learning young

Mini is learning young to love the thrills! She loves to play and go upside down! Of course she loves going in the air too. And we wonder why they are such little dare devils!

2 blondes and a dark haired one

Here are Stephen, Matthew, and Mini Rose. Mini is getting more and mor blonde by the day. So we will have our 2 dark haired brown eyed babies and 2 blonde blue eyed babies. And yes they will be my babies forever.
Though I think Stephen is at the point where he would rather i not hug him in public. I guess he is getting big on me yet!

sleeping people

I guess Mini Rose makes people just want to cuddle up and sleep with her! Here is my Mom on father's day with Mini while the boys were working outside on the deck.

And this morning Matthew laid down by her to watch Dora and he to succombed to her magic powers of cuddle and sleep and went to sleep with her on the floor.

some mini Rose pictures

Mini has become this huge drooling mess most times! She loves to chew on your arm when you hold her and it just runs off of you! She is also on her hands and knees here and she loves to rock back and forth so I am sure crawling is not far off.


She loves to play with those feet of hers too! If she is not holding them she is chewing on them or sucking on her to! Got to love built in toys!

Here is her face for you all again. She is 6 1/2 months here. And once again had to grab for that foot!

Father's Day weekend project

how many people it takes to build a deck is all a matter of prespective I guess. As my Dad Dennis and Jim did all the work, but all us girls did all the supervising! Hey someone has to tell them boys they needed to stop and drink or eat or I am not sure they would have ever taken a break.


Here is a shot of the benches that go around the 2 sides of the deck. Let me tell you the debate that went into deciding how and if they should go on is best left alone! Sometimes I think Dennis likes to see how long he can take to make a choice. But once they decided to put them benches on the guys did an awsome job of it!
Here it is the finished deck! We have used it already and Dennis is just thrilled with the finished product. now we need to put rain gutters on the roof to protect the deck. So more projects coming up for us!!

It has been nice having the seats to sit on while on the deck. And the nieghbors have come to see for themselves all the work we have done back there.

Mommy and Mini

Here is a picture of Rose and mini at 1 month old! My how she has changed!

Rose Mae turns 6 months

Here is Rose yesterday on her 6 month birthday! She has goten so big already and is just a joy to have with us! I can not believe she is 6 months already. The time seems to have slipped away from us.

She is getting up on her hands and knees and rocking back and forth. So it will not be long before we have a crawler on our hands. Not that she does not go anywhere she wishes to go anyway. She rolls there or scoots there.

foam ball factory

Here are Stephen and Samantha at one of the guns at the foam factory. You can only get in here if you have a kid to bring with you! Got to love that! Good thing we have some as I am not sure who has more fun Dennis and I or the kids!



Here is Dennis and Matthew gathering balls to laod into a gun to shoot each other. Not a fair fight but no one seemed to notice.



This is Matthew and I loading a cannon to shoot together. We spent a few hours in here running around playing together.

Kids on stage

Here are the kids at valley fair again. We went to 2 shows and the kids got to go on up both times.

This is the kids with the sqiggles. They had been dancing in the rows and they invited them up. The kids loved it of course. Stephen is getting to the age where he kept looking around to see if others were dancing too or he was not going to be doing it. Samantha could have cared less. She was all for dancing!!


Here the kids went up on stage to dance to the YMCA song. In the middle of all this Matthew fell asleep so the singing must not have been too bad as he could sleep through it. Stephen kept covering his ears as he thought it was too loud.

trip to valley fair

Here is Dennis and Matthew on the monster! Too funny as Matthew is so short you can not see him unless Dennis lifted him up for the picture! But he loves this ride. It goes in circles and up and down. He went on it with me then with Dennis.

Here Matthew and Samantha went on the mild thing. It is the kiddie rollercoaster. Matthew is just tall enough to go on here now. And he loved it! The poor man did not want him going on but said he coudl try it and he went on it back to back 3 rounds each! My child is a little dare devil that is for sure!



Here is Rose on the way out of the park. All tired out and sleeping away the afternoon. We had planned to stay only a few hours but ended up staying for almost 7 hours. So she took 2 naps in the stroller and did really well too. We had a beautiful day not too hot out and not too many people so we had a blast!




Here we all are with the pink panther! The kids loved it. Matthew had just fallen asleep so he missed it all. He had fallen asleep sitting up watching one of the shows. Thankfully Dennis was there to catch him when he tipped over.

finished patio

Well here it is!! It is 12 feet by 18 1/2 feet and it is so nice! We love it and it gives us a lot more space outside to use! Of course the sand box was going to go on here and now it is going off to the side as we do not want to give up any of this space.

Day 5 of patio project

you may wonder what happened to day 2,3 and 4 of the patio! Well wonder no more. On day one Dad had come to help us and he and Dennis got it all set to lay pavers.
On day 2 thur Dennis and I laid out all the pavers and got them ready for cuts. Ok I carried pavers from the front yard to the back. Dennis laid most of them! Our nieghbors all came over to see what we were doing and to visit. Bob came by and offered to help so while I carried pavers the boys laid the pavers. So we had it all done by 10:30 at night. Well at least the main part.

On fri day 3 it rained and we could do nothing. We did find out they gave us the wrong saw to make out hundred or so cuts so we returned one saw and decided to wait till we have the patio ready for cuts 100% before getting the saw.

On Sat day 4 we went and got the saw and worked all day and got all the cuts made with the help of our nieghbors Mike and Terry. Thanks so much guys! We then had a fire to relax and enjoy the rest of the night before we had to get up to work some more in the morning.

Day 5 dawned cloudy but with no rain in the forcast. So I went and got the compactor while Dennis played with a few pavers he did not like. And we finally got to the finishing touches!! Only 1 paver broke in the compacting. So it is done!

The kids loved the compactor and had to watch that!! So they all got in on it.

swings

Swings are so much fun here! And with us busy working on the patio the kids have got lots of swing time since we are int he back by them anyway!

Matthew loves the swing yet though he goes on the big kid swings too. He thinks he is superman on them and swings on his belly!


Here is baby Rose in the swing too. We tried it out and she loves it though she thinks eating the straps is fun too!

And notice she is finally not in pink for once! She does own a few other colors!

And she got lap time with Grandma to swing too! She was one lucky baby as she was swinging all the time. If Matthew was in the small swing Grandma would swing with her. Spoiled baby is what I am thinking!

kids at swimming lessons

Here is Samantha learning to swim some more. She is in Level II now. To pass she needs to swim on her front and back 15 feet. She is at 10 feet going in.






Here is Matthew. No fear here at all. he likes to jump in over his head so we watch pretty close. He is loving swim lessons. he is in the preschool class. He will need to be 4 to go to the Level I so he will stay in preschool till next summer.

Here is Stephen in his lessons. He is in Level III now! And is turning into a little fish! He is doing really well.


I can not believe all 3 are in them now! It seems strange to see Matthew with the older ones out there in the pool without Dennis or I with him.

Daddy and his baby girl

Dennis got to come to swimming lessons on thur with the kids and he and Rose got to just hang out while the kids were in lessons.









He must be boring as she went off to sleep!

tearing down and rebuilding

Here is the back of the house before we got to ripping it all apart. Tell me again why we feel the need to do home improvment projects? I do love the out come but I can tell you right now my arms hurt and it is not done yet!










Here is the back of the house as of wed afternoon. Dennis and Dad and I did more prep work so we could lay pavers on Thur. We got a lot done thur but we are put off now till the rain stops.

Here are the boys working hard at getting us all ready to go! Poor Dennis and his arms may never be the same!

my 2 diaper babies

Here are Rose and Matthew just hanging out in their diapers and thinking of things to do to make Mommy run!

Brownie troop pool party

Here is Matthew in the pool having a good time kicking around in a little boat! He loved the water as always!








One of the brownie mom's Kate got Rose to take a nap which is so very hard these days if she is not in her crib or at home at least! And Rose loved every minute with Kate!












Samantha and Stephen got to jump of the diving board. There goes Samantha! Now if she could just remember to swim when she gets in the water it would help! Ask Dennis why his jeans got wet!!












And Stephen got brave and started jumping and twisting in the air. Considering her was afraid for the longest time to look at a diving baord I am happy! He seems to be getting over the fear of heights. Though it was not to far off the water.