SOOOOOOOO....... I have a lot to catch up on! Let's first start with this....
One sunday afternoon dave and I decided to take a nap after church. In doing this we make a mental choice to expect the worst when we arise. This particular day it wasn't the worst, thank goodness, but it was pretty funny. Matt got into our bathroom and got out the nail polish... he then painted his toes and a few fingers... we told him that he would have to go to karate like that. He of course started to cry and wanted it off immediately. After that we gave him the nickname "Mattalina" for a few hours. He didn't like so we stopped. But needles to say, Matthew has never painted his fingers or toes again!
So now for some bragging on Matthew! He is a pretty determined kid. He also is a little stubborn. If he wants to do something and you tell him no, well, he'll do it anyway. He's be quoted saying, " I just don't care what I can and can't do, Grandma."
So we'd been working on riding a bike. It was a labor intensive effort on my part. My back killed me each time and it made me more nauseas in the heat... so one day while I was pulling weeds and trimming the bushes Matthew decided to "try" and ride his bike. Well, not only did he try, but he succeeded! We were shocked and amazed!!! In about an hour's time, Matthew had taught himself how to ride a bike!!!! We were so proud of him!!!!! Way to go bud!!! Just keep the determination honed in on the right things and you'll be amazing some day!! I just know it! The sky is the limit for this kid!
We also had a great time a few weeks ago enjoying Chick-Fil-A day. If you dressed up like one of their cow's you'd get a free meal... any meal. So the kids all dressed up and got free kids meals! Pretty awesome! It was like $14 worth in kids meals. Sign me up!
On another random day this summer I went to download all of the photos off of one of my cameras only to find that my children had been enjoying my new pocket size camera just as much as i have.... :) What can I say. I'm proud. :) I know who it was. There's only one culprit, well, two, but seeing as how only three people were present in all the 120 photos I can easily tell which person it was. You could probably guess too. It's the same kid who grabbed my phone and took a picture of his bottom with it... which is still on my phone... i won't ever delete that! It makes me laugh without fail every time I come across it!
We also enjoyed swim lessons this summer... or should I say, let the lifeguard gently float me across the pool lessons. I was really dissapointed this year. The last two years have been great, but this year was a flop. It was a really sweet girl, but they weren't really pushed at all. We did have a little scare! Jack was a little hero! While i was putting floaties on charlie so just incase she happened to fall in suddenly I hear jack yelling, " mom! nate's under water!" He has quietly slipped into the pool, no one head a splash and in two seconds everything could have changed. But Jack did a great job! The swim lessons director was there and bought jack an ice cream cone for doing exactly what he should... don't jump in to save them, but call for help. The director told me that most drownings happen when a brother or sister tries to save the other and the original victim pulls them under too. We were very proud of jack. I don't know about anyone else, but I know for sure that Jack was meant to be born first in this family. He has a way of looking out for all of his siblings. He's awesome!
I love this last little picture of charlie... she LOVES to put on lotion. But she tends to only put it on her mouth/nose region. She has been branching out lately to her hair and chest... don't ask. And one day she was sitting at the table eating waffles, made eye contact with me, never taking her eyes off, slowly took her finger and stuck it in her syrup and then wiped on her neck and chest while smiling an innocent smile, all while still keeping eye contact... what? who are you child? haha!
And a cute little thing Nate did: I have had really bad headaches with this baby so one day on the way home from karate the kids were being really noisy and my head was going to explode. Nate was in the far back singing away... so I asked him if he could stop and just sing in his head. He said, "no, I don't want to sing in my head, I want to sing in my mouth." It was really funny if you were there... :)
And a funny thing about Jack, well, 2 funny things. First: Dave was talking to the boys one night about something, I don't remember what, but dad said, "who's my friend?" and they were trying to guess the person Dave was talking about, well Dave works with an AWESOME guy named Twig Branch. It's Dave's Super. So when dave asked the questions, jack said: "Wood?" haha we laughed so hard. We thought it was so cute.
But then the other night we had a babysitter over and as I was dropping him off he said that jack had stuck popcorn in his ear!!! So I had dave look when we got home and yes, there is popcorn in jack's ear. We've tried everything we could think of but I think we'll be making a trip to visit the Dr. tomorrow.
It's turning into a busy summer! But we love it that way! Lots of time at the pool with cousins, spots camps, soccer camp, karate, swim lessons, trips.... it's been a great summer so far. We're so blessed!
And in case you didn't know........ We are expecting baby number 5!!!!!!! We'll meet the last little elmer baby here at the end of december hopefully. We're super excited. The kids can't wait! They want more and more... but i told I had to draw the line somewhere.... five sounded like a nice big number! :)
