BACKYARD FIRE-PIT

Last Saturday Jacob and Darren built a fire-pit in our back-yard. So for family night we cooked smores. It was really fun! Alison and her burnt marshmallow

Darren & Emily

Rylie & 1/2 of Stacie

Jacob
KIDs and sticky fingers

Here's a clip of all the fun!

Camping in the Backyard

Last Friday/Saturday we set up the tent in the backyard the 3 older kids(Jacob, Ali, Josh)and Darren slept outside while the two younger kids(Rylie, and Emilie) and Stacie slept inside. We wanted to go camping but with the two younger ones it makes it very difficult. This was the next best thing.

JACOB
ALI JOSH
BREAKFAST The kids had a lot of fun! they stayed up late telling stories, playing UNO, and having snacks. Every one said it was worth it, packing & unpacking, pitching & unpitching, going through a whole box of Vanilla Wafers. We had a great time.

Saturday Night Dinner

Last Saturday Jacob made dinner. We had baked potatoes with chili, cheese sauce, steamed broccoli, etc. Next to it is a green salad that had home grown cherry tomatoes (that our neighbors gave us), croutons on top of a dressing choice of thousand island, ranch, Italian, or raspberry walnut vinaigrette. He was so proud of himself.

Emily attempting to crawl

Emily is showing interest in crawling. She is very cautious. She usually gets on her knees then dives forward to reach what she wants. This is my first attempt and recording video on my cheap digital camera.

My Friday

Emily is now insisting to try to feed herself. If I try to give her a bite she grabs the spoon from me or keeps her hands by her mouth to immediately put them in her mouth with the food. She is becoming a messy eater!


I was upstairs exchanging Emily's clothes to the next size and I guess Rylie was hungry (even though she already ate breakfast 30 minutes before) and dumped the Kix cereal on the family room floor. Josh decided to help her clean up and started eating them with her. I was busy and let them have at them. I was amazed how much they ate by the time I was done with the clothes.



Later that afternoon the I pulled out the small pool for the younger kids (Josh is afraid of the "big" pool). They had fun. Rylie loves water. Emily fell down a couple of times and didn't like it after that.



By the end of the day Every one needed baths.

Riding bikes

Okay this is my last post for today. Ali has been begging us to take off her training wheels. We finally did it on Tuesday and she got on the bike and rode away. I was shocked. I guess she had been learning on the neighborhood kid's bikes. I don't know why we waited so long.




Jacob has never enjoyed riding bikes. We have tried to get him to like it. We have even given him new bikes for his birthday because he had grown out of the old one even though he didn't ask for it. On Tuesday after working on Ali's bike I asked him if he wanted to ride my bike. I lowered the seat and he rode it. I have since caught him out riding it a couple of times. I don't know if he just didn't like his bike or what but am glad he is getting some exercise.

Joshua

Joshua is a true 3 year old. He would kill me if he knew I was posting this picture. He likes to dress up with Alison's dress ups. I have to say, he does pretend like the shoes are machine guns though. So I don't mind him playing with girl things.



Joshua wanted to play with the bins in the playroom so he decided to dump out every toy. I don't know where I was but I found this picture on my camera. I suppose Jacob took this picture. Good thing they cleaned it up before I saw the mess.

Bored!!!

The kids were bored, so most of the kids in the circle decided to have a parade. They dressed up in costumes and lined up and asked the parents to come out and watch as they walked down the street and around the circle. I didn't get great pictures but I thought it was cute.





Every day the kids write on our driveway with sidewalk chalk. This is one that Jacob did of Sonic. He is such a great artist.

New church building

Our new church building is almost done. We are hoping we will be able to start using the building on August 30th. We are so excited because it is only 5 minutes away from our house. Darren was asked to design the flyer's for the open house so he took Alison to take pictures for it.

I haven't had time to put things on the blog for a while. So Jacob helped me today and yesterday. So make sure you see them all.

Darren's Hair Cut

My mom gave my dad a hair cut for the first time. Usually Grandma cuts our hair. I think she did a good job, except it might be a little too short.

This message was brought to you by Jacob

Emily standing

I had Ali watching her while I changed the laundry and came back to Ali saying she was standing. She is kinda leaning on the couch. They grow up so fast.

Sunken In.

This is our driveway. It sunk in after it rained a couple of times. We called the workers to patch it up, the kids say they used a flamethrower. They have also pulled up the lawn twice and added more dirt. Hopefully it has settled now.

Newwwww Poooooooooooooooooooooooolllllllll!!

We bought a small pool that's 10 ft around with a filter system. The first day the kids insisted on getting in and was FREEZING!

The kids have really enjoyed it. Here they are with the neighbor kids making a whirlpool.

Super Curlers!

Last Saturday, Ali wanted curlers in her hair for church.


Rylie insisted on having curlers in her hair too, even though her hair is already curly. They didn't last in her hair long.

SCOUT CAMP!

Jacob went on his first overnight scout camp. He went to his leaders cabin on a lake.He played catch, board games, ghost in the grave yard and went on the canoe.
He had a great time.

My baby boy is growing up.