Halloween

As you can see, Janae was a Fairfield Cheerleader, Senica was also a cheerleader and Brenna was a ballerina. :) They of course, were all sooo adorable! Two of the kids that Anitra babysits were at mom's and all dressed up too! They were watching the girls chase each other in the yard and we were inside narrating..."that Janae is nuts!! Listen to Senica laugh...where did Brenna learn that dance move??" ha ha!! Too funny!!!

Taco Bell

Taco Bell in Nappanee, the Sunday we helped with the clean-up

Party at Hacienda

On Janae's actual birthday, we had dinner at Hacienda (her choice). The girls shared a mudslide...they are sooo cute!!! Janae has chocolate syrup in her teeth!! ha!

Things I LOVE about Janae

- Even though she is over 1/2 my height now, she will still snuggle on my lap
- Her smile!
- Her amazing memory (this can be bad too!)
- How she loves her sisters and "mothers" them (runs in the family)
- How she loves fashion!
- Her laugh
- How she has a reason for everything

More party pics...

Presents

Happy Birthday Janae!

So this is a little late...but HAPPY BIRTHDAY JANAE! My oldest niece turned 6 years old on October 16th!! As you can see, she got some make-up for her birthday! She L.O.V.E.S. makeup! Janae and Senica went out to put on their make-up and had to come in to take a bath and clean up. It took the both of them to clean Janae b/c she went a little crazy with the red make-up! Then, I promised them that they could do my make-up. I was all prepared to look like a clown, but they did a really good job. They gave me pink eye shadow since I love pink! It really didn't look bad...April told me I was ready to go out! ha!! But, as you can see, I was tired!!

Traffic

This was what SR 19 looked like on Sunday morning on our way to Nappanee. It was awesome to see all those people coming in to help. Kinda like Field of Dreams...cars as far as you can see!

Storm Cleanup

This morning Mom, Brian, my friend Jacinda and I drove to Nappanee to help with the Tornado clean-up. It's true what they say, you can see it on TV, but when you experience it first-hand, it is devastating! It is amazing that no deaths have been reported. Even in all the devastation, it is evident that God was truly there. There were pieces of wood from Fairmount homes, driven into the cement side of KFC/Taco Bell. One building lost half of its room and the framework was just tossed into the grass. There were so many people that sacrificed their time and came out today. It's great to say that this is our community! My sister said she heard on the news that almost 5000 people were there! We originally came in on SR 119, but the traffic was backed up so far, we turned around and went a back way. I will post some pics later...I don't have them downloaded yet.

Please keep praying!

Nappanee, IN...storm damage

Thursday night we had some awful storms come through Northern, IN. The hardest hit was Nappanne. Mom sent me these pictures. The middle picture is the Dairy Queen, below it is the KFC/Taco Bell. Fairmount Homes had lots of damage too. You can see the trailors that were just thrown in the wind like paper.

Please pray for all the residents of Nappanee. We have cousins that live there and luckily they had some damage around there pool, but nothing like these pictures. Also, our cousin, Deb and her family had just moved from Nappanee to Wakarusa. Their old house, I am told, was pretty much destroyed. God really has taken care of them! Amazing enough, no deaths have been reported! Bobby works in Nappanee and one of his feed mills had a lot of damage. It's overwhelming. So, please, keep these residents in your prayers!

Water and some more Water

Well, we had quite an eventful night! It rained and rained some more!! We had MANY storms run through Northern IN tonight. It rained so much at our house, the street was flooded. I tried to take some pics, but they didn't turn out so well. Meanwhile, in the basement....more water! Yes, the basement toilet started overflowing at 6:30 tonight. Brian went to Meijer to get a "snake" for the toilet, and the tornado sirens went off while he was gone and he called to tell me that they were making everyone go to the back of the store and that they weren't letting anyone leave. So...when he finally got home, he had got the wrong kind of snake...he got the sink one, not the toilet one! Agghh...SOOOOOO, back to Meijer. I am downstairs putting more towels down to sop of the mess (I will spare you the details, but I am sure you can get the picture) and I run upstairs to to get a drink, and realize that all of our tile by the front door is soaking wet. Well, it was raining so hard and the wind was blowing so hard....it was pushing the rain under the front door and into our living room. So now, I am running to get more towels to try and stop the water coming in the front door. I have water upstairs, downstairs, coming in the windows....Honestly, I was on the verge of a breakdown. I finally got my husband to call the plumber, which I am sure will cost a pretty penny. It is now 12:35AM Fri. morning and we are still waiting for a call back! The first plumber we called said he had about 100 calls tonight!!! Days like this is when I miss my apartment that I could just call and someone else dealt with it!!

Papa Bobby and Baby Bobby

Introducing BOBBY!!

I am so excited to introduce the newest addition to our clan! :)

Meet - Robert James Dodge!
Born - September 30, 7lbs 10 oz.

Isn't he so handsome??!! Look at the proud Big Brother! Billy loves his little brother!!

Last time this year I had 3 niece on 1 nephew...now....I have 5 nieces on 3 nephews! That's right, we've doubled!! :)

more from the soccer field...

Saturday Soccer

Friday afternoon, Cheryl called and wanted to know if I wanted to go to Madison's soccer game on Saturday morning. So this morning Brian and I drove into Goshen and picked up Cheryl and headed to the game. It was fun to get to see Madison "in action". She is quite athletic! I L.O.V.E. the picture of Leah and Madison...you guys are so cute! :)

At The Game

Whenever Caston scores, the shoot off a Cannon. Well, Senica doesn't like fireworks or cannon's for that matter. So the pictures of Senica and Ty are crying were when we scored. Anitra had to promise her gum to get her to stop crying. Bless her heart!

Friday Night Football

Friday night we went with Anitra and Seth to Rochester to watch Seth's youngest brother play. Ethan is #46. He is the quarterback and I think the lead tackler on defense. He did a great job, despite the 55-20 loss. Brian was excited because they had elephant ears!! Goshen didn't even have coffee of hot chocolate and Caston had elephant ears and Port-a-Pit chicken. It was worth the hour drive! :)

Sweet...

Isn't she adorable? We were at Seth's baseball game last week and Adria was such an angel! She sat in her carseat and was so good!

Drought

Ok, I have been in a blogging drought. For all my faithful readers (all 4 of you) I apologize!

We've been busy, as usual. But Saturday we got to slow down for a little bit and we drove to Michigan City to do some shopping and have lunch at the restaurant where we ate when I realized Brian was the man I wanted to marry. It was fun to go back there....awww the memories! ;)

We left Saturday morning and did our shopping...we actually got some Christmas shopping done! :) And we also found some good deals on some clothes for Brian! :) He looked VERY handsome in his new brown shirt Saturday night!

*Prayer request* Brian had never been to the doctor for anything other than a school physical...so had no idea what his cholesterol might be. At the encouragement (some may call pushing) of his very loving wife, he had a Dr. appt on Fri. The doctors office called this morning and he has some abnormal labs results that they want rechecked in 2 months. I am having the labs faxed to me tomorrow so we can check them out, but please keep us in your prayers...for me to remember that God is in control and I shouldn't worry!