My Brain is Going!!!

Yes, I am going to admit it!!! I can't remember anything anymore!! Sad, I know! So, this is how I have to keep track of medicine and other such things! I have to tape it up to the cabinet where I can see it and then check things off when it is done! Because later in the day I know that I won't remember if I had done something or not. This is little Evan's medicine chart. The last few weeks he had been sick with diarrhea. After 11 days, I took him in to see if there was anything I could do for him. The results of his labs came in on Saturday and we got a call that day to let us know that Evan had food poisoning. We are not really sure how he got it and why we didn't. We thought that perhaps the rest of us did get it, but it just didn't effect us that long. But, since Evan is still so little, his little system couldn't fight off the bacteria as well as ours could. At any rate, he is finally doing much, much better!!!! I don't want to miss a dose of his medicine and have a set back to the good progress that he has made toward getting better.

At least he looks happy, huh? He keeps me on my toes for sure. Just this past Sunday he was climbing over the gates to get to me while I was ironing. :) Yesterday he got his 6th tooth. His molars are bulging and I am sure that it won't be long till he gets those.

Earlier this week, Amber was asking me how many more days till her birthday. Can you believe that it is only 12 more days till she is 3, and only 10 more days till my little guy turns 1?!?! They grow up so fast!

Band-aids

Last night, we had BLTs for dinner. As we sat down, I asked the kids if anyone wanted "mayonnaise" on their sandwiches. The only trouble is that I don't exactly pronounce that word right. :) When I say it, it is pronounced more like "man-aize." Even so, I thought that it was quite funny when Amber piped up right away and said, "Mommy, I want band-aids on my sandwich!" Really, it was too cute! Seriously, aren't kids the best?!

Sandusky- Day 2

Saturday we headed out to the theme park for a day of fun. We left our room at 9:15 because we got into the park one hour early. By the time we waited in line with all the other early go-ers, it was 9:40 before we got into the park. Oh well! :) There were only certain rides that were open early and the rest opened at 10 when the park opened to the public. Since it was so close to time for the park to open, Weston and I went and waited in a very short line for a roller coaster. Not one of the major ones, but one that had 3 loops. (similar to the shockwave for those from Dallas) I was impressed that he even wanted to go, to tell you the truth. None of my kids, except for Aaron (who is way to small for coasters), even like roller coasters that much. They get that from their Dad!! Hence the reason that Barth offered to take the little ones to one of the kid areas that was open while I took Weston on the roller coaster. :) The thing that I really like about Cedar Point is that there are so many kid areas for the little ones to enjoy! Above is one of them. The kids had a blast at all the areas.
This one was from when I was on the coaster with Weston and Barth had the other kids at the kid section. Aaron is waving out the window to his Daddy!
It was nap time for Evan and we were hoping that if he had his binky that he would take a little nap there in his stroller. It was wishful thinking to be sure. He later lost it down a storm drain!! No big loss really. He only gets it for nap time these days anyway. Once he turns one it will be bye, bye binky!!!
After Weston and I got back, Barth took Weston and Brian and Evan to the arcade while I went and rode some of the kid rides with Aaron and Amber that they were too short to ride without an adult. You had to be 42 inches to ride them solo, and Aaron is only 40 inches and Amber is 36. As I understand it, Weston and Brian had a good time spending all of Daddy's money in the arcade.
Then it was off to one of the carousels in the park! Amber loves her horsey rides and the other kids enjoyed it as well. Even Evan who got his own horse the next ride around.

Amber could have stayed here for hours just like she did at Sandy Lake Park with Grandma and Grandpa this summer. :)

I think we rode about 5 times before we headed off to something else.

This was in another kiddie part of the park. We mostly stayed in the kid sections. Weston doesn't care too much for the big rides and so was perfectly content to do whatever we wanted to. I am blessed to have good kids like that!! Aaron and Amber thought that this one was a lot of fun! Like I said, it had been unseasonably hot for this area on this particular weekend. It was really just warm, relatively speaking, in the mid-80's, but there wasn't much of a breeze and the humidity was high. After riding some rides, we went to check out a few shows. The boys really enjoyed the bike/ roller blading show. I, personally, felt kind of sorry for the guys and girls out there performing in long, black pants. They were sweating buckets out there!! After the show, I headed over to the scrambler with Weston and Aaron. Aaron was glad to be able to ride something, "cool" and loved it. Barth took Brian and the little ones to the bumper cars while I was on the scrambler.

Brian was all about those fun bumper cars. He was tall enough to do them himself!

We wanted to go to an ice skating show, but got there about 3 minutes late from a ride and they close the gates and don't let anyone in once the show has started. So, we decided to ride the sky cars to cool off just a bit. We rode them both ways. They are really fun because you can look out in either direction and see Lake Eerie and the boats and para-sailors.

Barth and Brian and Amber were in the car behind us!

As soon as we got off of the sky ride, the sky opened up on us and began to rain! It was wonderful though because it cooled it off considerably for the next hour and the humidity was less! We headed back over to the scrambler where Brian decided that he was brave enough to give it a try. So he and Weston rode together and I rode with Aaron. We had planned on leaving between 3 and 4 that afternoon since we still had a nearly 5 hour trip ahead of us, but we rode quite a few more things and didn't get out of the park until after 5pm. It was a whirlwind trip......fast and furious and we were exhausted by the time we got back, but was so much fun and worth the trip!

First Day of School

Well, today was the day! The first day of school!!! I could have used a few more weeks of Summer, but the boys were so excited to be starting back today. Especially Aaron! I took the boys in to the gym like usual for the first day of school. Weston and Brian quickly found their sections and friends. Aaron and I found his teacher and his class on the gym floor. Within about 3 seconds, Aaron had met the boy next to him and they got busy comparing muscles!!! :) I walked Aaron on back to his class when it came time. He was sooooo excited! He found his cubby and was great at following the teacher's direction of putting his things away and then sitting on his number. I know he will have a great first day of school. I am not sure about all the other kids in his class though......when it came time for the parents to go, about half of them were crying. Not Aaron! He happily waved to me and excitedly asked me if I had heard his teacher say that they were headed to the computer lab! I can't wait to hear how his and his brothers first days went today!!!

Trip to Sandusky, day 1

As our final summer hurrah, and to celebrate our 12th anniversary, we took a very quick trip up to Sandusky, OH to Cedar Point. The last time that we had gone, I had wanted to go to a beach on Lake Eerie, but we never could find one. So, this time, we found that the big hotel on Cedar Point's property had a beach on it. So, we decided to go there. We left on Friday morning and did the beach on Friday. The kids loved it!! We played for hours in the sand. It wasn't quite what I was expecting. It was more like a great big sandbox right on the water and I guess that I was expecting a beach more like the ocean, but it was still a lot of fun. We played for hours in the sand and waves. The lake was warm, but not too warm. They were having unusually warm weather that weekend, but we didn't mind.
There was a designated swimming area with life guards. The swimming area was nice and shallow for a long time. Weston and Brian are sitting down in these pictures. They loved the waves!
Aaron and Amber loved being out in the waves with either me or Daddy. They liked to play a game of trying to push the waves away. That and they loved to jump over them. I am so glad that we spent a day at the beach. Next time we go, we will plan even more time to go out to the beach. We loved it that much!

Evan was too busy taking it all in to even look at me for a picture. You can see some of the rides from the park in the background. Seeing Evan at the beach reminded me of the summer that we went to Jacksonville before we moved there and Brian was a baby. Brian used to try to eat the sand by the handful!!! Evan liked the sand, but thankfully didn't want to eat it! :)

Amber had a blast and got, by far, the sandiest. You wouldn't have known that she had a ruptured eardrum! (You would know it now though because she has been super cranky the last few days!)

The kids had fun building sand castles! (You can see more of the park in the background as well as our hotel.) Cedar Point in on a peninsula that juts out into Lake Eerie. The park is, obviously, surrounded by water. It is kind of cool when you ride the rides and can see water all around!

Weston and his creation. Amber helped Weston and Aaron helped Brian. The hotel provided the beach chairs and towels for the beach. Then there were 3 pools that we could go to. We left the beach at 8 that night and then went to the pool for a bit before heading for dinner!

Happy Anniversary to us! This is the only picture of the 2 of us from the trip. Not the best, but I guess when you have 5 busy kids (too busy and sandy to take a picture anyway) you take what you can get!! :) I am so thankful to be married to Barth. He is always so much fun to be around. He takes excellent care of me and the children. I admire his hard work and love of the gospel. I can't imagine life without him. :) After 12 years, we are more in love than ever!!! Thanks for 12 fantastic years of marriage sweetie and almost 17 years of dating! :) You are the BEST!

Doesn't the water look so inviting? The children all had fun playing together all afternoon long.

Here is the view from our hotel room. So pretty. The porch was screened in. That was kind of nice because we could have the door to the balcony open and not worry about bugs flying in!! Stay tuned for our Saturday adventures at the theme park! :)

Take me out to the ball game

Since there are just a few days left until school starts, we tried to pack as much fun as we could into our last few days of summer. There is a minor league baseball team whose field is just minutes from our house, and so we decided that the kids would enjoy a game! It had been a hot and humid day for here......up to 95, but lucky for us, some storm clouds rolled in about an hour before game time and cooled it off to the low 80's. It was still quite humid, but I thought that it was nice weather for the game. As you can see, there were not many people there. We had great seats for not much and the kids really had a fun time! They were handing out free silly bands to the first 1000 kids, but since the nights attendance was just over 1000 (and that was including the season ticket holders and I don't think any of them were even there!), each one of our kids got a pack of bands, including Evan! The kids thought that it was so cool!!! :) It was nice to be able to spread out to watch the game as much as we wanted. And we didn't have to worry about disturbing anyone with our large brood, because there wasn't much of anyone around us! :)

It was Chick-fil-a family fun night and that meant that the big chick-fil-a cow was there! Amber was terrified of him! Any time she could even see him, he was too close and that meant that she needed to climb on someones lap and clutch on for dear life until he was gone. And then, when she could no longer see him, they decided to bring out the team's mascot, which was also a big person in a suit. So, needless to say, Amber spent a lot of time on mine and Barth's lap. :) At the end of the night when we asked each of the kids what their favorite part of the game was, Amber told us that her favorite part was seeing the big cow and big chicken!!! Barth and I just looked at each other and laughed!!! Silly girl!

Evan was happy to be mobile and roaming up and down the row just checking it all out. I was amazed at how well he did considering that he had only had one nap that day and we stayed up until the 11th inning and didn't get home till almost 11. He was really good the entire time!

This was taken from our seats without a zoom or anything. We were close to the field and the visiting team's dugout. It was pretty fun. I thought that it was kind of funny that the field was turf. I had never seen a turf baseball field before. The guy that is warming up to get ready to bat was really quite nice. He was the designated hitter for the visiting team. At one point, Barth had gone up to get some treats with Weston and Brian, and Aaron, Amber, Evan and I were still in our seats. I was looking off in the other direction when Aaron started saying, "That guy over there wants me to come and see him." I had no idea what he was talking about until he explained that a player (number 19 above) was standing in the dugout with a ball that had been a foul that he wanted to give to Aaron. Aaron was so excited!!! I told him that he could go on over and get the ball. Daddy and his brothers were so impressed that he had gotten a ball. The rest of the game, Aaron cheered for number 19! We didn't care that he was on the wrong team.....we were thankful for his kindness to Aaron!!

Any time Amber eats something lately, she sticks out her tongue and wants to know if it is a different color. This night she had been eating skittles and wanted me to check it out! I had to take a picture so that she could see just how silly she was when she gets bigger.

Brian caught one of the soft, smooshy balls that they were throwing out between the innings. Weston tried to get one too, but wasn't successful this time around!

Our whole crew minus Daddy (who is obviously taking the picture!) We had a fun time together as a family at the ball game. I am glad that we went!

And here is Aaron with his game ball! It is his new treasure. It is sitting right on top of his dresser where he can get it anytime but where it won't get lost. Uncle Aaron would be happy for his namesake, because after all, baseball was his thing!! :)

A Cross?

When I look at my sweet little Evan, I see a cross of this little cutie........
(Brian)
and this other little cutie.........
(Aaron)
My how they grow up quickly!!!! Before I know it Evan will be 5 or even 8 and I will be sitting here wondering how the time could pass by so quickly!!!!

My Lazy Days are coming to a close

It is hard to believe that here in a week, my lazy summer days will be done and it will be time to go back to school. It seems like it went by way to fast for me. Here are just some snapshots of the kids this afternoon.
Amber loves to put on her backpack and tell me that she will be going to Kindergarten with Aaron soon. She is going to miss him when he is gone!!!

Aaron with his faithful friend, "Lipsy", that used to be his Uncle Aaron's. He carries his fish everywhere!!!

I am amazed at how big Weston and Brian are getting! I can't believe that here in one short month my Bri Bri will be baptised!

And little Evan....he is a lean, mean walking machine. Okay, so he isn't mean, but he now walks everywhere. He may crawl for a second or two, but then he stands right up and walks to where he wants to go. He is such a sweet little boy. I am going to miss all of my kiddos when they go back to school. The lazy days are almost over. Sigh!

The Lord is very good to me!!!

Ever since I was a little girl, I loved to play the piano. I always said that when I grew up I wanted to buy a grand piano. So, when I started to babysit, I saved all of my money for just that. As I got older, I still wanted a grand piano, but then realized that I probably would need that money for college. They money was actually used on Barth's college, but it was used up, none the less. One year while we were still in college, Barth got me a keyboard for my birthday. I loved it, but it isn't the same as a piano. Then, when we finally had both graduated and moved into a house, we decided that it was time to begin saving for a piano. We didn't have much money still, but had decided one particular month that the extra $300 we had would go directly into our piano fund. A few days later, I kid you not, when we were over at my parents for Sunday dinner, my dad mentioned that a guy at his work was selling a baby grand piano for $300. I thought that he really must be kidding. He checked again, and yes, this man was selling his grandma's piano for $300. Was it a coincidence that it was for sale for the exact amount that we had just set aside? I think not. We went right away and bought it.While we had this beautiful grand piano, we had to wait a few months to get it tuned. When the tuner came, he informed me that we had roughly $1000 worth of repairs on the piano to get it into shape to play. The hammers needed to be reshaped. A few of the strings needed to be restrung. Something with the action needed to be fixed. I called my mom crying! There was no way we could afford that. And then, my dad came to the rescue! He knew nothing about pianos, let alone how to fix one. But, he went and checked out books from the library on how to do what needed to be done. And then he came and spent hours over the next few weeks taking apart and fixing all the things that the tuner said needed to be done!!!! I decided that if my dad, who always says that the only thing he can play is the radio, could fix my piano, that I could learn to tune it myself. I bought all of the tools and I learned!!! The Lord had blessed me tremendously!!! I had a beautiful baby grand piano, just like I had always wanted for the amount that we had set aside. I love how the Lord can make anything possible. So you see, this piano and I had some great memories together!! But, over the last 6 months to a year, the pin block kept slipping and my dear piano would not stay in tune for long. Down in the bass clef, there were notes that wouldn't tune at all. So, it really was time to get a new piano. We thought perhaps a console would work good in our piano room, as we call it! And then we saw an add in our paper for a steal of a deal on a brand new, you guessed it, baby grand piano!!!! So, this past weekend we went on over, looked at it, and made the purchase. And here it is......

It is a beautiful, beautiful instrument! I love that it is has the high gloss finish and maintained its wood color. I prefer it to the black. It plays like a dream. It sounds so lovely. I can't believe that it is mine. I am thankful to Barth for suggesting that the extra paycheck go toward a new piano this time. He takes good care of me and our family. I couldn't have asked for a better husband!!! The kids thought that it was so neat to watch the movers take apart our old piano and put together this new one. I was like a kid waiting for Christmas to arrive yesterday. We were told that the piano would be here between 11 and 1, but it didn't get here till 3! I survived the wait. :) But just barely. I know that the Lord has blessed me yet again with a piano, and one that I dreamed of. He is so very good to me!!!
Not only am I blessed with this fine instrument to play and teach my children to play, but I also have some wonderful children. Amber sat by my side the entire time and was anxious to play it after the men had left!
A few years ago, when a family in our ward was moving out of state, they had an old piano that they were giving away for free. We thought that we could put it in our basement, but it never got there. It sat in our garage for the past 2 years, waiting for us to get the man power to move it down to the basement. When we were getting our piano delivered, we asked how much more it would cost to have the men wheel it down the street and into our basement via our french doors that go to the outside down in the basement. It wasn't very much, so we let them move the piano. When they moved it, they informed us that the piano probably weighed about 700 lbs and was heavier than the grand that they had just set up upstairs!!! This piano is even older than our old baby grand, but holds its tune much better. Even after sitting in our garage with the heat and cold for nearly 2 years, it is still in tune with itself!!! Amazing! The kids were so excited to have a piano in the basement to play on. I am excited that now I can have 2 kids practicing at once!!! :) Here they are in front of the piano downstairs. The piano has a bench, but it just hadn't been moved yet in this picture! Look at those wonderful and cute children! I am blessed to have them.

Of course, then they wanted pictures taken one by one with the piano in the playroom! I can't believe how big Weston is getting!!!

And Brian, this is a typical shot of him! He loves to be the ham lately and make faces for the camera!!! :) Gotta love it! I am very blessed to have such a fantastic life, live in a beautiful home, have the things that I do, have the family that I have, and most importantly, have the gospel of Jesus Christ!!! The Lord has been truly good to me!!!!

A first

Last night after swimming, I decided to see if Amber's hair was long enough to do a halo braid on. It was!!! Hooray! I love halo braids and have been waiting a long time to try one out on my own little one. While it certainly wasn't the best one that I have ever done, it was good enough. I just remind myself that she is only 2 after all. And kind of wiggly! :) I am lucky that she wanted to sit still for it and that she likes to have her hair done.
Here is the braid from the back. She likes it. She wanted to sleep in it last night so that she could wear it today. That was good with me since there isn't too much going on today other than watching a friend's children as they pack up to move. The last time Amber had in braids and took them out, she informed me that she looked just like Auntie M! :) She loves you Melissa and misses you!