Back to Life...Back to Reality...

Wow.

I haven't posted since Monday!

Sorry I've been seemingly out of touch.

I've been checking in most days, especially to check on

Stellan and Abby.

I've pretty well kept up with everyone's posts,

but I haven't been commenting.

Shame on me!

Sorry-I will catch up as much as I can.

***************************************

The last two weeks have really flown by.

Probably because they are the last two weeks of

summer for us. The girls go back to school on Wednesday,

and Jacob will go one day the end of next week and

officially start the following Monday. This is

just a brief rundown of all we've been doing lately.

We have been shopping for all this:

This is Ashton's, Sydney's and Jacob's school stuff, respectively.

And I didn't even take a picture of the uniforms.

LOTS of money spent of school stuff!!

*******************************************

I did Emmie's hair in pigtails for the first time the other

day, and it was so cute I thought I'd share it!

This is Noah's favorite new thing to do. First he pulls all

the cushions off (both) couches and then he and Emmie

play on them. Emmie loves it because she can climb on all

by herself-she's getting VERY good at climbing these days!

Noah loves to bring things with him-like this diaper box, but

he has also gotten up there on top of a ride on car!!

We have also been test driving a 12 passenger van. (Of course, I'm

never without my camera...ahem...or I'd have pictures to show.)

I'm not entirely sold on the idea yet. But if we're going to keep

growing our family, we'll need a bigger vehicle eventually. I'm just

not happy with the options out there right now. We'll see how

it pans out.

******************************************

These are some pics from Easton's birthday party.

Easton is my friend Konnie's little boy, and he's one

month and a day younger than Emmie. He had

a great time with his cake.

Here's Jacob getting in the pool.

Sydney's friend Carleigh and Sydney cheesing.

Noah having a blast. This was before he took a big poop in

his swim diaper. It leaked, of course, and we had to get everyone

off the waterslide. To make matters worse, he began picking

up the turds and throwing them out of the water! Nope, I'm not

kidding in the slightest. I was horrified. Thankfully, most everyone

had already left, and Konnie and Isaac were very good

sports about it!

Emmie and Easton in the bounce house/ballpit.

Emmie sitting on their doorstep blowing kisses.

***************************************

I also have to say a very happy birthday to my honey.

Paul is 38 today.

I love you, baby.

Happy Birthday!!

********************************************

And speaking of Paul, his hand is finally doing better after a

major setback. When we went to have the stitches taken

out, the doctor was appalled at how bad it still looked.

Apparently the ER docs didn't clean the wound properly and

things weren't healing at all. Thank God he didn't get an infection.

But the dr did have to reopen the wound and do minor

surgery on it in his office. (I could give details, but it's really TMI and

I don't want to gross anyone out!) It was basically like starting from

square one-only the pain was MUCH worse this time. My poor

baby sobbed all the way from the dr's office to the house

-freaking me and the children out completely-

and we had to call my cousin the pharmacist to find out

just how much pain medicine he could safely take to ease

the pain. It was truly awful. I felt so helpless! But he's better

now, and has been off pain meds since yesterday! Praise God!

********************************************

Emmie's new word is 'cack'

cack=cat

cack=dog

cack=basically any 4 legged animal that remotely

resembles a cat. It's pretty funny!!

She also says 'cuck'

which is cup.

She also yells insanely loudly anytime she

wants your attention. Which is all the time.

*********************************************

A funny Noah story:

Just tonight at dinner, Noah wasn't eating well.

He had a handfull of rice and he kept saying,

"They my babies! I tan't eat my babies!"

We were all giggling because he was being so silly.

Just off the top of my head, I said,

"Noah, the rice wants to go to the party...

the party in your tummy!"

(If you've never seen Yo, Gabba, Gabba, this will

mean nothing to you. But it's still a funny story!)

So he looks at the rice in his hand and says,

"Rice wanna do(rhymes with go) to the potty in my tummy?"

(Yeah, his word for party sounds like potty-causing much more

laughter from the rest of us!)

Syd and Ash said, "yeah!" in a high pitched voice

like the rice answering back.

Noah giggled and gobbled his rice up!

We did this routine with every bite for the rest of the meal

until he was almost through. On one of his last bites,

after he already had the food in his mouth, he hollared,

in the same high pitched voice we were using to represent

the food, "OH, NO! HE'S EATING US!!!"

OMGosh it was so stinking funny!!

I love my kids!

**************************************

Well, if you're still here, thanks for hanging in there!
This was a LONG post!!!

Hopefully I won't let myself get so far behind again!!

TTFN,