Family Pictures 2012

I've yet to have the time to sit down and post these pictures...There are soooo many good ones and so I had to narrow it down a lot so my blog book wouldn't be 15 pages long from this one post:)...We had family pictures made on April 14th...Something we haven't done in many years...Kohen was actually just 6 mos old the last time we did this and I had been really wanting them done for awhile...My cousin is a DPS officer and doesn't get to home home too often, so when he said he would be here this particular weekend I knew this was our chance....But the problem was being only about 3 weeks out, I was worried about finding a photographer...BUT thankfully the amazing DeEdra of Photo[e]motion came through for me and was available for a Saturday morning photo session with a whole bunch of people....You know how men are and I honestly expected people to complain but absolutely no one did...Everyone was super happy to be there...The kids were great...Baby Cayden was awesome and DeEdra spent nearly 2 hours with us taking pictures...Sadly, my Papa's cancer diagnosis before these pictures probably put things into perspective for most of us...So I think they all knew this was something that we all wanted/needed to be done:)...Might be our last set of pictures with the whole group....And I LOVE, LOVE every single picture she got....

Seriously, how sweet are these two....Married 58 years this past May!

 My sister, Leslie, and her sweet husband Paul...

 My favorite sister!...

 Mom and her two girls

 What a blessing Mike has been to our family....And what a fighter he is....We all truly admire him

 Of course me and my sweetie...

 I bought a huge canvas of this one and it's up on our mantel in the living room

 My sweet kiddos

 My cousin, Kimberlie, and her husband Justin and their new baby--Cayden...

 She is so stinking cute

 4 generation picture...How neat:)

 Nana and Papa with their 3 great grandbabies

 Love this one:)

 They love their Aunt TT

And they think the world of Grammie

 My aunt Sandra and Uncle Denny....

 The whole group....

 All the girls

 And the boys

 another family shot

 My other cousin, Bryan and his sweet wife Lyndsea

 Kresee was in roly poly heaven...They were everywhere...She collected soooo many of them!

 Nana/Papa with their grandkids

 The cousins...Have the best memories with the 4 of us growing up together...

 Mom's side of the family...

Aunt Sandra's side of the family

So sweet...

 And my favorite picture of all the ones she took has to be this one of my Papa...We were all about to leave and DeEdra asked if I thought Papa might let her take a few of him...He did and actually smiled...I love it:)

Finally FIXED

A few weeks ago (after waiting patiently for a little over 2 mos), we finally got our roof replaced...They wanted 2-3 good days with no rain in the forecast...That never seemed to happen...But they came over at 8 am and left at 8 pm...There were a lot of workers, so I was glad they were trying to get it done in one day...Because the house looked like this!!

But we are as good as new...They had to take the whole left side off too...Didn't get pictures of that since that's where the truck and all their stuff was...Didn't want to get in their way....
I THINK we might be done...It's been an eventful 3 months of insurance and sending in receipts...

Humane Society

I've been taking the kids weekly out to the HS to donate some things...The first time we brought lots of old towels, a large container of peanut butter and a huge thing of bleach....Then another time we brought more peanut butter and some money to donate to a special dog named Champ...Kohen woke up on Monday morning and brought me his piggy bank..He started dumping out all his money and said he needed to give it to the doggies...I said well we have somewhere to go but we can talk about it later...Then I saw a picture of this sweet guy on the HS facebook page saying his leg was injured and needed $500 for a surgery...I showed Kohen his sweet face and told him the story...He immediately said "get my piggy bank"...What a sweet boy--melts my heart...So we headed out there the next day to give Champ $10 from Kohen's piggy bank and I added some to it...Champ did get his surgery and unfortunately had to have the leg amputated...Kohen was pretty sad about it...But then I showed him a video of Champ running around on 3 legs just one day after his surgery...What a sweet puppy that will still have a wonderful life.....

But today just he and I went back...I promised him that we could just go and leave Kresee at school one time so that we could really spend some time out there and play with the dogs...It was seriously 103 and super hot....We hydrated all morning!!...and got there about 1pm and stayed for 2 hours...We got all the small dogs out and let them run around the play area...We loved on each of them and gave them treats....

 Sissy is a sweet girl...Looks like a beagle/basset hound mix...Her owners just came and gave her up...Broke my heart to hear how often people do this...She is sooooo good and sooooo well behaved...I wish I could have taken her home:)

 After playing with the small dogs, we had to go get Daisy...Everytime we go out there, Daisy is the kid's favorite...She is so sweet and will just lean against the cage and they just love and pet her...So Kohen was super excited to get her out of the cage to play with her...She wasn't too great on a leash--haha...I just think she was so excited to be out of that cage as well...

 Don't know why this one is sideways...But she has the sweetest face....She is actually going through the PAWS for Greatness Training right now and will be eligible for adoption on July 21st...So we are hoping she finds a great home...

 Kohen and her played with this chew toy...He would throw it and she would bring it right back....

 Before we left, he wanted to get the little tiny pit pup back out to play with...He was so tired and hot though...

 He finally just went in the shade and laid down...I know he will find a great home b/c he is so stinking cute....

These experiences have been so great...I'm loving that he is developing such a loving heart for animals like Kerry and I both have....He still gets a little apprehensive with the bigger dogs, but I'm really hoping this helps his fear of dogs...He's made big steps of petting and wanting to be around them...I know he will continue to love going out there and volunteering and doing what we can...AND I do know eventually one day we will end up coming home with 2 or 3 of them!!!...But we keep telling Kohen that Hunter is 14 1/2 and Parker is 11 1/2...2 olders dogs probably wouldn't be too happy if we added another dog righ now:)....