Show us Your Family

Mar 4, 2011 by Lindsay

I am linking up with Kelly’s Korner today and SUYL – Show us your family!

I love this topic….cuz I love my family!

Here we all are in our Easter garb I’m guessing 1993? Matthew, Dad, Me, Nicholas, Mom and Emily.

All of my family still lives in the town I grew up in, Findlay, Ohio. My parents divorced when I was in high school and my mom was going back to school to get her teaching degree when she was diagnosed with brain cancer in the November of 2008 and passed away in October of 2009.

When my parents divorced it definitely changed my relationship with my Dad, but through my Mom’s sickness my Dad really stepped up and was there for me and my siblings in a way that has healed some of the brokenness in our relationship. He goes out of his way to spend time with me and my family when we are home for visits and I am very thankful for that.

I can’t even put into words the person that my mom was. Hard working, extremely talented, crafty, loving, funny, smart, compassionate, driven…just to name a few. She loved the Lord and showed us how to rely on Him in every circumstance and is now living in paradise with Him!

My sister Emily, 19 months older than me is married to Jay and mommy to Joel and Caroline. We are a lot a like, and both like our Mom in many ways. She is a wonderful cook, super creative and has the heart of a servant. We love to spend time together and I am more thankful than ever to be walking the journey of motherhood with her. She is the reason I hope to someday have two girls, so that they can know the love and fun that comes with having a sister!

Matthew is 4 years younger than me and finishing his sophomore year at Ohio Northern University. He is a wonderfully gifted singer and very driven. I know that he will do great things! My mom always used to say that he had a tender heart, and he still does! Matthew is very loyal and compassionate, he will be a great husband someday!

Nicholas, 21 months younger than Matthew is the baby. He is outgoing, funny and often sarcastic. He is the typical little brother that loved to poke fun at you in front of your new boyfriend and share all your embarrassing stories.

I love my family so much and am thankful for the relationships that I have with each person. I know that not everyone has the gift of siblings or parents that love, support and encourage them, and I truly do not take it for granted. God has greatly blessed me through my immediate family as well as my extended family and all of my in-laws!

I love you, Mom, Dad, Em, Matthew and Nichol!

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Show Us Your Life- What you feed your kids!

Feb 4, 2011 by Lindsay

Today I am joining Kelly for a Show Us Your Life Friday! The topic is what you feed your kids! I had lots of fun going through pictures to find some of our kids eating, I was surprised to see how much we photograph our kids while the are so politely shoving their faces! haha!

Our boys love to eat. They usually eat lunch and then after I clean up I will eat something and it never EVER fails that when I sit down to eat they see me with a bowl or a plate and they always come begging for food! Cracks me up!

Breakfast everyday consists of cereal. The love to eat “Daddy’s cereal” which is Life, otherwise it’s Raisin Bran, Cheerios or Frosted Mini Wheats. Neither of our kids are big milk drinkers, but they do eat it on their cereal. Saturdays are their favorite breakfast day because that’s the day that Daddy let’s them help make pancakes and bacon. They LOVE their bacon! Oink oink!

Lunches everyday consist of peanut butter and jelly on wheat bread with any combination of the following – oranges, yogurt, cheese, grapes, pretzels, apples, bananas…I just feed them until they aren’t hungry anymore!

My boys would snack all day if I let them. After naps I let them have snacks, but never after about 4:30 otherwise it’s too close to dinner. Snacks are usually goldfish (actually, off brand whales!) Ritz crackers, chips and salsa, graham crackers or pretzels. Their absolute favorite snack is popcorn, we have this popcorn popper that makes the best popcorn and you can control the amount of salt and butter you add to make it better for you. Sometimes if it’s a REALLY special day we will add M&M’s to our popcorn, but not very often.

For dinner they eat whatever we eat. Sometimes it’s a battle, sometimes it’s not, but they always eat it! Dinners include things like stuffed shells, chicken rolls, spaghetti, enchiladas, chicken casserole, egg casserole and sometimes it’s simple like hotdogs or chicken strips! We usually have some sort of vegetable, salad or fruit on the side as well. If there is bread being served we make them eat their dinner first and the bread is their reward because they like it so much! There have been a few times in the past few weeks where one of the boys will insist that they don’t want to eat what we are having and we tell them that we will save it and they can have it for breakfast the next day. We haven’t had to follow through on that yet because they usually agree to eat then. It sounds a little harsh, but I want to know that they are getting good nutrition and I’m not fixing three different dinners every night.

Now, the one thing that the just don’t care for is macaroni and cheese. That baffles me. Doesn’t every kids like macaroni and cheese? But other that that the will eat most anything, including any and every condiment known to man! Haha! And what kid doesn’t like their share of treats as well! I don’t think we have encountered a treat they don’t like!

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Wordless Wednesday

Jul 28, 2010 by Spencer

S’more Please

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Wordless Wednesday

Jun 30, 2010 by Spencer

Here is my picture for wordless wednesday at dad-blogs.com.

Summer Fun

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Show Us Your Life- Proposal

Jun 18, 2010 by Lindsay

How fitting that yesterday was our four year wedding anniversary and today the topic at Kelly’s Korner is marriage propsals!

Spencer and I had been dating for about 9 months and I knew that a proposal was coming, but I didn’t know when. One weekend when my family was all visiting his family in Florida he asked me if I wanted to go to the Ringling Museum to tour the Cà d’Zan Mansion. I wasn’t that excited about the actual tour but I went along with it- he was rather insistent!

We got there and bought our tickets and walked around the grounds for awhile before the tour started. Much to my surprise I really enjoyed touring the mansion and have been meaning to go back ever since we went 5 years ago!

As we were leaving the grounds to go to dinner he pointed to the rose garden and said we should walk through it. As we approached the center there was a big round gazebo and I noticed a dozen roses on all four benches. I think my first thought was “Oh, how nice someone got roses!” But then as he was pulling my hand to walk towards it I knew what was coming. I started giggling and couldn’t stop! haha

He took me to one of the benches and told me to sit down because he had something to ask me. I was still giggling because I was so nervous! He asked me if I would spend the rest of my life with him and I said “YES!”

I remember jumping up to hug him and looking at my ring behind his back and thinking, “Wow, he did good!”

We gathered the roses and headed out towards the car and as we came around a bunch of trees I saw both of our families waiting! I was shocked and so excited, I had always wanted our family to be there to celebrate with us!

Everyone congratulated us and we went back to take some re-enactment pictures. I am so glad they were there to take pictures for us!

After that we all headed to Jo-To’s restaurant for dinner and just enjoyed celebrating our engagement together! It was a wonderful proposal!

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Show Us Your Life – Show Us Your Town

May 21, 2010 by Lindsay

(For some reason I thought way back in the fall that this topic was coming up on a Friday, so we went and took pictures of some of our favorite places around town! You will be able to tell that some of these pictures are much older than others because the boys are smaller!)

So – onto our town!

We live in beautiful Bradenton, Florida! I love love love it here! I love the palm trees, the sunshine and the BEACH! Every time we drive out to Anna Maria Island and cross the bridge it’s like taking an instant vacation. There is so much to talk about I am going to just pick a few favorites!

First off, if you were to drive from St.Petersburg or Tampa south on I-275 you would cross the Sunshine Skyway. This picture hardly does the bridge justice, it’s way high up over the water, sometimes you can see a cruise ship leaving the Port of Tampa going under the bridge!

Then of course, there is our beautiful beaches. It takes me about 15 minutes to get from our driveway to the beach. I am so thankful to live where most people vacation! My boys love the sand and water so we try to go often!

After a hot day at the beach our favorite ice cream place is Tyler’s. When we go Spencer and I share a bowl of “trash can” which is all of their toppings mixed into vanilla ice cream!

Bradenton is just north of Sarasota which is home to the John and Mable Ringling Museum. You can tour the grounds, see exhibits about the Ringling Brothers Circus and tour the Cá d’Zan Mansion. I wanted to share this because it’s where Spencer proposed to me! We toured the mansion and then as we were walking through the rose gardens he led me to a gazebo where there were four dozen roses and he asked me to marry him!

These are just a few of the things to see in Bradenton. The island is a great place to come vacation if you are in the mood for a trip to Florida! It’s never too hard to get family to visit

I also wanted to do a little shout out to my real hometown which is Findlay, Ohio! I was born and raised in Findlay and lived there until I met Spencer and we got engaged. It will always have a special place in my heart, I love going back, even in the winter! ALL of my family still lives there, which probably has a lot to do with wanting to go back! Findlay is the home of Dietsch’s Ice Cream, Marathon Oil, Wilson’s, and many many corn fields

Hope you enjoyed seeing where I live!

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