It's been an active summer and wanted to capture a few moments real quick. This past Sunday and Monday we had a chance to go and meet our new nephew, Cole Miles Dunn. He's pretty awesome and it was really special to see my Brother Brad and Sister-in-law Katrina as new proud parents. Here's a few pics of other activities we've been a part of lately:

Emily has been enjoying being a part of 'jump' at the church (a 2-day a week program for kids who's parents work at the church). Here she's pictured with her jump friends as they had a chance to help collect donations for the food pantry, weigh the items, look for expiration dates, store the items on the shelves and see people prayed for.

No Joshua, you cannot marry your sister!

This is a picture of 'their world'. 'Their world' consists of pulling the couch back from the wall and then draping the curtains over the couch to creat a secret world. They then decorated it with pillows and blankets and hung out in there for a while.

This is the drawing that my daughter made me instructing me on the precise way I needed to make a mickey mouse chocolate chip pancake. She takes her pancakes very seriously and wanted to make sure I didn't mess it up. She has also told me before when I've made hamburgers that I need to go get a job at a restaurant so I can learn how to make a burger.

Our neighbors Tommye and David just had their second baby, Brady, who was born recently. They were pumped that Mrs. Tommye let them hold the baby and Emily was especially enamored when baby Brady started holding her finger. She is totally a little Mommy.
Another activity we have enjoyed recently is going out to Moorshead Blueberry Farm. You basically show up and they give you these white buckets and you go pick blueberries like crazy. We have been out there two times now and have picked about 12 pounds worth (1.50/lb). Although the last time I was out there I almost cried as after about an hour of picking and my bucket being about 2/3 full I pressed in close to get a bunch of berries off of a branch and then next thing I knew my whole bucket tipped over and all my berries fell to the ground. I sat there trying not to cry for a bit and then in desperation I cried out to my son, "Joshua, will you please help Daddy pick up his blueberries!" Joshua looked at me with merciful eyes and simply said, "No Daddy I won't help you." Wow, thanks alot man...Oh well, it saved me some money I guess.

On Thursday we celebrated Emily's 6th birthday and Joshua's 4th birthday at our church's youth building. It was a full 2 hours of birthday fun. They had friends from our neighborhood, church and school. Emily also wanted us to have people bring non-perishable items for our church's food pantry and many people did! Thankfully the weather was great and everyone seemed to have a good time. Here are a few pictures and a video of the day:

Thought I would take a moment to catch up a bit since May blew by at a furious pace. Emily is officially a graduate of kindergarten now as we took a moment to snap a picture of her class after her last chapel with her teacher Mrs. Brazzell.

Here's a shot of Emily peering through the window on her big graduation day.

There's the big graduate all decked out in her cap and gown!

Part of the ceremony consisted of the graduates acting out a book about a caterpillar who was eating all kinds of different foods and eventually made a cocoon and transformed into a butterfly. It was a picture of the huge change from the kids at the beginning of the year to now. Emily was very excited because she got to be the butterfly that she carefully hid in the brown bag until her cue.

One of the really special parts of the ceremony was how they recognized each child. As each child walked up the teacher commented on a certain godly character trait that they had observed in them over the last year. Mrs Brazzell chose faithfulness for Emily and she was also given a medal that had her character trait on it and a scripture verse. It was a cool moment to see what someone else who had gotten to know our daughter quite well saw in her as a strength.

We have decided to nominate Joshua for an oscar in the 'dramatic 4 year old best actor' category as he has perfected the art of one moment being totally normal and content to displaying an incredible dramatic face like this the next. I have decided that not only is there the 'terrible two' but there is also the 'fearsome four'. You would think that in this shot the world is coming to an end but literally seconds after this we are totally back to normal....amazing!

Back to happy Josh!







On May 22nd Joshua celebrated his 4th birthday (he had a little part on our Married Life retreat in Wimberley) and then had a little party at his school where he was sporting his mickey mouse birthday ears.




We had a nice visit with Poppaw and Grammy for a couple of weeks. Grammy was kept quite busy doing lots of reading to Emily and Joshua, Joshua's Pre-school and Emily's school. Poppaw was kept busy with several different projects around the house. Emily is sporting her new bike in this picture (an early bday present from Poppaw and Grammy). Brother got a little bike as well.

Another big event that we celebrated was my brother's (Uncle Jay Jay) graduation from medical school. We all went down and spent the night at the Hilton next to the George R. Brown. It was special as both of my grandfather's were there as well as Judy, my parents, Uncle Randy and Kim, and Debby (Gaddy), and Uncle Matt. That evening my grandfather (Grandpa) got to come and stay at our house for the first time which was a really special visit with him (Gaddy and my mom also accompanied him too) as he is almost 90.

Lasly, Emily finished her second year of ballet. This year she did two dances ('All I want for Christmas' and a song from 'The Princess and the Frog'). She had some proud supporters who overwhelmed her with flowers after the show. Here's a few pictures from the event. I've also thrown in a video of some of her dance as well as one of the songs she participated in at the Christian Academy Musical near the end of school.

Today, we took Joshua in for his 4 year old check up. He was very brave as he made it through the vision test, hearing test, blood pressure (it just gives your arm a hug as big sister puts it), blood work (yikes), and yes two different shots in the leg. I believe big sister was more freaked out than her brother was.

Josh is pictured here identifying shapes from long range for the vision test.