Our Summer!

So much is going on, we are so busy it seems like.

In June we wrapped up our school year. We are still working on a few things this summer, but feel satisfied with where we ended. The kids went to a couple of VBS's at several different churchs around. They all had a blast and it was nice to be able to just spend some one on one time with Emma.

At the beginning of July Abby and Reagan went to Pine Lake Primary Camp from Wednesday through Saturday. It was hard to let them go, but they had sooooooo much fun and it was a great experience for them. It is so neat to see them doing the same things I did as a kid, and camp is one of my best memories. Learning about God and making friends, swimming, campfires, canoeing, carpetball, counselor hunt and so many other things, such a wonderful memories being made. The same week Eli got to go to mom and dads ("Grandma and Grandpa Camp") where he went fishing, took apart an engine with my brother Andy, picked black raspberries with Aunt Stacia, and Grandma took him and got light up sneakers! Emma and I sorted clothes, purged some different areas of our house (still much more needs to be done) and just hung out.

On July 10th the kids ran the Moonlight Chase. Abby and Reagan ran the mile race and Eli ran the 1/4 mile. Abby's time was 9:05, Reagan's time was 9:36, and Eli ran a good race (they don't time the 1/4 mile officially, but I think he ran around the 3 minute mark). Then we went over to the McGimpsey's and watched the 4 mile race, ate popcorn (the best ever) and had fun hanging out with my family and the Hansels.

The kids had swimming lessons the last 2 weeks, Abby was in level 3, Reagan was in level 2 and Eli was in level 1. They had lots of fun and learned alot of new skills, and they all passed to the next levels! They were so excited!!!

This week is the Johnson County fair. We went Monday night and the kids did the tractor pull along with the Barker kids. It was a long night, but we ended up going to Dane's Dairy for ice cream so it was worth it:) Today was kids day, so I took the kids back around 1:00 and we met the Barkers there. We let Abby and Kaylie go off on their own for the very first time. It was a little scary, but they knew their boundaries and knew the rules and we met back every 20-30 minutes. They had a BLAST! It is so fun to see them growing up, bittersweet to know that in a couple of years, they won't need to be walking around with me, they will want to be off with their friends. Reagan and Brandon wanted to go off on their own to, but they are only 7, and that is just a privledge that comes with age. We will be going to the fair the next couple of days and will stay for the fireworks of Thursday night.

Next week we are doing a Backyard Bible Camp in our neighborhood park with some of our friends from church. We have a ton of kids in our neighborhood and it is exciting to see what God is doing here. Part of the BBC is that we will be hosting a BIG block party the last night, food, games and an inflatable slide! I really hope that we can be an example of Christ to our neighbors, please pray for that.

So that is my update for now. I am hoping to get some pictures posted soon, but I seem to keep saying that...someday!

More Eli!

Last Thursday we dropped Abby off at gymnastics then decided to stop at Menards to play on the playground they have set up there and I needed to look at some gardening things. We were getting ready to leave, Reagan had slowed down to look at something so I stopped to wait for him while Eli walked about 15 feet ahead of me. Eli then stopped to look at the water fountains there, not a big deal. Then he thought that he would touch one of the big carved decorative rocks, you know the ones that weigh a ton and have really sharp edges, and somehow he knocked it over onto his finger, crushing it and splitting it open. There was tons of blood and I could tell his finger was already starting to bruise. So the customer service lady called a manager to come with a first aid kit, then she offered us a papertowel to catch all the blood that was dripping on the floor. Once I got the blood flow slowed down and ice on it I could tell that it was going to be a trip to after hours at the drs office. He was still crying, which is always an indication that it is bad, he has a really high pain thresh-hold and can pull himself together if it is not to bad of an injury.

So I dropped Reagan off with Chris to finish off the day at daddy's work and took Eli to the dr. Once she got it cleaned up, she didn't think it would need stitches, but they still had to numb it because a bunch of fatty tissue had oozed out and they needed to clip it off before they could put the butterfly bandages on. So he ended up with 5 butterfly's and a bid bandaid on it. They said that we could take the bandaid off the next day and the butterflys would work themselves off in 5-7 days. Knowing how rough Eli is on everything we opted to keep bandaids on until Tuesday. With an hour of taking off the bandaid the butterflys were gone, and he wasn't picking at them.

His finger looks pretty good. He still has a pencil erasure size blood blister on the tip of his finger and two more at the edges of the cut, but new skin is growing in and it looks like he will just have a small scar.


Last night Chris and I were laying in bed talking when Chris heard someone in the hall. He went out to find Eli asleep, with his pants down peeing on the laundry! Chris kept telling him to stop but since he was alseep he didn't respond so he finally had to grab a towel and move him to the toilet, where he finished

Oh Eli, my Eli, you are one wild and crazy child!!!

Eli

Eli is riding his bike without training wheels!

The other day I walked outside and he was putting scotch tape on his bike. I asked him what he was doing, he said "I am making it look really COOL!" Yep, gotta love the cool looking scotch tape:)

Emma

Emma:
- has 4 new molars. All came in within 4 days of each other.
-is walking all over the place.
-opens her mouth really wide so you can see her teeth, then giggles :)
-is making kissing sounds.
-started blowing kisses tonight.
-can say what almost sounds like her name, my mom thought one of the other kids was saying it on the phone today, but it was Emma.
-slept through the night last night! From 9:30pm to 8:30am!!! Oh how refreshed I felt this morning!
-started sleeping in her crib in the room with Abby 3 nights ago, I hate her being that far away, but she was waking up every 2 hours and it was really affecting me. But with the monitor, I hear every sound she makes, and Abby brought her in the first night at 4 am, so I know that if I don't get her immediately, Abby will ;)
-is trying to decide if she needs 1 or 2 naps a day.
-loves her big sister.
-gets really annoyed when Eli gets in her face.
-laughs at all the funny things Reagan does for her.

Catching up

I am on a mission to get this blog up to date. I will be posting some current things and hopefully in the next week do an update that includes the last 6 months.