What a blessing to us

Al has been working with uncle Gladdy and it is a blessing for us to have G at our house several times a week. Today I walked in on an exercise class Liv was the trainer with a strict training schedule for them all, so cute. The next day over they are planning to have stuffed animal day so wait and see how that turns out

just like the old days-kind of

we went for Sunday lunch at Russells it was a great time!
they wanted their own table (notice what gray is drinking) I told wendy that in 13 years I bet we will find them in the same spot. I hope I get that picture.

The Bulls loose- Sky wins (my pride)

we went to the Bulls game with Wendys students and the students here from China. It was really fun.
the best part of the night for me was when Skylar gave each of the Chinese students a red and white (bulls colors) friendship bracelet that he spent all day after school making

he has such a generous heart and my heart was glowing with pride

as the student's quickly put them on and even asked him how he made them so he could learn himself to which sky came home and found directions and cut string to make a learning kit to send with Wendy the next day.

only the big kids were lucky enough to come

I was just glad to be out of the house having fun

and FYI the UC's seats are very soft and cushy, bonus for me and my bum hip!

we couldn't resist taking our traditional picture

Grays 4 year pic's

even though gray spent his 4th birthday on the beach I figured that for this year a snow picture would be very appropriate! So here are some of the ones I took enjoy.

happy Martin Luther KIng jr. day

we love to celebrate every holiday and so we did today. Given my hip trouble I'm not to Mobile so we did a lot of sitting activities but even doing that with people you love is fun
if only you could hear these two laughing uncontrollably playing this ball game. They really are BEST buddies and love every minute they are together,

another tooth gone!

I just love the big space in that smile

some of our favorite babysitters

I just found these pic's, I didn't even know they took them this night.

can't get much better than this!

game night at grandma & grandpas

I gave the kids the camera to take pic's of the night, this is what I got.

our day with little A

it started off wearing helmets which is always a good idea when playing with gray
then she read him a story

and a little school

some self portraits

some make shift drumming

but then out came the real instruments

B wasn't to happy about that

then we enjoyed some time at Chicago's RV and boat show. They all were like little energiser bunnies hopping from one boat to the next we could hardly keep up

every time she got behind the wheel she said "I'll drive you to the Magic Kingdom" my girl!

I actually made them all stay on the same boat just for this picture not an easy task when there are about 200 boats to look at

WOW now that is some serious horse power!

then we hit the RVs which was even more fun

this was one of those deluxe RVs they loved the idea that these comfy seats had seat belts. A and gray said "we have dibs on these" as if they would really be traveling in it one day

and a yummy end ,wings for dinner. Ahh what and wonderful uselessly fun day.

Mt. Melrose is open for the season

Go Gators!

if you know us you know we are huge gator/ Tim Tebow fans so we had a party as we watched our team become #1. The only thing that would have made it any better is if our boy Chris could have been here with us to celebrate!

.50 cent night!

dinner at one of our faves R.J Grunts
and bonus Rachel joined us for the fun

then we went to zoo lights for the last night of the show. this was in the Gorilla house they got there own tree.

not the greatest pic but here we are watching the ice sculptors

now for those of us who hate ironing maybe you could put your iron to a new use...

WARNING after viewing these you will want to go to CPBC!

Christmas camp 2008 it began with us quickly meeting up with our camp friends and they all got together in the snow to build a snowman! what a great start, thanks to Kyle for helping out.
as you look on you will see all the fun activities we did, 1 st rock climbing this is Liv and our camp friend climbing

Gray and B which is so cool to see them climb together

here are the on lookers

I love this pic, B and a camp friend. they kept racing each other up it was quite exciting

A big thing happened for liv HER 1 st TOOTH came out !! it had been loose since before Christmas and Court kept working on it they decided to take a break from it and liv walked 3 steps away and the tooth just fell into her mouth, HOORAY!

luckily the tooth fairy does know where CPBC is. My little toothless maggie (that's what grandpa reggie always called us when we lost our teeth)

candle holder craft, fun

ready to sled. Sledding is actually the most popular activity at Christmas camp and happened several times each day but sledding pictures aren't that great

camp rented out the entire bowling alley (10 lanes) for camp so that was really fun

ALL the Rills got strikes even the little ones

making cookies

she one for the largest cookie

liv and kelly

and then the broom ball tournament began

notice who B is facing there

Colby gave liv some pointersthen she went over to assist Kyle in clearing the hole in the ice for Polar Bearing, she will end up getting a much closer look at that hole later on

me and J watching our team smash the competition

remember the pic of B getting Rick for Christmas well Erik patiently taught the boys to play and boy did they play for HOURS!!

LOVE IT! what is not in the picture is when G would stand on that chair next to Colby and go superman style on to the family pile

our last day of the year tradition here it is you may not believe what you are about to see but it is true! step 1 get go0d and heated up...(uncle Gladdy notice the lights around the kids necks perfect for polar bearing )

now she did go in up to her arm pits aah! she was the youngest person to ever polar bear at camp

until 15 minutes later when the 4 year old did it! My camera wouldn't focus fast enough this is after he was plunged you can tell by the water dripping off his smartwools

G only dipped once but liv ended up going 2 more times must be the viking in her

and here we are ringing in the new year. Sky had the idea to bring sparkling grape juice to go with our smarties (another new year tradition) so we invited our friends over and celebrated together

Happy new year

what a great way to begin our new year

sadly K started his new year with a fresh injury and liv was very sympathetic she wouldn't leave his side.but God is so good my kids were polar bearing right where he got hurt literally only several minutes apart. I thank God for sparing all my kids from seeing him in that much agony. My first praise of the year

once again the Jesus Freaks are NUMBER 1! yes we (really they ) didn't loose a single game and once again my Sky was MVP of the tournament having only 5 goals scored on him. YEAH TEAM

if you think this looks like an awesome time you are right. We hope that next year this family picture will be even more full with more of you who join us for the F-U-N

This is us feeling sad for poor kyle but also sad to leave one of our favorite places ever!