Thursday, June 26, 2008

Milestones

Well I finally got a picture of Jeff for his blog debut. He ran the Nestle 5K with his sister and cousin for Art City Days. He felt really good and enjoyed himself. They were all a little disappointed when no one won a door prize, this race is well known for great prizes, but they had fun anyway. The second picture is from the Nestle website. They took picture at the raceand Jeff found this one on the site. They are famous. The last picture is of Alex on the fire truck. He fell asleep half way through the parade. I couldn't believe it, with all the noise that he fell asleep so easily. Well he had fun while it lasted.

We also have my brother Hein and his family visiting for a few days. It has been so fun having them. My kids love having instant playmates for the day. Well they have been playing some guitar hero and you wouldn't think that is a full contact sport but I guess I thought wrong. Zach recieved battle wounds when he got caught with the end of the guitar in his eye. Nice Shiner.

Today is also the babies first birthday. We had the party last night and had a blast. We had almost everyone from Jeff's family there, and then my brothers family. It was about 55 people. We had a BBQ and then cake and opened presents. It was tons of fun and we were so happy to have everyone come and be apart of their special day. Here are some special pictures of the day and a few videos. They loved the cake eating by the way.




The present opening was a clostrophobics nightmare. All the kids had to be a part of it which made it interesting. The babies weren't too interested until they got their gerber graduate snacks and the bouncy balls. They seemed to be the biggest hits. Thanks to everyone. It was a great night the babies loved it.

Friday, June 20, 2008

So many things to do, so little time to do them

We just finished up with Art City Days last week and oh what fun that was. We had a great week, full of excitement. We had the Fun-A-Rama for the older boys. At the park, they set up those blow up slides and mazes. They also had a magic show and a train ride. The big hit of the day was hair painting and tattoos. The kids had so much fun. Don't they look great in green.









Then later on in the week they had the firemans breakfast. Jake went to work with Dad and we were so proud. He got to write down how many breakfast orders there were and then give it to the cashier. He did a great job.





Jeff enjoyed cooking with his cousin Riley. They always have fun. Jeff is lookin good. Then we had the parade and we all got to load up on the top of the fire truck. Jeff couldn't come because he was finishing up with breakfast so Adrienne, Jeff's sister helped me with the kids so the babies could go. They all loved it. Alex even fell asleep half way through, sirens screaming and all. They loved waving and looking at everything. Half of the truck was full of my kids and the cousins. When you see the picture the whole side of the truck is family and there were even more in the front. We had a blast.
We were at the beginning of the parade so we made it back around to finish watching it. It was so much fun. The kids made it out with pockets full of candy and tons of flyers and coupons. Good boys. And now lastly, the babies first birthday is coming up and the local paper puts announcements in for you so I wanted you all to see the cute picture we took for the paper. It turned out really good. Also one other side note, we might have a future star in Ryan. He already plays the recorder and loves it. He always laughs at himself after he makes it play music. I will put a video on later.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

T-ball and Sunday visit at Grandparents

We are loving the summer. We have gone to 7 peaks water park twice now and we are having a blast. The first time I took just the 2 older boys and they didn't require a whole lot of attention from me. Jake went with his cousin Addie and they went everywhere together checking in about every 10-15 minutes. Zach just played in the kids pool and it isn't very deep so I just kept my eye on him and he did great. So I figured I would try the next visit with the twins. Wow what an adventure. Actually it wasn't bad at all. I just felt like a pack mule. My huge stroller, cooler, towel bag, baby floaties for two, and 4 kids. I am sure people thought, This lady must be crazy!!!! The babies did good. They just sat in the water by me and played with little water toys. They didn't move too far away and the bigger boys really helped me out carrying everything. We really did have fun. Also it helps when you have friends there. They helped out to which made my life easier. I think I will take them again, just not everytime. Also like I said before Jake started T-ball and is doing great. He is learning more every game. Zach and I sit on the side and he asks tons of questions about what the boys are doing so I am sure he is learning all about the game too. Here are some pictures from his practice and first game.


Also another thing we do as a family is go to the grandparents every Sunday night for a visit and time for the kids to play with cousins. Last Sunday was a picture fest because Jeff's dad bought a new camera. It is nice and takes amazing pictures. There are some cute ones of the babies, Zach, and others. Enjoy, I did.






More pictures


Thursday, June 5, 2008

Gotten behind again

Once again I have gotten behind on posting. I will try not to jam pack too much into this but so much has been going on (hence the reason for being bad on posting). I will start with Jake's kindergarten graduation. It was so cute. He did a great job and everyone came to watch. He found out he has Mrs. Beesley next year for 1st grade. We hear she is great. He will be starting fresh because there are none of his friends from his old class in this new class. We are excited for him to meet new kids and do something different. Here are a few clips of his wonderful program.






we are so proud of him. He did great in Kindergarten. We can't wait to see what next year brings. Then shortly before school was out we had our annual trip to the cabin for Memorial Day. We go every year to do work to get the cabin ready for the summer. We went on Friday night before Memorial Day. The kids were so excited, they love it up there. The cabin is at Strawberry on the Soldier creek side. Well Saturday was the work day and we spent about 10 hours gathering, cutting and burning branches of about 50 trees that had been cut down the fall before. Wow what a job that turned into. It wasn't the most fun day of my life but it needed to be done and we were glad to help out. Then Sunday more of the family came up and we had a fun day together but by Sunday night we had entered hell. Just about everyone got sick. We are not sure what happened but all the kids and most of the adults had it coming from both ends to put it politely. It was miserable. Most of the night was spent cleaning up and keeping things as under control as possible. We are talking about 25 people all sick at the same time in very tight quarters. What a way to end the weekend. We ended up leaving early on Monday with plastic bags in each of the kids hands in case in came up on the way home. One kid used it on the way home. Before everyone got sick we did have a great time. Here is a video of Ryan playing on his cousin Brynlee's car.
Then shortly after that trip we had an exciting thing happen at our house. Jake was breaking off a loose string from his shirt with his teeth and he lost his first tooth. He just about died. He couldn't believe it. We didn't even know it was loose but it just popped right out. Zach didn't want to sleep in the same room with Jake that night because he was a little nervous the tooth fairy was coming. We convinced him she was tiny and nothing to worry about. Jake loved getting his reward in the morning. He is ready for the next one to fall out. And now summer has begun. We got a slip and slide for the boys and we tried it out the other day. The water was freezing so Jake was really the only one that loved it. Zach is a little more sensitive and as you can see in the following videos he had a harder time enjoying it. Also, a little disclosure, the film is PG because the boys were so anxious and mom was too lazy to go get their swimsuits that they just did it in their underwear so be prepared.
T-ball for Jake also just started and his first game was last Tuesday. Bobb got some good pictures of his so as soon as I get him to send them to me, I will post those. Love you all and hope all is well.