Hollene's Blog

Happy Halloween!

2008-10-31T21:15:00.003-05:00

As always, I'm way behind on my photos... I do better on Picasa, I promise. Head on over there sometime. :)

I'm posting these pictures on Halloween night. That would be Day 3 of our 4 Day Candy Campaign! We had trunk or treat at our church on Wednesday, trick or treating Thursday (Vandalia's "Beggar's Night" was on the 30th...?), another church's festival tonight, and our school's Fall Festival is tomorrow! (For those of you now wondering, we do still homeschool... our "school" that I'm referring to is a Friday program that is just awesome, and I'll have to post about it later.) Anyway, we're up to our ears in candy. :)

We had a couple of costume changes from night to night, but here we have Tori as Dawn (a Pokemon trainer), Emmi as a pirate, Abbi as an Egyptian princess, Kezzi as a bride (or wedding girl, as they're called in our family), and Evi as a cheetah.

Aw... sweet sisters!

2008-10-31T21:13:00.001-05:00

I'm sure that most Egyptian princesses sport Cheeto mouth...

2008-10-31T21:11:00.002-05:00

The inflatable chicken costume is always the most talked about out on the streets!

2008-10-31T21:01:00.000-05:00

Happy Birthday Poppa!

2008-04-01T16:27:00.000-05:00

Happy April Fool's Day, and a very Happy Birthday to Poppa Cougle!! We love you!!

(I made several posts late last night, so scroll down if you didn't see them yet!)

Easter, Birthday & our church

2008-04-01T00:39:00.002-05:00

Well, our plans for a well posed Easter picture in the front of the sanctuary didn't exactly turn out. :) Oh, well... they're still cute!

I have just posted pictures of our church here in Vandalia, more Easter morning pictures of the older girls, and pictures from Abbi's birthday, so make sure you scroll down through all of them.

Ooops!! I just realized that I never posted any birthday pictures of Emmi back in February! Sorry! Here's one of Emmi and Braden celebrating their 9th & 8th birthdays together. We will miss having Braden to celebrate with next February! (I'll put additional birthday pix from Emmi and Abbi & some misc. on my Picasaweb page.)

Vandalia Nazarene Church

2008-04-01T00:27:00.000-05:00

Here's a few pictures of our church.

The girls especially love the playground. :)

Easter Dresses... :)

2008-04-01T00:21:00.000-05:00

Abbi was really proud of her bunny egg. :)

Kezzi looked really cute until she started pouting...

Again with the bunny egg... :)

Happy 7th Birthday, Abbi!!

2008-04-01T00:12:00.000-05:00

Abbi's birthday was March 19th. I thought I'd better get some pictures up before Kezzi's birthday, which is sneaking up on us!

She chose a triple chocolate cake for her birthday. YUM!

Welcome to Ohio!

2008-03-08T17:15:00.000-06:00

We've survived our first Ohio blizzard! We got about a foot of snow, and church services for tomorrow have been cancelled.

For those of you who don't yet know, we have just moved to Vandalia, Ohio, where Josh is the senior pastor at Vandalia Nazarene Church. We just moved last week, and tomorrow would have been Josh's second Sunday service. Things are going really well, and the church here has been great to us. We were sad to leave Choctaw, though. Our friends there are awesome! We'll miss them a lot.

The girls got to play out in the snow today. I didn't make it out in time to get a picture of Abbi, but here are pictures of the rest of them for you to enjoy. Be sure to play the video at the end!!

2008-03-08T17:10:00.004-06:00

I'm not sure if Evi liked her first taste of snow!

Video of Kezzi and Evi in the snow!

2008-03-08T16:50:00.001-06:00

Finally... Vacation & Halloween Pics!

2007-11-24T14:06:00.000-06:00

I've finally posted our San Antonio & Halloween pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/hollene. I also included an album of Evi being cheesy in a cheerleader outfit.

You can see a little preview of the vacation pictures in my new slideshow right over there ==>, but there are tons of them, so go to my Picasa Web page!

For those of you who haven't heard the sad news, our little Queequeg was hit by a car a couple of weeks ago. We will miss him, but we're happy that he got to live a long happy life with us!

Well, enjoy the new pictures!

Oh, and a very Happy Birthday to Pop!! We love you!

New photos online

2007-08-22T14:32:00.000-05:00

I posted 4 new albums the other day...

July 4th

Evi's first birthday (July 18th)

Rock the Desert - The whole family went to Odessa, TX with a group of our teens to a Christian music festival. The whole family stayed in a tent. It was lots of fun, but I didn't take very many pictures. Kezzi took some of these.

Nana, Poppa & Uncle David come to visit - They were here this past weekend. (8/18 & 19)

These are all at my PicassaWeb site - http://picasaweb.google.com/hollene . If you have tried to go there from the link to the right, it was listed incorrectly. I have fixed it, and you should be able to see all my pictures now. Please tell me if something on my site isn't working, so I can change it. :)

2007-07-20T23:12:00.001-05:00

Sorry, I still haven't downloaded birthday pics, but I had something silly to share.

We went to Quizno's last night. Abbi picked a sesame seed off her sub and said, "I'm going to take this home so I can plant a bread tree!"

Hee hee! :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, EVI!!

2007-07-18T11:45:00.000-05:00

Today is Evi's first birthday! It hardly seems possible that a year has passed.

We are super busy (as usual!) today. The girls have Kids' College classes, then we go to church, so Evi's birthday celebration will probably be a late night one! I hope to post pictures tomorrow. Check back then! Until then... here's a couple of oldies but goodies.

Flood, the IRS and Skin!

2007-07-12T01:07:00.000-05:00

Water, water everywhere!

I was pretty angry late Monday night to find a big puddle under our table. I was sure that the dog had peed (again!). I opened the garage door to put her to bed, and was quite shocked to find a small pond where I had left the garage! It was storming, and we have just had so much rain over the last month, the ground can't take any more. Every corner of our 2 car garage was wet. The puddle under the table inside the house was the result of the water seeping under the threshold and the laminate flooring. It then came up through the seams & caused the puddle.

I used the ShopVac to suck up 40 gallons of water. :P Josh got our girls' little swimming pool, and started bailing water into it to keep it from going into the garage. We were up until about 3:30AM trying to deal with it. Tuesday, we ended up renting a storage unit, and moving all the stuff we stored in the garage. (well... the salvagable stuff.) I'm not sure how well the floor will dry out.

Then, today I opened a piece of mail that literally upset my stomach. The IRS. Aaaagghh! It was a letter to inform me that there was an error on my income tax return, and that we owed an additional $2500! I panicked and called right away. After 1 hour and 40 minutes on the phone (with 3 different representatives), we got it straightened out, I think. They told me that there wasn't an error, that I didn't owe more money, and that they'd put it in the system. We'll see if they send another bill next month.

On a happier note, I bought Ted Dekker's latest, Skin at Sam's Club today for $12.88!

Too late to be up! Going to bed now.

2007-07-04T00:30:00.000-05:00

As you can see, I've been messing around with my layout. Let me know what you think. I'm not sure if I'll keep this one or not....

Happy 4th of July!!

An actual blog entry!

2007-06-29T23:45:00.000-05:00

I've been reading a lot of blogs lately, mostly blogs of moms across the US who I don't even know. It has kinda inspired me to actually blog more regularly, but I don't have much confidence in my ablity to keep up with that! :P

Anyway, I wanted to share a funny story from the other day. Abbi came running in to tattle. She said that Kezzi had bitten her, so I went to investigate.

"Kezzi, did you bite Abbi?"

"Not with my sharp teeth..."

Oh, boy!

I put a couple hundred photos on my picassaweb page tonight. They're from our trip to IL in May... long overdue (thanks, Aunt Marge, for the reminder!). They are spread out in 3 folders, and are arranged chronologically, so skip back past the ballet pictures, and Evi's.

I'm hoping to post again within the week.... then again... don't hold your breath!

All of us girls with Grandma Betty

Easter Sunday!

2007-04-09T12:50:00.000-05:00

Easter was a great day. We had two really good services at church, then spent the afternoon at the house of some friends. We ate lots of good food, and the girls got to hunt Easter eggs. There are lots more pictures at my picassa web (link over on the right of this page). Hope you enjoy them!

By the time I got any pictures, the girls were already chomping their Easter chocolate!

You can't tell very well in these pictures, but the 4 older girls all got their hair cut this week.

2007-04-09T12:49:00.000-05:00

More pictures soon, since Kezzi's birthday is tomorrow!!

The Zoo!

2007-01-08T16:24:00.000-06:00

While we were in Louisiana for Christmas, we spent a day at the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans. It was great weather, and we all enjoyed ourselves. Poppa, Nana and Uncle Jesse were all there. I've uploaded 79 pictures of the day, so if you'd like to browse them, go to http://picasaweb.google.com/hollene. There are some you won't want to miss, including a couple of pouty pictures.

I especially like Kezzi's hand in this picture...

Kezzi wanted to see the elephants more than anything else.

Here's the whole crew (minus the photographer, of course).

Well, head on over to my web album, cause there are just too many cute ones to post!!

Love to you all!

I love Google!

2006-11-30T15:11:00.000-06:00

I was posting Halloween pictures on here today (since tomorrow is December!) and discovered Picasa Web albums. Hopefully now you will all be able to see more of my photos. I will still post a select few photos with detailed captions here on this blog, just as often as I always do.... once every two months or so!

On my Picasa Web Albums, I will post unedited, mostly uncaptioned photos. Most of them will be my family, but there will probably be a lot of church/youth group photos there, too.

You can go there by clicking here http://picasaweb.google.com/hollene

To make up for the extreme lack of photos lately, I've posted hundreds of pictures today from the last three months. I hope you enjoy them!

Halloween Pictures at Last!

2006-11-30T13:34:00.000-06:00

Here's my crazy bunch of trick-or-treaters. For those of you not well familiar with me and my family... No, these are not the children who came trick-or-treating to my door... these are my children, before we set out trick-or-treating!

I didn't get a very good picture of Evi, our little carrot. Who knew carrots suck their thumbs?

2006-11-30T13:24:00.000-06:00

Kezzi's inflatable chicken costume was the absolute cutest and funniest I saw all Halloween! People were commenting about it everywhere we went.

Emmi's was the most original costume I saw. :) She saw the idea on a website, and knew that was what she wanted. Here she is as a baby on the back of a hunched-over old lady!

Abbi was a cute little Tigger. She had lots of fun trick-or-treating.

Tori was a stealthy ninja. Well, not really so stealthy, and pretty cold before the night was over. Here's her crazy ninja pose...

2006-09-07T21:22:00.000-05:00

I know, it's surprising that I am already posting again... Many of you probably won't even check my blog for another month, based on my past record. :)

After her bath today, Evi wore her bathrobe for the first time. I took pictures, and they were just too cute not to post! I even got a smiling one!

Here's my youngest 3, just hanging out...
That's all for now!

Finally... More Photos!

2006-09-04T22:14:00.000-05:00

Okay, I won't even start off with the usual apologies and excuses... You all know them, and know that I've been a little busy. ;) It is sad, though, that this first picture is from way back when Evi was only a week old. Here she is on her bili-bed. (She was on it for one day for her high bilirubin count.) She looked like a little alien... you can't really tell, but the lights glowed through the blanket, and it looked really strange. August 9th we went with the teens to the Zoo. I think Kezzi was with Josh when these pictures were taken.

It was Evi's first zoo trip. She slept through most of it, and we spent a lot of time in the air conditioning! It was over 100 degrees out!!!

2006-09-04T22:11:00.000-05:00

Evi helps me wake up her sisters sometimes. Then she laughs at their wild hairdos.We started school on August 24th. It sure is wild, trying to entertain 1, feed & diaper 1 and teach 3 all at the same time. (Interesting 2 year "stairsteps," don't you think?)

2006-09-04T22:05:00.000-05:00

Nice white tounge in this one:
These are the most recent pictures I have of Evi right now. These were taken Saturday after her bath. In this one, I think she's trying to hypnotize Queequeg....

See her wild after-bath hair? She had lost patience with me and my camera by this shot... :)

I'm proud of these two....

2006-07-28T11:54:00.000-05:00

Here's Josh and Evi last night at Josh's ordination. Doesn't Josh look good in a suit?

Evin Lilian

2006-07-22T09:06:00.000-05:00

Well, she's here! I'm sorry it has taken me all week to get the photos up. Our 5th daughter, Evin Lilian was born Tuesday, July 18th at 3:26 pm. She was 7lbs, 10oz (our middle child for weight), and 20 1/2 inches long. She looks very much like her sisters did at birth, except for the deep crease in her nose, and she's less jaundiced than they were.

If you have no interest in reading the little birth story, my feelings won't be hurt, but please scroll down, because there are lots of pictures.

The birth went well, but not as quickly as we've come to expect from our girls. :) I was induced, so we got to the hospital at 6:00am. Dr. Brown was supposed to come break my water at 10:00, but he got held up in surgery until noon. He then came and broke my water, and we all thought it would be over soon, but it didn't work quite that way...

Right after he broke my water, I had trouble breathing. It felt like a giant man was sitting on my chest, and I couldn't get any air. They gave me an oxygen mask (which I then wore the rest of the afternoon, until she was born). During all of this, Evi's heart rate dropped. Way down. It was pretty scary. They had to put a monitor on her head to monitor her heart rate for the rest of labor. We could hear it beeping in the room, and every time I had a contraction, her heart rate would drop from the 150's to about the 50's. Josh was watching a movie on the TV, and paused it during almost every contraction, to make sure the rate bounced back up.

When it finally came time to push (about 3 hours after breaking the water), things again did not go as smoothly as my previous easy labors. I still only pushed about 3 times, but Evi had her head turned and tilted the wrong way. She ended up with a huge bump on her head for a little while because of it. Her umbilical cord was also wrapped around her neck and her ankle.

So... it was a labor and delivery with a little more story to it than the previous 4, but still, a fairly easy one (and pain-free... thank God for epidurals!), and of course a very happy ending.

Evi has been taking calls from well-wishers all week... She looks a little tired out. :)

For those of you wondering how big I finally ended up... Hard to see because of the blanket, but I think the term is gi-normous.

2006-07-22T09:00:00.000-05:00

Evi's first photo... She's being weighed and measured by the nurses. Evi's first photo with proud Daddy.
And here's her first photo with Mommy. My watch says 3:41, so she's 15 minutes old. Do I look a little zoned out in the picture? :)This is Kezzi's first peek at her new baby sister.

2006-07-22T08:54:00.000-05:00

Here are the proud big sisters, the first time they got to hold baby Evi...
Kezzi & Evi

Abbi & Evi

Emmi & Evi

Tori & Evi

Which is the biggest tounge-twister?

The baby is coming, the baby is coming!!! Last minute photo frenzy!

2006-07-13T11:33:00.000-05:00

Okay, so I have been really behind on my blogging... I've had tons of pictures I wanted to share before the baby comes, but no time to get them up. So I thought I'd get at least a couple up now, before she comes next week.

Yip, I said next week. Unless she decides to come on her own in the next 5 days (which just might happen), the doctor is going to induce me on Tuesday, July 18th. (And we're still working on that name! :)

So, I thought I'd share some pictures of our last 3 or 4 months, to clear way for baby pictures next week. I do want to point out that on our way back from our IL trip in May, we went to the Exotic Animal Paradise outside Springfield, MO, and I will not be including any of those pictures today. That deserves an entire photo essay of its own!

In June, we all went with Josh to Jr. High Church Camp. He was the director. It was a great camp, and we all enjoyed ourselves...

Kezzi in the pool

Abbi at the creek
Emmi in the creek

In May, we went to IL to visit Grandmother and Pop while Josh took another Masters course at Bethel College in IN. We loved our time ther, and got to see all our family... lots of boy cousins! I'd love to post all the pictures from that week... there are some funny ones! Maybe another time...

Kezzi and Great-Grandma in IL

Now we'll jump all the way back to April... Here are the girls in their Easter dresses...

And here's Kezzi's 3rd birthday, April 10th, 2006.

Here's all the girls at the zoo back in April.

And finally, Tori's 9th (!) birthday, April 24th, 2006.

Well, I've got plenty more I'd like to share, but I've got to dig some baby clothes out of the attic! Come back next week to see baby pictures!

Love to all!

Holli

Baby!!

2006-06-29T23:46:00.000-05:00

We went for another ultrasound yesterday. The placenta has moved out of the way, so no c-section for me! Yippeee!! The ultrasound technician was really sweet, and she did a little 3-D ultrasound for us (free). It was amazing! Unfortunately, the baby slept through it, so we only got to see her stretching a little. You can see in the second picture, though, that she did move her arm and rub her eye. They said that she was a pretty big baby... already about 6 lbs. 6 oz. I technically have just under 5 weeks left, but we'll see how long I go! Baby Judi says "Happy Birthday, Uncle Jesse!"

Happy Birthday to Abbi (awhile back!)

2006-04-08T21:51:00.000-05:00

Well, I just realized that Kezzi's birthday is Monday, and I never got around to posting any birthday pictures of our big 5 year old Abbi...

Here's a banner Josh made for the big occasion...

Abbi with the apron, muffin mix and mini muffin tin that she got from Grandmother. She's very excited about these, but we haven't had a chance to make them yet. She asks me about it almost daily.

Abbi opening gifts... She looks a little surprised at this hair bow!

Abbi's birthday was a little hectic. It was a Sunday, which is always busy around here, and that one was particularly busy. The day before, we and about 494 other people went to Chuck E Cheese. (The restaurant has a 500 person capacity, and we had to wait for people to leave so we could go in.) It was quite crazy!

The three older girls are all playing soccer right now. This is Abbi's first year to play. Here's a picture of her on her first game day. Her team name is the Koalas. Tori and Emmi play on the same team (which Josh coaches). Their team is the Rams, and their uniforms are teal & black.

Well, I guess I'll be posting more pictures shortly... Kezzi turns 3 on Monday, and two weeks from Monday, Tori will be 9!

IT'S A......

2006-03-13T20:19:00.000-06:00

GIRL!!

:) Can't really say that I'm suprised! I would post her ultrasound photos, but the computer that the scanner is hooked to isn't working today. She's cute, of course. She was opening and closing her mouth during the ultrasound. Much like my other girls were doing all day, but so far, she's quieter. ;) She had her legs crossed at the ankles for awhile... she looked like she was lounging, just hanging out! She finally moved so we could find out she was a girl.

Well, now the next step is to decide on a name!

2006-03-09T11:49:00.000-06:00

I know everyone is dying to know....
We find out on Monday (March 13th) if #5 is a boy or a girl. Any predictions? Our church is full of them! About half of the people are saying another girl, the other half are just sure it'll be a boy. One of our teens even had a dream it was a boy! (and he was beating people with a Star Wars lightsaber, too!)
I'll be sure to post on Monday. (the appointment is late afternoon, so don't check until after then!)

Happy 7th Birthday Emmi!!

2006-02-11T22:58:00.000-06:00

7 years ago, Emmi was born!! It hardly seems like it could have been that long ago, but it was. We have had a fun couple of days celebrating her for her birthday. This afternoon, the girls and I went to the dollar theater to see Chicken Little. This evening, we had a steak and fettucini dinner. :)

2006-02-11T22:56:00.000-06:00

Since Josh would be out of town with the church youth Friday night - Sunday afternoon, we opened presents and had the birthday party a day early. Every present Emmi opened was "awesome!"

2006-02-11T22:55:00.000-06:00

The opening of the awesome presents was great fun for Kezzi, aparently!!

2006-02-11T22:53:00.000-06:00

Emmi asked for (and got) many (awesome) Hot Wheels and cars. She also got a dog that she is excited about... It has batteries, and moves and barks. I like that it won't have to go to the vet, won't have to be fed, and can never mess on the floor!

2006-02-11T22:49:00.001-06:00

Braden and Emmi shared a Build-a-Bear party last year. Braden gave Emmi this outfit for her bear this year.

2006-02-11T22:49:00.000-06:00

Emmi and her best friend Braden share a birthday, so we partied together once again. This picture was taken right after they blew out the candles... Braden turned 6, not 4... you can see the candles are in the process of being removed (and licked). Braden just lost his first tooth, so he and Emmi got to share toothless grins. :)

2006-02-11T22:45:00.000-06:00

Here's Emmi in the apron Grandmother made for her, and wielding the spatula that came with it and the brownie mix. Emmi is quite excited about baking now, and can't wait to put the apron to the test. It looks as if she may be reciting the Young Baker's Pledge or something, but she was embarassed by the cow peeking through her apron, and wanted to hide it!

2006-02-11T22:41:00.001-06:00

Kezzi was full of poses for Emmi's birthday. Poor Tori didn't make it into any of the pictures I'm putting on the Internet today. I'll have to have a photo shoot soon...

2006-02-11T22:41:00.000-06:00

Emmi sporting the "awesome" outfit her Nana and Poppa sent her.

2006-02-11T22:40:00.000-06:00

Abbi's birthday is coming up next!

2006-02-11T22:38:00.000-06:00

Officially 7 now!

Cougle #5!!

2006-01-20T11:12:00.000-06:00

Here are our first ultrasound pictures of the new baby... No, we don't know yet if it's a boy or girl. ; )

The first picture is labelled... if you've never seen an ultrasound picture before, squint your eyes and use your imagination. The white dot floating above the body is a cross-section of a leg. The leg is actually attached to the body. :)

2006-01-20T11:11:00.000-06:00

The second picture is baby's face... The whitest part is its cheek... you can see the pointy nose and a dark spot where the eye is.According to the measurements of the baby in the ultrasound, my due date is around August 1st... So, sometime in July (my kids are always early), I should be able to introduce him/her to you!

VACATION!!!

2005-10-01T19:49:00.000-05:00

Well, we just got back from our Plan B vacation to Austin and San Antonio, TX. Our Plan A, of course was to go to Gulf Shores with Josh's parents, but Hurricane Katrina destroyed that plan. We instead, we took a long weekend trip.

We left Wednesday night after church and drove through the night to Jesse's house in Austin. (Jesse is Josh's brother.) Thursday and Friday, Jesse showed us Austin. We got to see his office at UT, the Children's Museum and a Science & Nature Center. We ate out at a couple different places, and we got to meet Jesse's Hope Group (his church's small groups). They met at Jesse's. I was amazed we all fit in his cute little house!

I've got lots of pictures, but I tried to keep it under 30 that I posted. :) If you want to see more, let me know, and I can email some to you. You will probably have to click on the October 2005 Archives link on the right to see all the photos I've posted today. I have a couple of non-vacation photos... I put them up at the top... then the vacation begins... Enjoy!

2005-10-01T19:47:00.000-05:00

Okay, it took me awhile to post this, but this is what Emmi's current tooth situation is. During VBS in August, she was jumping in an inflatable jumpy thing (whatever you call them) and somehow hit her mouth. One tooth popped out immediately, and the other we took out when VBS was over that night... It was barely hanging, and oh, so gross!

2005-10-01T19:46:00.000-05:00

Our friends Patricia and Laney came for a visit from Clinton, MS. We were so glad to see them. Tori and Laney had a lot of fun together. (The rest of the girls had fun with Laney, too, they just didn't make this pic.)

2005-10-01T19:45:00.000-05:00

Kezzi learned this attractive face from Emmi!

2005-10-01T19:44:00.000-05:00

This is my new desktop background. I took this picture at the Austin Science and Nature Center. I really liked the lilies in the pond.... and the girls aren't bad, either. :)

2005-10-01T19:42:00.001-05:00

Sweet sisters....

2005-10-01T19:42:00.000-05:00

I like this picture of Kezzi, digging in the "dinosaur pit" at the Austin Science and Nature Center. It makes her look like such a big kid!

2005-10-01T19:41:00.000-05:00

Here are the girls at the Children's Museum in Austin, TX.

2005-10-01T19:40:00.000-05:00

The big highlight of our trip was Sea World in San Antonio. Uncle Jesse went with us, and we got a nice big hotel room in San Antonio. Emmi and Tori posed with this poor sweaty guy in a Shamu suit, but Abbi and Kezzi wouldn't have anything to do with him!

2005-10-01T19:39:00.000-05:00

We spent two days in Sea World, and it was so much fun. The shows were all great, all the girls behaved themselves for the most part, and the park wasn't busy at all. Many of the rides, we rode over and over without waiting in a line!

2005-10-01T19:37:00.000-05:00

Tori and Josh ride the Shamu Express! Emmi is in there, too... that bit of hair next to Josh. :)

2005-10-01T19:36:00.000-05:00

Despite our near run-in with Hurricane Rita, we didn't see a cloud in the sky at Sea World. In fact, it was super hot! Sea World has nice play areas with water for the kids to run around in.

2005-10-01T19:35:00.000-05:00

Kezzi spent much of our trip being traumatized. I knew we were in trouble when she started saying "No, NO!" at the first animal we saw inside Sea World... the Clydesdale horses. Here, she is busy keeping her distance from the water playground you saw Tori playing in in the last picture.

2005-10-01T19:32:00.000-05:00

If you couldn't tell, this is a look and shriek of sheer terror, the first time we went to see the Shamu show. To be fair, she had just gone down to the side of the tank with her Daddy, and one of the whales splashed cold salt water on them.

2005-10-01T19:30:00.001-05:00

Oh, the trauma!

2005-10-01T19:30:00.000-05:00

Too loud!

2005-10-01T19:29:00.000-05:00

The girls got to feed the dolphins stinky fish.

2005-10-01T19:28:00.000-05:00

Kezzi did have a favorite animal... She really liked the penguins.

2005-10-01T19:26:00.000-05:00

A nice profile shot of the rest of the family. In case you're wondering, Abbi is throwing a ball into a cup for a prize, and the others are looking on.

2005-10-01T19:25:00.000-05:00

One of the many big splashes by the killer whales, designed to fill the eyes and nostrils of the tourists with salt water.

2005-10-01T19:24:00.000-05:00

These dripping wet girls were in the "splash zone" for that wave.

2005-10-01T19:23:00.000-05:00

The friendly killer whale that splashed. (Shamu, or some Shamu family member, I'm sure.)

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The end of our Sea World trip. Cute girls, pretty fountain... I don't know if you've tried to take a decent photo of 4 girls at once...

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It's really hard to get a good shot of each of them... so I try again and again.

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And it just gets worse....

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Abbi was a bit goofy by the end of our big trip.

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I think Kezzi had fun!

Hurricane Katrina

2005-09-07T11:06:00.000-05:00

This is a long text post... there are photos of the Cougles' house at the end. If you are one of those people with no patience for the written word, by all means, scroll on down!

Well, as you all probably know, about 4 1/2 years ago, we moved from Slidell, LA. Thank God! I sure would not have wanted to be anywhere near there for this hurricane! I'm sure the house we used to live in flooded. Our cul-de-sac flooded to the point of not being able to drive down it after a heavy rain.

Josh's parents still live there... Their address is Pearl River, but their subdivision is pretty much right at the Northern part of Slidell. They decided not to evacuate for the storm, but to stay home. We talked to them Sunday, before the hurricane, but then lost contact for the next 2 1/2 days. That was so scary. There was no way to reach them (no phone lines... cell or land lines), and it drove us nuts. I spent those days scouring the Internet for any news of their neighborhood. We dialed their numbers over and over, knowing that we wouldn't be able to get through. Finally, on Wednesday, they drove to Baton Rouge to get gas for their generator, and were able to get a cell signal there, and called us. What a relief to finally hear from them!

They are alright... no flooding or major damage to their home. They continue to stay there, with a generator and their 6 (I think it's 6... I've lost track) basset hounds. Josh's mom celebrated her birthday Saturday. I asked her how it was, since I knew they couldn't go out to eat or anything like that to celebrate. She said it wasn't too bad, because that was the day they got their satellite tv back! :)

Dr. Cougle's Slidell office had some flooding, and their Gulfport, MS office (which was about 1/2 block from the beach) isn't there anymore. Pray for them as he tries to rebuild his practice. He also saw patients in New Orleans East (which isn't a possiblity for now) and in Hattiesburg, MS.

Well, here are pictures from their house. I'll try to post more pictures of the girls soon, too... Since that last post with Emmi's missing tooth, she's had the top two knocked out in an inflatable jumpy thing at VBS! Josh has been busy remodelling the new youth room at the church (the original sanctuary), so the girls and I have been at the church a lot over the last couple of weeks, trying to help out. It's looking great! Maybe I'll get some pictures of that posted, too.

Love to you all!

2005-09-07T11:05:00.000-05:00

Of the numerous trees that fell or were totally uprooted, this is the only one that damaged the house. In addition to the twisted gutter you can see, there is a small hole in the roof of the bathroom (the bathroom they redid to include a shower when they put in the pool). That's amazing to me. The trees all fell towards the street, otherwise the trees in their front yard would have all ended up on the house.

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The pool is not exactly ready for swimmers...

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This is the Cougles' front yard from the street.

Another update.... Photos caught up through May!!

2005-07-29T18:18:00.000-05:00

Hey, that was great! I thought that people had probably given up on me ever posting again. Not true! I didn't even get a chance to email anyone and tell them that I had pictures up. When we got back from the doctor's office, I already had tons of comments! Now that's instant gratification! It encouraged me to post some more!

Well, when I sat down to post again, I got confused about which pictures I should post first. It's always a bit confusing, since I try to post them in reverse order, so they show up in order on the page. But this time, since I had already posted some from the Neeley's house, I didn't know what order I even wanted them to show up in....

So, in somewhat random order, here are more pictures from the month of May... pictures of family and our trip to IL and MO. I didn't take many pictures in June, so maybe I'll get caught up to August before it starts (well, then again... I've only got a couple of days....).

I've posted so many photos in the last two days, if you didn't see my update yesterday (July 28th), you'll have to go to my July archives!

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At the end of May, Emmi lost her first tooth. She was showing everyone at church how loose it was, and it was driving me nuts, because it was practically laying on her lower lip. I had planned to pull it that night, but she beat me to it!

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Here's the whole mob in action!!! It's a good thing that the swingset at Grandmother's is big!!! The girls enjoyed Kevin and Levi all week, and everyone played together very well.

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Here are the girls, Grandmother and Pop, Kevin, and a baby bunny that Kevin found hiding in the grass. Check out Kezzi's eyes... Those are Emmi eyes... :)

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Since Kevin made it in the picture with the bunny, but Levi didn't, I thought I'd put this one in of him. We have a lot of pictures of the girls and their boy cousins in action! Some of my favorites are of Levi trying to get a picture of Emmi with his mom's camera phone.

2005-07-29T18:03:00.000-05:00

Here I am with all my sisters. A rare occurance! We're standing in age order... I'm first, then Grace, Franki and Annie.

2005-07-29T18:01:00.000-05:00

Here's Tori, Produce Princess. Her harvest is straight from Grandmother's garden. Yummy!

2005-07-29T17:59:00.000-05:00

Here we are with my Mom's mom. We just call her Grandma... or Great Grandma to the girls. I think that once upon a time, we called her Grandma Kathryn, but we dropped the Kathryn. Queequeg even got in on this picture. I think he likes Grandma!

2005-07-29T17:57:00.000-05:00

I got to see both of my grandmothers on our trip. This is my Grandma Betty (my Dad's mom). I had this picture taken twice, thinking one would be better than the other. If you think Abbi and Emmi look strange here, you should see the other picture!

2005-07-29T17:55:00.000-05:00

Our Kirkwood visit was made delicious by a trip to Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Education and doughnutty goodness in one stop! The girls (especially Tori) enjoyed watching the doughnuts be made. We ate plenty! The girls all got these hats. Fowler looked really cute in his, too, but I guess I didn't get a picture....

2005-07-29T17:52:00.000-05:00

Krispy Kreme Ab

2005-07-29T17:51:00.000-05:00

We went to the St. Louis Zoo with Franki, Dewayne and Fowler. It was Fowler's first zoo trip. He was such a good boy. I love this photo of Franki and Fowler.

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Here's the Neeley family photo from the zoo. (Fowler is under that hat!)

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The older three girls are touching animal skulls and snake skins outside the reptile house at the zoo.

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Kezzi saw the picture of the other girls at the zoo and said, "Where's me?" So here is Kezzi pointing out an elephant (you have to look for it).

2005-07-29T17:45:00.000-05:00

Here's another photo I found of Tori and Fowler that I thought was good.

Finally!!! An UPDATE!!!!!

2005-07-28T07:29:00.000-05:00

Well, I know I've been promising posts to all you fine people for a couple of months now. It's not for lack of pictures that I haven't posted. I have 216 just from May alone!!! (That's when we took our trip to MO and IL.) I just keep thinking I have to have a huge block of time to sit down and post. Then I realize that if I post everything at once, nobody will be able to look at it all at once, anyway.

So I decided that since I'm up early (Tori's going to the doctor this morning), I'd post just a couple of pictures, maybe just ones of the girls with the alligators. Well, I did that quickly, and thought, maybe I'll do a couple of Fowler (my sister Franki's baby born in February... we stayed with them one night in Kirkwood, MO on the way to Grandmother and Pop's). Well, as a result, there are 12 photos posted, and now I have only 30 minutes to dress myself and get the girls up and dressed to go to the doctor.

I have a ton more pictures I want to share, so check back again (those of you who haven't already given up on me!). I have pictures of the St. Louis Zoo with the Neeleys, fun and family in IL, visits from Nana and Papa, Uncle Jesse, the Wolheters (who had pictures of their visit on their blog way before me!), and Pop, and much more!

Love to you all... thanks for your patience! Holli