Birthday News

Well, we have passed all 4 birthdays in three days. Matthew turned 4 on November 11th, Olivia turned 2 on November 13 and today was Abigail and Isabelle's first birthday. We had cake twice this week and celebrated at dinner. Today, not even one picture of the girls on their first birthday. Oh, well - that will change tomorrow. We will be having the grandaddy of all parties tomorrow night. I'll post many pictures, but we have been busy all week with preparations. I took off this week to get the house ready, shop and cook. I'm exhausted. I'm almost ready to go back to work. (ALMOST). Anyway, more tomorrow!

Halloween Night

Well, instead of trick-or-treating the usual way this year, we went to "Old Town" and participated in the first annual BOO BASH. Everyone in the community came together for one HUGE block party. Some of the local churches and businesses, instead of having their own independent events, had booths, cars, bounce houses, etc in the streets of Old Town. I think they were predicting a few thousand people. It was way more than that. There were people everywhere. I will be interested in finding out how many people there actually were. I really like things like that, even though they are crowded, you always run into someone you haven't seen in ages. Mom went with us and Dad stayed here with Mema to hand out candy. Mom hadn't realized how much a magnet the twins were. Everyone would stop to admire, compare twin stories, etc. There is such a bond between families of multiples you don't realize until you have them. It's so neat to compare stories, get and give advice and just commiserate sometimes! Anyway, enjoy the pictures.
Joshua, dressed up as, well, a 13 year old 7th grader trying to be cool but still wanting candy.
Caleb, the pirate, arrrrrrrg.
Emily the Mad Scientist, who said she wanted to be a cheerleader again next year...
Olivia, the Pixie. What is a pixie, anyway? CUTE.
Matthew the Spider.
Isabelle, the baby...

and Abigail the baby.

Here is everyone. I had to dress up as 50's for work, so Rocky just did a quick change from PJ's to match me. Maybe I should have changed into PJ's to match him. Oh well. Have a great saturday. We will be doing the soccer thing all day!

Pumpkins and Halloween Morning

This morning before I took the kids to Daycare, we stopped on the front porch for a quick picture. How cute are my 4 littlest pumpkins! (Isabelle is on the Left - I know, wrong, but it was a quick picture)

Pictures

Here are some pictures from our weekend away.

Caleb's Prayer

Caleb was going up the stairs and found a wooden block he mad in RA's a few weeks ago at church. It is a prayer wheel. Today he is to pray for school. He asked that when I was done on the computer, would I pray with him. Here is his prayer: "Dear Jesus, Thank you for our Teachers. If we didn't have teachers, we would all be bored at home. Thank you for school. Amen."

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