Happy Birthday Grams!!!

Happy little girl

We Dirk's ladies spent a lovely time with Grandma over the weekend. Tyler was out of town on an RUF retreat, so Maggie and I enjoyed some quality time with Grandma Z. Maggie was super excited to see Daddy again on sunday as you can see from the super excited pictures taken at their reunion.

Our sixth month old!

Maggie turned six months old last week and she is truly playing the part. She is sitting up on her own for the most part. She is still a little wobbly, but often will put her hands on the ground to steady herself if she feels like she is about to bite it. She falls often, but rarely cries from her lack of balance. However, the other day Maggie fell backwards (from sitting position) on Tyler's watch, and she was none too pleased, so daddy rigged up a nice seat for her on the armchair as you will see below. Proving yet again that the first child, at least in this family, is a princess. We are so proud of our little six month old, she is quite precious.
The daddy contraption.
Maggie looking quite coy, yet sporty.
attempting to sip from a superman cup, without success.

Reverend Dirks

This weekend we celebrated Tyler's ordination. It was a fantastic weekend with much help in celebrating this exciting event from friends and family. Tyler's folks, sister, aunt and grandparents all flew in for the occassion, and of course our dear friends Ted and Craig Hamm drove all the way from Florida so Ted could offer a charge to Tyler. Also, Maggie met her great grands (on Tyler's side) for the first time, so that was extra special. We are very pleased with the Reverend and all his accomplishments (or rather the Lord's accomplishments through him). Thank you to all of those out their who came to the service and who have supported us throughout the years, and especially we thank our gracious heavenly Father! For those of you who didn't make it to the service the message Lindsey delivered was clear, that as Tyler ministers to the lost and hurting he should never present himself as any kind of solution, because he is completely inadequate and ill-prepared for the task, but instead He should offer Jesus, because He is utterly adequate and perfectly prepared. Our hearts are that, by the grace of God, Jesus would be presented through a weak and sinful man to a needy and desperately lost world, namely the students of Johnson and Wales, as we feel that is where the Lord has currently called our family to minister.
the hands are raised... a little known perk of being ordained...and yes I was that wife that made her husband do the benediction pose for the camera
Lindsey, Tyler, Tom and Ted quite the all-star line up if you ask me
Tyler and his dad aka "DOG"
One can never get enough Grandma lovin'
the monumentous greeting of the greats
over the weekend Maggie had another first that should be noted...the first taste of "real food other than rice cereal" a category in itself...sweet peas. It took a couple of days to get used to them but tonight for dinner she ate them right down without a single body shiver. Maggie would like to thank her Grandma for introducing her to this exciting new world of vegetables
Maggie truly enjoyed getting to spend some quality time with her great aunt Susan and aunt Melodee ...whom we think is great.

Sadly I don't have pictures of two very important people that came up for the ordination service, Poppa and Grandma Zaepfel...but if you are reading and I know you are....we love you all very much and thank you all for being a part of this evening!

Johnson and Wales

Lindsey, Sean and Jared
Layl and Daniel displaying some fancy RUF/J&W cups (thank you Adam) Clark is in the background working the grill.
J and Tyler

The students are back and RUF threw a little back to school cook out on campus. These are a few random shots. It was a lot of fun, Maggie and I got to go for a bit and we really enjoyed meeting some more of the students.

Labor Day or Grandparent day?

Monday was dubbed labor day by the majority of the American public, however we Dirks like to labor on that particular day. So, in order for both Tyler and myself to be able to do this we had to summon the grandparents for a day of babysitting fun. We really had to work hard to convince them to drive to Charlotte and spend 8 whole hours of one on one time with their little darling, but in the end they finally gave in to our pleas (note sarcasm), and they even treated us to dinner, we the employers. I know... bizarre, I guess I'll understand when I am a grandparent. So, here are some pics from "labor day."
Is this the face of someone being spoiled or what?
this is not so much from labor day as it is an illustration of why Maggie gets so messy during rice cereal time.
note the "I love my grandpa" bib

nice pics eh?

Well, here they are the much anticipated pictures of Maggie! We got a new camera today, so you can all look forward to many more sweet pictures of the Mags. A few of these pictures were on the old card, but couldn't be downloaded until now, so feast your eyes on these great pics!
This is a picture I have wanted to post for a while. This is a picture of Maggie in her sporty gamecock gear, you see I work one day a week in the OR and when I do Tyler is in charge of getting Maggie dressed. So, almost every time Tyler dresses Maggie she is in some sort of Kansas State outfit, however on this particular day Maggie was put into my colleges frocks. However, the sports theme remains.
Here is a picture of Maggie and me reading some books, I am barely assisting Maggie in her sitting up position. It won't be long now until she can sit unassisted for longer than 30 seconds!
And, here is Maggie in an oldie goldie aka Emi P special. This was the dress of my dear sweet middle/high school/and college buddy, Emily. Mrs. P gave it to us last week, along with some other hand me downs, when we visited the homestead last. I am sure if we had a picture of Emily at Maggie's age they would be twins.
This is a picture captured on the new digital camera, we haven't perfected the flash as you can see, but here it is. Those blue eyes are dynamite.