Ellie Belly

I haven't written much about my baby girl lately, so I thought I'd take a few minutes to record what she's up to. Ellie is already ten months old! She has six teeth and is known around these parts as our "secret weapon" for her biting abilities. She is quick to smile, quick to scream, and loves to take naps! She rarely fusses when I lay her down. She still sucks her two middle fingers, but will take a pacifier instead if I offer it to her. She can say three words: "da da da" for daddy, "mmmmoommmm" for mommy, and "hi". (in a cute high pitched falling voice.) Daddy was her first word, Dan is so proud!

Ellie crawls everywhere and pulls up on everything. I caught Owen trying to get a horsey ride from her yesterday and she was so happy about it! She LOVES her Daddy and brothers. She is a definite people person, (...like she had a choice in this family!) and loves anything that has a tag on it. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that she is obsessed with tags. I'm trying to think of a way to make a tag birthday cake when she turns one, I think it would be a hit with her. I could go on and on, but I think that will do for now. Here are some close-ups of our princess. Have a great day everyone!

Watching her brothers play outside.

A Good Day

I don't know why exactly, nothing majorly exciting happened, but today was just a good day. I woke up this morning all energetic and motivated to take the kids somewhere fun, (which isn't always the case) so after breakfast and morning chores, we packed up the van and headed to Dublin Park. (aka "The Castle Park" to my kids) It was alright there, despite the enormous amount of children running the place. There were at least three or four daycare groups there today, so it was packed, but everyone seemed to be having fun, and Logan got to try out his monkey arms on a big climby pole. He got about half way up and asked me to do it, so I got to impress my kids and made it to the top. (I was a Majestic Monarch top rope climber in my day!) Linc and Owen looked at me funny when I came down. I don't know if they were impressed or wierded out, but then they both had to try it too! They didn't make it quite as far, maybe six inches off the ground, but I have a feeling their day is coming.

After the park we dropped some books at the library...two weeks over due...I like to think this is my way of supporting my public library and literacy for young children. I don't even want to know what the fine will be, cause I had a TON of books.
The boys got a "gyeezeberger" for the drive home and afterwards the three youngest fell asleep so I was able to stop at a few places I've been dying to photograph on the way home. Logan is always my little photo buddy. He's so good and gets just as excited as I do when he see's something he thinks would be cool to photograph. I think for today I'll just post the picks I took in a hay field with Logan (there are a lot....I like hay bales, what can I say?), and I'll post some other goodies on my photoblog sometime soon. Oh, and for the record, my van with my sleepy air conditioned children was directly behind me in a safe parking area! :)

I still have two weeks of my semester left, so it's crunch time. Gotta run!

New Experiences

This summer has been full of new experiences for our family. It started out with me taking my first set of classes in my new major. I hadn't been in school for about five years, so it's taken some getting used to on all fronts, but it's been worth it I think. I'll be finished with my first set of classes here in a few weeks. Who'd of thought it would work? I'll get a little break and then dive right back into my next set. I guess I'm on my way to becoming a Speech Pathologist after all.
Another new experience has been Ellie. She's got her "movin' legs" now and even though it really wasn't that long ago when Owen was her age, I've found my self working tirelessly to keep the house clean. She finds EVERYTHING dangerous and/or chokable.

Finally, Logan and Lincoln have really taken off with there reading which has been completely fun to watch. It does bring it's challenges though. I can't fool them as easily as I used to. Dan and I switched from spelling words out to speaking them in Spanish, but I think they are catching on to those now too. Dan doesn't know any sign language, so that won't work and I'm no good at Pig Latin (eallyray!) so we're stuck trying to use eye signs to tellapathically communicate what we don't want the kids to hear. ("Either you're telling me you want some ice cream, or you've got a twitch honey.") Needless to say, it doesn't always work very well.

Anyway, it's been a fun summer and I've the chance to spend a lot of time with the kids and take a lot pictures (another still new experience) so I think we're all doing pretty good! Here are some pics from last week! I'll stop rambling now.

I had to add this one first because look at those eyes!

In her Pack n' Play

She hasn't tried to really climb the stairs yet at home, but I know it's coming soon!

Making brownies yesterday.

The boys and their buddies.

Hiding out from the storm.

I taught Linc to play Chess a while ago, and he likes it, but Logan's really caught on to it lately and wants to play all the time. I took a lot of chess board pics that I'll add to my photoblog for any of you nerds like me who might be interested! :)

His Chess face. My dad will be so proud!

Okay, so I had to add these last three for a few reasons. First, I rarely post pictures of myself because I am usually the one behind the camera, and two, to show y'all what I have to put up with. Here is me taking a picture of me in the car.

Here is Dan making fun of me, taking a picture of me in the car.

Here is me, mad at Dan, for making fun of me, taking a picture of me in the car. Got it?

Finally our Fourth!

Finally, I'm posting some pics from the fourth of July! It's been a crazy week. I feel like this summer is passing me by so fast and I've barely had time to see anyone! Hope everyone is having a good summer. :) Anyway, here are some of my favorite fourth pictures. A lot of these were taken by Dia or her husband and I am posting them straight from the camera. They had such a great community party for the fourth with pony rides, blow up toys, snow cones, face painting and a lot more. The kids had a lot of fun! In fact they had so much fun, that that evening Owen and Lincoln were knocked out with heat exhaustion and had to miss the fire works!

Luckily they recovered alright and are now begging to go back to their "Aunt Dia's!" I love having such a good friend so close. I really have been missing family lately, so it's been nice to have her and her family only three or four hours away. :)

I'll stop talking now and post because it's late and I really need to get in bed! Here are some of my faves..... They are in backwards order of the day.

Here are poor O and Linc during the fireworks. Notice the pink princess pull-ups? Nice huh? They were so out of it, and we had to keep them hydrated, so these were our pre-cautionary "save Dia's rug" accomidations. I was glad we put them on too, because it would have been messy! Poor little guys.

The rest of the kiddo's.

I loved this picture of Dia's boy with the not so sparkly sparklers.


Logan....concentrating on not burning himself I think. I posted some more of our fireworks pictures on my photoblog. I got a few I liked.

We set off some fireworks that were SOOO loud. Look at the little girls face in this picture! She didn't like them very much!

The ones that shot up were a little better.


We had to let the boys have a try, it wouldn't be fair to only let the dad's take part in the pyro-fun now would it?

Here's Logan, D and D's friend J. Logan saw J's tiger face and had to have one! This was the fun little train ride they had. I think the boys went on it at least five times.

Here's me trying to coax O into petting the pony he had just ridden. He was a little nervous throughout the ride, but he still wanted to try.

Okay, so I know that all you Alabama fans are questioning our loyalty after seeing this picture, but let me assure you that the boys washed their faces the second we got home! ;)

I promise!

Here's proof that we really tried to keep the boys hydrated! I have a few more pics like this...thanks Dia.

Just on the arm please.

Checking out his tiger face in the mirror. Linc saw Logan's and had to be like him.

Logan saw another kids, and had to be like him!

D decided to go with the patriotic!

M too. Oh, and make sure you call this a "fire work." not a "fire cracker!" I made that mistake. :)

Waiting in line. Thanks again Matt and Diana! We had such a fun time.

Perspective

I know I said I would post fourth of July pics, but I'll have to save them for tomorrow because I only have a second to post these pics before I have to get back to homework and I have a LOT of fourth pics to go through. (thanks Dia!) Anyway, I loved the perspective these pictures showed.


I was bathing Ellie today in the kitchen sink and noticed her reflection in the spout handle. It reminded me of a really cool picture a blogging friend of mine took of her little girl in the bathtub and I had to grab my camera. Oh, and don't worry, I didn't leave Ellie alone! Logan was there to help me as always.

Kinda cool huh? I liked my friends better (very cool shot Britney!), but I'm happy with it. Anyway, later that day Logan came up to me with this....

He had froze his Ninja Turtle in a cup and wanted to rescue it!

It was a little cold.

Breaking Free.

And finally, that creative child of mine decided to make something. Can you tell what it is?

Of course it's a rocket. He loves to build rockets! I have a cupboard above the sink where I store random containers and things and Dan always makes fun of me for some of the funny items I store, but the kids love to get into it and be creative! I love my kids. Even when I'm stressed or tired or grouchy, they are my life. They make everything else worth it for me. Okay, now back to the homework....wish me luck.

A Few More

I'm typing on my keyless laptop, so I'll make this brief. Here are a few more grandparents visit pics I wanted to post. I'll post all about our fun fourth of July tomorrow!













"look Mommy, I'm a house!"

Abula y Abuelo's Trip Part One

It's been a while since I've blogged, a week I think! Thank you every one who commented on my last post. Just to update, we did call our insurance. When I called, I explaned what happened and the lady laughed at me. I really couldn't blame her. She said that little boys and light sabers weren't covered; but then Dan called, and in his persuasive way got them to agree to cover it. Unfortunately, our deductable is so high that it will still cost us a bundle to replace it, so for now, we are TVless. It really hasn't been so bad. (well, Dan might say differently!)

Anyway, We had a lovely trip with Dan's parents this week. Abuelo helped fix a lot of things in our house (thank you!) and we spent a lot of time just hanging out and having fun. Ellie is growing so fast; she got to show Grandma and Grandpa all her new tricks. I spent a lot of time taking pictures. These are the first set, I'll post some more tomorrow. We went downtown and walked around the park there and then headed over to Bridge Street for a caurosel ride and some ice cream. It was a great day! There were a lot of beautiful spots, so I took a lot of pictures. I'm not very good at direct sunlight shots yet, but it was good practice.

We miss you Abuela and Abuelo!