Buffalo Buckeyes

Rebekah is 4!

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Lafferty) — Wed, 16 May 2012 20:42:00 +0000

Our middle daughter turns 4 today! (That is a CRAZY sentence, is it not?)

From the very beginning, Rebekah has been a sweetie-pie, through and through. She's REALLY into Super Mario Brothers right now, so naturally, she got a bunch of Mario-related things for her birthday, which was celebrated over the weekend in Columbus and then again when we got back in town.

Her requested birthday dinner meal tonight? Mac & Cheese with hot dog pieces in it.

I don't think it's possible to not love this little girl!

Happy birthday, Rebekah!

Quote of the Day: Firemen Defined

noreply@blogger.com (Lisa) — Mon, 07 May 2012 22:44:00 +0000

Daddy (on hearing a siren): There must be a fire!
Rebekah: Not here! Firemen don't live in houses! They live in the dark, dark, dark forest.
Mommy: Bekah, what is a fireman?
Rebekah: They shoot fireballs at bad guys. Not at us though, just at bad guys and houses.

(We obviously have left huge gaps in our fire safety discussions here at home...)

Mowing the lawn

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Lafferty) — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 21:46:00 +0000

Bethany decided she was going to mow the lawn yesterday, Easter dress and all. The reel mower was a bit much for her last year, but she had finished the entire front lawn before long!

Rolling coins

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Lafferty) — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 20:32:00 +0000

Looks like Lisa won't be the only person in the family who actually enjoys(!) doing this...

Bethany is SIX

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Lafferty) — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 19:39:00 +0000

You read that right. Bethany, our oldest baby, turned six this month! The theme for this year's party was Hello Kitty, of course, and she loved every minute of it!

Happy birthday, Princess!

He is risen!

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Lafferty) — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 12:13:00 +0000

And so have our girls!

Happy Easter!

Easter Eggs

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Lafferty) — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 23:59:00 +0000

The kids made this year's Easter eggs this weekend!

Spring Musical

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Lafferty) — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 23:52:00 +0000

Trinity's musical was this past weekend, and Bethany and Rebekah were both in it! Of course, they're in kindergarten and preschool, respectively, so their "part" consisted mainly of some cute singing, but oh how cute it was!

We didn't get much in the way of pictures, what with it being dark in the auditorium and us not being real photographers and all, but if you squint, you can probably still tell how amazingly cute our girls were!

Here's Rebekah's PreK class:

(she's the second from the right)

And the PreK singing Itsy-Bitsy Spider:

And here's some of Beth's class:

Bethany made us so proud: shy girl that she usually is, she really opened up a lot more than we expected and seemed to enjoy being on stage quite a bit!

And if you need proof, here it is--she may not seem quite as extroverted as some of the other kids, but for those of you who know her, you know this is a pretty amazing performance from her!

Bubblefest!

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Lafferty) — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 19:01:00 +0000

Monday night we all went to school for a pot luck and Bubblefest! The kids had a blast trying out all the different bubble stations & seeing all the cool stuff you can do with bubbles!

Abigail is 2!

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Lafferty) — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 18:53:00 +0000

Seriously, when did that happen?!

(Also, how did I manage to let the entire month of February go by without posting ONCE? Yikes, I am terrible at this!)

Anyway, our little Abby turned two on the 1st of March, and we had a small family gathering to celebrate. Family and food (sugar!) and presents: can't ask for much more.

We cannot believe how fast she has grown! (You'd think we'd be used to it by now, her being the third child and all, but no.) And as proof of her growth, since the last time I posted she was probably much, much smaller (seriously, it has been far too long), here are some pictures from the party. Enjoy!

(Snow White spent a lot of time picking her nose, right?)

Rockets!

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Lafferty) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 20:38:00 +0000

Also kind of a while ago, Papa Dave headed up our rocket expidition. It was super-cold, but lots of fun!

Here's Lisa holding up the second rocket, which was actually recovered (apparently something of a rare feat)!

Playing at the Strong Museum

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Lafferty) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 20:29:00 +0000

So we took the kids to the Strong Museum of Play in Rochester kind of a while ago. It hardly needs to be said, but in a place that amounts to essentially a giant toy-filled (educational!) playground, we all had a great time!

Lisa and Sarah built a lovely wall...

...which Abby immediately knocked down!

My wife sure has a way with words!

Gotta get at least the first letter of the O-H-I-O!

Doing a little grocery shopping at a kid-sized Wegmans:

Just look at those hands flying around the keyboard!

I think the giant Lite-Bright was Lisa's favorite toy!

You can't quite see everyone in the back of the van, there, but I'm pretty sure everyone but Bethany and Aunt Sarah (who was driving) fell asleep at some point on the drive back to Buffalo. What can I say? We were wiped out from all the excitement!

The Zoo in December

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Lafferty) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 21:41:00 +0000

So far, this winter has been unusually warm (that is to say, it has been AWESOME), to the point that after Christmas, we were able to take the kids to the zoo over Christmas break. The zoo is always a fun trip, of course, but it's always a bit different when it's colder and more of the animals are out and about!

(these bears were really into standing up on two legs for some reason)

(we watched one of the keepers pour what we assume was blood into little dishes for the vampire bats to drink)

(seriously, I don't think I'd ever seen the male lion at the Buffalo Zoo before!)

(we heard one of the lions or tigers roaring very loudly as we were leaving; we tried to get there in time to take a video, but we didn't quite make it, so the kids made their best roaring faces instead!)

Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Lafferty) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 21:32:00 +0000

I'm horribly late with this post, but that's how it goes when, aside from all the amazingness of celebrating Christ's birth, the holiday consists mostly of several very large present-bombs exploding in your home.

Anyway. Our Christmas was lots of fun, and it took us a while to recover!

Hope you enjoy the pictures!

(this was about as happy as Abby got about the idea of sitting for posed pictures Christmas morning...)

(this was actually Christmas eve, I think)

And that pretty much covers Christmas at our house.

On to Christmas at Papa & Grandma's house! (Abby slept through this one, which was probably a good thing for everybody; she's little enough that all the presents and festivities can be pretty overwhelming and exhausting... well, who am I kidding, most of us adults feel the same way!)

(Bethany got her first sewing machine!)

(the kids all opened lots of Disney-related items, because Papa & Grandma are taking us all to DisneyWorld this year!)

And that just about does it. I'm pretty sure some other stuff happened, too, but at this point, it's mostly a blur, but a fun and blessed blur it was!

Decorating for Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Lafferty) — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 19:20:00 +0000

Because my wife is awesome, we've been decorating for Christmas a little bit each day this season.

A few nights ago, we put up the tree:

And the next night, we put up the lights and ornaments:

And just like that, we've got ourselves a tree!

Thanksgiving in Michigan

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Lafferty) — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 19:08:00 +0000

We spent Thanksgiving in & around Spring Arbor, Michigan with the Brown family this year. As always, everyone had a great time, and our girls did a surprisingly good job of keeping themselves amused despite the total absence of other children their ages (a couple families couldn't make it).

We got to use the house of some friends of ours, which made the stay infinitely more comfortable than it would have been in a hotel (and the girls got to see their friend Connor, who moved away earlier this year), and of course, we got to spend a lot of time with our awesome family. (Oh, and my dad and I got to go to the Ohio State/Michigan game Saturday--despite the loss, we managed to have a good time.)

Anyway. Enjoy some pictures!

The girls had a lot of fun with Connor and Anna Wednesday morning before their family left for their Thanksgiving trip:

I daresay I've got some ping pong players on my hands!

Rebekah wasn't the only one of the girls who had a lot of fun with Great Grandpa, but she's the only one who made it into a halfway decent picture!

And of course, my dad and I at the game, along with a former Buckeye teammate of his:

Pretty Pretty Princess

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew Lafferty) — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 16:31:00 +0000

Seriously, how cute is this little girl?!

Playing Catch-Up

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 19:23:00 +0000

It has been a while, so here's a quick and dirty glimpse of what our girls have been up to lately. Enjoy!

"Malloween":

Trick or Treating around our neighborhood, with Jonas:

(my pretty, pretty princess!)

(guess who refused to walk...)

And of course, a couple trips to Columbus (translation: many, many trips to what Bethany calls "Squishyland", the playground near Papa Jon's and Grandma Miriam's):

Jonas is 5!

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 20:34:00 +0000

Jonas turned 5 last weekend, and Saturday's party was a blast! Our girls had a ton of fun helping their cousin celebrate!

(Hayden soaking it in)

(frosting-face!)

(Abby's famous pirate-face!)

(mmm... cupcakes!)

(Papa Jon spending some quality time with Abby)

Happy birthday, Jonas!

Rebekah the photographer

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 20:24:00 +0000

I transferred all the pictures from our camera's memory card to the computer today; there were 535 in all. If that sounds like a lot, it's because it is.

Rebekah has been taking a LOT of pictures lately. While most of them are either blurry pictures of herself or random objects around the house, sometimes she comes up with some interesting shots.

So. Here are some of the pictures she's taken recently (I've tweaked some of these a bit, but probably less than you might think).

I know I should have been cleaning...

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 17:07:00 +0000

But playing with Abby while Bekah was at preschool just seemed like a better idea at the time.

And it was.

Because LOOK AT HER.

Too cute for words, my baby girl.

Here He comes to save the day!

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 16:09:00 +0000

I gave Bekah and Abby a bath this morning, and after we had finished, Bekah and I came downstairs to brush hair. As I was brushing Bekah's hair, Abby finally appeared on the stairs, coming down to join us, so I sang "Here she comes to save the day!"

Bekah quickly rebuked me: "Abby doesn't save the day; God saves the day! He's everywhere! He's in my heart, and your heart, and Abby's heart, too!"

It's hard to argue with that!

Deer and Dancing

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 18:46:00 +0000

Bekah wanted to go outside and play for a while after lunch. No problem, or so I thought. Less than one minute after I sent her outside, she came back in:

"Daddy, I don't want to play outside. The deer are watching me."

And she wasn't kidding.

Yikes. Fortunately, daddy shooed them away, and the playing commenced without further delay.

Later, she wanted to dance for me, but she didn't want any music. I guess that makes imagining this scene a bit easier for you, because you don't have to worry about imagining the wrong song...

Just Bekah being Bekah.

Bath Time

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 18:36:00 +0000

Bath time is always an adventure in our house, that's for sure, but it's always cute, too!

Ring Around the Rosie

noreply@blogger.com (Matthew) — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 18:34:00 +0000

These are from last night out on the porch. Just our girls being our girls!