The "Boore" Family

Not only did Mom reserve the lakehouses for us, she paid to have a professional photographer come and take family pictures.  It had been 16 years since we had a professional picture and much has changed in our family since then.

It was pretty chilly that morning we did the pictures which caused a little unpleasantness for our younger children, but over all, we are very pleased with the pictures!!

I wanted to do a little history lesson before posting the rest of the professional pictures.

Our family started in 1949 when Edward L. Boore married Dorothy Jean Brunk in a small ceremony at Mt. Olive Baptist Church, rural Girard, Kansas

From their union, came 3 girls:  Debbie, Beverly and Kaye

(and also their firstborn son, Dwayne who died shortly after birth)

 Mom and Dad's 25th Wedding Anniversary in 1974
(and Jeff was now a part of the family)

 And from their daughters, they were blessed with 7 grandchildren:

Josh, Shannan, Andy, Adrienne, Shawna, Matt and Rachel

 The summer of 1999, Mom and Dad celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary
and had a professional picture taken of all their family at that time 

(our last family professional picture).

 Sadly, Dad died in 2000.
He never got to meet any of his great grandchildren.
He would have loved them so much!

Our last big family gathering was in 2012
and Mom had 12 great grandbabies:

 And now there are a total of 39 of us!!  37 were present New Years' weekend 

(2 grandson-in-laws had other commitments)

 Silly picture!

 Mom and her girls

(Normally Lake Windsor is beautiful, but this was just a 
few days after the horrible flooding our area had experienced.)

 We love you, Mom!

 The Swart Family

 The Ferrell Family

 (due to it being so cold, they opted not to do a dock picture, 

but afterwards, they wished they had)

The Harkness' Family

 Mom with her daughters and son-in-laws

 Grandma with her 7 grandchildren and their spouses

 And Grandma with all 18 of her precious great grandchildren!

 The oldest daughter:  Debbie and husband Jeff 

 The middle daughter, Bev and husband Don

 And the baby daughter, Kaye and husband Rob

 The rest of the pictures are the grandchildren and their families.....in birth order 

(grandchild's name is in bold):

Josh, Michelle and Avi Swart

 Shannan, Madyson, Zachary, Cooper and Alex McEuen 

(Shannan's husband, Mike, had to work)

 Andy, Carman, Laine, Ellie and Shepherd Swart

 Mike, Adrienne, Lincoln and Graham Goering

 Shawna, Tristan, Noah and Malachi Tunnell 

(Shawna's husband, Nathan had another commitment)

 Matt, Kristin, Ellis, Nora and Owen DeMott

 Jonathan, Rachel, Copeland and Eisley McCrary

The Boore family has been so blessed -- 

generation after generation!!

Every single one of these adults know Jesus as their Savior, loves the Lord and is serving Him in a good church!  They are raising their children to also know and love Jesus!  We believe that is in part to the faithfulness of Dad and Mom who set the example for each of us. There are three preachers among us--Jeff Swart, Andy Swart and Mike Goering who all pastor Baptist churches; Don Ferrell is a faithful deacon; Shawna and Nathan Tunnell have served on the mission field; Beverly Ferrell is a volunteer with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and all of the rest are very actively involved in their local church and community.  

Thank you, Lord, for blessing our family!!

Boore Christmas 2015 in Bella Vista, New Year's Weekend

My Mom generously reserved three of the lakehouses for all the family to gather New Year's weekend to celebrate our family Christmas

These were the first of the great grandchildren to arrive:

 

 Cousins catching up.....

 

 

 

 

 The last family group to arrive were the Ferrells -- they had a long 7 hour journey!

 One of the new babies.....Owen Matthew DeMott born in July

 The youngest of the babies:  Shepherd Knox Swart born in November

 And the middle of the newest babies:  Malachi Gabriel Tunnell born in September

 There was lots of visiting, eating, laughter and chaos throughout the weekend :-)

 Laine was determined to be the teacher to a classroom of students....but got very frustrated with those students.  It was pretty funny!

 First Baptist had a birthday fellowship a couple of weeks prior to this weekend.  Not all the cupcakes were eaten, so Leigh rearranged the snowman and then put them in the freezer for me to take to Bella Vista.  They were a huge hit with the grandkids and all were eaten by the end of the weekend (and they were delicious!).  Thanks, Leigh!!

 This was the end of the first night......everyone was very tired and ready for bed, but complied with my request to get a family picture before going our separate ways:

The Ferrells (less two son-in-laws who had other commitments)

 The Harkness'

 The Swarts, plus Mom, but minus Andy and Shepherd (Andy had just gotten him to sleep downstairs) and Avi, who was at her Dad's.

 The next day, most of the kiddos and some of the adults went to the nice gym at Bethel Baptist Church, Bentonville, where Mike Goering pastors.  Kaye had a gun safety video that was shown to the kids and coloring books to reinforce what they learned.  Thanks, Kaye!

 The kids had so much fun playing!

 That evening, each family were on their own so that some could have their family Christmas.  The Swarts did that :-)

 I had made homemade spaghetti and meatballs for supper, so the kids got baths and were put in their pj's before we opened presents.  We first were entertained by Ellie Kate as she sang a song to us:

 Then it was what they had waited so patiently for...presents!

 And stockings.....

 Papa put silly teeth in their stockings

 The next morning, we were having the professional pictures taken.

Some of the kids that arrived early for those pictures.

 Waiting our turn

 Since I am devoting another blog post to the professional pictures, this is just a few from our own cameras.....Kayce getting the Swart family organized

 I did get a quick one of Andy's family getting ready

 Our wonderful and patient photographer, Kayce Smith.  Kayce and family are very active at Andy's church.  We appreciated Kayce so much!

 And one of Grandma and the 18 greats with a cell phone

 After pictures were all done, Mom treated us to a meal at Las Fajitas in Bella Vista.  Just as we were leaving the house to go eat, Mom took a hard fall outside :-(.  She really messed up her nose but THANKFULLY, didn't break anything, including her glasses!!  She was sore for a few days.

After coming back to the house, then it was Christmas time with Grandma.  She is handing out cash to all the little ones :-).  And all the big kids got money too!!  We are so thankful for Mom/Grandma's generosity to all of us!

 The Aunts had divided up the names of the little ones, so each one got a gift to open:

 I always do birthday and anniversary cards for Mom.  I pick out the cards, then label them in date order to be mailed.  We are up to 48 now!  Mom is once again so generous in enclosing a check and mailing each one throughout the year.  It keeps her busy!

You can see her bummed up nose here :-(....

 Madyson and Laine both got the same pretty necklace for Christmas (it has the little box where you put all your hopes and dreams in it).  I'm sure the necklace has a name, but I don't remember it.  They both loved it!

 I've intermingled some of Kaye's pictures that she did some special photo options to.

 Over the years, several of the girl cousins have been pregnant and given birth near each other.  This year it was Kristin, Shawna and Carman.

Here is a picture collage through the years of other times when that was the case:

 This was the first time for Madyson and Avi to meet and we were all so glad that they hit it off and quickly become friends!  Madyson is about a year and a half older, but she is glad to finally have a cousin at least somewhat close to her in age.

 Madyson was also so sweet in helping to entertain the little ones

 It was a wonderful extended family time together.  A huge thank you to all who made the effort to be there and again to Mom for making it all possible!!

To finish out this posting, Jeff and I were thrilled to be afforded the opportunity to worship with the kids and their families on Sunday morning at Metro.  It was an extra special blessing that it was their first Sunday in their new location.  Andy preached to an excited, packed house of folks!

 Jonathan plays in the band (and Josh runs the sound)

 Andy thought he could use a selfie stick and get a picture of him with the audience in the background, but it didn't work -- so Jonathan took the picture

 A wonderful time of worship

 Lainey Bug praying (melts my heart)

 Andy concluded his sermon with a great illustration

 Practicing with that selfie stick and his great administrative assistant, Pam!

 After the service.....cousins.....

 Nephew Matt and his family also go to Metro

 The ONLY picture I got all weekend (much to my dismay) of Jeff and I with all 6 of  our grandchildren.  I had hoped to get one of the family at church that day, but circumstances didn't allow it.  So I'm extra thankful for the professional pictures we did take!

 We went to eat lunch together in Rogers before all going our separate ways.  These were the last three pictures I took that weekend :-):

A MEMORABLE 2015 CHRISTMAS/2016 NEW YEARS!!