R.I.P

This is my cousin Christopher Michael Dyke. He passed away on Sunday morning due to a house fire. Him and his girlfriend had just been home a little bit when God called him home. He left behind two beautiful, sweet hearted little boys. He did care a great deal about his boys and they absolutely loved him to death. We just finished up the services for him and we are still so very very shocked. We had just been camping with them not two weeks earlier. He made so many people smile with his natural smile. I have never known him to get upset with many people because he was so layed back. Him and my husband had become quite good friends and its been rally hard for my husband to except also. We love him very much.

This is him holding my baby girl. She absolutely will not have anything to do with most people but she did like Chris.She loves playing with his boys and they get along great together. He was so full of love and laughter. His little sister said she will miss most of all his ridiculous jokes that never made any sense.

Well this was one of his jokes: he had gone and gotten a 3 leaf clover put on his leg. So his little bro and sis asked him what it was for or what it meant. His response was because we were Irish. Thats so freakin' funny because...we are absolutely not Irish. His lil bro checked and there is no Irish in us and we still do not know why he had that tattooed on him. However, in remembrance of him we all went and got one done. His friend, step mom, dad, and all the cousins. So far their is eleven who have or have appointments to get them. It just shows we love him and will always remember how he could make us all laugh even if it was because it made no sense at all. We love you Chris!

Summer is Here!!!!!!

So here is my cute little, scared of the water, baby girl. She has been terrified of the water since she was tiny and went walking out into the water and fell. She was only big enough that when she put her hands down to catch herself she was commpetely in the water. Every year she has made a little progress with the water. So by the end of last year, she was holding the wall to walk in the 3 foot area of the pool. We went camping (see last post) she did get into the lake which is rare for her so I knew she had made some progress. Well we decided to use the pool a lot this week and here she is just like a fish.


This is her not only swiming or jumping in but DIVING! I was so proud that all I could do is grab the camera and yell "do it again".

Here she goes!


I feel almost like I did when she first started school! Well...yeah bout that proud!
See I was a fish in the water. My mom would almost have to spank me to get me out of the lake. I never knew what a pool was like but I didnt care so long as it was playing in the water. Now to have a child I just always imagined getting to share that passion with her. I thought all hope was done until now! Yipee, my daughter has something like me! I am so very very proud of her.


This is her jumping off the side of her great-grandparents pool. If you look closely, you will see a huge smile on her face as she knows she is about to hit the water! Way to go ladybug! I love you!

Vacation 2008

Well since my last post we have spent two weeks camping. Yes I said camping and it has the title of "vacation". When I was growing up, that is all we could do. That is all we could afford to do. One week a year we would spend the entire week with my mom's brothers and sister-in-laws and all my million cousins. We literally grew up together. We were tiny tots all together and what is terribly weird is that now our children are the little ones. It totally trips out our folks. So check out these pics!

So this is my little bundle of joy and my cousin's little bundle too. Yes I can very vividly remember me and her at this stage in our lives. This child was called by her mother's name all week long. She apparently looks identical to her momma. She sure does favor her a lot. Yes her mom is a little doll too.





Here of course is one of us not so tottler sized cousins. He obviously still thinks he is a child. To his dismay and our pleasure he didnt finish what he bagan at the top of the hill. We had a blast watching him try and try and try and still end up this way.However, we had a great well diserved laugh at his expense.

This is most of our little punks. They had just as great a time together as we used to when we were their size. This pic was taken just after we got our turn on the raft-pulled-by-the-fast-boat-thing. It was so fun and just like us, everyone brought their lawn chairs to the lake bank to watch how quickly my aunt could flip us right off the "THING". She was sucessful with me (as if thats a big shocker)the hard part was getting back on. Anyways, it was very very fun and I would do it again and hope to get to soon.