Ladies and Gentlemen! Boys and Girls!!

Here's Lyla performing the Alphabet (from her Leap Frog video "The Letter Factory"):

Pretty darn awesome, if you ask me.

Summer Fun with CRAAAAZZZZYYYYY Kids

Seriously. Emily, Ally, Lyla, Will, and Chloe are crazy. So much fun to have them all together in one place. A bit overwhelming at times but fun nonetheless.

Crazy Lyla!! (You can see the remnants of her poison ivy on her arms)

Photojournalist Emily capturing the craziness on film.

Will... uh, sure used to drool a lot.

Ok, so maybe Chloe didn't participate in the craziness as much as everyone else.

Woo woo! Super Ally!

Cheese!!!!

Love the combination of his shaggy hair, tired eyes, super smile, and dirty shirt. Pretty much sums up Will.

There wasn't a surface in this house that these kids didn't climb up on to play.

So much fun.

Summer Fun at Meijer Gardens

Catching up on all the photos from all our adventures this summer. This is from when Katherine's brother and family drove all the way up from Texas to spend a week with us.


Butterflies!! Hurray!!


Great times with our cousins, playing in the Great Lakes at Meijer Gardens.

Happy Birthday Aunt Anna!!!

My little sister Anna turns six today! Whoa! We can't wait to see her and the rest of the family next weekend at the annual Ring Family reunion. We'll have to be sure and sing Happy Birthday to Anna while we're there.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANNA!!!!!

Moving day.

We're moving to a new house today. The house is the same size (3 bedroom / 1.5 baths) but has a better layout (more spacious, especially the kitchen) and has a yard.

We weren't thinking about moving, in fact Katherine and I had recently had our annual conversation where we state that we're not doing anything major this year (and we all know how well we do at sticking to that... new jobs, new babies, moving, major life changes... we never listen to ourselves).

So we say "No big change this year!" And literally two days later Amy from our church sends us this message:

Good morning, Last night as I was thinking about my "old" house, the two of you came to mind. Forgive me if I'm being nosy or presumptuous. I thought at one time in conversation, you guys said that you rented a house in EGR. My house is empty as of tomorrow and will be available to buy, rent, or even a rent to own kind of thing. I don't know what you're interested in, or what your future plans are, but I thought I would share the information with you.

We both read it and had sort of the same reaction: "Interesting... but we're not looking to make any big changes." But we decided to look at it and once we did all of these frustrations with our current living situation surface (well, only two frustrations really: our kitchen is SMALL - uncomfortably small - and we have no outdoor space to sit in or let the kids play). This made us realize that Lyla's at an age where we can't keep her inside all summer, that she needs to be able to get outside and play (just as we need to be able to send her outside to play... if you know what I mean).

So we saw the house and we were hooked, then it became a question of how long would it take for us to overcome our objections and commit to what a huge effort moving is.

5 days.

So in the course of a week we'd gone from "No big changes" to "Moving".

So here we are. Moving the last of our stuff in today (if the rain allows us to) and starting the next phase of our lives.

We'll post more pictures soon so you can see what it looks like... or, you can come visit us. You are always welcome.