Good Day . . . good couple days actually

Nothing in particular, well, yeah, several particular things, but just lots of little things going together and getting accomplished these last couple days. No pics, still in too much of a hurry, but . . .

The BIGGEST thing for us- Robert worked ALL DAY today in the garage. Finished shelves to unpack enough items to get BOTH VEHICLES IN THE GARAGE! Yea! This has been bugging me. Many of the boxes either got unpacked, gone through and put away, or stored in our now DRY (thanks Todd) basement. A couple of them went into the front room/computer room to be sorted through, but overall, the garage is done and we have ALOT less boxes lying around!

What else since my last blog? Robert and I celebrated our 8th anniversary. :) He bought me roses on the day and a couple days later we went out to dinner (chicken fried steak and potatoes, and wonderful rolls; definately NOT on my diet plan!) and then to a movie- we saw The Hangover at Amber's suggestion- IT WAS HILARIOUS! I don't remember the last time I laughed so much! Sara and her girls came over to babysit-- THANK YOU!

Robert and I got our new driver's licenses -- change of address. We got Sam's cards. We ordered a home phone line that should be hooked up on the 16th, I'll get you all the number later. Good news on Jenny's blog. Good news on Brandi's blog. Planning a trip to CO Springs for one of Robert's cousin's wedding on August 1st. Planning a trip to San Antonio/Sea World in late July. The boys may be spending a week with Prampa John and Grandma Crystal (and Aunt Nyketa and Baby Cadence, and Uncle Troy and Emilly and brand new baby Kyrah)-- BUT THEY DON'T KNOW THIS YET, so don't say anything to them! . . . What else, boys' ball teams are doing well. Both are enjoying it. Michael hit a triple on Wed night- he was REALLY excited! He also played infield for the first time-3rd base, also his normal: left field, right field, and catcher. Isaiah also played 3rd base, catcher, and was told to go to left field but went to right instead! :)

Isaiah's been going to preschool this week, and will continue to next week. It's 2 hours M-Th, and he has a pretty good teacher (me! :)) I'm actually really impressed with how well he's doing and how much he's learning. His writing of his name is getting good, and he's learned how to write (form) his numbers from 1-6 so far (next week we'll finish through 9). He can rhyme, cut, do lots of the things that the others can. HOWEVER, I'm still very comfortable with waiting him a year to go to Kindergarten- academic redshirting as it's now being called since it's becoming so popular. Anyways, he's really loving it. Doesn't complain at all when he has to be woken up and dressed before the rest. He likes to start group conversations during work times, takes polls during transitions. He'll just annouce a little loudly to the group: "So, who can ride their bikes without training wheels? . . . . I can. I just took them off, and I can ride it WITHOUT FALLING DOWN." It's really cute. I keep saying that he's my little politician because he'll talk to anyone . . . He's definately a leader, nonetheless.

Michael lost ANOTHER tooth tonight! BIG, BIG gap now! I'll get a picture up soon. . . Oh, we found out that the van is a "flex vehicle" takes E85 gasoline!!!! That means we just dropped our gas price by about 50 to 60 cents a gallon! Yea! Stations online look promising for our vacations.

Isaiah's birthday party is on his birthday, next Saturday the 20th, at 3:00pm. He's decided on Star Wars theme (only because it meant that he got to get a little inflateable lightsaber.) He's excited to be turning 5. Caleb's is next. He'll be two on July 15th . . .

Well, that's probably way more than anyone cares to hear about . . . Oh, I did want to ask one thing. Since I'm doing some extra work this summer, and my cel phone (rather, the backup phone that I'm borrowing from Jenny and Mark since mine died) is, well, about 8 years old, I'm thinking of spoiling myself with a nicer phone. I'm up for one at the end of this month. Any suggestions?

And the tooth is out!

So, Michael's tooth FINALLY is out! Any last minute votes on how it came out before you read . . . ?

Well, mom and I thought for sure that he lost it at his game on Wed night, because while playing left field, he kept pulling at something in his mouth. At first we thought he had dirt or grass in the way, then we both remembered his tooth and guessed it had fallen out. In the end, it was the sunflower seed shell that he was still eating on! (Guess mommy didn't explain them well enough when I sent them with him-- not in the field, only on the bench!-- anyways. Here's his before picture tonight.


Then here's him letting Daddy try to pull it out again. We tried last night too. We counted down from 10 as a group but it slipped from Daddy's fingers! Tonight Isaiah counted down from 5 by himself (I was impressed) for Daddy & Michael . . .5 . . . 4 . . . (Michael doesn't really even look worried does he? Big smile under there :) ) 3 . . . 2 . . . 1






And Daddy PULLED REALLY HARD . . . (yes, only one try, and yes, somehow I snapped at the right moment!) . . . And next is the bloody mouth picture.



Just kidding mom, you can uncringe. I did take one, but I didn't post it here.

Finally, we have Michael, with much bigger holes in his smile, and his lost tooth safely tucked away in his tooth fairy pillow that Great Grandma Ginia made for him.

At the beginning of this school year, it being the first year that Michael attended St. Marks, I had most every teacher that Michael encounter tell me that he has THE BEST SMILE, or HIS SPIRIT JUST SHINES THROUGH THAT SMILE. Everyone, library, PE, music, all his teachers commented to me on his smile. . . Can you imagine what this "best smile" is
going to look like when the other top tooth (which is also pretty loose at the moment) falls out? How he'll eat, I don't know!

BTW- His first tooth he let Daddy pull too (I had been teasing him to let me, and he said I could. So I started and grabbed ahold of it and then, realizing that he was serious, I chickened out and made Daddy do the dirty work!). His second fell out one night at supper. His 3rd he lost when he and Daddy had their boys trip to CO- just noticed at the end of the day that it was gone. His 4th tooth, I honestly can't remember, I'll have to ask Daddy or Michael. And #5-Daddy pulled it!

So, there was ONE person who voted he'd let Daddy pull it--- Who was the correct voter? ? ?

Lizziebear starts gymnastics today!

Elizabeth gets to start gymnastics tonight! She is really excited. We tried on several different leotards (that seems like an oldfashioned word-is that right?)-thank you again everyone who gives us hand-me-downs! This one seems to fit well and she has more to grow into.

She loves to pose for the camera, so here are some of the cuter poses . . .

I was going for a ready-to-do-a-cartwheel pose here, but she couldn't get the I'm-a-monster-with claws thought out of her head! Maybe this will improve with lessons . . .

The 'rules' (mommy's rules) to gymnastics are: 1) She has to wear a leotard (I'm sure there's a better word than that . . . ) & 2) her hair has to be either in a braided poinytail, or a frenchbraid- today she chose a pony with braid. (Hair out of eyes is actually one of their rules, and leotard or comfortable, moveable clothes is another of their rules.)

She is SUPER-EXCITED to go! Hopefully she stays that way once we get there because Robert is working tonight so I get to go with the other 3 in tow, and she can't cling to my leg for help because I won't be able to give it to her. . . Ms. Mary is her teacher, and if I remember right, she was Isaiah's teacher about 3 years ago . . . In fact, I believe she was MY teacher when I went there, well, let's not say how many years ago! Anyways, cross your fingers that she stays excited and demonstrates a little independence! ;)

Planting a Garden

I took all the kids to Wal~Mart a couple weeks ago (that alone is an adventure) and let each of them pick out some flowers to help make the newly/mostly de-weeded front yard more colorful. They each picked a color/flower, and I picked one to go with it.

Isaiah, my little nature boy, really enjoyed the planting. He picked the orange and I added yellow to go with it.

Elizabeth picked pink, of course, and I added purple to go with her pot. She also really enjoyed planting. Each child picked out some gardening gloves too, hers are . . . take a guess . . . DORA! We've actually used them several times. The kids have helped me continue weeding, we've planted a couple more flowers. We have a friendly frog whose made his home in our bright pink flowers! We're trying our first garden, so far we have planted: watermelon, tomatoes, habaneros, and strawberries. Oh, and parsley and chives too, in the front. Each of the children also has a portion that they are in charge of watering each morning too . . .

So, if you come over and enjoy our flowers, be sure to tell the kids they're becoming good gardeners!

Michael's Gangley Teeth!

Michael is as bad as I used to be when I was little. I always let my teeth go until they dangled from a string; NEVER letting anyone pull it out.

Michael has only lost 4 teeth so far, all of them on the bottom. Those spaces on the top are just his gums making room is my best guess. His middle top two are really, REALLY loose, almost to the point of twisting them around in a complete circle. He's looking rather gangley (especially when adding his need for a haircut). However, whenever we mention pulling it out, or even seeing it closely, this is what we get:

Caleb LOVES balls!!!

If you know Caleb, you know that he loves balls. Needless to say, one of his favorite activities is dumping out our tub of balls, which has to have over 100 balls in it, and then throwing them, bouncing them, rolling them, carrying as many as he can all over the house, etc.

Can you see the gleam in his eyes? This is the smile that I used to get all the time before his recent pneumonia, since then it's been harder to elicit. These pictures were taken May 1, 2009.