A review of years past...

Starting this blog thing motivated me to finally do something that has needed to be done for awhile. We have a dinosaur of a computer upstairs, a Gateway that James and I bought in 1999. Our first computer, and we were so proud! The monitor literally takes up 1/3 of a good-sized desk, and the tower is about 2 feet tall and takes up an entire cabinet. You'd think with all that mass it would be extra speedy. Ha! It has every picture I had taken from 2003 (my first venture with a digital camera) to halfway through 2006. Basically every picture I had of Amelia, Shannon, and Avery as a baby. I've been leary of it biting the dust someday and making me very sad by losing all of my pictures. Last week I finally put them all on CD's and loaded them to my laptop. That was a project that took two entire afternoons. The old computer decided to act ugly a few times on top of being slow as molasses. Anyway, it's done, and I thought it would be fun to get some pictures of the progression of our lives over the past five years. One of these days I might get really adventuresome and find myself a scanner and put some pre-digital camera era ones on here. Here we go...

Here we are, before kids James and Corie at Christmas in 2002.I was about 10 weeks pregnant with Amelia at this point. Things were about to change at a rapid speed! I remember thinking it wasn't all bad to be pregnant over the two big eating holidays since I was too nauseous to partake in very much. Isn't James cute?

Here's me pregnant with Amelia, in May before she was born in July. That lovely maternity shirt made it through four pregnancies, though I only wore it about twice with this last one. Talk about threadbare!

Amelia Grace arrived July 21, 2003, 6 pounds 14 ounces. She was a tiny little thing and was alert from the start, like she didn't want to miss anything now that she was here.





Here she is (left)at three months old. She was always smiling, which is a good thing considering the beastly camera I had at the time had about a five second delay!


Personality really starts to blossom at six months (right). I was about 9 weeks pregnant with Shannon at this point.


Here she is on her first birthday. What a fun year that was!

Here's me toward the end of my pregnancy with Shannon.

Shannon James was born October 4, 2004, and weighed 8 pounds 9 ounces. He spent the first two weeks of his life sleeping, then suddenly awoke and joined the family. He's been wide open ever since!


Shannon at 3 months. I always had to work a little harder for a smile from him. The five second delay on the camera starts to get frustrating at this point. What a cutie! There was major craziness at home this year as I managed two babies, three phones (home line, cell phone, and camp line), and running the camp office out of our house until moving into the real office in April.



Here he is at 6 months old (right). He was a strong little booger, able to sit, do push ups from his belly, and was as stiff as a board to hold, like he constantly wanted to leap from your arms. He was a busy guy.
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This was also a big month for us at camp (April), when we held our first ever Open House for the public before camp opened in June.
Below is the staff that made the first summer ever of Strong Rock Camp happen!















Shannon at 9 months (left). He's been crawling for several weeks by this point, and learned to walk at 10 months.

Amelia turns two this month. Note the high heels. The infatuation with dressing up begins!
















Here's Shannon at a year old. He's demonstrating the results of his climbing skills, having gotten up into the chair by himself.

















This is our family Christmas card picture for 2005. The craziness of our lives continued with the sale of our house on Daybreak Road in December, then a move to a rental house in Clermont in January. Just two weeks into life at the rental house we learned I was expecting Avery.









Below is a collage of photos from the summer of 2006. This was a fun summer because we lived in Rockcreek cabin while camp was going on. James' mom Cherry (aka Mimi)came from Texas and spent nearly a month with us, and Grandma Himstedt (also from Texas) came for awhile too.


Here are the kids with their buddy Elliott Hicks.











Fun with Grandma Himstedt













Friends would come to visit us at camp during the summer since we tended to forget the outside world existed during June and July. Here are Amelia and Shannon with Bennett, Maggie, Ruth, and Lydia Davidson. Try getting a wagon load of preschoolers all looking at the camera and smiling! Impossible!








Four-wheelin' with Grandad (my dad) on a day when he could get away from work long enough to come visit.














Mimi and Grandmommy hanging out on the field during at evening activity.












Camp ended, we moved back to the rental house, and here I am just before leaving for the hospital to have Avery. He was born about 6 hours after this photo was taken. Don't I look like I'm having a good time? Note- Amelia's fashion sense continues to grow. The orange thing she is wearing is a "skort." She had figured out how to make it into a dress that went over one shoulder, and traipsed around the house in it nearly every day. Looks like she also had her swimsuit on under it that day, another favorite fashion item. When I couldn't convince her it wasn't suitable (or warm enough) for winter wear, I finally had to hide it.


Here he is! Avery Graham was born September 23, 2006, and weighed 8 pounds 14 ounces. He had a nice, noisy spot in the living room in a Pack N Play. Amelia and Shannon thought he was great.
















Here's our Christmas card photo for 2006. Avery is 3 months old. Check out the ever evolving hairstyles on me and James! (My hair went curly after having Avery. All by itself, with no help- or invitation- from me.)

Avery at 6 months (right). He was starting to sit by himself, and was a happy, smiley little guy!

At nine months he was on the move. Note all the bibs. He was a slobber monster. He still pretty much is at almost two years old.


















Here we are right before the camoflauge birthday party Shannon had requested for his third and Avery's first birthday party. Just a week after this I would find out that yes, I'm pregnant again!










I love this picture of the kids on Easter 2008. Amelia was a few months shy of five, Shannon was 3 1/2, and Avery was 18 months.











Is this looking familiar, or what? This was taken two days before Elizabeth was born. Church friends had a girls night out and shower for me at Chili's. Again, some serious hair-do progression...










Elizabeth Joy Himstedt arrived on June 5 at 11:04 AM, and weighed 8 pounds, 1 ounce. Check out that dark hair! Amelia had announced right after I found out I was pregnant (but before we told her) that she was getting a baby sister, and her name was Elizabeth.









Summer 2008 at camp was wonderful, busy, and blessed. It seemed to go very quickly. Here are Elizabeth and Amelia in August, which brings us up to the present! Elizabeth is a real sweetheart, and a big girl too. She outgrew her 0-3 month clothes at 2 months. She's following in big boy Avery's footsteps! She smiles a lot and is trying to get the hang of laughing.

Well, that was fun. Nothing like a photo time line to see how much can change in five years! Earlier today (on our 12th anniversary) I told James it sure would have been interesting to have been able to fast forward 12 years on our wedding day and see where we are now. We wouldn't have believed it! He said we might have run the other way. :) Nah, I don't think either of us would trade the life we have now for anything. Thank you, Lord!