cousins are the best

jonah with his cousin katarina. can you tell neither of them mind having their picture taken?

the photo lean...

oh kat! you're so fun!

my brother was on the news

don't worry. he didn't get arrested.

apparently marmion academy (where my brother goes to high school)'s soccer team is awesome and they went to Brazil and were on the news.

Watch more Voxant Newsroom videos on AOL Video

my dad sent me a link to the news story and i captured this shot from the video. tony's the one looking really smart and interested in the lesson in the back. what an actor! way to go, uncle tiger!


here's more on the story...

Dear Friends,

The Marmion Academy Soccer Team’s 2007 trip to Brazil was featured on the NBC-Channel
5 program, “Sports Sunday Live” on Sunday, January 11, 2009.

Sports reporter Peggy Kusinski was on the Marmion campus during the week of January
5, 2009 to complete the story begun last spring.  Ms. Kusinski interviewed a number
of Marmion soccer players along with Head Coach Kevin O’Connor about their trip and
the work the team did with several Brazilian orphanages.

In case you missed it....here is a link to view the feature on the Marmion Soccer
team:

http://video.aol.com/video-detail/marmion-soccer-team-goes-to-brazil/830124240/?icid=VIDURVNWS12

Enjoy!

John K. Milroy
Headmaster

have a merry elfin' christmas!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

we're goin' to d & b, cha!

last week we went to dave & buster's for some small group bonding and dinner. silly me forgot to get a picture of our small group. doh! it was one of those days.

but i did manage to capture some fun pics of jonah on his first, no make that second trip to dave & busters. i forgot we were there in april 2007 for our friend allan's birthday party. do baby heads get any rounder than this? seriously.

ok, so following are some pictures of jonah's second trip to dave & buster's... but his first trip where he actually got to play games.

here's our favorite get-the-song-stuck-in-your-head-all-week game: colorama! hopefully this isn't the beginning of a gambling addiction. jonah actually picked a winner on one of his spins. go green! big money! no whammie!

scott's daughter madyson also won big! =)

we found this game that jonah loved! it involved sticking a coin in the slot and trying to get it to roll into the back of a dump truck. jonah's favorite part: he thought all the trucks were Mack from the movie Cars.

carefully putting the coin in the slot... this was the challenging part of the game for the 2 year old.

then watching the coin roll into the trucks. oooooooooh!!!

did i make it?!

such sweet fascination. kids make all things new & fun & exciting.

in this game you try to get the coin to go into choo choo cars, which looked awefully similar to thomas and friends, so this was another big winner with our two year old crowd.

a view from the other side

leah and madyson playing a little skee ball

here's what cute little madyson got with her big ticket winnings!

i almost forgot... jonah got a d&b basketball and a frisbee with his mack & choo-choo game tickets. (oh, and daddy helped just a wee bit).

male bonding

cha!

my big little brother's senior pictures

when we were in town in september i did senior pictures for my little brother, who is about a foot taller than me, hence "big little brother". all of my siblings are taller than me actually. that's ok. i don't mind being average... ::sigh::

isn't he cute?! (sorry tony)


we kept finding these stenciled spray painted bunnies everywhere around the park. apparently geneva is so quaint that even their vandalism is cute and fluffy.



ok, i can tell your cheeks are getting tired of smiling. make a funny face, tony.

there we go.


so manly.

did i mention he's got a good sense of humor, ladies?

and here's our aviators ad...



i think this one's my favorite.









this one's for my mom. that's the bi-centennial time capsule behind tony (well i can't remember the exact amount of years, but geneva did it for one of their big city anniversaries). we put stuff in there when i was a kid.

congratulations tiger! we love you!

illinois trip - day 7 :: grandpa's park, dinner with the girls, rachael's house

tuesday, september 30

so who's up for a trip down memory lane? oh good. me too.

on tuesday afternoon of our illinois visit we all decided (and i'm so glad that we did) to take a little trip to great grandpa micky's park (my mom's dad) in batavia. well as i started looking through these pictures they started to remind me of some pictures i had taken at this same park with these same kids only the kiddos were a wee bit mini-er.

have a look for yourself...

kylee on tuesday (september 2008)

kylee in april 2007

jonah and kylee (and grandma peggy) in front of great grandpa's sign in sept 2008

jonah and kylee in front of great grandpa's sign in april 2007

jonah sitting by his sister's marker for her tree in sept 2008.

april 2007. what a little chunko! =)

this is one of my favorite comparisons... sept 2008

april 2007

sept 2008 - notice how the swing is tummy height

april 2007 - chest height

so was that fun, or what?! here's a link to the rest of the pics from 2007.

we had such a fun afternoon at the park as a whole family! here's aunt mowgy dangling jonah boy trecherously off the playground.

whew! safe!

have i ever mentioned that jonah loves to swing?


hey you nut!

whoa! molly, you're crazy!


jonah and grandpa dan playin' on the slide


molly: "no! i didn't push him! hard... hee hee hee..."

dude, nice fro.

ooohhh! look what we found in the grass near the playground! pretty "fly-fly"!

me and [d] getting artsy fartsy

oh my gosh! jonah looooved the butterfly on his arm! he was actually so excited to touch it and hold it that we had to reign him in so he wouldn't hurt it. this was his non-stop giggling "look everybody! there's a butterfly on my arm!" look.


grandma got to hold him too. grandma loves butterflies.

ok, let go now little guy. be free.

ahhh... there are those boys. playing my favorite outdoor catch type game... trak ball.

uh oh! jonah spotted them too. "lemme play guys!"

can i try, uncle tiger?

moo ah ah ah! you're never getting this ball back again!

sure i can throw it that far, uncle jeff! move back a little.

when munchkins attack...

we're outta here!

hey mama! i stole the ball!

ok, i'm ready for some more swingin' now, grandpa.




i just love that some good family friends of ours donated a tree in faith's name at my grandpa's park after she was born. that is one of the best gifts we received to help keep her memory alive. i just love visiting my baby girl's tree there! and now especially that we have jonah it's fun to see him running around and playing on the playground. i like "visiting" and having her memory there rather than in a graveyard. i know i share it all the time, but here's a picture of her marker from this trip.

daddy and jonah boy by faith's tree.

oh my gosh, these next few pictures bring tears to my eyes. jonah (with very little prompting) gave his big sister's tree a hug...

played "ah-perk" with her...

and gave her...

...a big smooch!

me and jonah by faith's tree


this picture absolutely cracks me up! i can almost hear my mom and sheridan yelling at jonah that it's time to go. look how cute and pouty he is. i don't even remember what was happening here, but that's how i picture it. "aw, do we have to go?"

i love this picture! it took some fruit snacks to get the little kids to sit still, but we managed to get an awesome picture of me and my siblings and our spouses and kids. very cool. i love you guys!

just a few final rounds of ring around the rosey before we all hopped in our cars.

gorgeous perfect sky on our crisp fall day at the park.

after the park i headed out to dinner with some girlfriends from church. i forgot to get the camera out while everyone was still there, but i managed to get pictures with a couple of my favoritest ccc blackberry creek peeps. here's sue, diane, me and rachey.

saucy.

diane and me. ok, here's a crazy story about me and diane. (remember the andrew saxer one?) this one's similar. apparently my mom and diane waaaay back in the day used to sell tupperware and longerberger baskets and have parties for each other and stuff. well i ended up serving in kids world at ccc when jonah was just a wee baby and i ended up serving in the nursery with diane (because as everyone knows she just loves to hold babies). so we got to talking one morning and since we had an hour and 15 minutes to kill and all we had to do was rock babies she asked me to tell her my life story. well part way in she stops me and is all "wait, is your mom peggy gurbal?" and i'm all "yeah" and she's all having cardiac arrest. tres funny. so apparently the last time diane saw me i was like 7 or something. needless to say i didn't really remember her, but how funny is that? come on, everybody... "it's a small world after all..."

so now we're the best of friends and i think diane is just about one of the sweetest funnest ladies alive and i love being able to see her when we come back and visit!

and again last but not least, my best friend and sometimes prom date, rachael.

after dinner rach and i headed back to her house where we were spending the night because rachael was driving us to the airport in the morning. my family was all there waiting for us and jonah even stayed awake to greet us. so sweet of him... hmmm... 10pm. isn't it past your bedtime mister?


hold on. i gotta drink.

ok, i'm ready to keep on partying!

who wants to karaoke!?

or play crawl through the tunnel?

or jump on uncle tiger?!

phew! what a fun day!