Sunday, July 29, 2007

Website Coming Soon!

I just wanted to say that I'm working on updating my website to something completely different! I'm pretty excited about it! I'll let you know when it's up and running. In the meantime, you can see a coming soon page on my website address: www.tadaphotography.com.

Brayden's Funny

Thought you would love to hear this for a great laugh...

Brayden was sitting on Tony's lap, they were watching cartoons together one Saturday morning. Brayden says, "Man, Daddy, you're so prickly. You need to shave." Tony says, "Oh, sorry, buddy. Did you touch my scruffy face?" "No, Daddy. Your legs, you need to shave them!" Tony laughs, "Oh, sorry! But, boys don't shave their legs, girls do." Brayden looks over at me and says, "Well, mom, you need to shave his legs!"

YES! This is a true story!

Grace Point Job Update

Hey all! I just wanted to update you on the Grace Point job update for Tony. Well, we've met with lots of people from the church for the past week. We had a meeting with the elders of the church on Wednesday night. Thursday, they called Tony and pretty much told him he was the one they wanted. They told him the salary and benefits offer, etc. This morning at church, they introduced him to the church body, told them what position they had in mind for him, etc. Tony gave a GREAT testimony, so the whole church could get to known a little about him and our family. Wednesday night, they are having like a question session for him, open to anyone who wants to ask him questions. Then, next Sunday, they will have a church body vote to formally hire him on. So, things are looking very good for this and all is falling into place according to His plan. We're very excited about the whole new adventure that God has in store for us.
Also, a little neat thing... remember after Emy was born, we said that she had a namesake? A guy overheard Tony talking about his new baby daughter, Emalyn, in one of the classrooms. Well, the guy texted his 9 month pregnant wife the name (who wanted Nevaeh - heaven backwards - but it was too strange for a first name), and they loved it. He guessed on the spelling, so their daughter was named Emilyn Nevaeh. Welllllll, little Emilyn is in Emalyn's Sunday School class at Grace Point! We met her parents today, they told us that they were the ones who stole her name. It was great! Who knows, maybe we will all become great friends!
Ok, well, I just thought I would update you on the whole Grace Point situation. We love it there and are so excited about all the blessings that God has in store for our family with Grace Point.
Love and God Bless!

Monday, July 23, 2007

The Simmons Grandkids: Ashton, Jordan, Emalyn, Brayden and Braxton






Dinner with Jordy and Trevor

Jordy and Trevor have been here all week. We've had so much fun with them! Here's some pictures from dinner one night at our local Japanese Restaurant.





Saturday, July 21, 2007

Welcome to Blogger!

Well, I'm trying to create a fun and easy way of sharing pictures. So, here we are, trying out the blogger now a days. Lots of new, fun things going on... we've started attending a new church, The Church at Grace Point (http://www.grace-point.com/) and we're very excited about it. We'll miss Christ Community, but we feel like God has called us to move forward with The Church at Grace Point. Tony is in the works of possibly accepting a full time position there instead of teaching. WOW, we know! It's all happened within the past couple of weeks. We're very excited about it, but things are still in the works, so it's not a for sure thing. We still have a few more people to meet before we can move forward. The position is being the Children's Church Director... they need someone to head up the entire Children's Church area, create a vision for it and put the vision into place. It's great because Tony, being a wonderful teacher that he is, has the background to do the job and more. We're very excited about the job and the church itself.
As for me, I'm still doing the photography thing. Praying for more business to come my way, though. I love doing weddings, it's my passion! I'm really looking forward to meeting more people around my age, which similar interests and that have children! It's so funny because all the friends we make here don't have any children. It hasn't been bad (you know we love all of you!) but I think it will be a nice change to have friends around here that have kids as well. I'm excited for bible studies and all the wonderful things that will come!
Brayden and Ashton are doing very well. They are very much into video games, just like Daddy. For Father's Day, the boys gave all their money they had saved (for the Wii - they saved almost $200) and I put some in, too and we got Tony the Wii. It has been a blast for all of us! If you don't know about it, I strongly recommend it. It's great for parties and just for family time. It's funny because they have a baseball game on there and Brayden has learned so much about the actual game of baseball just from playing it on the Wii. He's so interested in what plays are what now, he loves to watch a real game of baseball. Tennis, bowling and golf (more games on the Wii) are the same way. Ashton is a sport natural and loves to play any sport there is. We're so proud of who they are becoming. They are about to start soccer next month, so we look forward to the ball game schedule again! Also, school starts next month, so that will be another adventure as well. Brayden will be in 1st Grade at Michigan Ave and Ashton will be in the 4 year old pre-k at First Baptist Family Life Center.
Emalyn is doing great, too. Entering a little bit of the "terrible two's" but we'll keep her anyway. She's such a sweetie and a complete girlie girl. She's all about "pretties" which is anything jewelry or what we put in her hair. She loves clothes, shoes and hats, too. She is very motherly to everything and even turns a washcloth into a baby in the bathrub. We have to be careful with her around Daphne, our puppy maltese, because she loves to pick her up ALL the time. Sometimes she is gentle, other times, she isn't. She means well, but for the sake of Daphne living a full doggie life, we need to monitor Emy around her.
We're also trying to sell our house at the moment. Not totally sure where we are moving to next, we're still looking. Please pray for us in that whole department. We've run out of space about 2 years ago!
Well, I guess that's about it for now. I'm working on the pictures right now, so hopefully, this will work out really well.
God Bless!