Emmy

Emmy throwing her 23rd fit of the day. . . $ millions of fringed nerve cells

Emmy in pigtails. . . $ priceless

10 months, and a little more. . .

Lucy turned 10 months last Thursday. What new can I tell about her? She adorable, but that's nothing new. :)

So let's see. Still no crawling, but she has definitely mastered the "scoot." She's very adept at it! She seems sooooo close to crawling, yet she's seemed like that for weeks now. She'll got on her knees and hands all the time. Plus, she'll also get on her hands and feet and stick her bum waaaay up in the air. It's awesomely cute.

She can pull herself up - but doesn't do it much since I don't think we have much around for her to pull herself up on? But she loves to pull herself up to the bathtub. Probably because she just wants to dive right in - she LOVES baths.

She now says "mama." I'm in love with that, of course. :) She likes to nod her head up and down. She's getting 3 + teeth at the present time (at least what I could see. . . there could be more), in addition to the bottom 2 she has.

I've started the process of weaning her so that by a year she'll be done. She already started taking less of an interest, so I knew it was time. I go slowly in my weaning: like dropping a feeding every couple of weeks. Then it's not such a painful process. She hasn't been eating super great, but I think that might be due to the said teeth coming in. But who really knows? Perhaps she takes after her older sister and is a less-than fan of fruits and veggies?

Lucy is, indeed, one of the best things in my life. What a darling little blessing she is to our family.

Camp Raw-Raw

We went camping this past weekend. And it may or may not be our last camping trip. Not that it was horrible, but it did have a rough beginning. But we finally settled in to camp and did have some enjoyable camp moments.

I called it Camp Raw-Raw due to the fact that there was a fire-ban. So lame. So our s'mores were "raw," oatmeal was cold, and hot dogs were cold, too. But that was all fine. Miles burst in to tears when he found out that we were not going to have a fire (my boys love playing with fires). But it worked out okay.

It was a little chilly on Friday when we were setting up camp and playing around. The sun would come out for a moment or two, then would go away and brrrr. It even hailed on us for about 30 seconds.

S'more time. Miles decided that he liked the cooked ones better. But it must have been okay enough to have a 2nd. :) (Lucy was sleeping in the tent by this time.)

The kids went on a short little walk with Ben while I was putting Lucy to bed.

(A little out of order, sorry.) So here is Lucy ready for bed. She went down really, really well. She just didn't stay down all nite. At 1:30 she awoke and cried out. I grabbed her and snuggled her up by me with our blankets (it was a very cold nite. when i went to the car at 6:15am, it said 29 degrees.). I can't sleep with a child next to me. I was always checking to make sure the blankets weren't covering her, etc. And if I moved it would disturb her - and, when camping, you got to change positions about every 15 minutes or so! By 3 am I had to do it - a full-shifted body change. Lucy awoke, so I just held her for the rest of the nite. From 3-4:30 I sat on the ground. From 4:30-6:15 I got on my camping chair. And I didn't get a wink of sleep, not even a nod. It was slightly miserable - not because I was tired (tho of course I was) but because I was a little chilly and A LOT bored. By 6:15, after Jonas had stirred and awakened, I was done, got the keys from Ben, and took Lucy with me and thawed out in the car for a little bit. :) Do you want to know what times the birds start chirping? 4:45 according to my watch.

Two cute kids having fun in the tent!

One boy enjoying some food in the great outdoors.

This was the boys' favorite activity: creating dust-smoke! They got filthy, but pretty much loved every minute of it.

We had never seen so much animal-evidence: tracks all over - deer, elk?, little mice/chipmunks, bird tracks; all sorts of poop; this beautiful ground nest with eggs; chopped down trees by beavers; dams; and Ben even spotted an owl pellet (apparently owls don't have teeth and so they gulp down their prey whole. the undigestables come back up as pellets and you can find such treasures inside the pellets. such as bones. teeny-tiny bones. crazy).

Morning time in the back of our car. Ben thought Lucy looked a little knight-ish. A beautiful knight, of course.

On Saturday we headed out on our hike - we left our camp at 7:30. It was a really beautiful hike and really fun. The kids did super well on the way out. It was a nice downward slope and took us 1 1/2 hours.

Lucy eventually fell asleep. Sooooo cute.

We hiked to "Rough & Tumbling Creek." It was just beautiful and lovely. There were dams all over. So pretty there! I loved all the trees logged by beavers! So cool. We'd find logs all over that were chewed up by beavers as well. It was so cool. (Weird: with all the signs of animals, we didn't see anything but birds! Weird.)

Crossing the "bridge." Super fun. Of course we had to get a picture of all the kids doing it. . .

Beautiful, huh!?

Hiking back was a little more of a challenge. Within a minute of starting back and up, the boys started complaining of their legs hurting. Emmy didn't - she got a free ride with Ben on the way back (I had Lucy on the way back.). But I held their hands for the most of it, and that seemed to keep the complaints at bay. I was proud of the boys for doing it - and they get to check off a requirement for their "hiking" badge (one of two 5-mile hikes).

Jonas wanted to see what it was like carrying Lucy. I love his face here in the picture. He is really a happy little fellow and generally a very easy-going optimistic little guy. (Tho he can whine with professional skill.) He lasted a minute or so like this - with me holding it up in the back. Too cute.

The end result of all this camping and hiking? Very. Messy. Kids. And some good memories, too.

Happy Father's Day

I hope all the father's have a great day today - they deserve it. I know that both myself and my husband lucked out with great dads who continue to love and support us still. We still look up to our dads and seek their advice and input. And I know that my children like-wise lucked out with a wonderful father that loves and supports them.

Here are the answers the children gave when we were making cards for Ben:

I like my dad because

he plays. (E)

he helps me. (J)

he's my dad. (M)

My favorite thing to play with dad is

princess!

minotaurs.

just anything.

He is so nice because

he kisses.

he helps me clean the chicken coop.

he takes me fishing.

He is so funny because

he makes funny faces.

he makes silly faces.

he talks funny.

I like to _______ with my dad.

swing

ride bikes

do stuff

Love Letters

From Miles, a song:

This is Jonas' love letter. Here is what it says: I love Lucy. She ("the") is so cute. She plays with me. I love her.

Too, too, cute!

Summer so far

So we've enjoyed a few weeks of summer so far. Some days are horrendously long, while others are fun and time flies by.

My sister sent me a link to Summer Merit Badges, found here. I loved this idea and so I came up with 8 "merit badges" for the boys to earn (I had originally planned on doing some for Emmy, but I haven't gotten there yet. And she doesn't seem to mind in the least. . .). The eight are: biking, hiking, cooking, literature, health and exercise, fishing, gardening, and nature. Then under each one are 3-6 check-offs before they earn the badge. So far each boy has gotten his "biking" badge. They each had to learn/help with changing a flat tire, go on a 1/2 hour bike ride (they've been on several 45 minute rides this past week), and learn the traffic signals. It's fun to have some goals to work on - fun for them and me, and Ben too I think.

The boys have been attending "Camp Creativity" held at Grace Community Church. Miles got to choose what he wanted to do: painting, crafts, singing, dancing, acting. And what did he choose. . . crafts, of course! He's loved every minute of it - I haven't seen any of the crafts he's made, but tomorrow is the "showcase." (It's M-Th, this week only, 9-12). Jonas, after the first day, didn't want to go back again. Not because he had a bad time, just because. Probably he's a little on the shy side. But he did go back on Tuesday and today and has had fun. He's in the preschool group and I feel like he feels it's a little too young for him.

They do some definite bible-story teaching and stuff. They have been focusing on the story of Moses, I think. Jonas made some pretty cool craft of the parting of the Red Sea. Fun. Jonas also told me of the game they played one day: Duck, Duck, Goose. Though you said, "Jesus, Loves, You." If you got "You" it was akin to "goose." Awesome.

I was reminded of what the critical thinker Miles really is. He told me that today "they" (the camp people) talked how nothing is impossible to God. Then Miles asked/told me, "Isn't it kind of impossible of God to force people to do things?" Wow, I was impressed. (Now maybe it's not impossible of God to do that, but of course God never would. I still thought it showed some great thinking on Miles' part.)

We've done some crafts. Played with the hose in the sandbox (but I got super mad after finding out Miles had turned on the water FULL-BLAST after I had told him to turn it on to "medium." He knew full well what that meant and what he did instead. Now he has extra chores to do to "pay" for the extra water he wasted. Awesome, huh?). We go on morning walks at least 3 times a week - a little "experiment" to see if fatso Wilson will lose weight. We go to the story-time at the library, and its other programs, too. We meet up with friends at parks. Etc.

Miles got his tadpole last week in the mail. It died today. So sad. I felt so bad for the kiddo - he told everyone about it, even calling his Grandparents to tell them. He handled it much better than I thought he would. I don't think the tadpole was ever too vibrant - I think going thru the mail is too much of a strain. We went to the pet store today to enjoy some AC - I mean, to let the kids see some animals. Miles really wanted to see some frogs and I thought it would be okay. Now he wants a frog, of course. It's like $20. So he's trying to think of ways to earn money. His dumbest plan yet: sell a quarter for $25! Ha. Tonite he made up a couple of jokes (that he thinks are great). He wrote out the joke, drew a picture to go with it - and now has decided to make copies of it and sell his jokes.

Anyways, this has gotten much longer than I thought. But I feel like I've left out Emmy and Lucy. Emmy had a fun week this week going over to her friend's house twice, once with me and once without. Plus Emmy and I had some fun "alone time" today as the boys were gone and Lucy was napping. We did her "school" stuff - worksheets. I definitely have hope in this girl. :) She can count to 10, if you don't mind the 4 not being there. Lucy loves to be in the sand box. The boys made a huge "pond" in it the other day with the hose and Lucy loved sitting in it afterwards.

So, so far summer has been pretty good to us.

p.s. our camera is broken - we can't download any pictures to our computer. :( the connection piece in the camera is broken. i'm so sad. so no pictures of the kids with their merit badges. boohoo.

Curly Emmy

And here is the after-curler shots:

Taking them out!

Look how tight they were in the back! Wowzers. All but one stayed in all nite - I was pretty impressed.

I can't tell you how many times Ben or I said, "She's so cute!" or "She's so pretty!" We were pretty smitten by her. :) The curls were real tight ringlets during church, but by later afternoon they had softened into lovely loose curls. Both looks were adorable. She loved her curls.

P.S. Today was cupcake day in our family. It started back in 2007. Today I invented rhubarb cupcakes. Okay, I really didn't invent them. Grandma Dee gave us a recipe for rhubarb cake last year - so I decided to use that recipe for cupcakes instead. Then I topped them off with cream-cheese frosting. Pretty yum.

Increased Maintenance. . .

. . . in a cute, fun way.

We got an exciting little package in the mail: Emmy's first set of sponge curlers from Grandma Dee!

We'll see what she looks like tomorrow morning (yes, I made her sleep in them. Because I did as a girl and it just adds to the whole experience :)

Happy Friday

We employed this box (filled with random stuff like plastic easter eggs, a barbie/princess doll head, etc.) during dinner time for some good peace and quiet (well not really quiet with my 4 total kids, but quieter i guess).

It was working splendidly until last nite. . . when Lucy decided to pull herself to standing. Now Lucy's happy box is not so safe. Darn it.

Tinytown and Littleton

We went to Ben's parent's home for this past weekend. It was so grand. We got a few pictures, but of course none of the reason we were there: to see family. Lame-o. I'm no good at getting pictures of our kids with their grandparents. They also got to see Great-Grandma Dee and Ben's aunt Gail this trip. It was all delightful.

On Sunday afternoon we went and walked the Temple grounds. Of course, as you can tell from the above photo, my kids were completely reverent, walked with arms folded, spoke only in soft whispers, and did not want to jump in to the fountain in the front.

On Saturday was visited a little place called Tinytown. There are 2 real-live steam locomotives there (miniature, of course) and little replicas of Denver homes, stores, buildings, etc. to walk around and peek in at. There are a few buildings, like the above fire-station, that the kids can actually get in to. The others are cutely "decorated - think larger-scale dollhouses.

Just so cute.

Peeking in at the library.

Lucy enjoyed her swing ride there at the park.

The 3 kids all rode in the caboose. So cool.

We actually saw the coal get shoveled in. Pretty neat. Diana came with us and so that was a treat. She knew/recognized a lot of the buildings.

The kids loved playing in their grandparents' backyard. Jonas loved climbing the tree. Emmy loved doing whatever. Miles loved pestering. And, true to Miles' form, he came home with a treasure from his grandparents' place: a cactus (each kid got to take one).

We loved Tinytown, parks in Littleton, the Temple - and mostly and lastly, Family!