so close friends. I was told once by someone in authority that I needed to expand my friendship base and I kind of laughed at him. You see, he just didn't understand that the friends that I had would last a lifetime. When I was a senior in high school a friend of mine who had already run the college gauntlet, gave me some really great advice. She told me that if I chose well, the friends I made in college were going to be the friends I would keep for life. She was so correct! Twelve years ago, I walked onto GBS campus VERY reluctantly. It was not where I wanted to be, but it was where I felt I needed to be. And just like that, I became friends with a young lady named, Teresa. Teresa was my guidance counselor through the many pitfalls of GBS life. For those of you that know me, you know that my personality does not lend itself very well, to following rules that make absolutely no sense to me. But thankfully, Teresa was there to help me with my frustration and to remind me that this or that was a rule and I needed to be careful. When Teresa was in school, I made the Deans list, :-) When she wasn't, I didn't. I was able to sort of repay her a couple of years ago, when she ran into some hard times, and it felt so good to be there for her in her time of need. Now, she has unfortunately (for me--not her) up and moved away from me, to be with her man. I am so happy that she is happy and pray that God will continue to bless her in life. But, one thing I know, no matter how far away she moves or how long it is in between times that we talk, we will always be the best of friends. Love ya, T!




Then a semester later, another girl shows up. I really didn't think she and I would hit it off. I thought she was a totally different girl than she was. But, when she started dating one of my really good guy friends we started hanging out more and I realized I had gotten her all wrong. And now 12 years later, she is the best friend that anyone could ever ask for. I wish I could explain how much Rhoda means to me. She has been through so much in the last couple of years. One of the most difficult things that I have ever seen, is watching Rhoda slowly but surely lose her mother. I have to say, I can't imagine life without my mother and Rhoda lives it every day. She loved her mother so much and her mom fought the fight so hard for her kids. Not for herself, but because she knew her kids didn't want to let her go. And then I watched my best friend get up at her mother's funeral and belt out the songs her mom loved so much so calmly and with so much peace, and I knew that she was going to be okay. Rhoda is a caretaker, and a natural born mother and she doesn't mind putting it into use. She doesn't just listen and throw out empty advice, instead, she takes my heartache or my troubles and she makes it her heartache and her troubles. I know that she hurts when I hurt and that is the best kind of friend that a person could have. There is nothing worse than pouring your heart out to someone and knowing that they just don't get it. She doesn't tell me what I want to hear, she tells me what I need to hear, but with such gentleness, it takes most of the sting out of it. In the last couple of months I have been struggling, and I have leaned on Rhoda pretty hard, and she has been there for me every step of the way. I was kind of feeling sorry for myself the other night and I really believe that God brought my friends to mind and helped me realize how truly blessed I am. So I felt the need to be a bit open with my thankfulness for such great friends. Thanks, Rhoda for being the one person that I can tell anything to, and trust you with it 100%. Thanks for being there for me and helping to keep me on the straight and narrow. Love ya girl!

For those of you out there, who have that friend--you know the one--why don't you make it a point to let them know how special they are. Sometimes we get so caught up in the normality of life that we forget how truly special these people are to us, until something happens and we need their support. Don't let their friendship go unnoticed. :-)

Another slight change....

Here is my before and after pics. Not sure yet whether I like the change or not, but stuck with it for now! :-)

Catching up!!!!

I haven't had the time to post in a while, so I thought I would try and put a bunch of pics up to show what I have been up to. Maria is finally getting a bit bigger. She is really long, but really petite. She is very shy and is not really up to having anyone hold her other than her mom and dad......wahhh! So poor aunt Holly doesn't get too great of bonding time with her. Her mom says that she is a daddy's girl, and Ryan loves every minute of it. :-)

I know that there are some of you out there who are curious to see Ryan's step kids. Its pretty neat to see him with them, because they love him a lot. This is the middle one, Isabelle. She is the "quiet" one. I think she just turned 5.



This is the youngest one, Kasey. She is 3 going on 4 and a fireball. If you just met her, she probably wouldn't even meet your eyes, but once she gets to know you--watch out! :-)



And this is the oldest--Kristina. I think she is 7, and she is a great big sister to her sisters. All in all they are a crazy trio when they are together, and lots of fun.



Kasey is always asking to go to my house with me to see my cat. She also is always trying to get ahold of Kaelah's flip flops in my car. She loves them!



Liss and Jade came down to visit for a week. Poor Jade got sick again. She was so sick, and therefore quite miserable. But I managed to get a couple of pics anyway.


She loved her Uncle Ryan. And I thought this pic was pretty cute.


She also had a love/hate relationship with my cat Hunter. I had to post this pic, since Hunter so kindly smiled for it.... ;-)


Here is all of Ryan and Mary's kids. Isabelle, Kasey, Maria, and Kristina


Jade modeling an outfit my mom got her. She's so cute!


Jade's Easter outfit. What you maybe can't see is that it has easter bunnies smocked on it. Very sweet.


When I was home recently I had a wedding to attend and my cousins whom I don't get to see half as much as I like to, were there as well. So we decided it was a great time to hang out. So we all went bowling in our wedding clothes. Really cute with the bowling shoes....


As you can see, we had a blast and hopefully we can do it again soon. So that is what I have been up to in a nutshell for the last month. A lot of changes have been happening and for those of you who know me, you know that I have a hard time with change, but things have been going well, so I am thankful for that. My new job is working out quite well, and the family is really nice, so that is a real answer to prayer.