Friday, September 23, 2011

Ella Hope Dittmer is here!!

After many many many months of waiting and more waiting the day has finally arrived. Our new baby sister has been born! Praise the Lord for a safe delivery! Mother and Ella are both doing wonderful. Ella Hope Dittmer was born today at 1:42 pm she weighs 7 lbs 4.4 oz and was 19-1/2 inches long. And she is absolutely adorable! (If I do say so myself...which I definitely do!) But I'll let you be the judge of that...So without any further a due here are some pictures.



Xavier so excited to see a "baby!"


Full room


Olivia holding Ella!


All the kids and Grandma and Grandpa Patterson.


All of the kids and Grandma and Grandpa Dittmer


All of the kids and Aunt Bev.


Caleb and Ella Hope


Emily, Xavier, and Ella


Me holding precious Ella Hope.


We are so excited with the brand new addition to our family! Welcome to the family of...Brad and Sarah, Alesha, Emily, Caleb, Anna, Philip, Olivia, Xavier, and now Ella! :) It was such a blessing getting to hold Ella for the first time and get to sing happy birthday for her on her true BIRTHday! :) 


Tuesday, September 20, 2011

On the way to Family Camp...

Well last week we went to family camp and we all had a very wonderful and blessed time! Unfortunately the ride there could have been better...our shuttle bus lost the suspension on one side and then shortly after that the van overheated. (Dad and all the kids went in the shuttle bus and I drove mother in the van behind so that the ride would be smoother for her.) We were still 2 and a half hours away from family camp. So we finally got the shuttle bus towed and the van was working again. Mitchell and Chelsy Bontrager as well as one of the staff from family camp drove up to get us with a 15 passenger van that a family sent up for us! (We hadn't even met that family yet it was so sweet of them to do that for us!) So we ended up getting at camp at midnight and completely missed the first day, but God is faithful and no one was hurt! So here are some pics of the bus.












I'll be adding some pictures from family camp later on I just haven't had time to get to that yet...I'm still doing lots of laundry from family camp and helping Anna and Philip get back into the swing of doing school again. :)

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Hawkeye vs. Cyclone Game

Last Saturday was the Cy-Hawk game and it was a great game! Although the Hawkeye's fought valiantly and went into 3 overtimes for the win...The Cyclones won the game. So at least some of our family was happy with the outcome of the game. Since we don't have a television we listened to it on the radio and even listening to it it was an incredibly intense game! Here are some pics of us kids enjoying our time eating chips and dip, eating mom's famously made party mix, and frantically packing for family camp that we left for the next day during the commercials.




All smiles!


 We like different teams but we won't let it be divide us!


Silliness! 


Even though we are on different teams 
we still love and support each other!


Alesha, Caleb, Philip, and Olivia are all Hawkeyes. Emily and Anna are Cyclones. Even through the intensity of the game we all still enjoyed ourselves and had a wonderful day.

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Labor Day, Coming Home, and yummy smores

We had such a fun time at the Bontrager's house for Labor Day. It was such a blessing to get to fellowship with them and meet some new families as well. Mr. Bates did an incredible job speaking and it was such a blessing to hear him speak on some things that are so relevant for our day and age. We also enjoyed the wonderful music. Sunday night was one of our favorite parts of the visit getting to sing hymns for such a long time with a bunch of families...and Mr. Bontrager asked Emily and I to sing the National Anthem for everyone (which we did turn many shades of red from the sudden request but we agreed.) I think that all of our all time favorites was getting to play volleyball till 1 in the morning. There was some friendly competition and no one got hurt too bad...although dad did accidentally hit my in the face with his elbow and it hurt terribly I did survive. Through all the excitement and fun times over Labor Day weekend I'm sorry to say that my camera died and I didn't get the chance to take any pictures :( But here are some pics of tonight while we did smores as a family in our backyard.