Wordless Wednesday - Best Buds

Red (3) and our neighbor Jack (78) are best of friends!

Look how happy he is!

Got a chuckle...

I sat down at the computer with a t-shirt on slightly hunched over so that the front on my shirt was flat. Red comes over to me with a very concerned look on his face. He looks up at me and says, "Mommy where are your nurse?" He looks at my shirt trying to figure out where they went. I jokingly told him, "They are gone because Peanut is done using them." He said, "Oh" and off he went to play. About 30 minutes later I was standing in the kitchen and the nurses were showing and Red comes up to me and taps both of them. Just to make sure that they didn't fall off. What a goof.

By the way, Peanut is still nursing she is only 10 months old!

Home Bound!

I stole that title from my friend, I know she won't mind! Moving along, after Friday's events J and I were talking about last week and this summer. He said to me, "I don't ever remember a summer as active as you are with the kids. Riding your bikes to the library, to the parks, going swimming having play dates at the Arboretum. You have been busy." I think I just ran myself rugged and my body was mad and reacted in that way so it could get some rest plus, I know I didn't drink enough fluid on Friday either. Just a quick run down of things we did last week; Monday-Chuck E Cheese, Tuesday-playgroup (morning) pool playdate (afternoon) Wednesday-Arboretum (all day) Thursday-dinner and late night with my dad, Friday-pool. It was jammed packed so I am making an effort to be more inactive but still let the kids have fun. This morning we played outside while it wasn't super hot and we had tons of shade. Then J came home for lunch, which the kids absolutely loved. Right now the little ones are sleeping and the older two are playing legos together, first they helped with dishes and laundry. Even being home bound can make for a busy and fun day!

Just on a side note: We took the kids to a Veggie Tales thing on Saturday at our local Christian Bookstore and while we were there I found the coolest family devotional by Ruth Graham. We are going to be starting it tonight after dinner. The last few days GG has been very interested in reading her Bible when I read mine or having me read mine to her. I'm not sure if Friday has anything to do with it but before she went to bed she was crying and very scared that I wouldn't be alive the next morning. She was crying about how Red and Peanut wouldn't get to know me like she has. It was very sad. We prayed about it and talked about it and the next day I was alive! I remember having those fears when I was about her age and I remember being very frightened. We have talked to her and Monkey about if something happened to us who they would go live with but not recently.

Daddy/Daughter Date old school!

**this was started on Friday**
It was old school because MY dad came to the house to pick ME up and take ME on a date with HIM! I haven't been out on a daddy/daughter date with my dad since high school. He used to come pick me up at my mom's house and we'd go out to eat and then drive 2 hours back to his house.

Let me just say that last night was fun. I got to go out and have fun. We went to a really nice restaurant and both of us got steak and I ate the whole thing, plus the veggies and mashed potatoes that came with, I was stuffed. Then my dad wanted to go to the Mall. He asked me what I wanted to do and joking around said, "I need to dye my hair and get rid of all the grays I have." Then I showed him my head of hair and we were off to get my hair colored. When we got there my dad suggested going blond. I've never been blond and thought sure why not! So here are the pictures of my hair today after I washed and styled it my way. The lady last night had it so puffy and just so not me.









GG and J don't like the color but the boys really don't have an opinion and Peanut just loves me anyway I am because I'm her mom! Then after the hair adventure we looked at Game Stop at all the different Wii games. I really want to get Rock Band for the kids this Christmas. I think they will have a blast playing it but we'll see. Then we went to Land's End and I got a new swimming suit. I was so excited...I have been drooling over these suits for a long time and now I have one and I love the way it fits! I think I will trying and get another one next summer so that I have more suits to wear during the summer. We go swimming a lot and having different suits is fun for me :) Sorry no pictures of me in my new purchase. But it is pink like my toe nails and looks like an outfit. I love modest swim wear.

**The first reason this post was not posted on Friday was because I was meeting my friend Kristin at the pool and she reads my blog and I didn't want her to see my hair on here first! I know I'm a stinker. The second was while we were at the pool I got a really bad headache and started feeling sick to my stomach, not sure if I got dehydrated or what the deal was. It was just a big mess. We have 8 kids between the two of us and I couldn't drive myself home. I thank God for great neighbors who came and got me and the kids and then stayed with the kids until J got home. I went straight for the bed in pain. I couldn't even sleep because my head hurt so bad and my stomach felt like I was going to throw up which unfortunately I did about 4 times. This morning I woke up feeling a little sick to my stomach but as the day has gone on I am feeling better. We were suppose to go on the boat with my dad and step mom but I wasn't sure the boat rocking would feel that great. So we went bowling with them and then out to eat for lunch. I even got to take a nap, thanks to my wonderful hubby who ordered me to go lay down.**

Little bit of this and a little bit of that...

Last night before going to bed J bribed GG with a fudge pop if she would pull her tooth. It was pretty loose but it probably would of hung on for another week. Here she is with her first top front tooth missing. This morning I could see the new tooth so hopefully it will grow in pretty fast for her as she doesn't like the way she looks with teeth missing. As you can see the bottom two she lost have already come in. I'm just realizing that I didn't take the most flattering picture of her but you get the idea!

All the girls in the family painted our toes. Aren't they pretty pink?

Other than that today we played catch up with groceries, laundry and cleaning. It was good that this afternoon it rained otherwise we might have gone to the pool and not got anything done! I will say that going shopping with 4 kids is probably one of my least favorite things to do. I would rather have a dog bite my arm off. I heard so many comments today while shopping and they were such a wide range of comments too. The things people said that I remember but I know there were more:

1. You certainly have your hands full. (I hear this more than I care to hear EVER, why do people think that???)
2. Wow 4 kids grocery shopping you are a brave women.
3. It is so nice to see a big family shopping together.
4. A few older people were trying to help me with Red as he was getting a little disobedient towards the end. They said to him, "You better listen to your mommy". However he was too busy screaming being disobedient to hear them. He didn't want to hold Monkey's hand like I asked him to do while crossing the parking lot.
5. Them: All 4 of these kids yours? Me: yes Them: They are beautiful. Me: Thank you. Them: You have such a nice family. (That lady made my day!) She was talking to me as we were getting our deli and that is why her comments were longer.


I do think that I will do my shopping in the evening when J gets home and just take one or two of the kids or none at all!

The Bloggy Arboretum Meet Up!

Today the kids and I met Tracey and her kids at the Arboretum that was half way between her house and ours. Our kids hit it off right away, as did we! I really enjoyed talking to her and the time went by so fast. We had BEAUTIFUL weather and FANTASTIC company! Tracey is just as sweet and funny in person as she is on her blog. It was really fun to see her blog come to life today!

Red and Corinne playing by the water, aren't they sweet?

Us watching the kids and taking a break from talking to take a picture :)

We did have a little scare right at the beginning where we couldn't find Red for about 5 minutes then all was right with the world. Her kids all had yellow on and so did Red and then Monkey and GG wore blue. Next time we talked about calling each other first and having all the kids wear the same color! We decided that lunch time was the prefect time to get pictures of all of us because the kids were contained in one spot.

This is the whole group of us on our "field trip".

GG and Justin being goofy! They had a lot of fun with each other and were also joking with each other about not knowing the other ones name. They both kept forgetting :)

All the kids...

Our kids tended to gravitate towards anything and everything water. They were soaked. They also got in trouble for playing in the sprinkler apparently it was just to water the grass and plants not our children. I was happy that at lunch I took Red's underwear off and let them dry so that he could wear dry underwear on the way home.

The two littlest were in their strollers for this picture but Corinne was just as wet as the rest of them!

But I have to say that the two funniest pictures were after we left them. Red was so tired, at one point he even asked Tracey if he could go in her stroller that was empty at the time because he was "so tired." The kids didn't want to leave their new found friends and so I bribed them with a sucker in the van if they would cooperate with me and walk to the van. About five minutes in the our trip I turned and saw this....

He was still awake and sucking the sucker but he had his eyes closed while doing it. THEN about 5 minutes after that this is what I saw...
He was completely passed out! I took these while driving and I was so happy that I got good pictures because I wasn't looking at the camera when I snapped them...I was driving :)

Peanut plays the Harmonica :)

What a day, for lack of better words.

I mentioned yesterday that we were getting together with some friends from church. Well the plan was to go biking or swimming but the weather wasn't cooperating so we opted for Chuck E Cheese. That was fun but the food well lets just say it isn't the greatest. I'm such a sucker too. J wanted to play golf today and both people he was going to play with fell through do to different reasons and so I let him take GG on a date to golf. I really hope she is having fun! The rest of us just stayed home because the boys didn't want to go swimming. We played the Wii and now they are watching American Gladiator.

Other than that I feel like such a bad mother today with Peanut. She takes naps on our bed and she normally makes sounds when she wakes up and I go get her. Well today I heard a "Whaa" thud and screaming. As soon as I heard the whaa I was up and headed to the bedroom and when I heard the thud I was running. She seems to be okay but man did that really scare me. She had a red bump on her head. Then about 10 minutes ago I was nursing her while Red was brushing my hair and when he got done he threw it and hit her in the head while she was nursing. Good thing she has a hard head. Poor girl. It stinks to be the 4th. I think I am going to have to wear her more, oh wait she was in my arms the last time she got hurt.

My feet hurt...

and it isn't from running through my husband's dreams! J got us some special tickets for the festival and we used them today. It was unlimited rides for 2 hours. It was great fun and my feet hurt now. We had a very busy weekend too. Last night we went to one of our regular sitters graduation party. The kids had a great time and didn't want to leave but I had to put a stop to the fun because we needed to get up early for church this morning. I am excited about the week ahead of us too. It is fulling up fast too! If you know me at all I'm not one to sit at home...we are pretty on the go type people. Tomorrow we are getting together with a couple from church with their two kids. I think the hubby are going golfing at night, not quiet sure of that yet. Then Tuesday is playgroup. Wednesday we are meeting one of my bloggy friends for the day, I am super excited about it. Must. Not. Forget. My. Camera. Thursday will probably consist of cleaning and shopping. I'm thinking Friday will be library in the morning and swimming in the afternoon?! But don't hold me to it *wink*

Sorry pretty boring post but I wanted to get it down. When you lose someone who is a peer it makes you realize that we really don't know how many days we have on this earth and I want my kids to be able to read these posts and know what our days were like. Even if they are boring!

Our 4th of July!

First I hope that everyone had a happy, safe and exciting 4th of July. I know ours was jammed packed with fun! The only down side was GG got another migraine and threw up. This is the 3rd time in 6 months and I am getting really concerned. I've already taken her to the doctor once for this and I am going to take her again, because she is too young for this. Anyone out there have kids with migraines? Back to our day...first I got everyone up and ready for the parade, the three older kids were in the parade. They rode in the cop truck with daddy and I got a couple pictures of them but I'm not posting them. But here is Peanut watching the parade :) She's sporting red, white and blue with stars.

Then we had to leave the parade early to meet my dad and step-mom for lunch. Then it was home for the two little ones to get a nap. As soon as they woke it was to the fest for some rides. The older kids each got two rides. They all went on the swings which was Red's first year going on them and he was so cute to watch. Then he went on the Dragon rollercoaster and the other two went on Tilt-a-whirl with me. I also took Peanut on the big slide, she loved it! By the time we got done with the rides J was done working. We ran home grabbed our swim suites and off to a party we all went! We ended up getting home last night at 11pm. This year has been such a blessing to have J be able to watch the fireworks with us on the 3rd and then have him home at night on the 4th :) Here is another picture of the 4 kids from the 4th.

All three of the kids had the same shirt on which is the veggie tales shirt. I wished we could of found a baby size in it too.

Baby Girl

Here is a video of Peanut riding her little bike in our living room. You can hear the Wii in the background along with her brother Red repeating her "dadadadada" She loves to clap and has started doing that in place of waving!

Tight places!

Apparently sharing a room is really hard to do and so you have to get creative to find your "own" space to play with toys. Just don't get yourself stuck there like this...

There was a bed mattress on top of his foot as he is under the bottom bunk. How he did this I will never know. But we just had to take a picture of it. He was too funny as we were trying to figure out how to get him loose. At one point J says, "If worse comes to worse I can just cut him out." Yeah that started the water works as Monkey thought he was going to cut his foot off! He calmed down once we told him we would cut the bed. Which we didn't have to do. He was in there pretty good though, it took us about 10 minutes to get him out...

See on the right side of him all his toys that he was playing with? This was the whole reason he was in this mess! We had to move the bed (J) and him (me) away from the wall and then we put oil on his foot and all at once J lifted the bed and I pushed his greasy foot through the whole.

There were no "Monkeys" hurt in the freeing of his foot. But I will say he probably won't be playing under his brother's bed anytime soon! Ah BOYS:)

Big Man in the House!

I'm not really sure how this happened but Monkey mowed the lawn for the first time! I looked up from whatever I was doing and ran to the house to get my camera. He looked so cute pushing the mower. Not quite tall enough to do it by himself but one day soon it will be his "job" in our family, that is until Red gets big enough to help ;)

Look at him smiling for the camera...what a little ham!

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Great America!

I sit here after being at Great America for 10 hours. We had a good time with no incidents like last year. But we did have a puker, not cool. I was so proud of him for sticking it out and he ended up having a great time after his nap. Before I go to bed I wanted to share one of the funniest things that was said today, coming out of Red's mouth, of course, on the way home. J took his shoes off when we got in the van because he said they hurt. Then he says after smelling his feet. "My socks smell like cream cheese." Never a dull moment that's for sure :)

Family Reunion

Today was my dad's side big family reunion, you know the ones you go to and you don't know who most the people are because there are So. Many. People.They are second and third and so on cousins and in-laws and what not. It rained on us a bit and it was a little on the cooler side of things but fun was still had by all! I haven't been to one of the reunions for 4 years...the last year I went both my grandparents were alive and a few days later they were both gone. Anyways, before we ate lunch they take pictures. My grandpa had 7 siblings (but one passed at age 6) leaving 6 siblings in adulthood, so what they do is take a picture of the families by my grandpa and his siblings families. Are you following me? Each year it is a competition of the 7 families to see who has the most in attendance by the pictures. Most year's my grandpa's family wins because he and my grandma had 7 kids and they had over 25 grandkids who are now having kids and getting married. Not everyone comes but our family picture had at least 50 people (just counted 53!) and there were still 6 other extended families there! See tons of people :) After we ate they played softball and Monkey and GlamorGirl got in on the action. They did a great job and actually hit the ball several times! Here are some pictures from the day...

Monkey running home :)

GG batting with grandpa's help...

playing the outfield.

playing and eating cookies, so fun.

Peanut and Daddy playing

No pictures of me as I was the one taking the pictures!

Painting away boredom!

I had bought the kids bird houses for them to paint last summer but being lazy pregnant I just never got around to letting them paint. But after seeing how much fun they had and how easy it was letting them do it, meaning that they weren't that messy outside :) I have been looking for other things they can paint. Any ideas?

Look how fun!

The finished product...

Peanut playing with grass

Where's your nose?

I really don't love Peanut more then the other kids but she is just so photo genetic! And she's a baby :) I do have a lot more pictures of the other kids painting...but you get the idea.

This world...

it makes me so sad and so mad. We were in our living room with the front windows wide open playing our Wii. This mom was walking by with a child in a stroller and a little girl about a house behind her. The girl walks past our house and picks our flowers and then picks it apart after killing it then she proceeds to take my kids bug house that is in our yard. The kids play with this daily as they are so "into" bugs, example the inch worm. Here I am with the Wii controller around my wrist playing a game quickly pause the game and run outside with no shoes on and yell at the girl to bring our toy back. The mom turns around and just looks at me and says something to her daughter but I don't speak her language so I have no idea what she said. The girl walks to me and hands me the bug house. I was just so sad that this little girl doesn't know better. She was about 7 years old. And mad that my kids didn't pick up their toys like I asked them too. I should let their toys be taken next time, but this bug house was homemade and was a gift.

Michigan Trip...

I just wanted to document our trip to Michigan about two weeks ago. We went with J on his business trip and so it was me and the kids during the day and all of us at night. We had a great time. Here are some of my favorite pictures from the trip...but certainly not all of the pictures!

Peanut as Happy as can be :)

GG and Monkey swimming in the whirl pool.

Red giving me a big smile!

Daddy and all the kids...the start of a tradition with daddy.

Mommy and all the kids ~ a family tradition

Love this picture.

This one too! We were standing under the shower by the pool.

Look at those little fish.

Here I come...catch me daddy!

Surprise...I'm not sleeping :)

Water logged

Today was the first time that I daringly took the 4 kids to the pool by myself! Not only did I do it alone but we rode our bikes there, also. I laid some ground rules about what I expected from them and how I was going to need help from them when I needed to do things with the baby ie nurse her. We were there almost 3 hours. The first hour we were all in the pool and Peanut was in my new water sling. Then she was getting hungry and the three kids played by the slide while I nursed her. She ended up falling asleep and the kids played so well that she was able to sleep for about 30 minutes or so. When she woke up it was snack time. I treated the kids to a special treat of ice cream because they were being so good. Now Peanut and I had been out of water for about an hour at this point and we were getting dry. As I was standing in line Peanut started peeing and it went down my leg and on my feet. It was one the weirdest grossest feelings. Then we rode our bikes home and Red feel asleep, we skipped his normal nap time so we could swim. It worked out good because when J got home he wanted to take the kids to night swim. Where we swam for another 2 hours! I am completely water logged but love it :)

I also must mention that today was the first day I actually brought money with so that we could get something from the concessions, their special treat. But I also brought the normal snack and drinks with so I didn't have to spend a ton!

Wordless Wednesday :)

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Monkey's Graduation Pictures

The first picture is him walking to the stage. The second going to get his diploma which the camera didn't cooperate with getting one of him shaking hands and receiving it. And then my camera died before we got all the pictures we wanted, bummer. Then when I went to put them up here I realized that some of the good pictures has him holding his diploma with his full name on it so sorry you don't get to see those. But look at that face, and believe me they were CUTE. Now he can't say I love his sister more because we put her graduation pictures up. Do remember around the time he was graduating we were trying to win a Wii. We love you Monkey!