Isabelle Learning Alphabet

I will hear Isabelle singing the alphabet in her room playing or in the car...or at least trying to sing it. :) It's amazing how when your the youngest, you pick up on things much quicker.

You can tell this was first thing in the morning from her crazy hair and cereal on her face! :)

Happy Birthday Isabelle!

Isabelle turned 2 today...but we celebrated her birthday yesterday evening!

She wasn't quite sure what to do with the candle, so I showed her how to blow and she leaned forward and blew it out. I think she got a little too close to the flame because it made her jump back a little after she blew it out..but she was fine :)

I've been trying to teach her how to hold up her fingers to say 2 when I ask her how old she is. This is me asking her...and her holding up 3 fingers. Oh well, we'll keep practicing. :)

The kids all enjoyed their cupcakes!

We set up our water toys and the kids ran around having a great time

Even Eli had a great relaxing time on the tube in the baby pool! :)

Isabelle had fun opening her presents. It was really her first time realizing they were for her and she got to open them...although older sister kept trying to help out. :) It's hard to let someone else open gifts and not be excited!

Happy Birthday Isabelle!

I pray this year is filled with wonder, learning, health and lots of laughter for you!!

Another Sick Family Member

One of our chickens have been sick. I brought her inside yesterday morning to watch her and see if she is eating and drinking...Mark came home and was not overly happy that I had our "farm animal, not our pet" inside the house. I reminded him that our chickens are our pets to the kids...ok, and maybe to me also :).

I met someone at the kids swim lesson yesterday who knows a guy right by our house who knows a lot about chickens and that he would be happy to help me figure out what is wrong. She didn't have his phone number with her but had his address...so I showed up at his house and he was happy to help and offered to help me in the future. :) He said he thought she just got too hot, stopped eating and is now has no engery. Solution, gatorade to which I asked if I could use Pedialyte since I had some of that left over from Dylan.

This morning I'm happy to say that she ate and is drinking and pooping away. She still has recover and just sleeps a lot. But I think she is doing better. I told the kids to give the chicken space and stop messing with her. The picture below is the kids just sitting there watching the chicken sleep. :)

On a totally different subject, I finally finished a cabinet updo project. My mom found this cabinet in her neighborhood trash pick up. She thought I would like the style, which I totally do! It needed quite a bit of work and I don't usually put that much effort into the furniture pieces that I resell but I wanted to keep this one so I was willing to invest a little more time into it.

It is two separate pieces and the top piece was too heavy for me to put up for a picture, so that is what is sitting behind the bottom cabinet. :) The top of the bottom cabinet was a ugly industrial type piece of wood that someone had obviously replaced on it...it needed to go.

This is a picture of the work in progress. I kept the inside of the cabinet doors a blue color to give it a little more character.

Here is my final project! I really love it.
Thanks mom for keeping a look out for me. :)

Greatest Show on Earth

Last night Kati, Maggie, Dylan, Cadence and myself went to the Circus! (not sure why but my camera kept making this glare...bummer)

It was Maggie & Cadence's first time. They were excited, Cadence was a little worried at first and kept asking what is going to happen. They were both a little scared with the fire displays...especially when the rocket man was on fire!

I debated long during the day if I should still go because of Dylan still not feeling well. He REALLY wanted to go and kept asking if he could go all day long. We had bought the tickets last month and he was doing a bit better...so I decided to still go (Mark was at school or else I probably would have left him home).

He tried to get in the spirit of things. He bought himself a treat, took one lick and said it was too sweet. The picture looks just like he felt. Poor guy. He was so tired and about 30 minutes into the show he asked if I could take him home...that he "just wanted to go lay down in his comfy bed". So I called Mark and he left school early and came and picked him up so that the rest of us could still enjoy the show. I found a sofa/bench for him to rest on waiting for Mark to arrive. He was sleeping in just a few minutes.

Hopefully next year he will get to enjoy the event!

Sick, Sick, Sick

Poor guy has been sick for the last few days. High fever (103 degrees), couple throw ups, headache and so so tired.

He does so good when he is sick.

Doesn't complain or whine and trys to get to the toilet in time :)

This morning he woke up and said, "Mom, I feel great". But after moving around a little bit more realized he still wasn't totally back to normal. But he is getting better.

Now hoping the girls don't get sick!

Father's Day

Sunday we celebrated all the dad's in our family.

I'm so thankful for my dad. I'm thankful for his quiet presence (although sometimes I wish he would say more :)), hard work ethic, trusting nature, and heart before God.

I'm thankful for my husband's heart towards our children. The way he plays, loves on & encourages our children. They are secure because they know their Daddy loves them without condition...this will speak volumes to their lives as they get older.

I couldn't ask for anything greater for my children!

Wow...

A journey of 13 years.

Our road has lead us down paths that I never would have imagined for our life.
I am thankful for your protection and love.

Precious Gift

Mark made this for me as a gift.
I asked him if he was ok with me sharing it for others to see.

It goes to the depth of our hearts.
It honors Lincoln well...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_iCJzp__xA

Happy Birthday Lincoln

joy and heartbreak

was born today

5 years ago

-you have always been an amazing father-

Library

We went to library story time yesterday.

The girls have so much fun, this picture is blurry but it is them using shakers to do the alphabet. Cadence is in the white tank top and our friend Maggie is is next to her on the right.

They blow bubbles at the end of the time and Cadence was proud of her bubble catching skills and asked me to take a picture of her. :)

When I told Dylan we were going to the library he let out a groan and said, are we going to the baby story time?
He is growing up and this is one area it shows in. He decided to sit in the back and read a book by himself.

Of course little sister had to join him and he was gracious enough to offer her his lap. Such a great big brother!

Fear...

is terrible.

Especially when it comes from your child.

Dylan has had multiple times of breakdowns and crying over being afraid of dying.

I reassure him he does not need to worry.

That fear is a lie from the enemy.

He is worried that he will not be able to see his family any more.

He is worried that he will not know anyone in heaven.

He is worried that he will not have the same color skin (I had told him that one day God will create a new earth and give us new bodies :))

He is worried about who will die first in our family.

Such deep deep things for a 6 year old.

We have experienced more in our family than most I think.

We speak of heaven because part of our family is there.

My heart smiles when we talk of heaven and when he asks me to tell him more.

No more diapers!!!

I started potty training last Tuesday afternoon. The kids and I went into Isabelles room and made a big deal about her not wearing diapers any more and she put her panties away in the drawer that did hold the diapers. She was so excited!

I filled her full of juice and we waited for it to have the effect on her. While we waited we did puzzles on the wood floor outside the bathroom door. The older kids were so cute because they were so encouraging to her...well, at least until she had her first accident then they thought it was so gross! :)

She had one accident that first day and had 7 success stories that afternoon...amazing! I could only wish the others were that easy!! She has done great since then as well. She has had less accidents in the total of a week then the others had in one day. :)

So glad the diapers are gone from our house!!

camping to city

Our time in the RV came to a end and we spent 4 days with Michelle in Los Angeles. Our trip was such a good combination of camping/amazing landscape and city/beach!

Michelle has a friend that works at Universal Studios and she let us in for free!! The park is more for a little older kids but since we didnt pay we enjoyed the experience and did the things that were appropriate for our family. :)
We took the tram ride around the entire park and got the tour (which Michelles friend took us to the front of line...and we were so thankful because the line was probably 2 hours long!!)
The above picture of Cadence is how she spent most of the day at Universal. She is so sensitive and was really scared, so hid in Daddys arm most of the time. :)

This is at the Shrek show.
The next day we spent at the beach. Oh, how I love relaxing at the beach!

I really love this picture because it captures a lot of Isabelles personality. She is so into details, finding little pieces around the house and throwing them away. She did it at beach...looking for tiny seashells

Dylan, Michelle and myself made a big sand castle...well Dylan decided how he wanted it to look and we filled the buckets with sand. :) It was impressive. About a half hour later we look over to see some random little kids kicking and jumping around on it with the mom running over saying no to the kids. :) Dylan said he didnt mind and hanled it great!

The next day we went to the LA zoo in Griffith Park. It was a really nice zoo, we didnt get to all of the areas so we will have to go back again another time. Dylan and Isabelle had fun in the petting zoo...but once again Cadence was too afraid to go in even being held.

Thank you Michelle for giving up your one bedroom apartment space to a family of 5.

I know it is a sacrafice!!

The trip had to come to a end...but it was so amazing. Hope to do it again soon!

The GIANTS!

On our way down to LA and to visit Michelle and our last night in the RV we stopped in at the Giant Sequoia Forest. We should have planned our time a little better because we did not get there until the afternoon and did not realize that there was quite a bit of area to see...so with our time limits and tired of driving we only went to the one main area that had a path to see all the trees.

The trees were amazing how large they are. There was a fire in the area awhile back and one of the signs posted said that a fire can burn inside the tree for 7 days before entering the outside...that is one large tree to do that!

These are at the roots of a very old tree that fell many many years ago. You could walk all the way through it. The end is the below picture.

We held our hands out to see how big the trunk of the tree really is. :)

Its hard to capture the size of them. This picture you can barely see Mark holding his hands up and the kids next to him. They look so little. :)

Mark held down the camera and we all stuck our heads in this picture trying to get the top of the tree. :)


Our quickest way out of the forest to LA we were told was not a very scenic route (the other option was all windy forest roads that would have taken us forever). We decided quicker was better. The person who told us it was not scenic was very wrong...it ended up that we drove through a valley and it was both myself and Marks favorite drive of the trip. There were fields and orchards throughout...peaceful.

I really enjoy this photo I took. It was a random lonely barn on our drive out.

I love the contrast of colors!