breath...

Because this just seemed perfect...



I am sure you do not want to hear about them but guess what?  Thursday I finished my exams.  Whew.  Glad it is over.  Even with as uncomfortable as I am, I am glad I did not have the baby yet and had to push these classes out any further.  I want to run around and tear up my notes.  I have all ready listed one of my books on amazon, the only one that did not get colored in and torn up.  I am looking forward to this next week.

They were tough.  I spent so much time studying, writing, and working on papers and project these last few weeks I am looking forward to just relaxing with my kids.  It was getting crazy.



Wednesday night I was having nightmares about a huge final exam I took Thursday night.  I need to take a break.

That one was tough.  I knew the information forward and back but knowing it and remembering it under pressure is different.  I made mistakes on the test, I am sure I passed but it is frustrating when you know you could have done better.

Either way I am okay with it right now.  My first leg of summer classes are over, good or bad.  But I did good.  So I need to let go and release the I could have done better and just enjoy the week I have.  Because 1 week fly's by and then I will have the chance to do better.

Spoons

I don't consider mine a big family but there certainly are times I realize it is larger than most (outside my area).  One way is the fact that we shop at super stores like Sam's Club, Costco not because we are trying to save money by buying in bulk but because we need the larger quantity.  The reality is I am often just trying to save myself another grocery story trip that week.

Spoons.  For most people they buy spoons very seldom.  And when they do they proubably pick out a nice pattern in a set that comes with forks and knives.  Not me.  I buys dishes, silverware, and disposable paper products buy the restaurant quantity.  Now it not a weekly purchase, thankfully.  But to my kids there is no difference between these:



My kids takes utensils need food to school everyday.  At first I wondered what was happening to all my spoons.  Then I realized the kids are throwing them away with the garbage from their lunch.  So I switched to plastic.  It is cheap and they can throw it all away.  Problem solved.

But it is summer and I was down to just 2 regular spoons?  I don't understand.  So it was off to the store to replenish our spoon collection.  I wonder how long this will last?

Father's Day

  Summer is flying.  I want to take time to stop and enjoy it but school has kept me so busy lately all I am doing is swimming to stay a float.  The house is suffering, there is no garden or plants, unless you count the dead one. The kids are fine but in need of more activities.  I just keep saying if I can get through this week  next will be better but then the next week is even busier.  This secession of classes ends on Friday so good or bad finished or not it is over, you can imagine the crunch I am in right now.  But then I have a glorious week off!!!  Yay,  I can't believe how much I am looking forward to my summer break.  I have a lot of house stuff to catch up on, the 4th of July, and my oldest ninth birthday.

It has been a week now since fathers day but seems longer.  We had a nice time.  Jay had to work for the the morning and early afternoon which gave us time to go to church and make a few special things.

Smiley and his baby friends made their dads a candy jar.  I can not even tell you how proud he was of this.  He carried it around special with him everywhere.



He was overly excited to give it to his dad.  And then kept reminding him through the evening that he made it for him with his baby friends.  What great Sunday school teachers he has to do such a nice project for the fathers.

In the excess of sweets overflowing at our home.  Ice cream cake from Smiley's birthday, cupcakes and cake from welcoming the boys home from camp and just the bags of gummy worms and twilzzlers I have in so many shelfs the boys decided to make cookies for their dad.  He also is not a big sweets fan.

Gregory came up with the idea to write a letter in frosting on each cookie spelling out happy fathers day.  So we made choclate chip cookies and got out frosting tubes.  The kids tried to write with them but found it to be quite a bit harder than they though.  And no I was not going to do it this was their idea from them.





They gave it a few minutes of a good effort.  Then Faith soon realized there is frosting in these tubes!!





At the end... well they had a few decorated cookies.



Many got ate in the process and they still tasted good.

We gave him a few new pampered chef items for grilling that we have been making good use of.  We did a beer can chicken for fathers day.


photo from phone camera

And then settled down to movie, Journey 2.  It was a cute movie.  We all enjoyed it.



And he enjoyed the cuddling from the kids.  What fathers day is all about.

Warm Summer Nights

What is one of the best things about summer evenings.  They are warm and you can enjoy them outside with the family.



Tonight the kids and I walked down the street to see the fireworks.



Fireworks are always fun but kinda boring in photographs.  I thought the kids would really enjoy them, they looked forward to it all day but that was the height of their excitement.  They said they liked them.  Hum.  Faith could have cared less.  Smiley thought they were great.  Gregory was bothered I did not bring him a chair to sit in.  And the 20 minute show was just to long for Evan, but he did like the smiley face.

I enjoyed it and taking them.  But I guess it gets me off the hook for the 4th where we would have to drive to the firework.  They just have more fun with smaller ones they can light and play with, supervised of course.

Evan is...

The kindest,
Most caring,
Good natured,
Sensitive,
Artistic,
An Animal lover,
 A Helper,
Seeking approval,
Cuddly,
Bike rider,



Just a plain out wonderful boy.  I love you little Evan!!

My Little Pop Tart

Because I came home and put some grocery's on the table.  I sat down for a minute tired in the the other room.  She did not think I was watching.  But I am ALWAYS watching my princess.  She climbed on the table and decided to try pop tarts.







By the looks of it she knows she is up to something she shouldn't be.



I don't know why she worries.  If it wont hurt her I will give it to her.  I would have helped her if she would have asked.



She is one of the most loved reasons why I never get anything done.

Source: typetoy.tumblr.com via RUCKER on Pinterest

The Boys Are Home Again

Our big kids came home!!!  Yes camp is over and I got the big kids back.



The babies were looking foward to it all day.  Smiley especially.  The first morning when he woke up and they were not there he cried.  He missed his big brothers so much.



They had a great time.  I all ready knew this though because I kinda spied on them throughout the week.  I was able to send them emails everyday and view pictures and video of their day from home.  Often the email would contain sentences about what I saw proving that mom has eyes everywhere.

When I got there they were in a chapel service so me and the babies tried to quietly hide in the back.  But who was I kidding of course it did not work.  In my overflowing emotions when I saw the boys upfront I started crying.  Oh I missed them so much.  When everyone bowed their head for prayer and the director said something about faith in the prayer Smiley started screaming they said Faith!  They are praying for Faithie!



After the service they were free to go. I wrapped my arms around my little guys and all was better.  We soon had the car loaded and headed home.





It was not long before they started arguing with Smiley.  I mean by the end of the long drivway not long.  Ugh welcome back to reality mom.  I think I even remember hearing myself say I will turn this car around and take you back.  Whoa what a threat to them.

But it did not last long.  Quickly the arguing stopped, maybe it is just there way of saying hello to each other (but then they must say hello to each other an awful lot) and they started telling me stories of their week.

There excitement was contagious, they did have an amazing time.  More stories have still flowed out in the last couple of days.  But with the wonderful time they did agree it is better to be coming home!  Awe.  They are happiest, we all are happiest, when we are all together.

Then we celebrated with cake AND cupcakes.



A picture I found in Gregory's bag.  I know it is hard to see but it is a cowboy with the hat and star saying howdee y'all.  From the one who told me to roll the windows up when we drove in at drop off to all the cow folk camp counselors and their western greetings.

After Birth???

A friend sent this and I thought it was good for a Sunday.

In the wise words from The polar Express and The Santa Clause, seeing isn't believing.

National Museum of Civil War Medicine

Did I get any work done with the big kids gone?  No, not really.  I thought I would get so much school work accomplished  but that did not happen.  It never really does.  Life was busy as always and I still had two toddles to take care of.  I did however manage to make it to the National Museum of Civil War Medicine in Frederick, Maryland.  That was fun with two tired babies.



I did iron that shirt before I started the day and wow.

Oh what a trip.  The tired babies cried the way down.  Faith cried and screamed the entire time there and then cried the way back until she finally put herself to sleep.

Smiley went in and asked promptly where are the swords?  They told him there were no swords.  None in a civil war museum?  But still he kept looking loudly all through the place.  If you don't understand looking loudly, you just don't get Smiley and probably do not have a two year old boy.  Then he would go and tell the reception people, nope no swoards up there.  He then would keep looking further.  He found a drum.



There was no flash photography promitted, so I tried to brighten it up however it is still a tad dark.

Lordy Mercy my Faith.  I have no pictures of her there because in no case was a screaming baby like her enjoyable or cute.  I know she could not help it she was tired and so badly wanted to sleep, if only she would have let herself.  She was reclined in her stroller, gave bottles and binkies, which she proceeded to continually throw.  We even left a few of the at the museum unable to find her wild binky pitches.  She wore our last nerves and we hurried to leave.



As I was there jotting down notes for the paper I need to write, that I thought I would have finished by now, my husband came up with a brilliant time saving idea to help me and get us out of there.  He went to every display and snapped pictures of all the plaques and information.  As long as I could upload it from my camera I would have it to take our own "virtual" tour when I got home.  So we rushed around making good use of the $7.50 a piece entrance fee, $7 for me because I am a student, he snapping pictures and me dealing with the kids.  In all it took an hour to photograph everything and try to take in what we could.  It was a stressful hour.  But in the end I got the information needed and YES Smiley found a sword.  1 sword, there was just one sword in the whole place and he found it.  He was so happy.  He ran out quickly to correct the reception people and told them all about it.  He was darling.

What a trip. Now to write the paper and not about getting the info for the paper unless you want to hear about the spontaneous game of hide and seek at the library that broke out between all 4 of them when we went to get books for the paper.  You can only imagine...

Camp Joy El

I dropped the kids off at camp this week.  They were happy to go, I am happy they are gone.  Doesn't that sound wrong.  But I am so happy for them.  They have been looking forward to and talking about camp for days.



I wasn't going to send them to this one at first.  It is a sleep away camp.  An hour away.  But on Friday I changed my mind.  I had many good reasons not to send them..  Most of them having to do with one of the boys in particular.  But I talked it over with both of them and they wanted to go, badly.  So I signed them up on Friday and this week they are gone :(

We miss them.  They both said they will miss Faith, Evan said he will also miss the cat.  As for me, dad, Smiley?  It does not matter I don't want them to miss us.  I want them to have a great time.

Gregory who has been there before has been telling Evan since he came back how fun it was.  Evan is so excited!!!  I hope it lives up to his expectations.

It is a wild west theme this summer and the long drive up was lined with cow-folk counselors saying howdy and all sorts of western things.  We had the windows down as we went up the drive to greet them back and say hello.  Gregory soon got embarrassed and said mom roll the windows up.  Of course I didn't.

Once we got out of the car they posse'd around us and took our bags, thanks.  We moseyed along a path through more western signs, greetings and people.  We soon came to bunches of friends.



Just a few of the many they new there.  All the kids were as excited as mine.  Camp is even more fun with friends.

I miss my big boys.

The house is quite without them.

I like that.

Hopefully I will get some school done this week.

I would rather have them here, with me.

Until they fight and yell and drive me nuts.  No not my boys...

Dutch Wonderland

Humm how to do this post with my 4GB!! of pictures that I took.  Yes that is right 4 GB.  I am going to have to bring hard drives with me when we go to Disney.  And probably open an additional blog called our Disney vacation to hold those pictures.  And spend more time writing about the trip than we actually will spend there.  But for now I want to share a few pictures of Smiley's birthday party at Dutch wonderland.

Dutch Wonderland was fantastic.  We all had so much fun and by we all, everyone came, my parents and my brother and his wife and kids.  Although in the over 300 pictures we kept after deleting the junk ones ( so it is no longer 4GB) there is not one picture of everyone.

It is in Lancaster, PA, the heart of PA Dutch country.  Hence the name.



But that is about where the dutchness ends.  It is themed around a castle with dragons and princess.



Faith made sure I stayed with her and kept her far away from the scary dragon not to repeat the frightful Easter experience.

The kids loved the rides.  You wouldn't be able to guess it by looking at them though.





The park is designed for children.  Most rides are for 6 and under.



There are a few bigger rides but the sister park is Hershey Park which is designed for the rollercoaster enthusiast.  None of my kids are ready for Hershey even though they will argue that point with you but this park was almost to young for them.

They had two little roller coasters and the big boys rode both.  They had to show they were big with no hands.





But it was tame enough for mema and pepa, maybe

The turtles were a big hit.



Everyone rode them over and over.



I could not ride much.  I am 34 weeks pregnant.



It was a hard time to do what I did.  It was the hottest day of summer yet and we walked around that park for 9 hours.  Whew.  Did not even drop one pound, I just managed to swell up the next day.

I love roller coasters.  The faster, higher, scarier the better.  Unlike my brother.  Who I don't think cares to much for amusement parks.  But his wife (in picture above with me) and daughter sure do.  However he did the good uncle duty and took Smiley on a ride.



He actually took all my boys on rides since I was unable to assist them and there dad is a whimp.

Their dad can handle slides.  The log ride,









and a water slide.





We spent a good deal of time in the water park.  It was just so hot and it turns out it was in the boys top favorite rides.








I can't tell you how hard Smiley was to keep up with in the water park.  He was climbing and off faster than his dad or I could manage to stay up with.  At least I had two reasons not to keep up...

I spent all my time with Faith.



She had a great time on the little slides but she always wanted to play at the end, where the water piled up and kids slide right into her.  She was actually faster than I would have thought too.  Plus she kept climbing up went stairs to get to the big slides.

And again 34 weeks pregnant.  I can't run after two as quick as I used to.






After chasing them around for too long it was time to get back to the rides.  They went down dry slides.



And bounced up and down on this small froggy thing.







Everyone but me had a great time on the bumper cars.  I am not disapointed I missed it.  I loved seeing all there faces.  Everyone smiled and laughed the entire time.






The chitty chitty bang bang cars as the boys called them, were more my speed.



Doesn't she look like a little baby doll!

Smiley got his turn driving me around in a truck.  He though it was great he could drive.  There were all types of cars littles could drive around.



Or drive each other, as Jacob escorted Faith around a few laps.



They are so cute together and only a month apart.



By the end of the day I was exhausted.  We all were not one kid made it home awake.  Not one kid slept in the next day either.

What a great birthday birthday party!