Still here...

Just enjoying mornings at the pool...

more time to work on 2RPhoto (a website makeover is in the works!!)...

and of course our kiddos! :)

More updates coming soon...

iheartfaces ~ Celebrating Teens

Another perfect iheartfaces challenge this week... teens! Kind of crazy to think that over the past 3 1/2 years we've had 12 different homeless boys with us at different times. We've had 7 of those 12 in and out of our house over the past week. Kind of cool! Anyway... the picture I chose for this week's challenge is not the most perfect when it comes to sharpness and color... but it is one of my new all time favorite photos. We were trying to get a group shot together... and I asked Ty (can't believe he's been with us for 2 years now!) to hold Claire. I realized after a minute that it was his first time holding her. The look on his face made me want to cry.

~Alyssa

Happy 4th to our sweet Carter!!

Coming home...

Before EVERY meal (no matter where we are)... this is Carter's prayer:
Dear Jesus, Please help all the guys come... Steven, Jeff and Fred. Amen. And please bless the food.

This afternoon they were finally home. It is one of the hard parts about living here. I wish they could come home too... but I'm also so excited that ALL three of them stuck it out for their first years of college and finished. What a HUGE accomplishment! They've all dealt with such hard stuff this year... but they didn't quit. We are so proud! We see, talk, and text with them pretty often... but it's been a long time since we've all been together at the same time. Today was Jeff's 19th birthday... so it was super fun to have everyone home together for a few hours. I forgot how LOUD they are. :)

I LOVE this picture!!

Singing...

I thought it was fun that you can see the painting of Fred, Jeff and Steven hanging above them..

We really miss these guys!

iheartfaces ~ All About Babies

It's been a little while since I've entered an iheartfaces photo challenge (it's really been a while since I've done anything :))... so I was excited when I saw (when I was up at 3am this morning) that this week's theme was babies. Since my own little baby has been sleeping 5 to 6 hour stretches for the last 3 nights... I'm getting some of my brain power back and feeling up to a challenge! When I saw the theme I knew exactly which photo to use. This is the sweet baby boy of a close friend. We will actually be posting his 6 month photo shoot over at 2reeves in the next day or so. He's only 24 hours old in this picture... still in the hospital... love it!

Carter and Claire

I've been meaning to pull up some old photos of Carter to compare to Claire as a newborn. They look so different to me!

Here's the day they each came home from the hospital...

Napping with Daddy...

and after each of their baptisms...

Why is it always the boys...

who get the long beautiful lashes!?

A Garden for our Guys

Over the past 3 1/2 years, we have been blown away by the level of support and donations the St. Louis community has shown Joe's Place. Meals, clothes, furniture... and most recently a vegetable garden!! The idea of a garden started with an amazing woman named Joan. We were first introduced to Joan by a Joe's Place board member (both of whom attend our church). Joan knows more about gardening than anyone I have ever met (she has volunteered at the MO Botanical Garden for years). Not only has she transformed our front yard... but she also hooked us up with an organzation called Gateway Greening that builds gardens in urban areas. Here's a little blurb about Gateway Greening that I snagged off their website:

Gateway Greening promotes urban neighborhood vitality and stability, healthy living and quality of life through community food projects, education and wellness programs, and civic greening. This mission is accomplished by forming alliances with non-profit organizations, faith based institutions, institutions of higher learning and neighborhood groups to provide resources for citizen-managed open spaces that encourage healthier, safer and more enriched lives.

How amazingly cool is that!? We are so excited for our guys to learn about gardening and healthy eating. Eating good food has been one of our biggest struggles here at the house. We really believe the garden is going to make a big difference!

Here's our good friend Audrey and Joan (in purple) putting the first beautiful touches on our front yard at the end of September. I'm pretty sure Joan is here about once a week working. Sometimes we'll come home and we'll notice new flowers have appeared!

Carter helped Dan plant the vegetables this morning. We can't wait to add the garden to the chore chart this Fall when the guys check back in.

Thank you Joan and Gateway Greening!!

From a boy room to a brother/sister room...

Our unique living situation has presented us with a good deal of space challenges. We have really learned what we can and cannot live without. We just don't have much room for our stuff here. All of our baby items have been in a storage unit (along with most of our other belongings). As I started going through things... I realized a lot was going to need to go back to storage. Like our baby bath tub for example. We just don't have room for it... and I realized we don't really need it. ANYWAY... we really had to think hard about how we were going to transition Claire into Carter's room. I think the room was originally designed to be a small office... but it's worked out great as a bedroom for Carter. Dan finally came up with the idea to build a loft bed for Carter. We originally wanted to put the crib under the bed... but I'm so happy with what we ended up with instead. A huge thanks to Dan's mom and dad!!! Dan and his dad spent last weekend designing and building the bed. We still can't believe how much space it's saved us. This link shows what his room looked like before. And here's what it looks like now...

A better comparison...

Congrats to our sweet Ty're!!

Where did the time go? I think living at Joe's Place has really given us some insight into how quickly kids grow up. We first met Ty're when he was a 5th grader at MRH elementary. Fred was living with us and Ty're came by to sell us some Christmas wrapping paper to raise money for his school. Fastforward 3 1/2 years to last Wednesday... and his 8th grade graduation. Kind of hard to believe he's now lived with us almost longer than any other JP resident. It's not been the easiest year for Ty're... but we have seen him grow in ways we could never have imagined. He has one of the sweetest spirits of any person I have ever met and we are so proud of him! We're looking forward to seeing him on the high school football field in the Fall... just like his big brother 3 years ago.

Love this picture. He is so happy... he's reaching out to shake Fred's hand while walking in with the graduating class!

I thought it was fitting that there was a rainbow over the school after the graduation ceremony...

Then and Now

I can't believe Carter finished his first year of preschool today! I'm hoping to have pictures of our kids on the first and last day of school to see how much they have changed each year. I couldn't believe it when I looked back on Carter's first day of school pictures today...

August 2009

May 2010

August 2009

May 2010

He has changed so much! I think he gained more weight this year than any other year. He has always been so small... unlike his little sister who gained 4 pounds in the last 4 weeks!

April 2010 (2 days old)

May 27 (4 1/2 weeks old)

She's probably going to hate that picture one day... but I think she looks so cute!!! Such a little chunk!