Nathan's first day of school

It was finally Nathan's first day of school. He was so excited about going and about an hour before it was time to leave he kept asking if it was time to go now. So he did really well. He went right in and started playing and I kept waiting for him to feel sad and cry but he did not. I must admit I was a little sad that he did not whimper a little bit, however, it was also nice to have one of my kids excited and independent enough to leave me. He has really matured these past few weeks. He seems to be older and more mature. He is up for any activity and goes into it full force and generally has a great time. I have enjoyed my two days with Nathan. We chill out in the morning, organize the house and running errands. I try to plan some sort of activity during the day and then we pick up the girls. Today we were on a task to find some buckeye trees. We found one and managed to get about 20 buckeyes. We also changed our rock tumbler grit. So we are on the last week of the four week rock tumbling odyssey. The rocks are looking great so I am sure that this will be enough tumbling for these rocks.




Julianne had her friends' birthday party this past weekend. D took all Julianne and her three friends to a local water park. The girls had a blast and D had a good time with them. The girls were much calmer this year, I don't know if it was because one of the girls feel asleep early or they just matured. They did not have any crazy, coming upstairs screaming and running. After they got home they watched a movie and played Clue. Then we sent them downstairs and we think they fell asleep around 12. They did not get up until 8 which I thought was pretty late for the girls.


Not the best picture, but you get the idea.


Funny Julianne face

Other random pictures

Mallory lays out her clothes before bedtime. It is so cute because she is starting to match hair bows and bracelets with her outfits.

So since I had my camera upstairs taking pictures of Mallory's outfit I thought I would take pictures of the kid's sleeping



Nathan's new bike. He looks adorable riding it and he can sure ride it far for being so small.

Mallory on her roller blades. She lasted for about 5 houses, then we had to turn around because it took her about a half an hour to get that far.

That looks like it hurts (her bow legged feet)

Oops she fell down again.


Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-seeing a hawk out my window on Saturday morning. The kids and I watched it for about 5 minutes before it flew off. It was stalking our squirrels.
-Watching Mallory make cardboard, rose petals cards for everyone at Julianne's birthday party and Nathan, myself and D. It was super sweet of her to make these cards and then pass them out to everyone.
-D willing to take the girls to the water park and actively participating in the kids birthday parties.

Julianne's b-day and our annual campout

The past few weekends have been busy with lots of weekend activities. We had our annual camp out and the kids had a great time. We set up the tent and brought out all the air mattresses and sleeping bags. We grilled out and cooked our annual smores. Nathan really liked the fire this time. He, as well as his dad were memorized by the fire and he kept saying, "I like fires." D slept in the tent with the kids since it was hard for me to really want to sleep outside with my bed 25 feet from the tent. He is much better at sleeping in different beds and places so I knew that he would not have any troubles sleeping in the tent. I did miss waking up with them but they also had an interesting night. Julianne threw up in her bed and Nathan peed in his bed. Julianne ended up sleeping in my bed and Nathan crawled into bed with D. So it was a great night. Julianne threw up two more times after that but was fine after that. So I don't know what was the matter with her. She might have eaten too much or just had a little bug.







"I love the fire."

Mallory was our patient marshmallows toaster. She would put the marshmallow in the fire and let it get brown. Julianne put hers straight into the fire, burned it then ate it. It was fun to see the differences.


The fire at night. It was a great fire and it had so many great shots. I just did not have my tripod out so most of my pictures did not turn out.

Our first sweet baby turned 9 last week. I am still amazed that she is that old. Everyone with older kids says that their kids lives flew by and now their kids are teenagers or out of the house. I know what they are talking about. It is hard to image how hard it was when Julianne was a baby. She was colicky, high need and high maintenance. She is such a great kid. She is a great friend, is considerate, respects adults, tries hard at school and in her extra activities and in general is a great big sister. She really loves us and has really come into her own person. I can't believe that next year she will be 10 and then in her pre-teens. I know that those years will be harder than what we experienced when she was a baby. So I am going to try to savor more smaller moments with all my kids since they really do grow up so fast.

Her best friend has the same birthday so her friend had her party on her birthday so Julianne is celebrating her friends' birthday party this coming weekend. We had her family party last weekend. We gave her a new desk for all her homework to come and we bought her a wave board. It is like a skate board but you gain speed and momentum by rotating your feet on the board.








Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-Celebrating Julianne's b-day with her
-Mallory getting used to school and eating lunch in the cafeteria for the first time and not being afraid
-Hearing Nathan tell the girls that they look pretty

The routine of school

The past few weeks have gone by so fast. We took a vacation with my family to Greenbrier, WV to celebrate my fathers 60th birthday. We had a great time with our family. We went swimming, participated in a scavenger hunt, gambled a meager 35 dollars at the casino, and went bowling. It was a great place with a lot of activities to participate in. Our kids had a great time with their cousins and extended family and I had a wonderful time spending more lazy time with them.


Here is the main hotel. It was so beautiful, old and large. It reminded me of the Shinning hotel. I was waiting for the little boy to come out and say, "red rum."



The kids loved take care of cousin Ryan.


Nathan playing swords with Dad.

Nathan actually fainted because he either was really mad that my dad would not give him the second sword or because he lost his breath. Nathan originally had two of these swards and so Dad got one of them and teasly would not give one of them back so Nathan started crying. He did one of those cries where you are waiting for him to breath. Well he did not and then fell backwards and hit his head and was stillness for about 10 seconds. So I went over to him and his lips were blue and his eyes were blank. He was looking at me but it was really wired because it was like he was not really there. I started to lightly tap his cheeks and then he blinked and looked at me and then he was back. I held him and he was all sweaty. It was a wired experience since I have never had any of my children faint. I think that he lost is breath and then knocked himself out either because he lost his breath or because he hit his head. I watched the entire thing and I thought that I remember his lips turning blue while he was falling. So how knows. I thought he was initially having a seizer since he was kind of thrashing around until he fell. So he is fine and he was just mad because grandpa took his other sword.


Birthday cake!!


These are pictures of us Geo caching. It was really fun and the kids had a blast. It is was too bad that some of the boxes were missing but the kids still enjoyed it.


Love Nathan's face.

This is the treasure that the kids found.

An "after" picture of the hunters.


Right after we got back, Nana and Gigi come to town. It was great having them in Ohio. Nana stayed for a week and Gigi stayed for half a week. They got to see the girls go back to school and they spend a day weeding my over weeded landscaping. They cleared out 8 bags of debris and I think they had fun. They suggested it so I said, "sure." they helped us pick out a desk for Julianne and Gigi helped Julianne organize her room. I made them both a quilt and gave it to them while they were at our house. The loved them and I hope that they match some of their colors in their homes. Those are my first officially completed quilts. I still have a quilt in my linen closet that I have not finished because I tried to do the quilting on my sewing machine and totally messed it up. So it was great to complete these and give them away.



Julianne and Mallory started school last week. They were suppose to start on Tuesday but Monday night Mallory started to throw up and then she had a fever on Tuesday. So she did not go to her first day of school which was kind of sad but I guess it happens. Julianne was excited but nervous. This is the first year that she has her own desk, where she gets to keep all her own school supplies in it. There are also 28 kids in her class which is actually a lot. But she will adjust and is enjoying being in the new hall and playing at the big kids playground. They also only have two recesses in 3rd grade. So she was a little bummed about that. The morning recess is spent reading and doing other tasks so she only goes out at lunch and in the afternoon.



Mallory felt better by Tuesday evening so we knew that she would be ready to go on Wednesday. We both walked her to her room and surprisingly did not cry. She did tell us later and she cried after we left but the teacher got her back on track. The rest of the week Julianne walked her in and she cried both days. Julianne just said that she told her she had to go into her room and the teacher took over from there. Julianne did a great job of supporting her sister, which she does not always do, and helping her get into her classroom. Starting today, we told Julianne that she did not need to walk her to her classroom so we will see how Mallory did today. Julianne actually rode her bike today to school all by herself. So that is exciting for her. She really wanted to do it so we let her. She is really responsible and I trust that she will make good decisions when crossing our 4 lane road and watching for cars. It is still hard to feel like it is going to be alright but we did it when I was younger so it really is not that big of deal.

I don't know why she kept tilting her head like that but she looks super cute.



It will take Mallory awhile to adjust to the additional time she has to spend at school. She is such a homebody that I think she just does not know any else besides being at home most of the day. So it will take some time. She sure was grumpy on Friday so this week be the test since they go all 5 five days this week.

Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-Celebrating my Dad's 60th birthday with our family
-Having Gigi and Nana come up to visit
-Seeing our girls grow up
-Julianne buying white bread with her own money. (I refuse to buy white bread but Julianne is obsessed with it so she offered to buy some with her own money so I told her she could. She said she also wanted to buy "fake" peanut butter with her money as well. We were cracking up when she told us this).