Aubrey Grace Benesh

Welcome to the world little niece! My sister and brother-in-law, Heather and Russell, delivered their first child today. Aubrey Grace Benesh was born May 15, 2009, at 1:17 p.m. She weighs 6 lbs. and 4 oz. and is 19 in. long. Everyone is doing great and the delivery was smooth. She has light brown hair and is just beautiful.

This makes the sixth grandchild on the Dages side of the family. My brother, Michael, and his wife, Carrie, have three girls and their blog link is on my friends and family list. My heart is so full tonight and I just stand in awe of God's creation of life.

MIA again

O.k., I haven't gone MIA again. I swear. I can't use my cd-rom drives to upload photos. I don't know what's going on, but my CD burner switched and I was using my DVD burner to upload photos. Now nothing works. I have contacted my friend, Jason Claggett, (may the Lord bless him!) to help me with my problem. I swear that I won't forget about this site.

Miss Laura

Our neighbors moved away this past January. The kid's very first (teenager) babysitter, Miss Laura, was our neighbor. We were so sad to see her go. However, the house next to us is up for sale! Any one wanna buy the house next to us?

Anna's first haircut

I'll admit it...I am pretty vain about hair-my hair and my kid's hair. Anna's beautiful red hair was well, as we call it- crazy hair- and it was time to get it cut. So, did we go to a kids salon like we did with our boy? Of course not! We went to my Aveda salon to have "my girl" cut Anna's crazy, red, toddler hair. Praise God for "my girl" (Erin...the best stylist on the face of the Earth!) and her patience of Job. She snipped very carefully and Anna ended up with her curls evened out and her very first style...bangs. We weren't going for bangs, but we ended up with them. She actally looks very cute and very grown up. She so earned the lollipop that followed. Thank goodness for toddler discounts as Erin only charged me a few bucks to cut her hair! Whew...Mark would've killed me if I had to pay full price for a two year old to get a salon cut!

Christmas Day 2008

We had such a wonderful Christmas vacation. We hosted my parents, my sister and her husband, Russell, and our friends, Rick and Amy Rader, for Christmas morning. We opened stockings right away and then ate some breakfast. We dug into our presents and it was all over an hour later. Simon got a wide range of gifts such as a pogo stick, walkie talkies and night vision goggles. Anna received so many "princess" baubles we can't decide which one we want to be during the day. My sister announced that we would be adding a little GIRL to our family this upcoming May. While the name remains on the DL, we are sure excited to outfit this child! Well, we're excited to meet her too! We had a Christmas dinner later in the day and then on Christmas night some friends stopped by to share in the day. I wish all Christmases could be like this one. We were very blessed to share Jesus' birthday with our very close friends and family!

I love these two people

These are our friends, Rick and Amy Rader. They stayed with us over Christmas. We attended the Dec. 28th Colts vs. Titans game and had a blast. I just wanted to post and let them know how much we loved our visit and that we miss them so much!

Simon's Christmas Program

O.k., I know that I am months behind on my blog. Let's pretend that I am a woodland animal and just went into hibernation from blogging during the cold winter months. I have no excuse as to why I haven't posted except that I just haven't made time. The only reason I am blogging today is because I am home from school with Anna who isn't feeling so well. So...I am just going to pick up where I left off....December 2008.

On December 4, 2008, Simon had his Kindergarten Christmas program at Oaklandon Christian School. We were late in getting there...what's new?...and had to sit in the back. These photos came from Lynn Daily, a wonderful friend to our family. She had a super telescopic lens and captured all of our photos for this post. In attempts to get my child caught on film on our camera, I ventured up to the front to kneel and take some pictures. What Mark failed to tell me was that my super large, granny panties screaming "Hanes Her Way!" were sticking out of my camisole and the top of my pants by like four inches. I guess that during Simon's big debut on the stage I was showing hundreds of families my tighty whities. Mark never told me to tuck in my undies until well after the program was over. I was so embarrassed. We now have a new "family rule" about underwear hanging out in public, and that it is the duty of a loved one to TELL THE OTHER LOVED ONE that they are hanging out for all the world to see. Simon did a wonderful job at his program and managed to look super cute up on stage. We also had "Nana Lynn" take our family photos by the Christmas tree and we used them in this year's Christmas card.