School Pictures...

Both girls had their school pictures made. I wanted pictures that would match, so I chose the same pose and background for each of them. Unfortunately, since they were taken at different schools and more than likely different photographers, their backgrounds ended up not being quite the same color. This is Rachel's second grade picture and Rebekah's pre-K picture. Yeah, I know...Rachel has on her "fake" smile! :) Gotta love school photos to document all those stages we go through!

Falling Asleep at the Table

Had to share some cute videos of the girls with you. In these videos, Rachel is a few months past her second birthday and Rebekah is about one month away from turning two. We think they are cute because they are our kids! But also think it is cute because they are sitting around the same table, sitting in the same booster chair, both around the same age, eating the same dinner (chicken nuggets!) and falling asleep. Hope you enjoy them!

Saturday Photo Hunt - Music

Last year for Christmas, we purchased Guitar Hero World Tour for our Wii. The girls love it! Above is Rebekah playing the drums. This was from almost a year ago and I can't believe how much she has grown! And below, is Rachel, who could not wait to sing! The only problem was that the only song on there she knew the words to was the Star Spangled Banner. We heard the Star Spangled Banner many, MANY times! :)


We purchased this just in time for our big family Christmas at our house with all of my family. This turned out to be the best thing! All of the big kids spent the entire time in our bedroom playing with the band. They all had a great time and got along so well. We didn't hear any fighting or complaining the entire time! Here are some photos from that weekend.

Here are some of the boys, with Rachel watching from behind.

Here, a few of the big kids got in on the action!


Even Hannah wanted in on the action. She is my niece, who is autistic. She came up to Jon Paul and took the sticks out of his hand and started to play. It was such a fun time! My sister, Hannah's mom, has started a blog. If you have time, check her blog out here!

Braiding Hair...

For fun, I braided all of Rachel's hair for her. First we thought we would just take them out the next morning, but she ended up wearing them for two days! She wanted her friends at school to see the braids on Monday and then the curls/kinks on Tuesday. You know, the before and after looks! Here are some photos that I took on my iPhone. I think it took me one and a half hours to complete it!

Book Character Day

Both of the girls had Book Character Day at school. This is a way the school can allow the kids to "dress up" for Halloween, without calling it Halloween or costumes. Both of the girls decided they wanted to be the same character - Skippy Jon Jones! The girls love these books because they are funny, but more because that is their Daddy's name - Jon (Paul) Jones - and it is spelled like he spells his name! I made their costumes and here is how it turned out!







Rachel's school had a contest for the best costume, judged by the mayor of Cabot. Rachel won first place over all the second graders!!

Wordless Wednesday...

Rachel's Baptism...

Rachel asked Jesus to come into her heart on June 17th, 2009. In July, she attended our church's "I'm A Christian Now" class that helped her understand more about her decision, our church and explained what the Lord's Supper is all about. After she completed the class, we were able to schedule her baptism. This past Sunday, August 16th, Rachel followed our Lord's commands and was baptized at our church by our Children's Pastor, Ron Pierce.

We could not be more proud of Rachel and her decision to follow Christ. Seeing her be baptized was a moment we will never forget.

Something neat that our church does is to videotape your testimony. You could kind of hear it on the above video of her baptism. They show this video right before the baptism takes place. It is a public way of sharing with our church family your personal testimony. Being a performer, Rachel could not wait to have her testimony recorded. She thought it was neat to watch herself on the two big TV's in our sanctuary. Here is the video below so you can see what everyone else did.