Our Stick Figure Family

Hmm...it cut Bosley off. Poor Bos. That's the story of his life.

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Anthony's Dedication

It's been an interesting couple of weeks for us. There was a horrible storm in Southern Illinois and we were stuck without power for about 4 days. Dan was out of town when the storm came through, so the boys and I headed North where the power was still...powerful. We spent Mother's Day with family and were able to visit some friends during our visit. We finally got to see Baby Kenzie...who's almost not a baby anymore! We made a visit to MID-CO and I even got to call out a fill to one of my favorite former customers.

Today we participated in a baby dedication at church for Anthony. It was originally scheduled for Mother's Day and since Dan was going to be out of town we weren't going to participate; but then church was cancelled on Mother's Day due to the widespread power outage. We found out on Friday that they were having the dedication today, so we decided to go ahead with it. It was sad that our friends and family couldn't be there on such short notice, but we were excited to share our commitment to godly parenting with our new church family.

By the way, as you'll see in some of the photos, Anthony recently decided that he does love using a pacifier!!


Vince and Anthony were having one last drink of milk before bedtime and were just being so sweet.
Vince just hates to say goodbye to Anthony at AJ's bedtime. He wanted one last cuddle with him.


When Vince first woke up in the morning, he begged to have his sandals on. This was the first time he was willing to wear them ... up till this day, he cried when you even suggested putting them on! As soon as they were on, he made himself comfy on the chaise!


And then he made himself comfy on Anthony during morning cartoon time. Notice how Anthony plays with Vince's hair...


Anthony's dedication day at Grand Avenue Christian Church. Our pastor, Brooks Wilson, is on the right and there was one other family on the other side of us.


"Cheese!"

Praying for the task ahead...

Here we go again!

Anthony got his first tooth this week. It's playing peek-a-boo with his gums right now, but I definitely felt it today. So now we're back to full-time bibs and lots of baby drool. I hope he is like his brother in the Growing Teeth Department. Vince always got two matching teeth at the same time and is even continuing that trend right now...he's getting his 2-year molars in. Of course we're getting two helpings of teething attitude these days as well...the Ripley house is just FULL of pleasant boys!
Anthony is eating his toes a lot these days and the little stinker won't take a pacifier so he sucks on his index finger and his middle finger (one's just not enough) so he has blisters on his knuckles. He kinda looks like he has baby-bulemia ... except he's still really chunky. Here are some recent photos of our boys. I can't believe they are 22 months and 5 months old!



Veggie Tales' newest fan!


Pausing his playtime for a nice big "CHEESE!"
We played outside on the porch today and Vince just wanted to be closer to Anthony. They love each other so much. AJ's face lights up when Vince pays attention to him.


Vince wasn't the only one trying to entertain AJ; Sidney loves him too. The big kids were playing peek-a-boo around the play pen.



Sidney and Vince. I just love how they love each other.




Look at those baby blues...


Watching mommy work...sucking on his fingers!



This one cracked me up. I got the camera out to take the photo above of AJ and Vince ran to the cabinet, opened the door and posed like that!!! He hadn't been playing in that cabinet at all that day! In fact, he rarely opens that one, because he prefers the ones to the right in the photo. Such a little model. He's saying, "Cheeeeese!!!!" by the way.

Again, with the posing... "cheese!"

Big boy hair cut

Vince looks like a grown up. He and Daddy went to get their hair cut today.