Update

Almost every night when I go to bed there’s an outfit laying on my bed.  Anna’s newest hobby is coordinating everyone’s outfits.  Along with a shirt and pants there’s always a pair of earrings and a necklace to match.  I think it’s really cute and I try to go along with it most of the time, but I’ve realized that what I wear each day is something I really like to choose for myself.   I keep trying to explain that nicely.  Anna’s teacher had her class write an essay as they prepare to leave elementary school behind forever.   The students will get to read their essay to their parents on the last day of school, but the teacher chose one to read to all the parents and she chose Anna’s!  I’m so proud of her, and I love what a great writer she is.  We love Anna.

Abigail is loving her rehearsals for “The King and I”.  She just found out that she gets to be in the Uncle Tom’s Cabin scene or as she calls it, “the really weird part.”  She loves it because she gets to shake and then die dramatically while they carry her off stage.  I cannot wait to see all of this.  If Abby isn’t playing with a friend or playing with her Webkinz on the computer she is tending to her American Girl dolls, she puts them in pajamas each night and tucks them in.   She also takes great care of Patches, our guinea pig.  Evidently Anna recorded the day we got him in her journal, May 30th, so they’ve decided that’s when we’ll celebrate his birthday.  Abby has been reminding me for 2 weeks to buy extra fruits and veggies so she can make Patches a special salad for his birthday present.  She’s such a nurturing little character.  We love Abby.

As Nate walked in from school the other day he smiled and excitedly said, “Mom, I didn’t get in trouble once today!”  “Uh, so is that abnormal?”  “Well, kind of, people make me laugh” he said as he shrugged his shoulders.  Oh dear.  Nate is turning 7 in a few weeks and is dying for a pocket knife, what age do you give a child a knife???  Why do boys always have to be risking their lives to have fun?   When he’s  not teasing or tormenting his sisters or Ben, he’s being as sweet as can be to Joshua.  He adores him.  It always cracks me up when he brings a friend home and brings them right in to see Joshy and tells them all about his latest trick or tooth or whatever.  The friends usually don’t care at all, but that doesn’t deter Nate one bit.  We love Nathan.

Tonight Ben put a plastic pitcher on his head and said, “Mom, look I’m a hippo-nocerous!”

I laughed so hard.  I think I wrote about how a few weeks into soccer he decided he’d really play and even scored a goal.  Since then pretty much every day often several times a day he’ll say, “Mom, memember when I scored that goal?”  with a big grin on his face.   We love Benjamin.

Our little 10 month old is still not quite crawling but is oh-so close.   He doesn’t army crawl, but he does do this weird pivot, sit, pivot sit thing and is remarkably proficient at it.  He can cover a fair amount of distance very quickly.  He’s still got plenty of chubs on him, but sadly, is kind of growing into it.  He doesn’t really look ridiculous anymore, okay his thighs are still ridiculous, but I feel like they’re melting away a little bit.  Sigh.  He’s just a pure tub of love.  We love Joshua.

New Family Photos – Finally!

Since it had been 3 years since our last family photo shoot, I figured it was maybe time to swallow my trepidation, fear, dread, stress, anxiety etc. and just do it.  It was actually fairly painless, the kids were great the photographer was wonderful and after a few post office failures I finally got the CD with the goods.   I already updated the banner and side bar photos, but here’s a few others:

The girls, yes they are biological sisters.

the boys,

and I felt a little weird about this for some reason, but I think it’s such a great pic. of Bren so here we are:

One of the all the kids:

Soccer, Politics and Soccer

 

We’ve had a really cold soccer season this Spring.  Brrrrr.  Ben joined the ranks of soccer playing kids this year and while he was super excited he just wasn’t feeling it when it came time to play.  Poor Brennan is the coach and has like 2 players come each week.  He bribes Ben into kicking the ball a few times and then he’s usually pretty done.  The first week was wet and cold and freezing and the  Ben played for 2 minutes than wanted to be held, the other player was crying.  When Brennan asked the other coach if they were ready to just call the game the coach said, “Why don’t you just try encouraging your team more.”   Why don’t you… never mind ;)  Last week went a lot better.  We actually had a full team and Grandpa and Grandma and some cousins came to watch which was evidently all the motivation Ben needed because  he played the whole time and even scored a goal.  Most of the time he ran around feeling AWESOME, and ran over to tackle Nate every time he ran by.  Good times.

 

Abby and Belle, twins 7 years apart born to different mothers

Our soccer star and his cute coach

 

Soccer star graciously posing with some fans.

Last Saturday we got to go to the State Republican Convention to support my Dad.  I took a few photos of my kids and Liza’s kids, Ryan’s kids were there too but just aren’t as photogenic.  LOL, (remember I really do laugh at my own jokes) just kidding they were late and missed our great photo shoot with this lovely backdrop between the fire extinguisher and electrical thingy majigs.  Some people like to take pictures on couches in the meadow, but this is how we roll.

This pic. cracks me up because it looks like Nate is doing a lovely ballet lift with Joshy, chubbiest ballerina you ever did see.

 

In this one Joshua has gone from ballet dancer to big beefy football player.

And here we have one last soccer game pic. from Nate’s freezing cold game tonight.

 

That’s all for now.  Thanks for tuning in.

Mom

I love my Mom. She is one of my favorite people to be with and to talk to. She has a magic ability of listening to me and without saying very much makes me feel completely listened to and understood as well as motivated and confident I can do so much better.

She’s so complimentary and positive without being an enabler. A few weeks ago we went to their house for a Sunday dinner and she told me about a conversation she’d had with a man in my neighborhood who said some nice things about me and my family. A few minutes later I found a sticky note on her kitchen counter with some key words of what he had said about us. She had written herself a note to be sure she passed them on. Isn’t that just the cutest thing ever?

I’m really proud of her. She detests the spotlight. You might find that hard to believe if you know me or any of my siblings :) but it’s true. My Dad’s job has made avoiding the spotlight pretty hard for her and she’s been an unbelievably good sport about it and has done a beautiful job whenever she’s had to.

I realize this picture is kind of weird, I think one of my little people took it thus the weird angle. I love it though because I think my Mom looks so beautiful and I love the way she’s looking at my Dad.

She’s very talented. Since emptying her nest she’s busied herself with much service, and learning and developing many talents. She takes tennis and painting lessons and through the years has taken gardening classes, piano lessons etc. For Christmas this last year in spite of a hectic schedule decided to do homemade gifts. I blogged about the painting she gave all of her children that we treasure. But, I’m not sure I mentioned the foam blocks she made for the grandkids that she spent countless hours on. She ordered I think 30 squares of foam and then sewed covers for each one of them. It took forever, but every time we’re at their house the kids spend hours playing, building, throwing, hiding, jumping with or on these fabulous blocks.

I could literally go on and on, but I better follow her example and go be productive. I just wanted to put on record a few of the things I love and admire about my Mom. Happy Mother’s Day, Mom! We love you!!!

A Perfect Example

You know how in my last update I tried to describe a certain side of Abby?  Well, a day later I found this video on my camera. 

Abby's "Robot" from Andrea W. on Vimeo.

You’ve Got to Get It

If you haven’t tried Windows Live Writer, you must.  It’s only about 4,573 times easier to post pictures.  You can actually just place a picture right where you want it and then it will publish everything right to your blog for you.  It’s fabulous.  I had trouble at first, it wouldn’t publish with photos, so I had to download picasa and create a “windows live writer” album.  Picasa uploaded all my photos from “my pictures” file and now I’m going to be a blogging/photographing machine!  Watch out world.

Here are some photos of Anna for the sixth grade Medieval Feast.  My fabulously talented friend Lauri lent us this amazing costume.  I am so grateful I remembered to call her because this would have kind of put me over the edge to come up with something.  She even thanked me for calling her.  Anna was sooooo excited and had a great time.

Oh, and just because it’s so easy here’s another one of Joshy in his new jammies that actually fit him.