Dad the Grad

On Saturday after five years of toil, Josh finally graduated with his Master's in Christian Education from seminary. Here are a few pictures of the event.


Here is one of the few photos of Josh actually wearing his robe although he is not yet wearing his "Master's Hood"


This is graduation chapel which happened last Friday. It was held in a decent sized church which was only a five minute drive from our house. They had this so they could take care of all the things they don't have time to do during the actual graduation ceremony.


This is a neat tradition. The faculty (note all their "Doctorate Hoods") come around all the graduates, lay hands on them and pray for them. Josh happened to be at the end of the row so actually had hands laid on him!


On Friday evening on campus they have a BBQ dinner for the graduates and their families along with rides and games for children. I actually had several pictures of this, but this is the only one that my photo hosting site would save for me. The rest were too big or something. Lydia rode this pony and had a great time, but Sophia wanting nothing to do with it!


The actual graduation ceremony on Saturday. You can see Josh in the lower center filing into the GIGANTIC church auditorium behind a blonde girl. This church probably holds 5000 people at a time and boasts a membership of 20,000!


I just took this shot to give you an idea what we were looking at the whole time. There is a giant screen so you can see what's going on more clearly. The staff and faculty of the seminary are sitting in the choir loft. The graduates are sitting in the front rows. You see words on the big screen because we were singing a hymn.


Here's Josh filing up to get his degree. He's fourth in line behind the speaker at the microphone. Also he's still directly behind the blonde. If she hadn't sat next to him I don't know how we would have picked him out!



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Easter Dresses and Cowboy Boots

Here's the girls in their matching Easter dresses.


My goodness, Lydia looks older in this one. You can tell she'll be a real beauty in a few years. Better start building barbed wire fences to keep the boys away!


Lydia is just about choking Sophia to keep her still.


Lydia loves her new pink cowboy boots. She wears them with everything!





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Older oldies

I have noticed of late that I haven't been satisfied with my "oldies" listening experience. I often tune into the local oldies station and I find I don't like the mix of music at all. I really couldn't put my finger on the problem and figured it was just a lousy station. That is, until last night. I rarely listen to music unless I'm alone, but Josh had the radio on and since he didn't care, I changed it to the oldies station. To my delight, I thoroughly enjoyed the music they were playing and commented to Josh that I hadn't heard some of the songs in years. Then the DJ came on and said "I hope you're all enjoying 'Way Back Wednesday' where we only play 50's and early 60's music." Eureka! I had the answer to my problem. Oldies stations aren't playing as old of music anymore! They mostly just play the crooning whiners of the 70's and to my utter horror they are even dipping into the early 80's. The major oldie bands who played in the 60's still get air-time (Beatles, Rolling Stones) because everyone would notice their absence, but that's about it. 50's and early 60's music is so upbeat and fun! I was getting sick of listening to the 70's whiners and thrilled to hear the boppin' 50's again. I wish I could find an oldies station that only played 50's and 60's music. Anybody know of one?

C'mon baby! Let's do the twist!

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Diaper Free!!! (Well at least one kid is)

The day has finally come! Lydia is officially Diaper Free! She has been daytime potty trained for several months now, but in the last two nights we finally gave up diapers and she has done great! We decided this is just the right time because The pajamas she was wearing when it was cold outside had to be completely unzipped and removed in order to go potty. Now that it is warm her pajamas are easy for her to take care of when she needs to go potty. Previous to the last two nights without diapers, she had been keeping her diaper dry every night for almost three weeks!

I can't celebrate too much, though. Sophia will be two in June and that means I have to start the whole cycle over again. *sigh*

Here's a couple darling pictures of them in their warm pink pajamas.






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HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDMA!!

Today, April 18, is Josh's mom's birthday. We hope you have a wonderful day! Thanks for being a great Mom, Mom-in-law, and Grandma!

The girls decided to have their own celebration and let her see the pictures. Some of the pictures we used flash and some we didn't. Sorry about some of the really bad red-eye!

The girl's made their own party hats. Also they have balloons but you can mostly only see the ribbons hanging down from them next to the girls.

Mom makes quick hat adjustment not knowing Dad was ready to snap pictures! Note there is already chocolate frosting on Sophia's face.


Red-eye and Lydia's homemade hat.


Lydia hamming it up with the cake.


Hats off to Grandma!


See how Sophia's eyeing that cake?


Just cute.


Sophia sees Lydia sneaking a taste.


Now it's a free-for-all on the cake!


Yum!


I'll have some more, thanks.


And some more.


Caught you!


Tastes good!



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Homeschool Families

We're not a homeschool family, at least not yet, but both Josh and I were homeschooled growing up. I found this very funny video highlighting some great homeschool stereotypes. Enjoy!



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Sophia and Friends

Today is Friday so I worked in Sophia's classroom. As you can tell these pictures are much more candid then the ones of Lydia's room because it's almost impossible to get all these kids to look at you at the same time--unless of course they're all strapped down!

Here is Sophia in the upper left hand corner. We are strapping the kids into a 6-seater stroller called a Bye-bye Buggy. You can only see four of the kids in this picture though.



Here are all but two of the kids. We actually had 12 but two were being so grumpy we put them in a double stroller by themselves so they wouldn't bother all the other kids.



Sophia is playing in a rocking chair. She was actually looking right at me and smiling until the camera took the picture.



The kids are all looking at and trying to catch bubbles but I don't think you can see any bubbles in this picture.



Finally Sophia is off the chair and grabbing at bubbles with the other kids.



Where's Sophia?



There she is!





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