This is What Happens When...

 ...you let Hannah touch the curling iron!

:)

Nothing like a fun Saturday!  Hannah was playing "dress-up" with Lydia hence the interesting hair-do and pretty outfit! :)  

Have a wonderful Saturday everyone!

Kimber :)

New Haircuts and a Huge Fish!

I've been thinking about cutting my hair for a few weeks.  I tend to take a long time to make decisions so when I think I want to do something I spend weeks thinking about whether or not to do what I think I want to do.  Yeah. :)  Well, I finally said "okay" and 11 inches of my hair was cut off this past Tuesday. :)  The last time my hair was cut (for the first time, other than trims) I cried.  But this time it was more of a "Wow.  My hair is gone" feeling.  And, actually, I don't mind having my hair short (short meaning about shoulder length).   Tangles, getting my hair pulled by babies (accidentally) or sucked into things is a thing of the past! :)  And my hair looks a little curlier now that it's shorter.

I'm not the only one in my family who got their hair cut this summer.  Hannah chopped her lots of hers last month and Eden and Lydia got a cute summer "doo" in the spring.  

Since Hannah and I have the most recent haircut I got Lexi to take a picture of us! :)

The other thing that got cut in our family was a giant fish! :)  Caleb and Dad were fishing at someone's pond yesterday and managed to catch an 18 inch long, small mouth bass.  It was huge!  Inside its mouth you could still see a fish it was eating when it bit into Caleb's hook! ;)

You can see the tail, nice, right? :)

The proud fisherman and his catch!

                     

It was so big Daddy could fit his entire hand into its mouth!  (All I can say is that he's brave!)

You can't see the tape measure well but it did measure 18 inches long.  Too bad the state citation bass is 20 inches or 5 pounds.  :-(

Nevertheless, Mr. Fish was soon fileted (to put it nicely) and one day soon we'll be having him for dinner.  

Kimber :) 

"'Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.'”

Genesis 1:26

A Day Out with Erika

This past Sunday we had our monthly Nash Luncheon at our house!  [For those of you new to our blog, the "Nash Luncheon" is when lots of relatives on my Mama's side get together for lunch at someone's house.  We do this in honor of our late great-Grandma, a.k.a. Great, who would fix us lunch every Sunday.]

Our cousins, Erika, Claire, and Gracie had the opportunity to spend the night...and they did!  

Yesterday Mama gave us girls (Hannah, Alexis, and I) the chance to go "out" to shop and eat dinner with Erika.  We took her up on the offer and left our house around 2 P.M. :)  Before we left, though, I asked Seth to take a photo of us girls and he gladly obliged. 

Left to right:  Kimber, Hannah, Alexis, and Erika.

The first place we stopped at was:

  We donated some stuff and then went in the store to "browse."

We quickly looked at the skirt aisle and then headed over to the wedding dresses! :)

 We know of someone who found their wedding dress for $25 at a thrift store, so we always keep an eye out for a good wedding dress! :)   Even if we don't find one we like, they're just fun to look at (and try on! :)!

 Hannah actually found one she liked and she tried it on but it was a little big. 

 Lexi's favorite section of the store was definitely the shoes. :)  I don't think we'll ever wear a huge pair of heels out (for many reasons) but they are really fun to try on!  [It can be quite a challenge to stay upright with major heels on...until you get used to them.  It feels like you are walking on tiptoe all the time! :)] 

Ah, stuff girls do! :)

Our next stop was probably my favorite:

If you haven't been to SweetFrog you are severely missing out! :)  The yogurt is so good it tastes like ice cream! :)

 Once we were inside the SweetFrog building we picked out what flavor of frozen yogurt we wanted, served it up in the bowl and then added toppings.  Last but not least, my wonderful sister Hannah paid for it all. :)  [Thanks Banana!!!]

My favorite flavors are Cake Batter and Oreo.  This time I got Oreo (Cake Batter wasn't there) with a little dollop of strawberry lemonade on top.  The strawberry lemonade was very sour but so yummy!  The Oreo was definitely sweeter and just as good!  My toppings consisted of:  a scoop of jellybeans, peppermint patties, cookie dough balls, and Oreos (no, I didn't mix them all together in my yogurt...I ate each topping separately! :)

We then went outside to eat, though I would've preferred A.C. :) 

 There's no picture of me with my frozen yogurt...just a photo of my dessert!  Doesn't it look amazing? :)  Trust me, it was!

I take a long time to eat stuff I like, so I was only half-way through my bowl when almost everyone else was finished.  SO, Erika and Lexi went into some stores nearby [SweetFrog was in a building complex] and Hannah stayed to keep me company. :)

When Erika and Lexi came back I only had a few bites left, and then we went towards Target.  Before we reached Target, Erika wanted to go in the Mattress Discounters and lay on some beds.  Hannah and I didn't want to, so Erika and Lexi went inside and Hannah and I stayed outside! :)

 Can you find Erika and Alexis?

We eventually made it to Target (we walked) and took a quick photo on one of the red balls outside before entering! :)

After some more browsing, it was about 4:30 P.M. so we decided to go across the street to some more stores.  We visited Marshall's and looked through all the clearance racks before heading for Outback (the restaurant :)!

If you've ever been to Outback, I'm sure you've tried their amazing pumpernickel bread!  The stuff is heavenly!!

Hannah and Erika.

Myself and Alexis.

After we had some pumpernickel bread, we ate some delicious cheese fries!

 None of us were really starving after eating Sweet Frog so we decided to split meals.  Hannah and Lexi split a steak and baked potato:

...and Erika and I split Alice Springs Chicken and some french fries.

We were at Outback for about an hour and a half, eating, talking and laughing...a lot.  It was lots of fun! :)

After dinner we went to Wal-Mart, then went back to Target (to get what wasn't at Wal-Mart that we needed) and finally we dropped Erika off at her house after a wonderful "girls day out!"

Thank you, Mama and Daddy, for letting us go out.   And, Hannah, thanks for driving us around all over Mechanicsville even when shopping isn't your favorite thing to do! :) 

Kimber :)

Hannah's 17th Birthday

"And Hannah prayed and said:“My heart rejoices in the LORD; My horn is exalted in the LORD. I smile at my enemies, because I rejoice in Your salvation.'"

1 Samuel 2:1
The oldest child in the Wassenberg clan turned 17 last Tuesday!

We normally have the birthday person sleep in on their birthday, but since Hannah gets up earlier than all of us (every morning), we just told her to stay in our room.  After breakfast was ready we went upstairs singing Happy Birthday.  Never doing the same thing twice, Daddy brought his djembe along and beat it all the way into our room.  This was Hannah's reaction at Daddy's bonging:

A birthday hug from Lydia! :)

After the birthday song, we all went back downstairs (with Hannah! :) and had family devotions before breakfast.  My cousins, Kaitlyn and Sarah, had spent the night so they were here for Hannah's birthday! :)

Hannah and K.K. in our enormous beanbag! :)

We ate fresh blueberries from Westmoreland Berry Farm as we did devotions.

Judah ate his food, too! ;)

When devotions were over we headed to the table.  This was Hannah's plate:

Sweet Tart duckies swimming in a sea of M&M's!  (We always give the birthday person a bunch of candy for their birthday. :)

Hannah's breakfast pick was Farmers' Crepes.  They are a lot of work to make, but they taste so yummy!! 

 

Hannah eating her delicious breakfast!

For her breakfast "sweet food", Hannah had pop tarts! :)

 

And they were so yummy!!!

After breakfast, Mama left with K.K. and Sarah, but before they left we grabbed a quick picture:

Sarah, Hannah, and K.K. :)

Later that night we ate Hannah's chosen dinner:  lasagna and pizza bread!

Lexi set the table beautifully...she's quite the designer! ;)

She put Hannah's napkin in her glass after learning how to make it look like a fan.

(Thanks to one of G.G.'s books.)

After dinner, Hannah opened her gifts!

She received a certificate to Sweet Frog...

 

...some mint candy (she loves mint!)...

...and two shirts! :)

 

As Hannah was opening her presents, Judah was greatly enjoying himself as he ripped the tissue paper to shreds. :)

Hannah received a present from Grandpa and Grandma in the mail a few days before her birthday.  She opened it after all of ours were finished!

Inside was a beautiful, white outfit! :)

Loveliness! :)

Judah was still enthralled with the tissue paper! :)

We then settled down and watched The Chosen starring Robby Benson.  When it was over, we gathered around Hannah and her cake and sung "Happy Birthday" one more time! :)

Blowing out the candles!

(I love how Eden's hand is over Lydia's mouth to keep her from blowing out the candles! :)

Hannah's ice cream cake was very minty!  On the bottom was a layer of Andes mints, then mint chocolate chip ice cream, then oreos with hot fudge drizzled on top, and finally a layer of vanilla ice cream topped with home made whipped cream.  Phew...that was quite the list! :)

As we ate Daddy read a few chapters out of our new, favorite book series by Chuck Black:  The Kingdom Series.  They are excellent books and are an allegory of the Bible.  We bought them at the Homeschool Convention a few weeks ago and we've almost finished two books already!  We always end each chapter with "just one more, please!!"  They're that great. :)

Because it was Hannah's birthday, Daddy read more than usual and we actually finished the first book, ending Hannah's 17th birthday party! :)

---

Because I'm here, I'll give you a recap of what we've been doing recently! :)

When G.G. passed away around 2 weeks ago, we held her Memorial Service on June 18th.  The next few days afterward was spent with family as we went to G.G.'s apartment and went through everything.  Her apartment has to be vacated by this coming Thursday, so everyone got together last Saturday and found what they wanted and took it home.  The Lord answered many of our family's unspoken prayers through some things G.G. had.  

The fact that G.G.'s gone hasn't hit us quite yet.  G.G.'s always been there, so it's weird to have her not be there.  Every time we drive by Covenant Woods I know I won't walk in there again, because my G.G. isn't there.  Mama thinks we'll miss her most when we go to the beach in August.  The beach was G.G.'s favorite spot and the little memories of having her with us, will probably make this vacation a little bittersweet.  

But, we're doing well and we're grateful for all the cards and kind words people have shared.   We appreciate it! :)

Through all this wonderful craziness, we're still trying to continue school through the summer (Monday thru Thursday).  Gardening will be on the weekends or in the afternoons.  [Our gardens are doing pretty well, praise the Lord!  Our corn is coming up and our greenbeans, cucumbers, and melons are just starting to produce.  Sometime next week we'll probably be harvesting our potatoes...so far we don't think the voles have gotten to them!!  Thank you, Lord!]

Last Saturday we held a baby shower for my Aunt Amanda at my Aunt Steph's house.  Little Cameron Collins is due in September and we can't wait to see Uncle Sean and Aunt Amanda's little one! :)

This weekend we have two families coming over!  We always enjoying having people over for dinner and dessert!

Next week is the 4th of July so we'll be spending more time with family! :)  K.K. and Sarah (our cousins) will be spending a few days with us and then Daddy, Mama, Hannah, Alexis, K.K., Sarah, and I (along with many people from church) will be going to Kings Fest on July 8th!  We're all excited! :)

So that's what we've been doing! :)  Through all of this business, we're grateful for every day
Have a great day! :)
Kimber :)