(Last years Birthday cake)

Happy Birthday My Love

Earl turns 51

We are having Corn Chowder Soup tonight, then on Thursday after we go grocery shopping we will have a birthday cake for Early. Sammi is very upset that there is no cake tonight but very excited to be baking one on Thursday. Beth just wants to sing to him and give him a birthday spanking. She can count to 51 but I think that her arm will get very tired haha!! A friend of mine always has a special plate for the special occasion that is going on to let the special person use. We have waited till today to start doing that. I wanted to begin with Earl's birthday first.

Today our family is growing by one.

Best wished to my nephew Brad and my new niece Melissa.

Wish we could have been there. Love ya guys!!

We got to take the puppies and the girls for their first beagle training walk. This was Sammi's first walk through the woods. We walked about a mile. We have an area that is called The WaterShed project. I had never been on it and told Earl that we should try it out. We loved it!! It was similar to walking in the Adirondacks(less pine trees). We saw deer prints everywhere. It got to be so bad that Sammi began to recognize them and stop at every one of them. We also saw 4 toads the size of dimes, lots of bugs, wildflowers, and Beth was introduced to thorn bushes.

We had a storm on Mon. the 16th and as you can see in the pictures we had hail. The girls were fascinated by it, but Sammi couldn't understand why I wouldn't let her hold her hand out to catch the hail. OUCH!! The hail was about the size of marbles.

I had my weight watchers meeting last night, I couldn't stay for the meeting so I just weighed in and then we had to go to Walmart and Bob Evans for supper. We have coupons where the kids eat free except the coupons expire at the end of the month. Last week I gained 2.4lbs I was not happy. My excuses were a 2nd degree sunburn on my shoulders and other womanly things. This week I lost 6.6lbs so I was much pleased with that. All together I have lost 29.6lbs and I put on a pair of 16avg jeans and though they were a little tight I could sit down in them and not feel like my stomach was being pushed into my spine. Considering I did wear a 20W in jeans, I like knowing that I have come down 3 or 4 sizes in clothes. I can't wait to try on a dress to see where my size will be. However I am running into problems, having always worn Women's clothes and always bought the clothes that had a W next to the size, I am not used to the sizes when I look at clothes at yardsales. Last week I bought a pair of jeans but when I got them home I couldn't fit in them even though they were 18's. I didn't realize that 18 husky's are boys jeans. At least when I go down in shirt sizes I know that they run S M L and XL. Could be interesting!!!

Bethany at the end of school had to take a 'Stanford Achievement Test'. It compared her test scores to those also in Kindergarten in both Public schools and other Christian schools. Her grade equivalent is in the 2nd grade in most of her subjects and her averages were either normal or above normal. We are very proud of Beth and are pleased with the school that she is in. She was also tested in Bible and came out with an advanced rating.

I would greatly appreciate everyone's prayers at this time for the Tillis family. My Great-Aunt Ruth passed away after a very long brave fight against cancer. She passed away last night. Her husband's name is Amos and she is Bill & Naomi Tillis' sister-in-law. She had 5 kids plus grandchildren and extended family. Thanks for your prayers.

I have lost 25.4 lbs so far on my weight watchers. I earned a new charm for my key chain. I thought that I would have not lost very much this week because of Sunday dinner at church. I couldn't count the points for the food, but I lost 3.4 lbs. Yeah! I have 46.6 lbs to go. My new 10% is 19 lbs, I've lost 4.4 lbs of it. I have till Sept. 1st but I hope to be there before then.

The girls are good. It has really rained here the last few days. And the thunderstorms have been awsome. Except the ones at 3:00 am when I am sleeping. Earl is still waiting on going to 1st shift, he is waiting on papers to be signed. A friend of our neighbors found a Mama deer hit and dead by a car, next to it was her week old male fawn. The people are raising it till it is old enough to go out on its own. The girls got to pet the deer which they loved.

My Bethany is growing up!!

She lost her first tooth on the bottom!

Yes I cried when she wasn't watching. I didn't even cry when she went to pre-school or Kindergarden.