Today it did, and other happenings

Things have been pretty busy around here lately. Joshua is busy with Band and the youth group at church. Emily and Caleb are enjoying the last few weeks of soccer. Matthew and Olivia enjoy playing outside and eating popsicles on the picnic table under the swingset and the new sand daddy put in the sand box this weekend. Abigail and Isabelle are busy pulling up, cruising and keeping mommy and daddy up at night. I also had a birthday. Rocky surprised me and took me out of town this weekend, WITHOUT children - thanks to Mom and Dad, John and Louann, Sherry, Riki and the Youth Group at Oak Grove for watching all our kiddos. We went to a Bed and Breakfast that we enjoyed a few years ago. It is in Kyle and it is called The Inn Above Onion Creek. It is really beautiful. There are no onions, and the creek is dried up, but it is pretty all the same. I'll post pictures later when I have more time. It was too short, but really wonderful. I had a 2 hour massage while Rocky had a little alone time. We had a wonderful dinner and a beautiful walk back to our cottage in the dark, amongst the Cattle. (Ask Rocky about his unreasonable fear of Cows sometime). We came home and went out to eat at Outback with all of our dear friends: Shay and Marcus, Becky and Jay, Sherry and Steven, Liz and David and Jim (Robin was out of town). Jim and Jennifer were with us in spirit. We had a wonderful time. Thanks, guys for making a difficult birthday fun!

Well, not too often I tell a Mema story, but here is one that everyone will get a kick out of. The other day, Rocky had her helping to make juice before bed so they could enjoy it for breakfast. The next morning, everyone got juice. No one said anything, but it was really watery. I just figured Rocky deliberately watered it down to make it last longer, and the kids don't need any additional sugar anyway. Well, later that evening, Rocky asked Mema about it. She said she followed the directions precicely and put 3 cans per one of juice. She made two pitchers. Rocky tried to explain that there is no way that 3 cans of water and one of juice could possibly fill up 2 pitchers. She argued with him and said that she did just that. Three cans of water. Again, Rocky trying to get to the bottom of the watery juice, pressed the subject saying agan that 3 cans of water could in no way fill up 2 pitchers. Her reply was - "well they did today".

My Baby!

My baby is almost 13. I am almost the mother of a teenager. That just doesn't seem possible to me - throw in the fact that in less than a month, I will be entering another decade of my life and this has the makings of a really crummy end of the year for me. Last night, Josh and some of his friends had a sleep-over after we took them out to Razzoos. We had a really nice night. We got in and out and were back home in 2 hours (thank you Grammy and Grampy) for watching the other kiddos so we could enjoy time with our "soon-to-be teen". As I type this, it is 11:19 pm, less than an hour from the actual time of birth (11:59 pm). His goal is to say up until then. Good thing he took a nap today, since I don't think there was much sleeping going on upstairs last night. (also, one major design flaw of our house - the playroom is directly over our bedroom, as is the air hockey table). Oops. Well, here are some pictures of my baby!





I guess that I can "out" Josh in that if you look closely, the shirt in the pictures from last night and the last picture taken a few minutes ago is one in the same. I am told that at some point in the teen years, the boys start bathing like 6 times a day. Please tell me that happens the day they turn 13!

Julie

TEETH!

Well, Abby and Izzy both have one tooth each - so I guess we could say "teeth". Saturday, Caleb lost a tooth and the girls seemed to have found it. They each are sporting a very small, but everpresent bump on the bottom left. You can't see it yet, just feel it. Now you will draw back a very wet finger when trying to feel said teeth, but they are there. They are also crawling up a storm, and they are starting to want to pull up. Isabelle pulled up to her bumbo seat saturday. They are getting there.

Now - Save the date. We are going to have a BIG party for the girls first birthday, Olivia's second birthday and Matthew's fourth birthday. November 15th - details to come!

More later, Julie

Labor Day

Well, we had a great holiday. Everyone came over and we had a wonderful Luau. We had Kalua Pig, chicken long rice, mac salad, sticky rice, shoyu chicken, spam musubi, fruit salad and coconut pie. It was a wonderful day. The kids played outside in the sprinklers and had water balloon fights and Abby learned to crawl - forward.

The First Day of School

Well, I guess officially it is not the first day for the smaller 4, but here is the picture so humor me. We are off and running. After school, Caleb had soccer practice. I took all the paperwork for the 3 oldest to fill out. Too bad they just can't have a district wide database for all the emergency numbers, addresses, etc. And how many "Code of Conduct" books do we need exactly. The amount of paper that I threw away, wow. Oh, well - here is the picture.

Too bad I forgot to move the girl's toys out of the way, but you know what they look like.

Sitting Up and Getting Wet

Well, the girls are on their way to crawling. They are getting up on all fours and rocking back and forth and today we tried sitting. They actually did it. I have a feeling that they will be doing a lot of catching up in the next month or so. They go back to the pulmonologist this week to evaluate for Synagis again this year. Hopefully they will be able to get it, especially since they are in daycare now. Speaking of daycare, we are starting our 3rd week. Everyone is doing well, just slight runny noses and hopefully nothing more serious creeps up.



We have spent the last two saturdays with both of our parents putting together the playset that has been making our garage smell good for about the last 6 weeks. It looks great and it is DONE! I put the periscope and pirates ship wheel up tonight. We got the slide up just as a MAJOR thunderstorm rolled through last night. We were all running for cover, picking up tools and cardboard trash from the backyard.





Caleb was baptized last week. Daddy did it. It was wonderful. Many people came up to me and said that Rocky had made them cry. I am so proud of him! Here are some pictures of that.

RAIN

Well, it has been raining most of the day. It really hasn't mattered since I have been in class all day, but the evening is approaching and I was wanting to get out and go for a walk. I actually packed my exercise stuff - ready to walk. The gym in the hotel costs, and I may just fork it out. I really feel like I need to do something. There is a Clam Bake party tonight at the conference - hope they have Chicken (I don't eat clams). Rocky would be in heaven!

Forgot to tell you about the RATS I saw running from under the fence of Boston Commons onto the sidewalk to get pieces of food people had dropped. They were HUGE and really bold. They were like squirrls. Actually, they had probably eaten the squirrils and were moving on to bread crumbs. I couldn't believe how many of them there were! NASTY! I got pictures and I'll post later.