Paper Moon Photo Booth

At Brett's wedding, there was a photo booth set up.  I had never heard of the "paper moon" photo booth concept before but the idea was a really cute one!  They bought some kind of polaroid type film that was supposed to give an aged photo effect  but it didn't seem to work so well because you really couldn't see the images at all, so I captured a few shots with my camera and then added the effect once I loaded them onto the computer.  I wish I had known the polaroid photos weren't going to turn out when we first took pictures because I didn't end up getting a second photo of me! 

 

Brett's Wedding

Well, the first wedding of the Riesenberg children is finally here.  We weren't including in any of the planning or preparation, so all we had to do was show up!  OK, not going to lie, getting 10 people dressed in somewhat coordinating outfits and anyplace ON TIME really isn't a small feat, but it wasn't that stressful!  Here are a few pictures that I took that afternoon......I never did get any after the ceremony of the bride and groom together, hopefully I will get to see the family shots that the photographer took of all of us with Brett before the ceremony and with everyone after the ceremony!

One child married off and only nine more to go......so even though we are no longer growing our families by birth...we are expanding in a new way....becoming IN-LAWS!

 My girls (Hannah, Emily, Sophia and Victoria) with my grandson Noel!

 Jay with Hannah and Emily

 My boys! Yes, Jacob is that much taller than Grant!

 Jay and I

 Luke and William

 Darnell, Hannah and Cade

 Darnell and Hannah

Sophia and Victoria with Grandma

Sprayground at Pleasant Ridge Community Center

For the first time in all my years living in Cincinnati, this summer we decided to take advantage of the Cincinnati Recreation Centers pools and spraygrounds. We quickly fell in love with the sprayground at the Pleasant Ridge Community Center, located about 20-25 minutes from our house.  The sprayground was open from 10 AM until 10 PM daily and was free when the pool was not open.  During the pool hours, there was a $1 per child fee if you were not a member of the pool, but we preferred the sprayground in the morning prior to the pool being open!  If you happened to be at the sprayground at 12:45 PM, there was a free lunch served every day to anyone ages 18 and under as part of the free summer lunch program. The kids loved seeing what was in the lunch bag each time and were always thrilled to find the chocolate milk in it.  I will say that it was typically a pretty high carb lunch, but with busy kids running in the hot summer sun, burning it all off wasn't an issue. 

Although we love the sprayground at Washington Park downtown, the one at Pleasant Ridge was fenced in and typically not crowded!  It also offered 3 shade umbrellas for those of us who do not like the sun beating down on them!  The public library right up the road made for a nice stop either before or after our time in the sun.

Here are a few pictures from our last visit of the summer, enjoying all the other kids being back in school and us having the place to ourselves!

 

Ironically, I didn't realize until I had processed these pictures just how much William looks like Brett.  I know that people always tell me that my boys look alike, and yes, there is definitely a family resemblance, but William REALLY looks like his big brother!  Not only do they have similar faces, they are also built very similar, we just hope that William ends up being taller than Brett!

MAD Camp

MAD Camp presents "Malice in the Palace" the story of Esther

We were so blessed to be able to join Loveland United Methodist Church for a second year for their annual MAD (Music, Art, Drama) Camp!  It is unbelievable that in only a week's time, the kids learn their roles, everyone learns all the songs and the sets and props are created.  Everything comes to a dramatic conclusion Friday evening, after only 5 days of practice!

This year Sophia was cast in the role of Zeresh, the wife to Haman.  In addition to having to learn numerous lines, she also had a solo singing part!  When not in her role as Zeresh, she was part of the chorus of women. I am so incredibly proud of her, I can't imagine having to learn a part and perform it all within a week.  I could have never have done that at her age.  She really enjoys being on stage.  It was a bit comical that the boy cast as Haman was about a foot shorter than her! 

William was cast as a guard, which suits him well since he prefers to not have to memorize many lines!  His only lines were "Boom chugga lugga, boom chugga lugga, boom chugga lugga, boom!" "Make way for the King, Make way for the king, Make way for the King" and "Death to Haman, death to Haman, death to Haman, death!"

Happy 4th Birthday, Noel David!

It is still hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that I am a grandmother, that I have a grandson!  It is even harder for me to come to grips with the fact that he is now 4 years old, no longer a baby or a toddler, but a preschooler, with his feet pointed firmly towards become a school aged child.  I highly doubt that he will ever set foot in a school, at least not any time soon, school did far too much damage to his mother for her to think it could be the right place for her to ship her son off to each day...but I digress....

Today we had the pleasure of being invited to share Noel's special day with him!  And surprisingly he let me take pictures and he is looking at the camera.  I LOVE how some of these shots turned out.  And I love that his mom made him a Max and Ruby inspired worm cake to celebrate!

Luke conquers the diving board

Luke did it!  He went off the diving board!  With his momma proudly cheering him on, he jumped into the water!  Hard to believe that you couldn't even get him to let go of the side of the pool last year!  My baby boy sure is growing up!