Baseball season

Elle (#5) hitting

Getting ready to score the first run

of the game.




Catcher Elle.

The girl

Spring for Elle

Getting ready to perform her duet

Posting the colors for the end of year Girl Scouts ceremony

Man, she is beautiful

And silly. The troop doing a skit.

Elle and her twin

6th grade celebration of learning

Performing with the band

Receiving the 'presidential award for academic excellence'.

Father Daughter Dance 09

I am a little behind with pictures, sorry Grandma's. Ben and Elle went to their first Father-Daughter dance two weeks ago. It was a disco themed dance so off to Goodwill we went. I gotta tell you, we love it there, they haven't failed us yet. Elle's and her best friend's entire 80's punk rocker Halloween costumes came from there, including the shoes that looked like they were OG 1982. This time we found Elle a shirt, shoes, and earrings, and Ben a lovely pair of polyester brown pants. I am embarrased to admit that he already had the shirt. So here they are.

My hippie

Thanks Jake and Holly for the hair!

Beks is not so sure about Dad's new do'

Daddy-Daughter

Disco dancers

There are no words

The Dad's played musical chairs for prizes

Final two!

Hippie chicks

Ben came in second in musical chairs, but I think he won us the best prize. He won a family four pack to a local water park resort, including one night's stay and four passes to the park (1st prize was a party at Sweet 'n Sassy. Elle was happy with second). Now we just have to decide which weekend in between deployments we will use them.

Yet more

Getting a ride from big sis

All dressed up

Hi mommy
Little drummer girl

Or maybe a conductor

Trying to pull up on the toy
"Mom, she's got my hair!"
"A, B, C, D..."

And more...

I'm not sure which ones are actually mine and which are Stacey's. Stace, do you know?
"Ha, I got mommy's cup!"


A girl and her toes

"Let me see your teeth sister"

July 26 CSI/Costco/Swimming

Why do we love Costco? One word - samples. Jake loves going in there more than I do. After we dropped the girls off at their Scouts CSI workshop at ITT tech, Jake and I headed to Costco to kill three hours. We succeeded. I didn't even think about it being Saturday, the day when there are food samples all over the place. Between the food and the new 'hybrid' golf clubs they had on display, Jake was in heaven. And I was blessed with another great 'mom' moment, they won't give kids samples without parents around and he always waited and asked before taking, then said, "thank you". Two of the workers complimented me on how polite he was to them. He really was awesome today. He even saved half his churro for the girls.

After we picked up the girls, we grabbed Jake's buddy, and headed to the pool. The rest of family of my 'extras' came later. Some of our afternoon...

Man I could just eat this kid up
My Elle fish
Kisses for Madison
She finally got her face in the water
Trying to grab the water

In all of these Beks is being held by her other mom so I could get pics. Thanks Stacey!

July 23 What a week already

Let's see this week so far...

Mon-fix mower, mow jungle, help Elle watch a friend's three kids, barbeque burgers and dogs for dinner, chat with two other deployed wives, clean kitchen, and realize that I have been ignoring a killer headache that is rapidly getting ugly. Take a deep breath and try not to throw up on baby while she is nursing.

Tues-baby up to nurse at 2400 and 0400, storm rolled in (loudly) shortly thereafter, second storm rolled in and hour later just as I was finally drifting off too sleep, baby up again at 0700. Not a good start to the day, my whole body feels icky. Get out of bed and realize that every square inch of my house is a disaster. Why did I get out of bed? Oh yeah, I have kids and they need to be fed and ferried to their stuff. Piano lesson, try to sign up for Volleyball since my calendar says sign ups began on the 20th, try and figure out why they are looking at me funny, why are you looking at me like that? Process (finally) that sign ups are on AUGUST 20th just like the nice people keep repeating, just like my calendar says, leave quickly before they call someone, mental note - send Ben back to sign up for volleyball. Library, lunch, and pool with friends. Warm air, sunshine, warm water, ahhh, head and body beginning to heal. Reluctantly (snort) send kids home with friend and go to comm alone. Pick up kids who had been fed dinner and dessert (we love you Stacey!) and head home, unload, baths, children read for most of the evening, and baby went to sleep easily. House is still a disaster, it will still be there tomorrow.

Wed-Overcast and gloomy outside but no rain, try and pick up house with baby nursing every three hours again. The big kids were tremendous help today with the baby. Great mom moment. I captured these. Beks loves her big sister and being in her room, not just because her big sis is wonderul, but because she has a full length mirror in her room, and what baby doesn't love a cute baby face to look at?

Note Elle's 'baby' in the pictures, Leia the dog.

I did manage to get a lot done in the basement today. I put up new shelves and re-arranged a bit to accomidate them and the new storage totes I bought. We picked up and put things on the shelves where they belong. I cleaned out under the stairs and got it swept. Now only garage sale stuff is under there and it is organized. I went through the momento/scrapbook boxes that were under the stairs and placed large keepsakes that can't be scrapped into a new rubbermaid. I got the toy buckets in place and now I am working on the kid's art. All this time the kids took turns dealing with Bekah and helping me, thank you guys. It is starting to look decent down there. After dinner, shower, bible study, ice cream, and kids in bed, I went down and worked some more on the basement. The last corner has been reorganized and more things are out of boxes and into storage totes. Almost there.

The highlight of my day came late at night as I was emailing my hubby the day's events. I caught him at work and was able to chat with him via email for a few before he had to go actually work. That was a treat.