Ben & Gina

New Pictures

Due to popular demand: A new round of Atalie pictures! She is growing like a weed...

Update

Ooops. When summer hits and the tourist season starts we really have to keep our list of "to-do's" to a minimum, and blogging isn't the highest priority... obviously. It's been a busy summer, that's for sure. We've had so much fun with everything going on at church;

-VBS (God's Big Backyard)

-Ozark Race Days: This is like a fair that we have in our town every year, and for the second year in a row Ben has been in charge of making sure the kid's area (run by church volunteers) runs smoothly.

-Leadership Retreat

-We are starting to lead a community group (small group of young adults that meets on Sunday night) along with Dallas & Heather.

Other life happenings;
-A couple months ago we had car troubles that were going to cost us $1500, and when we went to pay the bill, we discovered that someone had already paid it! What a huge surprise that was. It was such a major blessing because we had been so excited just the week before to have finally paid off all of our credit card debt.

-We've started visiting the local farmers' market every Saturday - it is so fun, we will probably post more about this later.

Atalie's growing like a weed, and going to be one year old in 8 days. My heart hurts a little to admit that. I can't believe that it's already been a year. She's crawling everywhere, and about to start walking. She know's just how to pull at Daddy's heart strings now, too. When he's putting his shoes on for work she'll crawl and make flirty eyes at him, then follow him to the door and wave. I think it almost chokes him up every time. People at work keep reminding him that it only gets worse. Soon she'll be saying, " I go work with you, Daddy?" She's our little princess, but we do our best not to let it get to her head. :)

We annoy our baby

It cracks us up when that pouty lip shoots out! But seriously, it broke our hearts too - we couldn't do it for long. I love the last frame, with Gina smooching all over her.

Oh yeah, you might want to turn your volume down a little before you push play. We are not responsible for any broken glass that may result from this film.

Teething

Poor little thing has been in a lot of pain lately, she is getting her two bottom-front teeth! One of them has cut through and the other is on the way very shortly. We haven't managed to get a good picture lately, but I'm sure we'll get one once they're in a little better. The pain makes her not sleep very well at night lately, so it's been keeping us up too. That's ok though, we just take more naps whenever we can get them! Gina snapped this one a few days ago - we were just looking out the window together and both got really sleepy. :)

We're still here

Figured I'd post something, so that we at least have 1 post each month. :) Will try to do better with this but we tend to forget about the blog when things get busy.

This is Atalie in the dress she wore for her dedication on the 20th. She was so cute, I was worried that she would get in front of church and see all those people looking at her and get overwhelmed! I think the opposite happened though, she loves the attention.

Spring happenings

We've had a busy few weeks, made tougher by all of us being sick one at a time. I (Ben) got sick with some sort of flu/respiratory infection thing around mid-march, and it took me about a week to get over it. While I was sick with that, we had an awesome opportunity to head up to Nebraska for a few days to see Gina's grandma (She has never met me or Atalie). Gina's dad was making a trip up there at the same time so it worked out great to get to see him too. We had a great time, but the car ride was long! The day we left we drove through torrential downpours for 7 of the 9 hours of the trip ...exhausting! The trip back was a lot easier, nice & sunny. Atalie did awesome in her car seat the whole time - towards the end she was a little sick of car rides but by now it doesn't seem like she was traumatized for life :)

Work at Dixie has been picking up. The first months of the tourist season are always slow but it has at least been somewhat of an income, compared to none in January & February.

We have been definitely kept busy by Atalie, she is growing like a weed lately, and she does something new every couple of days. We think she is getting really close to crawling...she sits up on her own and does this scooting motion, and sometimes when she's reaching for something she'll lean forward so far that she ends up on her hands & knees... we love it.

Now Gina's the one who's recovering from the flu/lung cough thing. There are no more of us left who can catch it, so hopefully this means it's going away for good.

Atalie's Beach Body Workout

Tired of stubborn knee rolls? Chubby ankles? Well summer is just around the corner, and Atalie's got the perfect workout to make your body swimsuit ready!