The Birthday Blessing

Three years ago this coming September, my brother married the most amazing woman who has ever existed. Lachelle is single-handedly one of the best things that's ever happened to our family, and I cannot even begin to express how much we all love her. When Nate and Lachelle got married, Lachelle made it perfectly clear to everyone that she was beyond ready for a baby, and they wanted to start their family immediately. As the months went by, we all waited anxiously for the exciting news, but it never came. After almost a year, Lachelle decided to seek fertility treatment. Sadly, two years and countless treatments later, that glimmer of hope for a new addition to their family was slowly fading. This is when they decided to take a break from the fertility treatments.

Now, let's fast forward two months to Lachelle's 32nd birthday party at my parent's house. Every year, when Lachelle would blow out her candles, she made the exact same wish. And every year, we told her THIS was the year!!! However, this year was different. Because of everything that had been going on and the break from fertility, no one mentioned Lachelle's birthday wish. To tell you the truth, it really bothered me. Three days after Lachelle's party, I got a late night phone call from my brother. His only words to me were, "Hi Aunt Faith." To those of you who live in Indiana, if you felt a small earthquake that night, it was probably my family jumping up and down!! God gave Lachelle her birthday wish in His own perfect timing and in His own perfect way!! He also showed us that Hopey's not going to be the only miracle baby in this family! And I can't wait for the day that my new niece or nephew realizes that God picked out the world's greatest mommy for them too.

The Indiana State Fair

Hi blogging friends!! I can't believe I haven't posted anything on here since July!!!! You can just take that to mean that it's been a SUPER crazy end of the summer, and now I must have lots of fun pictures to share with you!! :) In my defense, I've been distracted for the past week and a half with the Indiana State Fair, and it's been just as magical as always! I took hundreds of pictures, but I'll only make you look at a few of them. ;) Those of you in Indiana, you've only got one week left to go enjoy the sights and sounds of our glorious State Fair!! :)

(And for those of you who were wondering, yes, she is mooing!) :)

Happy Birthday Mommy!

Me and Daddy both love you sooooooo much! We hope you have the most super funnest birthday in the world!

Love,

Hopey (with a little help from Daddy)

One Year Blogging Anniversary!

I missed my one year blogging anniversary by two days!!! I joined this wonderful world of bloggers on July 27th, 2008, so I'm feeling like I finally passed my initiation period! :) So to celebrate this momentous occasion, here's a picture of Hopey hanging out at our neighborhood ice cream block party!! :)

Wonderful Wawasee

So I was going through my old blog posts, and I saw that my second blog post ever was about my very first trip to Wawasee!! Almost exactly one year later, I get to write another post about that magical place! This year, Hopey was old enough to actually really enjoy herself and join in all of the fun and games. She was also old enough to throw a wicked tantrum when it was time to come home. Apparently, last year I took 441 pictures, but I outdid myself this year and took 656! :) I promise I won't make you go through all of them, but I do have to share a few. :)

This is Grandma and Grandpa Isch's adorable little cottage that we get to stay at every year.

The entire Witzig family got to spend one full day together at the lake this year! Sadly, this is the first family picture we've taken together since Brian and I got married!
I just had to get a picture of Brian's dad with all of the grand kids. Can you tell he's never loved something so much in his life? Love you Bill! :)

We actually had a somewhat normal family picture taken of us too!! Thanks for the awesome job Tyler!!

Of course the boys needed to have some battle tubing, so even though it was barely 60 degrees, Brian, Robbie, and Tyler got out there and showed us how it was done!

Brian was absolutely vicious on the tube, that's his nephew he's flipping...

And then, he and Robbie showed us some real brotherly love...

Don't worry though, Rob was fine, and he even became Hopey's new favorite person!

And I just had to throw this picture in here just because I think it's so stinkin' cute!

Hopey played a fun game called "slide down the back seat of the pontoon" for an hour or so everyday.

And she absolutely adored pontoon rides!

Almost as much as she loved being dunked by daddy!

But getting out of the water did NOT make her happy.

Brian had a blast testing out his old wake boarding skills.

And Grandpa made Hopey her very own water slide!

Apparently, the water slide tugged at her suit a bit... :)

And this is the glorious sunset we got to watch every evening. Sigh...I miss Wawasee so much!!

Kisses

Hopey recently figured out how to give someone an actual kiss rather than an open mouthed lick. The only problem with this new found talent is that she wants to give everything and everyone she meets a big smooch. For example, last weekend, I was trying to get a picture of the beautiful cookie mess she had all over her face. And apparently, this must have seemed like the perfect opportunity to show the camera her appreciation.

Fourth of July Blues

I don't know what the weather was like for you and your family on the Fourth of July this year, but for us, it was pretty gross! All of our plans got cancelled due to the rain, and this is the first year ever that I didn't see the fireworks. Yes, I was sort of devastated. BUT, on the sunny side of things, we had a really super 3rd and 5th of July! :) We got to spend Friday with my entire family, and we spent Sunday with Brian's family! Even though our 4th of July was a total bummer, the other two days of the three day weekend were just super! I know this may come as a shock to all of you, but I took about 700 pictures over those two days, so I thought I might share a few!

Please note: Brian got sick of buttoning the legs on Hopey's pj's, so he just tied them up like bunny tails under her hiney!