Sheep

Last night at church we had a kids' Christmas program. Bekah & Joey were sheep. It was the first time they were part of a program, so I was very excited to see it. They did great!

Christmas Tree

A cute little slimy reindeer
That's Ryan hanging onto my leg as I take pictures... hence the reason the picture with Tim & Bekah is kind of crooked.


So we got our Christmas tree last weekend and decorated it this weekend. We bought a HUGE tree. I'm not sure how that happened. It was raining and cold... we looked at a bunch and I think when we saw how pretty this one is, we forgot about our 8 foot ceilings. Tim cut about a foot off of the top and 6 inches off of the bottom... and you can see in the picture with Joey where we scraped the ceiling putting it up. Hmm... must try to do better next year... but it is really pretty.

Happy Late Thanksgiving

It's been a while since I posted. Here's a picture from my Thanksgiving. This is all of my cousins' kids. 17 under 14. Quite impressive!

Each year we gather around my Aunt Patrice's piano and Tim plays while we all sing Christmas carols. We're not as musical as the Prianos, but it's still a good time.

My sister was trying to take a nice picture of us together. Yeah... I didn't know this was going on. Silly Tim. We did end up getting one nice one...

Tim's in the Paper!

Tim's mom saw an article in the paper a while ago about doing stories about people with interesting jobs, so she emailed them about Tim's job. They did a story on him and today it was in the paper. So cool. If you'd like to see the article, click here. Also, there's a great slideshow that goes along with the article. To see the slideshow, click on the link on the right-hand side of the article.

Happy Halloween!!

We had quite a fun night trick-or-treating tonight. We went to the grandparents', great-grandparents' and uncle's house. Bekah, who is most always very shy, was very outgoing and happy to talk to anyone willing to give her candy. Joey did okay at first, but he didn't nap today, so by the end of the night, he was a not-quite-so-bouncy Tigger. Ryan had an okay time too. That first picture pretty much sums up the feelings of the night.

We're Off!

The kids and I are leaving in about an hour for our semi-annual pilgrimage (pun intended) to see my sister. I'm sure I'll return with plenty of cousin stories to share!

Pumpkin Patch

We went to a pumpkin patch this past weekend. It's actually just a church with pumpkins in the front yard, but the kids think it's wonderful. Tim had the day off which has been a rarity lately, so we all really enjoyed our time as a family.

Long time, no post

Sorry for the hiatus. We've been keeping busy, that's for sure!

A few weeks ago my sister Andrea came to visit with her 4 kids. We took them to the Pittsburgh Zoo, which is fantastic. 2 adults, 7 kids. It was quite a day! My sister blogged about it already. If you'd like to read about it, click here.

30th Anniversary

Today is my in-law's 30th anniversary! We had a party yesterday to celebrate. What a great example they are to us & their other kids of a loving marriage.

You can do it. We can help.

Uncle Danny got these Home Depot aprons for Bekah & Joey. They wore them for hours. They LOVE Uncle Danny. He plays with them a lot and is generally just a fun guy.

Let's Go Pens!

Today is the Penguin's first home preseason game. Tim has been so excited for the beginning of the season. That picture is from Ryan's first Penguin game last February.

(In case some of you don't know, Tim is the official organist for the Pittsburgh Penguins.)

The Shirt

So we have this shirt that all 4 of the Pilgrim grandsons have worn. Ryan wore it for the first time this past weekend, so I guess he's officially "in". ;-)

We have taken each child's picture in the shirt with Tim who is wearing a similar shirt. Oddly enough, Tim really doesn't like his version of the shirt, so the only time he wears it anymore is for the picture.

Unfortunately, I can't find the picture of Tim & Joey together digitally, but I did find one of Joey in the shirt, sitting with Rebekah, so that'll do for now.

Ryan & Tim - September 2007

Bekah & Joey - January 2006

Daniel & Uncle Tim (before Lasik) - Winter 2004

Jay & Uncle Tim (sorry about the half-closed eyes on Tim, but in the other picture, Jay was looking at Tim, so you couldn't see his face) - Spring 2003

Hello, Welcome to My House!

My mom taught my kids to say that. :-) This past weekend we installed a new front door on our house. It had been a long time coming. We still have to put up the trim and paint the door, but I think it looks pretty nice! As with every improvement project at our house, it didn't go as smoothly as possible, but we got it in eventually.

Field of Dreams

Tim turns 28 on Wednesday, September 12. Today we had a family party for him. We did a "Field of Dreams" theme. Above is the invitation I sent out. I'm such a dork. hehe.

This afternoon a bunch of the guys went and played baseball for a little while, then came back here for dinner. I made baseball park themed foods - nachos (actually taco salad), French fries, pretzels (made from bread stick dough), cotton candy (whipped cream with pineapple tidbits & blue jello mixed in), hot dogs (pigs in a blanket), and lemonade. We also had chocolate covered pretzel "bats" and popcorn, peanuts & cracker jacks for during the movie.

However, I must say that the best part, and Tim's favorite part, was the cake. I made a 2 layer cookie cake with marshmallows in between layers. He told me he wanted a baseball field cake every year :-)

One Man's Trash...

Last night on my way home from grocery shopping, I saw this car in a neighbor's garbage, so I stopped, threw it in the car, and went home. Joey discovered it this morning - he's thrilled. He's having so much fun with the car - though he hasn't quite figured out the correlation between steering and direction. We'll keep working on it.


And when it's not his turn, he's completely happy to help Bekah by either pushing her around or inspecting the car to make sure every thing is working correctly. Guess he got some of his Grampy's genes.

P(r)iano Lessons

Anyone who has met the Priano family knows that they are very musical. Here's a picture of Bekah having a "piano lesson" with her Daddy. For being not quite 2 1/2, she does pretty well with Chopsticks. Watch out, Uncle Jonny - you're going to have a challenger in a couple years ;-)

On the go

Ryan is now 7 months. He's recently started becoming VERY mobile. Here's a picture of him from a few minutes ago when he climbed up to standing at the kids' trampoline. Not that we don't already have our hands full, but with him now moving it's going to be a circus around here!

Wheeee

This is another picture from Blast from the Past. They set up plywood for summer sledding. So fun! Here's a picture of Joey sledding with his Grandpap. Looks like Grandpap was having a good time too!

Blast from the Past

This past weekend, the kids & I went to a kids' carnival type thing at Tim's brother's church called "Blast from the Past". It was SO much fun. They played games, did crafts, listened to Uncle Danny sing, played with Aunt Laura, and so much more. The highlight for me was watching Joey ride a pony. Despite his rather serious look in this picture, he really enjoyed it. Bekah wouldn't get on, but in her defense, she did get rather harshly bludgeoned by an angry goat.

Smile!

Ryan's first tooth poked through today (his bottom left, fyi). Here's a picture of my sweet little guy from June. I would post a new picture of him, but he currently has a pretty nasty cold, so I figured one without snot would be nicer. Despite being sick, Ryan is still such a sweet boy. He's looking more and more like his daddy every day.

Eeeee You're Cute!

This is my sister, Andrea Stange (with Ryan a few months ago). She's wonderful and beautiful and smart and good at EVERYTHING. Best of all, she posts comments on my blog. Love you, Andi.

She has a blog too. Click HERE to see it.

Prianos & Fentons

We went to camp with some friends of ours, Tim & Tamim Fenton and their kids Karis (almost 4), Kelcie (2) & Makayla (7 months). Needless to say, with all our kids together we had quite the group. My kids really enjoyed spending time with the Fenton kids. Yesterday while I was shopping, Joey started asking me where Kelcie was. Unfortunately, they live in Erie, so we don't get to see them too often. We hope to spend many more years together at family camp with them.

Paint Ball

Tim had the "privilege" of playing paint ball while at camp. He had never played before, and that coupled with a bad cold made it rather exhausting for him... not to mention it was over 90 degrees that day. Despite all that, in the second game he captured the flag and got it within 10 feet of winning before getting shot by a member of his own team. His reward for playing so well is several long-lasting welts. No pain, no gain, I guess.

Here he is (on the left) with Tim Fenton before the game started.

Water Slide

Here's Tim at the bottom of the water slide.

Camp

Camp was great! I hadn't been to Bethany since 1999, so I was really eager to get back and see all the changes and enjoy all it has to offer. Tim had never been there, so I thoroughly enjoyed showing him where I grew up. The staff was wonderful and really made things easier for us.

Joey really liked the pond (aka, big big pool). He even went down the 75' water slide 2 times with Tim. They added a blob this year. I don't have any pictures of it, unfortunately. Tim got blobbled by a rather sizable man and did 1 1/2 flips before hitting the water. Very impressive.

Stacking

Rebekah has recently started to like to stack things a lot... like obsessively. She did this while at my parents' house and I thought it was quite impressive. Those jars are slippery!

Shortly after Ryan was born, I was watching ESPN in the middle of the night and watched competitive cup stacking. Maybe while Joey is at the spelling bee we can get Bekah into cup stacking.

Baaaaa

Joey really liked the sheep. He kept sticking one finger into the pen to touch their noses. I was trying my best to warn him not to let the sheep bite his finger without making him scared of the sheep. It worked - he didn't get bit, and he spent a good part of his time at the fair trying to climb into the animal pens. Guess he wasn't scared.

Ryan's Pig Twin

This picture is a little blurry, but I wanted to post it because the pig in the picture has the same birthday as Ryan. I pasted his card in the corner of the picture. Notice - he's a blue ribbon pig. Must be a good day to be born. Way to go, Rosie.

We're Back!

We visited the Chautauqua County Fair last Friday with my parents.

Bekah was given this stuffed bird by some random guy while we were eating. She decided it would be nice if she shared her lemonade with the bird. I think this picture is just great... if you've spent much time with The Boo, you know it's not easy to get a picture of her smiling.

We're off!

We're going to Bethany Camp for family camp next week. The kids and I are leaving tomorrow morning to spend a couple days with my parents. Tomorrow afternoon we're going to the Chautauqua County Fair to see the farm animals (at the EIEIO house, as Bekah & Joey call it). I'm sure I'll have all kinds of fun stories and pictures to blog about when I get back.

Recently we've had the pleasure of attending a few of Tim's senior league hockey games. Tim plays with his dad, brother Danny, and a few other relatives. The kids LOVE watching his games (or perhaps just playing on the bleachers and yelling). Joey repeats "Go Daddy, Go Danny, Go Grandpap!" over and over and over. He now has a small hockey stick at home that he likes to play with, so I guess it won't be too long now before he's on the ice with them.

A few games ago, the kids' Great-Grandpap attended the game too. I cannot tell you just how much I love watching my kids with him. What a unique and special relationship for a kid to have (and I'm pretty sure Great-Grandpap enjoys it as well). I get choked up just thinking about how thankful I am to have married into a tight-knit family with such a respectable patriarch.

Here's the most recent picture of Ryan. He's now sitting unassisted and crawling rather well too. He's a very happy baby and smiles almost all the time - despite currently fighting with some pesky bottom teeth. His outfit in this picture is a hand-me-down from my sister's oldest son Jay. Jay wore this outfit in our wedding in 2002.

A few weeks ago, we built a playground in our backyard. Joey couldn't be happier. There's only one things he enjoys more than swinging - reading. The boy is nuts over books. He's recently started learning his letters. He recognizes about half of the alphabet now and learns things so quickly. He can also spell book. Maybe we should start preparing him for Scripps National Spelling Bee.

Where to start...

So I've been wanting to start a blog for a while. My kids do so many fun things these days that I feel if I write them down, perhaps they'll enjoy reading them when they've grown up.

This thought came to me a few months ago... we were on our way home from a family birthday party when I noticed that Bekah was praying to herself in her car seat. It was so precious. She was thanking God for each member of our family. What a sweet girl. That night when we got home, I asked her to show me how she prayed so I could take a picture of her.