A few of the First Pictures I Ever Took on My New Camera and Seth's Birthday

"So the Jews agreed to continue the celebration they had begun, doing what Mordecai had written to them."

Esther 9:23

I had taken some really cute pictures of Lydia (and other members of the family) a day or two after I got my new camera. I never had the chance to post them, but I had some spare time to upload them the other day and so I thought I would add them for you to see! :)

Caleb, Daddy, and Seth giving me "the lip!" :)

Seth, Daddy, and Mommy

Lydia

Don't do it Lydia!

Sleepy baby! :)

Smiling with big brother Caleb!

Well, those were a few of the first pictures I ever took! :)

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Seth turned 8 years old on Monday (the 23rd), but we celebrated his birthday Saturday night.

On the menu was seltzer, homemade pizza and Oreo ice cream cake!

The birthday boy!

At the dinner table.

Everyone went around and said one thing about what they liked about Seth. I don't think I ever said anything, but something I like about Seth is that he is a great servant. When it's raining and we need to go to church, he opens up his umbrella and leads the ladies to the car, so they won't get wet! :)

Some yummy, homemade pizza!

Praying over the meal.

We had re-positioned the table so that it was facing the computer where we watched The Rookie during dinner. We turned the lights off and everything! :)

When we were about half way through the movie we stopped and watched Seth open his presents.

Some M&M's.

Just a neat little thing on photography real quick...look at the above picture and then look at this one...

...see how great the color difference and lighting is?
I used a speedlight and bounced the light off the ceiling and the lighting is way different than the on-camera flash!

Enough with my photography...back to Seth!

He had wanted a watch for sometime and Daddy found a Rite Aid nearby that had lots of things on sale and so we bought him a watch!

Smiling

Some weird type of shark.

Now as we were watching Seth open his presents, Lydia had mischievously grabbed one of Seth's M&M's and popped it in her mouth.

So, Hannah went after it, and Lydia tried to keep the M&M in her mouth, baring down on Hannah's finger.

But Lydia had salivated it so much it melted in her mouth - she looked like she enjoyed it.

Maybe not so much...

(I never knew M&M's had an effect on people! :)

Seth finished opening his presents (he received lots of different things like a coloring book, candy, a drawing book, etc.) and so now it was time for cake!

Lighting the candles.

We ran out of candles (we had only 6 left) so Daddy figured that 2 matches would work as candles just great!

Blowing out his candles and matches! :)

Seth cutting the cake.

Mmmm...yum!

The recipe for the cake is as follows (homemade recipe):

1 gallon vanilla ice cream

1 gallon Oreo ice cream

(Recipe Note: you can use whatever ice cream you prefer - chocolate and vanilla, chocolate chip and mint, etc.)

1 package of Oreos

1 16 oz. container of Cool Whip (Mamma would've preferred much less)

A few drops of blue dye

Instructions:

Let the ice cream (both gallons) thaw for 30 min. - 1 hour. Take the 1 gallon of vanilla ice cream and pour it into the 9 x 13 pan. Using a spatula, metal spoon, or any other hard object press the ice cream down until it is evenly spread over the bottom of the pan. Stick the pan in the freezer (preferably a deep freezer) and proceed to crush the entire package of Oreos in a plastic bag. Once the Oreos are finely crushed (you can leave some big chunks) take the ice cream out of the freezer and sprinkle the Oreos evenly on top. Stick the pan back into the freezer. Pour the 1 gallon of Oreo ice cream into a bowl and mix it up until it is a nice consistency (easy to spread). [By this time the ice cream and Oreos in the freezer shouldn't be too soft.] Pour the Oreo ice cream on top of the Oreos in the 9 x 13 pan. Spread out evenly and then put back into the freezer. If your Cool Whip is completely unfrozen (we keep ours in the freezer) then add a few drops of colored dye, fold it in and then spread onto the ice cream cake! Let freeze for a few hours.

Enjoy!

We finished watching The Rookie while eating the ice cream cake and then went to bed.

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Daddy's been working on some of our land with a rented tractor. Last week we helped transport firewood from our woods to the side of our house for our Central Boiler (the source of our heat and hot water). We filled up over 6 truck-beds full of firewood and stacked it all. I couldn't find where I put the pictures so I just have one video of Daddy working on the tractor for you to see...

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Yesterday (Friday), Mamma, Hannah, Alexis, Lydia and I (Kimber) went to our Aunt Stacey's house in Rocky Mount, VA. We picked up our Aunt Megan and her children, Cadence and Justus. It took us 3 1/2 hours to get to their house. We went up to visit them because my Aunt Stacey had her third baby, Rachel Grace Lawhorn. She was born on Sunday at 6:11 PM and weighed 7 pounds 2 ounces and was 20 inches long! She is an adorable little baby! Everyone got to hold her. Sadly Lydia caught a bad cold, so we hope we didn't give them anything!

We had Mexican for dinner and cherry pie with vanilla ice cream for dessert. We left near 8:00 with my Na-naw (my granmda - she had been there for the birth and had stayed to help out wherever she could) and we didn't get home until 12:15.

So, some of us slept in until 10:00 this morning! ;)

Overjoyed to be Jesus',
Kimber

The Trip to Maymont Park

"If I say, ‘I will forget my complaint,I will put off my sad face and wear a smile,’"

Job 9:27

After poop-scooping, transfering and dumping manure on the gardens Friday morning we ate a quick lunch and then went to Mayont - our favorite park.

We had a great time, and I took lots of pictures (of course!).

Two pigeons on the roof of the barn.

Taking pictures of the goats and sheep.

One of the goats.

Lydia meeting a goat.

A very interesting sheep? Or is it a goat?

Admiring a hawk, a.k.a. chicken killers.

Two friendly goats.

Looking for the deer.

Caleb by some flowers.

The flowers themselves (yellow jasmine per daddy).

Seth by the flowers.

Hannah by the flowers

A yak and a tree

Seth, Eden, Lydia, Daddy, and Alexis on a rock.

Mommy power-walking with the stroller

Hannah playing with Lydia-lydia checkin' out daddys' bald spot.

Eden

Lexi

A fox sleeping.

A mini waterfall.

For the first time in a long time we turned left after the foxes cage. They had some beautiful stone steps with lots of South American-looking foliage.

Alexis

A family photo (without the photographer) in a gazebo

Alexis, Seth, Josiah and Eden by some trees.

9 of the Wassenbergs

Hannah

Caleb on the steps.

Lexi on the steps.

Seth on the steps.

Daddy, Caleb, and Seth.

Seth and Alexis by a monument.

Eden by a waterfall.

Alexis and the same waterfall.

Seth by a little stream.

We visited the new exhibits at Maymont, the "Birds of Prey."

Hannah on the walkway

The "Great Horned Owl." He does not look happy:)

A hawk

Another hawk

Edee-Weedee(her nickname)

A bald eagle with a half-amputated wing.

Weedels again (another nickname for Eden)

Alexis on the bridge

After we had seen enough of the birds of prey we walked over to the bears.

Eden peering through the windows at the bears.

The two active bears.

Seth

Seth again

Playing with each other

Josiah watching anxiously from the Ergo (ergobabycarrier.com)

The bears giving a hug! :)

Mommy and Josiah.

Eden and a fake bear.

The bears having a more, intense, hug.

The next spot to go was the Japenese gardens.

Alexis and some cacti.

(Since I have another camera now, my siblings get to use my "old" camera! :)

Caleb and Seth on a huge rock.

Caleb

Caleb going through the bamboo forest.

When Caleb proceeded out of the bamboo he had fallen and had scraped his hands on some of the bamboo - he's okay now!

Daddy - master of all unique faces! :)

Lexi

Lexi again! :)

A flower that Lexi found.

(The flower was at the entrance to the Japenese garden)

Josiah

That is Josiah's "fake" smile! :)

(The result of telling him to smile...)

This is his real smile!
(This is the result of Daddy coming to 'get' him - a real smile! :)

One of our favorite spots at Maymont is the waterfall in the Japenese gardens. We recline on the rocks and eat lunch, relaxing after our hard walk downhill! ;) Sadly, the waterfall wasn't running so our favorite spot that day (at least for me) were the stepping stones that went across a small lake.

Lexi on the stepping stones.

Lexi and Seth making their way across.

Weedels (pronounced weed-ls)

Daddy

(This is what he was thinking about...

:)

Go Daddy!

Daddy wanted me to practice speed photography, hence the abnormal jumping!

A beautiful duck!

mallard-dad

Duck

2 Daddy & Mommy's duck (perfect for Valentine's Day!)

1

Hannah

Alexis gazing upon the water! :)

Hannah

...Hannah....

...Hannah again! :)

Mommy in the gazebo on the water.

Seth and Caleb

Eden and Josiah

The 2 ferocious puppy dogs!

The 2 ferocious puppy dogs with a...daddy dog! :)

Playing around

Eden and Josiah are the best of friends. If Eden does something, 'Siah does it, or vice versa.

Josiah

Weedels and 'Siah (Josiah's nickname)

Daddy

Hannah



For some reason, when I took these pictures, I got a red and green octagon-shaped color in my photos (far right). I guess it was just a reflection on the lens?

Alexis

Caleb

Seth

Eden

Josiah

We went back to the bridge by the dry waterfall, and that's where I took the Valentine's Day photos of Daddy and Mamma.

Alexis and Caleb on the bridge

Josiah thought it was dry land across here but ended up getting stuck. Daddy had to go rescue him, and yes, we still have the shoes! :)

The mud-covered shoes.

A flower Lexi found.

Caleb and Seth

Lydia

After we saw what we wanted to, we started making our way back to our van, because we had to be out of the park by 5:00.

We're well known for taking "shortcuts," when we need to get somewhere. So, today our shortcut was up a hill (like it is every time!)

Josiah started whining but we all made it to the top victorious! :)

Lydia and Mommy waiting at the top of the hill for us to come up! :)

Mr. Fox was up and moving around as we made our way out of the park.

The deer started settling down and nestling in the grass.

We made it out of the park by 5:30, ate a few snacks in the car and went to Pizza Hut for dinner (we had some gift cards from Christmas). We dropped by Paw-paw and Na-naw's house (our grandparents) and visited for a few minutes before going home, ending a relaxing and fun-filled day!

Trusting in Him,
Kimber