Underfoot

This week, Snapshots Around the World has the theme Underfoot. I thought this picture fit perfectly!

I did not take this photo, it is from our photo shoot with Emily.

Chase's first time playing in the snow

We had our first snow this year and Chase is finally old enough to bundle up and head out, especially since it was only 1-2 inches of snow.


Chase all bundled up! He's trying to warm his freezing hands because he won't keep mittens on.



We've not taken down the Halloween witch...she's pretty cute and the girls like her. So we topped her with a santa hat and now we can keep her up longer!


The kids were cleaning sidewalks at our neighbors' houses as their daily service.


Isabel tossing a snowball at the camera. Unfortunately, the snow was very powdery and the kids were disappointed that it would not stick together.



Not sure what to make of it all...he kept batting hsi eyelashes to get the snowflakes off.

A true angel...love ya Belly!

Drive-by Blog Posting

I'm out of time, yet again. But I know if I don't share what I have, I won't remember to do it later. So here is the quick and dirty version:

We avoided another visit to the ER, but barely. I broke my toe last Friday night. I was walking along and somehow kicked the corner of the sofa...wanna see?

Connor is folding a basket of towels for me and as he spread a towel on the table, he asked Chase is he wanted to help. This is Chase's way of offering a helping hand. This is typical in everything he does!

We had a lovely afternoon flying kites. The kids were exhausted! This is our local sledding hill, you've probably seen it before while covered in snow.

Lillee is going to be our scientist, or more specifically our entomologist. She loves all things bugs, worms, creepy and crawly. Here, Lillee has a lightning bugs (aka Firefly). She caught it the night before and put it in her bug specimen jar. In the morning, she wanted to let it go, but the lid flopped down on his rear section and mushed his light. She bandaged him with scotch tape. It took my a good 5 minutes to try to gently unwind the tape so as to not damage the poor guy any further.

Today, I saw on a local message board that a guy we know had some bees in his shed and he wanted to know how to get rid of them without poisoning them. So I called him up and offered my beekeeping knowledge :) I headed over to diagnose the situation. When I arrived, I found the bees had burrowed into a piece of fiberglass insulation. Long story short, bumble bees make a hive in the ground, not like honey bees, and they substituted the fiberglass in place of dirt. I was able to get them all out of his shed and I felt like the hero beekeeper! Here is a picture of their hive.

These two boys have the most amazing bond. Connor was sleeping on the sofa one morning and when Chase saw him, he ran across the room, threw his head upon Connor's back and gave him the biggest hug saying, "Nonnor, Nonnor, Nonnor!" Connor is so patient and sweet to Chase, it's just wonderful to see my boys love one another so much.

My 4 kiddos! Aren't they adorable :) Lillee (5), Chase (18 months), Isabel (4), Connor (7)

For those of you who have seen our pictures over the years...do you remember the picture of Connor on the floor with the eggs? here's Chase's version, with grapes :)

We're been super busy, but we're all well and enjoying life! We started our summer reading scripture challenge and the kids are encouraged to read some church history as we're planning our trip to Palmyra and Pageant next month! A busy summer ahead, full of exciting adventures and lots of time with family. Fencing class ends next week and swimming classes start the next week. Violin and piano are continuing sporadically through the summer as we're around. Lillee will be a flower girl in a wedding next weekend and the list just continues. We may need to take some time off in August to have a break from our summer!

There's nothing finer than fresh picked berries

I love this time of year...well, except for the heat and the humidity, I could do without those. But I could never do without the wonderful berries that start coming in this time of year. We made our first trip this year to our favorite orchard for some strawberry picking. The kids love it, strawberries are a favorite in our family and Chase is no exception, he could eat them all the time.

Chase went picking with us last year but was too small to come out of the sling. This year he had a blast!



He was fascinated with the irrigation system and the hay.



Connor didn't want me to get a picture of his strawberry juice covered mouth.

Lillee, Connor & Isabel were great pickers...Isabel was the most productive. Connor and Lillee ate most of what they picked.

We did not leave with many strawberries, I couldn't keep the kids out of them. This is not a picture of them putting strawberries in, they're removing them!

This is what happens on the way home, after a morning of hard work in the field.

What's another trip to the ER anyway

It's a holiday weekend and we had not been to the ER yet this week so why not make another visit to complete our 3 week streak.

We went for a family bike ride last night when Isabel took a spill on her bike right in front of my bike. If her fall wasn't bad enough then I added insult to injury by running over her arm while she was sprawled on the pavement.

She screamed and cried for a good 30 minutes until we were off the trail and in the car....and then she screamed some more. The only time she wasn't screaming was when Al started a movie in the car for her....then she just moaned and whimpered. So as you may have guessed, we headed to the ER. We're working on thier frequent visitor promotion---More visits, less stitches.

After having x-rays we discovered her arm was not broken. WAHOOO!!!! She is badly bruised and extremely sore and the whimpering continues. I knew there was a problem when she wouldn't bend her arm to put her thumb in her mouth (Isabel is a SERIOUS thumb sucker). She can't move it to get dressed, open doors, lift herself onto a chair...it's very sad. Especially when she says every 5 minutes, "Too bad mommy rolled over my arm. Too bad we didn't stay home instead of riding bikes." She's not meaning to make me feel guilty but man, I do feel bad!

I'm waiting for Social Services to give us a call, I'm sure we've triggered someone's interest with all our ER visits.

A month? A whole month?

I'm failing in my blogging duties. I'm sure I've said that before.

Have you been wondering what we've been up to? Well, here are a few of the things that have been going on.

Remember our new landscaping logs and my currant bush with a few raspberries in the background?


Here are the raspberries in May with a new trellis.



And here is the champagne currant bush.



Remember my straberry plants? Here's a tiny little flower on one in April




and here is what they look like now:




We had a week of rain and Connor entertained himself with some Lego building. Here is a kitchen he created.





See the details? The faucet over the sink, the hot and cold water tap, even a soap dispenser!








The kids have spent a LOT of time on this. It is so nice to have the kids in the backyard, entertained and not running up and down our busy street. The neighborhood kids come over so I never have to worry where my kids are :)



I caught Connor studying the periodic table late one night. He should have been getting ready for bed, but he was amazed with this new chart.




We spent a few hours at the Celtic Festival in Frederick. The kids had a great time. We saw caber tossing, Irish dancing, bagpipe bands and Lillee even joined one of the dance groups for a traditional dance.

There has been a lot of skateboarding going on. We had visited the skate park a couple of times btu Connor was a little intimidated by the big boys. So Al built this ramp so Connor could practice a bit at home and hopefully be more comfortable at the skate park.

It worked. Here's Connor at the skate park. and Chase like to slide down the half pipes for entertainment.

Then Al decided he needed a skateboard, too. He continues to build equipment for he and Connor to practice on...Al is a little intimidated by the big boys at the skate park, too. OK, I won't joke at his expense. Al has actually been doing really well at getting back into skating for being such an old man (he turned 33 today, I'm cracking on him again). He aches and has trouble getting his body going in the mornings, but he's having a great time with Connor. Al comes home from work, puts on his skate shoes and heads out to skate with Connor until 9:00 or so. Connor got a new board and upgraded to glow-in-the-dark grip tape because it was yellow (his favorite color) and because they spend most nights skating in the dark. They are doing some major boy bonding while skating with one another so I can't complain :)

Life is good...we're staying busy and trying to stay above water :)

Chase had another asthma flare-up this past week that landed him in the hospital for 24 hours. We're battling his asthma with lots of medications and hoping to avoid these flare-ups in the future.

I've lost 38lbs since January and I feel so good. I still have a lot to go, but I'm happy with what I've lost thus far. I do hate all the shopping that goes with weight loss, though. I find I'm constantly cleaning out my closet because things are too big. And for someone who doesn't like to go shopping, buying new pants every month or so is a pain. But I'll try not to complain too much :)

I have a new calling as Primary Secretary and I'm enjoying it. I like knowing what the kids are learning in primary so we can reinforce it at home. And it is definitely helping to build my gospel foundation. I do find myself singing the strangest songs when I wake up on Monday morning, though :)

I forgot to mention, I cut Isabel's hair. And then she cut it:

If I part it just right and put a hair bow in it you can't tell.

Snowmageddon, Snowpocalyse or Blizzard of 2010

This is Connor sitting ABOVE the deck on a mound of snow.

And he made a 'snow chair' in the center of the yard.

Isabel couldn't even walk in the stuff. She crawled to the trampoline (you can see the snow is nearly to the top of the trampoline frame. She crawled right back and she's crawling onto the back deck...the snow eventually mounded over the top of the deck by about 1.5 feet.

Call it what you want, but I call it frustrating. It was enjoyable at times, but an inconvenience for 2 weeks and the inconveniece will continue for weeks to come. Over 40 inches of the white stuff from 2 storms just a few days apart.

This is the blanket of snow that leveled the backyard.

Here is a rail and if you look close in the background, you can see the snow is about to overtake the fence in the yard.

Our BBQ grill and it's new domed cover.

What a fun filled 2 weeks we've had

AAAARRRGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!

I'm done with snow :) We've been hit with over 40 inches of snow in two back-to-back storms and the state has no money to deal with the huge mounds of white stuff.

This is a measurement after the first storm.

We have enjoyed drinking lots of hot chocolate. Actually, I think Isabel gets all geared up to go play in the snow just so she can have hot chocolate when she comes back in because she never stays for more than 5 minutes.

Speaking of Isabel, she turned 4 years old last week and we had a great party! I stayed up late to make her Strawberry Shortcake birthday cake.

The next morning, when she hopped into bed with us, Al said, "Let's go have cake and ice cream." And he wasn't kidding. We had cake and ice cream at 7:30am

and were opening presents before 8:00am. She received some great gifts and had a fun day.

Isabel saw a cute little fabric dollhouse in a magazine and said she wanted on like it with little bunnies (just like the picture). I sewed this cute little house but wasn't able to find bunnies to live inside but thought she would still enjoy it. She's not played with it once. She wanted the bunnies and the stuffed bed and chair that was pictured in the magazine. maybe one day she'll appreciate it...when she's 30 and has her own kids to please :)

She got a new baby doll and baby bed from Grandma. This doll sucks her bottle and binky and closes her eyes and and breathes deeply when she goes to sleep.

Strawberry Shortcake was the star of the day. She received a doll, movie and 2 books all Strawberry Shortcake.

She's also been saying and doing some really funny things:

Grandma Jane has been organizing all of her hundreds, maybe thousands, of photographs. So one day, Isabel went downstairs where the sorting has been happening and said, "Where are those books with the pictures of the human beings in them?"

One afternoon, I asked the girls to clean their bedroom. After a bit of time, the girls appeared in the kitchen to announce the bedroom was clean and ready for inspection. Lillee continued to share that she cleaned the room almost completely by herself. When I questioned Isabel as to why she did not help clean the room, she spouted back, "I wanted to see how good Lillee could do by herself."

One morning at breakfast, we were having a little family chat...nothing serious, just talking. Isabel is something difficult to understand as she's lazy in her speech. On occasion, Al and I will tease her a bit to make her aware of her mispronunciations. This particular morning, I had mentioned that Connor made Isabel's cake all by himself and that he really enjoys commenting on the food I cook, with very descriptive language. Isabel wanted to chime in that she was a good cook, too. Al picked up on this and started teasing her about being a 'dood took'. Well the teasing continued in a slew of other funny word combinations. She corrected him over and over, "No, I'm a dood took!" She finally gave up, slapped her forehead and shook her head. It was hilarious!

I took her for her 4 year old check-up today and she was wonderful! Of course, I bribed her with a milkshake and chicken nuggets from McDonald's. Normally, she would scream when the Dr approaches her, but the bribery really worked! Dr. Pedriera told me how sweet and kind Isabel is and said, "Isabel, you're my favorite patient" and that made her feel so good. He always tells me what a good mom I am, that's why we really go to see Dr Pedriera :)