Even Dad's have birthdays...

...and today was Dan's. Happy Birthday honey!

Vocabulary Parade

The Vocabulary Parade is a fun event held at the kids school each year. It gives the students a chance to dress up as a word and parade through the school.


This year Jonny's got to lead the parade along with his class. His class chose from compound words. He chose cowboy.

Next was Michael. Their class chose words that were jobs. Michael decided the night before the parade he wanted to change his job from a race car driver to a painter. We finger painted a shirt for him and he was happy.

Alyssa'a class had homophones for their words. A homophone are words that look and sound alike but have different meanings. For her words she carried a weather vane, drew blue veins on her arms, and walked around acting vain.

Surgery for Michael

Michael had surgery to fix his eyes. His eyes were not working together the way they are supposed to, a condition called Strabismus. The eye muscle surgery aligned his eyes so that they will work properly together.


The day of the surgery his eyes looked like this, all red. The doctor said that the redness will fade away in about a month.

A week and a half later, his eyes are beginning to clear and he is seeing double less often. He also says that things are not blurry anymore either.

Jessica, Kelly and Rebekah Visit

This weekend we had a visit from Jessica, Kelly and their friend Rebekah. They stayed for dinner and a movie.


Everyone all piled on the couch.

Kelly and Charlie, he would not look at the camera and smile so Kelly was tickling him.

Rebekah and Michael... he is in love... after I showed them the picture, Rebekah said to him, all of our fingers are my age and one hand of fingers is your age. Mikey says you are 3 hands older than me.

Since Jessica and Jonny share a birthday, they both showed off their gifts.

Jessica and Alyssa.

Merry Christmas

From all of us to all of you, we wish you a very Merry Christmas!

Halloween 2008

Pumpkin Carving

After visiting the Pumpkin Patch, Michael and I went to the school for the Pumpkin Carving night. He helped me carve his pumpkin with all of his friends. The shirt he is wearing was made over at Ethan's house.

Pumpkin Patch

The Kindergartners and Preschoolers went on their annual trip to the Pumpkin Patch. This year both Michael and Charlie went and at the same time which was very nice for me. I went along and the three of us had fun. The boys got to pick out a pumpkin and go on a hay ride. They also played in the hay pile and with all of the tractors that were around the farm.

School Spirit

With winter coming and high school football in the middle of its season, I thought I would make the younger kids hats and scarves in their school colors. I had to make them all different so no one would fight over them.


Here are the little boys hats.

This set is for Alyssa

And here are the boys, ready for winter.

First day of School

Zackery is in 8th grade.
Alyssa is in 3rd grade.
Jonny is in 1st grade.
Mikey is in Kindergarten.

Michael's Birthday

Michael had a wonderful 5th birthday. He only asked for a couple of things, anything from The Wiggles and a cowboy hat. Granny sent along the Wiggles shirt which he wore all day long and the cowboy hat came after dinner. I am pretty sure he slept in both.

All of the kids in one place at one time.

This event does not happen often with our family split between Washington and California but this summer while Kimmy was visiting I had a chance to snap a few pictures with ALL 8 KIDS.

Of course getting them all to look at the camera and SMILE at the same time is virtually impossible.

Here they all are from left to right:
Alyssa, Kimmy, Mikey, Danny, Charlie, Zack, Patrick and Jonny

4th of July

We had a lot of fun for the 4th this year. First we went over to Patrick's friends house. We finally got to meet Shawnie's parents and had a really nice time. Back home to cook dinner for the family. Mom, Dad and Kimmy came over for more good food and then fireworks. I did not get any pictures until most of the fun was over but we did have a good time!

Here are the four youngest.

And this one is missing Kimmy and Patrick.

Playdate

We had our 2nd play date with all of the kids from Mikey and Charlie's preschool class. This time I remembered to take my camera with me so I could get some pictures of all the kids having fun!

A Blanket and a "Blanket"

One of the things that happened on Father's Day was that Mack, my brother-in-law, opened a birthday present from my mother-in-law. It was a beautiful afghan and she stated will be the last one she makes as these large projects are getting difficult for her. Here they are with the gift.

Each of the kids claimed a piece of the wrapping or ribbon that came from the package. The other night, we found Michael sound asleep with his new blanket, birthday gift wrap.

Tub Time

A lot of you know that we have a virtual garden of eden in our bathroom. We love the plants in there and it certainly makes for a nice place for me to take a long bath at the end of a busy day.

On occasion we put a fountain in the bathtub and let it run, the plants sure like the extra moisture in the air and it sounds good!

The other day Dan gave Mikey and Charlie a bath and let them play with the fountain as well. They sure had a good time!

Last Day of Preschool

Today was the last day of a very awesome year of preschool.

This year had Michael out of diapers and potty trained, not to mention out of speech therapy which is awesome as well. Michael has grown by leaps and bounds, so much so that he will be starting Kindergarten next year when we originally thought we would wait another year.

Charlie has also made huge strides this year. He has words now and a language that we are beginning to understand. In addition he is beginning to pick up a little sign language which started out as a game with one of his aides and ended up with him coming home and spelling his name for us. He can also write his name now and sing the ABC's and count to 20.

Here are a few pictures from today.
Michael and one of his friends.

Charlie having a great time.

Michael giving his gift to their teacher.

Charlie giving his gift to their aide.

And finally both of the boys with their teacher.

Dakota

My niece Dakota came down to visit us this weekend. We all had a very good time. I managed to take a few pictures of her though she is not too happy being in front of a camera. Why is beyond me because she is a beautiful young girl.

I got this look when she noticed me taking pictures. It may be a little blurry but you sure get the idea on her mindset when it came to seeing the camera.

I almost got a smile from her when I told her that I wanted to get a picture of her for Granny... here you are mom.

And I had to get one last picture of all the kids together. I have been doing shots like this for as long as I can remember, all of the kids on the couch. This time Piper joined in the fun. Smiles all around.

Share and Share Alike

The kids are all pretty good about sharing toys. They have no choice in sharing a room but still do so with good humor on most days. They LOVE to share food especially when one kiddos does not like one thing and can trade it for what the other kiddo does not like in turn.

But why, oh why, do they have to share every sniffle, cough, cold, bug, illness, fever and disease that comes into the house???

No matter what we do we have to share even that which should not be shared.

Today Mikey and Charlie are sharing the sniffles. Mikey has it worse. Jonny and Charlie are sharing pink-eye. Charlie has it worse.

Ahhh well, this too shall pass....

...until the next time something comes wandering in with one of them to be happily shared with another.

Big Red Truck

Dan went out and picked up a truck last night. We have been without a vehicle for a couple of months now.

Mikey exclaimed when he saw the truck with a squeal of delight. "Mommy, now we have a BIG RED TRUCK just like The Wiggles Big Red Car.

As for me, I love the truck. It is huge and runs great. Dan thinks it is his, but I am laying claim to it!