Our Family over the Years....

I thought it would be interesting to do a post of our family photo's from the past 16 years! :)

This was taken Easter 1998, about a month or so after I found out I was pregnant with Daniel. Dan's whole family was together for pictures and we got one of just the two of us! :)

December 1999- Danny was 1 year old.

I guess we didn't get any family pictures taken when Tamara was a baby. 

This was taken sometime in spring 2003, I think, My entire family gathered at my brother Lynn's house and the photographer set up in their living room.

This was our family proof. I don't think I actually ordered any prints.

Late Fall of 2003, Blossom Hollinger took this one.....

Danny was almost 5 and Tamara almost 3.

Family pictures at Sears in 2004, before we moved to Florida.

 In 2005, our first winter in Florida, we just did a picture of the children.

2006 St. George Island

Taken by Marilyn Martin :)

2007

Augusta, GA

Taken by Dan's sister Miriam! :)

2008

Took the children's pictures in Blountstown

2009

Sam and Trina were here to visit. I took pictures for them and they took some for us! :)

2010

Pictures taken at the Pioneer Settlement in Blountstown, by Jennifer Bates.

Dan was still recovering from hernia surgery. :) It was not the most pleasant photo shoot for him!

2011

Taken by Michelle Yoder at Thistledew Farm in Clarksville.

2012

Taken by Jennifer Bates in a cotton field beside our church.

2013

Taken by my nephew's wife, Vironica Horst at Mexico Beach.

 2014

Taken by my friend Aleshia Keene in Grand Ridge, FL.
Danny will be 16 on Dec. 3 and Tamara 14 on Jan. 2!!

Looking through these pictures, I feel so blessed! So many good memories and big changes took place in our lives. Sometimes, when the kids were little and nights were short, I wished for this time of my life. Now it's here, and while I enjoy it immensely, I am seeing that it is going to be gone so fast! It doesn't seem real that I have a son who is about to turn 16 and a lovely daughter who is going through some of the same struggles I did as a teen. I only pray that God will use me during this crucial time to build my children up and make memories that they will be proud to remember as they grow older and eventually start families of their own!!

God has given us a great responsibility and I want to do my best with the years I have left. Not looking back at the mistakes we made along the way, but looking forward to the future we have together....here on this earth, and later in heaven, I pray!!

Deuteronomy 6:6-9 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.  You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.  You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

John 16:21 When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.

A poem I love! :) You know children (and adults, too) can be the master of excuses......

“I cannot go to school today"
Said little Peggy Ann McKay.
"I have the measles and the mumps,
A gash, a rash and purple bumps.

My mouth is wet, my throat is dry.
I'm going blind in my right eye.
My tonsils are as big as rocks,
I've counted sixteen chicken pox.

And there's one more - that's seventeen,
And don't you think my face looks green?
My leg is cut, my eyes are blue,
It might be the instamatic flu.

I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke,
I'm sure that my left leg is broke.
My hip hurts when I move my chin,
My belly button's caving in.

My back is wrenched, my ankle's sprained,
My 'pendix pains each time it rains.
My toes are cold, my toes are numb,
I have a sliver in my thumb.

My neck is stiff, my voice is weak,
I hardly whisper when I speak.
My tongue is filling up my mouth,
I think my hair is falling out.

My elbow's bent, my spine ain't straight,
My temperature is one-o-eight.
My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear,
There's a hole inside my ear.

I have a hangnail, and my heart is ...
What? What's that? What's that you say?
You say today is .............. Saturday?
G'bye, I'm going out to play!” 
― Shel Silverstein