Trampoline time

Well, mom and dad came for a visit this week and brought with them a Christmas present that couldn't make the trip back with us at the time. Aunts and Uncles chipped in and bought their energy filled nieces and nephew a tram with enclosure. The kids were excited to have it and waited so patiently while the four adults put it together.

It really wasn't that bad to assemble, thanks to four brains instead of only one or two. We all worked well together and had it assembled and the kids jumping in two hours.

Dad and Josh working on the poles for the enclosure.

The girls jumping. Olivia can already do a front flip, what talent!

Garrett jumping. Garrett likes running around the tramp as much as jumping on it. Are you surprised?

Even P-pop has joined in the jumping fun. He's been on everyday!

Garrett and Esther Make a Memory

Friday was a good day. Olivia had spent the night at a friends house the night before and was playing there all day. Garrett, Esther and Gideon were home with me and were playing pretty well together. Around 11:00am we took a walk to the church to see the updated pictures that we had taken at church on Sunday. After seeing the pictures I got caught talking with Joyce, the church secretary, Pastor Steve and Josh. Garrett and Esther had gone outside and were eerily quiet. I thought, something isn't right, I better check on them. I exited the building to find them stomping in a puddle right in front of the office doors. They had their crocks on, but told them to get out of the puddle.

I re-entered the building.

About five minutes later I exited the building for a second time, this time to go home. As I looked over to tell them that it was time to go, it hit me. The glare. . . from their butts in the sun. Yes, in the process of not obeying me by continuing to play in the puddle, the two of them decided to undress from the waist down. So they were playing half naked, in the light of day, in a church parking lot, in a dirty puddle, and they were using their clothes to "mix" the puddle water.

"JOSH! Come here!"
"What? What's wrong?" He stops dead in his tracks. "GET OUT OF THE PUDDLE! Put your clothes on!" He turns and heads for the door. When he's out of sight of the kids, he breaks down laughing, which sends me into laughter.

I hand Gideon to Josh and I go over and put their shorts back on them while threatening to spray them down with the hose when we get home, which they are excited about. "Darn." I guess it just a bath for them. . .which they also love.

Fun outside

We were enjoying the warm weather Monday afternoon and I thought that pictures would be fun to do. Photo time only lasts a short time with our four - but I think they did pretty well.

Inside the beach tent that Aunt Wendy gave to us for our beach trips this summer. I saw it in the garage and thought it would be good in the yard when Gideon is out with us and I can't keep him out of the sun. Es and Garrett still have their sweat shirts on from the morning - it really was too hot for them at this point in the day, but they wouldn't take them off.

Olivia conquered the tree - more on Garrett and the tree in the next post.

She is getting so big! She had her Kindergarten screening today and the principal of her school said he could tell she was going to do great just by how she walked in the room and owned it. I'm so proud!

Lovin' on "Ge-ge". That's what Esther calls Gideon - it's too cute.

Tree climbing

Here's Garrett being shoved into the tree. He was not happy about it!

This is attempt number one. Josh couldn't get him to let go of the tree and turn around to sit on the branch.

This is Garrett on the other side of the branch that he would not let go of. "He looks happy" you say, but just as I pointed the camera at him, he stopped screaming and said "CHEEEEEESE!"

Here is attempt number two. This time he wouldn't let go of Josh. Josh wasn't holding him up at all. Garrett had both legs and arms wrapped around Josh and was holding on for his life.

When Josh finally got him up in the tree, Garrett once again began to scream, "Get me DOWN!" (as you can tell by his mouth in this picture). Josh is trying to get his attention to tell him to lean him weight back and rest in the branch.

Once again, right after I snapped that last picture, he saw the camera and cheesed it up for me. These are some of the best pictures of him we've gotten in a long time.

A family project

As most of you know, I am not a patient person, especially when it comes to projects. Once they get started, I want them done, immediately. I am thrilled that the table is together, now comes the work for me, weatherproofing and staining. As soon as I got the kids down for their naps I started the staining. We got the underneath section of the table done today. After that dries we are going to borrow a sander from a friend and sand the top of it and stain it.

After Garrett got up from his nap he wanted to help. My first answer was no, but after I thought about it I decided that it wasn't that big of a deal for him to help me stain under the benches. There was stain on the garage floor, other than that, he did really well.

Of course Olivia had to help when she got up.

It ended up being a fun project for the four of us. Hopefully the older ones will remember that they had a hand in finishing the picnic table.

It's done!

We are Happy!

These pictures are to show how happy we are that the weather is finally nice. The last two days have been gorgeous! I was getting Garrett ready for bed this evening and I noticed that he's got a tan line on the back of his neck! It's so good to see them a little sun-kissed and looking healthy because of all the fresh air.

Mommy and Bean. She is ALWAYS ready for a picture and gives me great shots. I have to stop myself from posting them all because I don't have as many of the other kids.

Mommy and Garrett (and Gideon's head).

This was a couple of days ago - it wasn't as nice as it is now - but they were still able to play outside.

Gideon enjoying the weather. He loves to sit in this toy and watch everything going on. Lately it's been the only way I could put him down without him screaming.

The Handy Man strikes again

We are going on our 3rd summer of living in Burnips, and we're pretty glad about that. Since we moved here I've always wanted a picnic table or patio set for the deck. Last summer I realized how nice it would have been to cook out on the grill and not have to take it back inside, instead, place it right on a table on the deck. This summer I was determined to get my table. After all the work he did in NJ Josh thought he would like to build a table instead of buy one. I am all for it, I just didn't want it to get started and not finished. Or not started at all. Once again he has surpassed my expectations and started it, and I'm certain, will finish it. He's having a lot of fun doing it. I went to Meijer this evening and when I got home he said, "That was fast." I said, "I was gone for over an hour." He said, "Time flies when you're having fun." I'm so glad to see him enjoying himself. He continues to surprise me and give me more things to love about him.

Setting up his new miter saw.

Garrett giving the saw power.

The bottom brace for the table. Soon after this was cut, the top brace, that the table top will sit on was finished.

The bench and table pieces.

I can't wait to show you the finished product!!

Thanks

I went to the post-office the other day, and to my surprise there was a HUGE box for us. No one told me that we should be expecting a package, and usually they do. Anyway, this box was from the Kentucky Crisps and when we got it home the contents created a lot of excitement. Inside were lots and lots of Rescue Heroes. The boys didn't really play with them a whole lot anymore and Aunt Erin didn't want to move them again, so she generously sent them to my boy who is "Boy-toy" deprived! Thanks Elijah, Micah, and Isaiah for sharing your toys with us!

Garrett's thumbs up approval of his new toys.

His favorite hero, Cosmo the monkey. We didn't know the name of the monkey until Erin told me the other day, so our kids just call him Monkey boy!

Playing tug of war with two of the four-wheelers.

Even though they are boy toys, Olivia likes to play with them too.

Caught in the act!

I've caught the kids doing some things that make my heart happy. First is Garrett. Garrett is 100% boy, but because he and Olivia are so close in age he hardly ever plays by himself, and therefore doesn't do a whole lot of "boy" play. He really doesn't like to be alone anywhere, this includes the basement, his bedroom, and outside. Once in a while he forgets about who's with him (or not with him) and goes off to play on his own. Yesterday I caught him outside playing with two sticks. . .by himself. First he placed the sticks on the ground and said something to himself, than he picked up the sticks and swung them around like nun chucks. After watching that much, I ran for camera and caught the following.

Spinning around in circles with my sticks.

Walking sticks.

Banging my sticks together to make a cool beat.

Esther was the next one I caught. I've actually caught her a couple of times playing by herself lately. The other day, she was playing mommy and moved her baby from the jumper, to the swing, to the bouncy seat, to Gideons crib. When she came out of his room she told us to be quiet by putting her finger up and saying , "SHHHH!" Saturday she was also caught playing outside with her babies. Two babies and a bear to be exact. She loaded them all in her stroller and was taking them for a walk. She's quite the nurturer. The latest act was caught yesterday.

Esther was dipping her hand in the water bowls, then letting Jersey lick her hands. Jersey could easily reach her bowls, Esther just wanted to "help" her.

Gideon's "caught in the act" moment was a little posed by me - but I couldn't resist him, caught in the act of being CUTE!

"Whuz up ma?"

"I'm so tired from all this being cute, I think I'll rest right here on this ball-lookin' thing."

Manners matter. . .but not to dogs

This week we have an extra dog in our house. Buddy is the Jones' dog, and while they are gone we offered to dog-sit him. He's a good dog, other than this little habit he's got. He's a little obsessed with Jersey. I think you'll see what I mean by the pictures.



I guess they were tired out, Jersey from chasing Buddy to try to play with him, and Buddy for chasing Jersey around trying to mount her!

Gideon's friend

Gideon was one of three boys that were born in November at our church. Here are two pictures of Gideon and his friend Colton. Colton was born on Nov. 2nd, three weeks before Gideon. Colton is a big boy! He's also adorable, as you will see.

Gideon would not get his fingers out of his mouth, I think he's teething. Looks like Colton's teething too - Got drool?

I just had to share our sign of spring. This little guy sprouted up between the stone walkway at the church. I've seen lots of green beginning to sprout - but none that had color. What a beautiful sight!

My husband the Handyman

We had a great time in NJ, we always do. The only problem that we've run into taking vacations to visit family, is that Josh gets bored pretty quickly. He's not used to being in the house all day with me and the kids, and doesn't know what to do with himself at someone else's house. So, one of the stipulations of us visiting my family this time was that my parents would make a "to-do" list for Josh while he was there. The conditions were this, that he would have the options of projects that he could do or chose not to do, whatever, whenever and in which-ever order he wanted. To be honest, I didn't think that any of the projects would get done. Just the idea that he had things to do, I thought, would be enough for him. However, he proved me wrong, and I couldn't be happier (neither could my mom and dad). Here's the rundown of his projects.

Patching the garage roof with shingles that had come off. This job was much more dangerous than I thought it would be. It required two people and a lot of bending over and leg muscle. My dad was glad he didn't have to be up on the roof and Josh was thrilled to take the risk.

My brother J had asked my dad to make his dog Jonnie a dog bowl stand, so that he wouldn't have to bend over so far to eat his food. Lots of pet stores sell them, but are pretty pricey, plus we all like hand made things from dad. Well, here's a hand made dog bowl stand from Josh. Josh used dad's handwriting to carve out the name. I think it came out awesome. Josh was sad that he didn't have enough time to make Jersey one. Just a side, most hand made items from dad are finished off with stain, paint, or cross-stitch by mom, this is no exception. Mom did the staining.

Mom had been begging dad to put in a peep hole in the front door so she could ignore people that she didn't want to talk to, like the Jehovah's witness that came knocking 2 weeks ago. For some reason dad didn't want to take the 2 minutes (I'm not joking) that it took Josh to put it in.

The last project he got done was putting up the fence that my dad built for Ange and Andrews wedding. Mom wanted it to separate the backyard from the front. Josh dug the holes, nailed the 2x4's together to make 4x4 posts and put up the fence. Josh got many splinters doing this job, I dug at lease 4 out yesterday on the ride home. He had already gotten two out the day before. The price you pay for family!

The finished fence.