July...

(I snuck in a post on June 16th also...it never got published back then!) :)

Well...I can't believe that JULY, the WHOLE month, came and went!! :) We were, shall we say...BUSY! Maggie was tracked out for the entire month, so we maximized our play time!! The afternoon of her last day of school we left on our 12 day Road Trip. Try and keep up...we drove through NC, VA, WV, spent the night in Ohio, picked up the 3 Kessler girls (and traded vehicles to fit all 7 of us!), drove through the rest of OH, IN, and into IL to Arlington Heights. Stanton and Eli beat us to Grandma Mary's and Big D's house since they were flying (from Phoenix)! LOL!

We visited with lots of friends and family from Thursday-Wednesday...In no particular order, (because at this point it is hard to remember without referencing my spreadsheet!)
~ Shirley (who has since had baby Madilynn), Bethany & Lily, Meg, Meredith & Gracie, Chrissy, Hannah & Margaret and Maggie, Morgan and I met up at a park...yes 4 Mommas and 8 girls...for a morning of outdoor fun! McD's playplace lunch followed.
~ Visited with Rita and Schuyler a couple times at their lovely pool on the HOT afternoons. Thanks! :)
~ Lunchtime (Portillo's of course) visit and 5th of July Arlington Heights parade/fun with Aunt La Verne including the band concert, pony rides, and playing in the open fire hydrant attached to the firetruck.
~ Taste of Chicago (YUMMMMMM!!!) eat, eat, and more eat! We had 20 strips of tickets...yes, 20...there were 9 of us eating...so it wasn't THAT many...and EVERYBODY was such good try-ers! Then the boat and fireworks with the Webers' entourage.
~ Milwaukee County Zoo with Chrissy, Hannah & Margaret, Jeni & Henry, Trela, Kyle & Cavie, and my cousin Sharon, and her kids Johnny, Matthew, Sarah, Mary Grace & Daniel. We hit Kopp's for the double whammy treat...Cotton Candy Explosion for the little girls and Red Raspberry for the big girls! wink! Then "on our way home" hit Delavan, WI to visit with Giovanna & Cevin, and their kids John and Diana. We brought KFC to the ball field for Diana's Tee-ball game (classic Von Canon, right?!?) and then Gio graciously invited us back to her house to bathe the girls (and hang out for a few hours more!!) before driving to downtown Chicago. (This was a LOOONG DAY!) :)
~ Breakfast at the American Girl Store on Michigan Avenue! It was great to have Elizabeth (who I used to babysit!) join us for the girlie fun...I think she was overwhelmed! :) Wrap it up with Potbelly's for lunch and we headed out of town back to OH!
~ We ended up hanging out for a couple days in OH...just to recooperate from all that FUN we just had!! Then headed off, via the Outlet Mall (where we had to say "see you soon" to Chrissy and her girls) AND Lexington (yes, that's not REALLY on the way!), to Louisville, KY. Spent the weekend there visiting with cousins Tom and Annie who we haven't seen in forever! It was a double bonus since Annie & Eric, Emily, Elizabeth & Michael actually live in CO, but were on their summer vacation road trip! We also got to meet the newest addition to our clan, Catherine, who Tom and Angie (Mary Grace & Joseph, too) adopted this past December from China. A lot changes when you add a 1.5 year old to the mix when previously the youngest was 6! What a great time we had getting all this family together!! We should DEFINITELY do it more often... :) Fred had actually left Chicago on the 5th but flew into Louisville for the weekend so that he could meet Annie and her family for the first time. He then drove back home with us...thankfully!!

We then had swim lessons (for Maggie) twice a week, tap dance (for Maggie) and gymnastics (for Morgan) once a week for the remaining three weeks in July.

There was a softball tournament for Fred and the rest of the Faith Men's Church team in Greenville. Yes, in case you were wondering...it was HOT! The got "Co-Champions" of their division when the rains came and kept them from finishing the rest of the tournament. Fortunately on the rain delay, we were able to do Maggie's school supply shopping at the Target in Greenville! :) Hooray for multi-tasking!

We squeezed in a three day trip to Wilmington to visit Lesley, Ty, Alex and Livia...and the Beach...which was surprisingly nice...the beach that is...I expected it to be GREAT to see Lesley and her family!

I also got together with the Month of Meals Moms and put together 25 different recipes (31 meals!) that filled my freezer and should last us until roughly October...or less, now that Stanton is here living with us! :)

We got the invitations for Anthony & Tanya's October wedding...ordered in Spanish and English.

...and Fred and I just got back from a surprise (to ME!!) getaway to the mountains for the weekend!! Fred determined that he "was working to hard" and I was a little overwhelmed by all the hotness that we have been having! It was nice to getaway just the two of us...nothing big planned. Thankfully I had some time, like ALL DAY on Saturday to get a little caught up on my cover to cover reading the Bible in 90 days! I am almost through the Old Testament! Thank you, Stanton for being a SUPER big brother and taking the girls to Tucker Lake and then on to Wilmington for a memorable weekend!!

Phew...thankfully school starts tomorrow and hopefully we will slow down a little...LOL!!! :)

How was YOUR summer?!? wink, wink!! :)

Photo Albums Posted

I have posted many photo albums on Shutterfly from the last few months! There was over 1GB of pictures that I needed to dump off of the camera in preparation for our trip to Chicago this week...!! :) Check out...
~ Our trip to San Antonio in March
~ Maggie's Birthday at Chuck E Cheese
~ Kindergarten Field Day in April
~ Vegas trip with Chrissy for her birthday
~ Little Miss Siscoe's arrival on May 29th!
~ Dance recitals for both Maggie and Morgan
~ Von Canon family fun...we kept our twin one year old nephews for a week while their parents and two older brothers went on a cruise. When they returned, we had a HOUSE FULL!!! (16 people under one roof for a long weeknd!) :) LOVED IT!!

You will have to excuse me for the lack of comments...we have had house guests for 31 of the last 38 days and we are getting ready to leave for Chicago for the better part of the next two weeks! :) Life as usual around here...that's how we roll!! LOL!

Enjoy the pictures!!

Von Canon B&B: Maximum Capacity 16!

Well, it isn't hard to believe that this entry got forgotten about...May ended with a BANG and then June flew...so did July...see next post! Here is what I had before time really slipped away from me...! LOL!

It is hard to believe that it has been almost a month since my last post...well, if you look at my calendar, it isn't really all that hard to believe! It has been very busy and lots of fun!! See if you can keep it all straight...
~ Monday, May 24 Fred leaves for business trip
~ Tuesday, May 25 Gramma (my Mom) arrives for the week
~ Wednesday, May 26 I leave for birthday trip to Vegas with Chrissy (final destination unbeknownst to her!)
~ Thursday, May 27 Fred returns home in the evening after my Mom has taken the girls to the Talent Show up at school. Lesley goes into the hospital around 10 pm (long)after her water has broken, we expect a baby sometime soon!
~ Friday, May 28 Jon (Fred's brother), Jenni, Owen (age 3.5), Andy (age 1) and Ollie (age 1) arrive. No baby yet.
~ Saturday, May 29 early hours Livia Marie Siscoe arrives! I arrive home as scheduled at 11:30 pm, Theron (Jon's son, our nephew) arrives on a flight that was delayed from 11:20pm to 1 am. Fred came out to the airport to pick us both up, so we spent that time waiting on the flight catching up on the last week's events.
~ Sunday, May 30 In my car, Jon, Jenni, Owen and Theron leave for 6 day cruise leaving Andy and Ollie (our 1 year old, both walking, twin nephews) here with us. All 7 of us (my Mom included) pile into the van that we traded for my car and head to the hospital in Wilmington to meet Livia and check in on the rest of the Siscoes. Kind of a hard day because Livia was having some tests done on her GI system thinking that there may had been some blockage. The good news is that by the next morning they were able to tell us that there was nothing wrong and that Lesley and Livia could go home! The bad news was that for about 24 hours they really didn't have anything conclusive to say and had a tube down Livia's nose and were taking pictures every 30 minutes of her intestines waiting for things to move through.
~ Monday, May 31 fun day back in Raleigh with my Mom, the twins and the girls. No school for Maggie.
~ Tuesday, June 1 Maggie goes back to school, and Fred takes my Mom to RDU for her 9:30 am flight home. For the last few days we have been waiting for David (Fred's other brother) and his wife Carolyn to get here from Fayetteville, AR. Unfortunately, they had car trouble multiple times along the way. They got here Tuesday night finally, when they rented a Uhaul and towed the car the last 200 miles! We were so thankful that they were able to stay for a week...from the time that they got here!!
~ Thursday, June 3 Lesley, Ty, Alex and yes, 5 day-old Livia, come to visit for a few days!! Hooray!!
~ Saturday, June 5 Jeni, Jon, Owen and Theron arrive back from their week long cruise. At this point there are 7 children here who are 6 and under...THREE of which are 1 year old boys! :) ...and the grand total for the Von Canon B&B rises to 16! We had a TON of fun and everybody really enjoyed themselves!
~ Sunday, June 6 we ALL went to Faith for church...and then out to Golden Corral afterwards for lunch...I think that we REALLY got our money's worth that day!! wink!
~ Monday, June 7 we made a last minute decision to go Vollmer Farms for our annual strawberry picking...how fun it was to have both of my sister-in-laws with me!! ...and Maggie too...who had an "educational opportunity" that gave her an excused absence from school for the day!! wink, wink! ...ask her about milking a cow!
~ Tuesday, June 8 David and Carolyn had a flight back to AR (their car is still getting fixed!) and Jon and his departed on their road trip back to Kansas City.

It was quiet here for a few days... :) ...we had company arrive on Friday morning for the weekend to join us at the softball tournament in Greenville...!! :)

Blue Jay Point Trip

Maggie's Kindergarten field trip to Blue Jay Point. Lots of chaperones = fun times for all!! :)

Morgan's Exciting Opportunity

Morgan always loves the time that she has been able to spend visiting Maggie's classroom this year. She is however, VERY excited about the fact that she will have her own school to go to next year!
A couple weeks ago, I was able to enroll her in Wake County's "Ready to Learn" program that starts in September. It is one day a week (Wednesdays for Morgan) and meets for 1.5 hours.

She will have Mrs. Jennifer as her teacher for this great opportunity! It should be fun and interesting seeing as the class is all girls (9 of them)! She is happy that she will be able to be in the class with her friend, Ella.

Morgan had a chance to go this week with Ella to class and visit! The letter of the day was "H" and they even had a packet of homework for Morgan to take home with her for extra fun this week!

After our visit to school, we had lunch and enjoyed celebrating Ella's birthday with her at The Tea Room! What a perfect place for these little ladies!! What a fun way to end a great day!

New Journey...

Well, today is Day 1 of a 90 day journey that both Fred and I are going to be on. The challenge is to read the Bible cover to cover in 90 days! WOW, right?!? It amounts to roughly 12 pages each day...the trick is to keep going each day! :) My Community Bible Study class is on break for the summer, so I figured I had nothing else going on (wink, wink) so why not?!? This will definitely be a challenge. Thankfully, there is a group of 17 of us who are doing this together and there is actually an organized curriculum with DVDs to use at a weekly meeting. I think that the encouragement and accountability is what will make all the difference...There is a separate blog that will be documenting this journey, feel free to pop on over! :)

If you think of us between now and the middle of August, please pray that we are using our time wisely and that the Holy Spirit will continue to help us in our understanding of our daily Scripture reading...Thanks!

If you are interested in this journey, let me know and be sure to check out the official website.

Shopping Online...

Okay, I am not going to make a habit of advertising via the blog...but this is a special opportunity! :) If you already do any shopping online and you don't use ebates.com then you are missing out!! They give you cash back on your purchases (IN CASH) if you click to your shopping site through theirs!! How great is that...not anything extra to buy, just one extra click! :)

...and, right now, until the end of July, they are giving 11% back from 60 different stores!! Old Navy, Gap, Snapfish, are just a few of the ones that I have used. (They also do Oriental Trading and many discount booksellers that I have used too, but not at the special 11%)

Anyway, if you are going to be doing any online shopping, would you consider getting there through this link? (They are doing a special referral program right now too...wink, wink!) Thanks!!

Thank You, Lord...How could I ask for more?

Maggie made her debut performing on the big stage on Mother's Day! Boy, did she love it! She performed at all 3 church services after the Baby Dedication. After the first one she said, "I wasn't as embarassed as I thought I was going to be!" (Grinning ear to ear!) She did her second performance and then we went to our usual seats for the rest of the service. After about 10 minutes, she was wanting to go up to wait in the Green Room! Unfortunately there was about an hour to wait! LOL! She was very eager to do her third performance and is wanting to be back up on stage this coming weekend...and all that follow!

Thank you, Aunt Lizzie, Mrs. Sarah, and Mrs. Jessie for thinking of Maggie for this role in the drama! She was as excited for this as if it were Christmas morning!! (Really, she said that!!) Morgan is hoping that next time you will also have a casting need for a four and a half year old little girl!! (wink, wink!) We love you,

Maggie and are so proud of how you used your God given talents to honor Him and bring Him glory!! Thank you, Lord...How could I ask for more?

Long Overdue: Merry Christmas!

Well, we were very excited that Anthony was going to be coming back from Afghanistan in February this past year, and we were hoping that we would be able to have the whole family together sometime soon after that...it was so great that it actually happened for Easter weekend! There are lots of pictures from the weekend on my shutterfly site, but here is our "Christmas Card" picture! :) He has Risen!!

Field Day

What a fun day we had at Field Day last Friday!! Morgan and I were volunteers and helped man the "Bubbles" Station! Maggie and her Kindergarten class had tons of fun as they went through all the rotations for the morning. Thankfully, we had a gorgeous morning, and it wans't even too hot! (That's all relative around here, you know!) :)

I hope that you enjoy the slideshow! I didn't name all of the children, but you should be able to pick out Maggie with her pink hat and sassy glasses! Her "Bestie" (Hannah S) is ironically dressed very similar to her donning her pink hat also. You can find Morgan hiding under the table at our booth as the bigger kids came by. Mr. Wilson (Mrs. Hunter's Teacher's Assistant) is the one who kept everybody on schedule with the blow horn...yes, I think that it was confiscated at the end of the morning! If you look closely, you can find Mr. McCabe (the Principal) on the monkey bars!!

Happy Birthday Daddy!

We are so blessed by you, Fred!! Thankful for another year with you!


Food Prep

Maggie was so excited after reading this Henry and Mudge book (by the author that they have been focusing on in kindergarten)!! She had the "PERFECT IDEA" of what to do for Daddy for his birthday...a Pineapple Couch! I must confess that it took me a little while to stop, really listen, and understand what on Earth she was talking about. On her own, she made the shopping list, and insited that all us girls go to the store together to pick out the necessary items!

From Left to Right: Maggie, Daddy, Mommy, Morgan...just like we sit on the real couch!

When the fruit ripened, and we had a few extra minutes (on Wednesday, her early dismissal day!) we got to do this YUMMY extra special project.


Can you see the resemblance?

She was VERY disappointed that we couldn't squeeze this in between school, dance class, dinner at the Perry's and bedtime on Monday, Fred's actual birthday, but he assured her that we like to celebrate "birthday week!"


On Fred's acutal birthday, we had a great time celebrating with a special birthday dinner at our friends the Perry's house. What a blessing it was to have them help polish off the Chocolate Chip Banana Bread Cake!! :)

SWA LUV!

The girls always do a great job traveling, but the trip to San Antonio was the first time that Southwest really got to know them! :) Mrs. Barbara was a really sweet flight attendant who had all kinds of SWA LUV! She let the girls help with the trash collection and then had them sing Happy Birthday to "Stephanie" a lady on the plane (who actually was on our return flight as well and remembered the girls!).
Mrs. Barbara tried to get Maggie to sing a song...she was going to do "Awesome God" but never got up the nerve to grab the mic. Morgan, on the other hand, went on with her solo career and sang, "On Top of Spaghetti" for the whole airplane!
They are so different from each other!!
This one is from the San Antonio Kids' Museum. Alex is walking and Maggie is driving!
We had a great trip home...three kids and me! :) The 2 hour layover in Nashville was excellent! Look what they had at the open gate across from our arrival and departure!

San Antonio Trip!

Here are some of the pictures...more will be added soon. We all had a GREAT time last weekend!!!

These are all pictures from fun play time at the San Antonio Kids' Museum and then the ride home through the Nashville airport. What a great time we had!!! :) It was me and 3 fabulous explorers...! Loving every minute of it...

Uncle Peter's Birthday Party!

Fun times for the weekend up in Annapolis to celebrate Peter's birthday (a few days early). Who knew that at the age of 32 you could still have so much fun with a Bowling and Pool Party!! :) We all sure did!!! Thanks Mom & Dad for the mini-celebration for me too...sure made all the snow feel a little out of place! LOL! We all have a strange affinity now for Olympic curling, too...hmmmmm...what a way to spend a Saturday morning! Looking forward to the next time that we can all get together again!

Breaking the Ice

So, it has been a loooong time since the last post here. Not sure exactly what happened (I had been doing so good!) except that life got going (more than usual) and I was too busy playing to be able to stop and chat about it here! :) I can see that there have been some faithful people stopping by...going to try and get more posted soon so as not to disappoint any longer.

We were all in San Antonio this past weekend for business and pleasure! The fun started on Friday and the conference started on Sunday. The kids and I, yes all three of them, hopped a flight on Monday morning to get Maggie back to school. It was a great trip and I was so proud of the girls for being such excellent travelers and helpers with Alex on the way home!
Everybody after our wonderful dinner at the Brazilian Steakhouse across the street from our hotel...what a fun and special time this was! Did you notice the one-to-one relationship here...adult-child?!? :) Only a few short months until June when Little Miss Siscoe will be making her appearance!!