Happenings

This last week was another full one.  The usual things right now are dance on Mondays, two soccer practices on Tuesdays, church after-school program and small group on Wednesdays, football practice (and sometimes Little K) on Thursdays, football game Fridays, and a couple soccer games on Saturdays.  We threw in a few more things this week to make it more fun.  I had a dentist appointment on Tuesday to have a filling replaced.  Thankfully they are a nice group of girls at the office because I don't really enjoy dental work. 

We have had some beautiful weather and the kids have enjoyed getting outside, especially at the LaBeths new house construction.  Lincoln loves to get in the equipment they have sitting out.  You will notice in this picture that he even put on some gloves that were left in the skid loader.

I spent a lot of the week working on some stuff for the office.  I have also had several requests from Ellie to fix some holes in her bunny.  My mom recently sent us a link (and now I have seen the video floating around on the internet) of a little boy who is reunited with his stuffed monkey three years after he lost it and he starts crying.  I have a feeling my kids would be the same way.  Jackson still cares quite a bit about Grover-he LOVES him.  I noticed the other morning that he had put Grover's "Super Grover" cape back on him.

And Ellie was so excited when she realized I had fixed Bunny for her.  She has a second one we tried to give her (same one) and she has never liked it as much as the original, even though the original is falling apart and dingy.

And of course, Lincoln needs his Tadbit.  He also has two and he has recently started requesting a certain one.  He says one is a happy Tadbit and one is a sad Tadbit.  He likes the happy one.  Can you guess which is which.

Left is happy, right is sad.

Miles and Bennett are still learning to love theirs.  They do like to snuggle with them as they fall asleep.  These two little boys are getting around even quicker these days.  Miles has even started a real crawl.  Bennett still thinks his army crawl is the way to go and he is pretty quick with it.  It is fun to lay down on the floor with them.  They crawl all over you and like to get up close to your face and snuggle in.  They think it is funny.  They also like to pull up to everything (and put everything on the floor in their mouths).  Here they are watching a little Lion King.

And they get a little fiesty now and fight over things.  This was just a lid to a play doh container and they both thought they needed it.  They also like to hang and try to climb through this table.

I didn't do their nine month appointment, but tried to get their measurements at home.  They both weighed 18.8lbs which puts them in the 20th percentile and they both are 29.5" which puts them in the 85th percentile.  They did have a pretty rough night one night.  I believe it was Thursday night.  We put them down around 9 and I was working on the office stuff when they started crying around 11.  Eventually both of them were screaming and they weren't calming down.  So I got them both up and we hung out for a bit and then put them down again.  They lasted around an hour before they were both screaming again.  They were mad!  So I got them both up again.  Andrew had a hearing the next day and was getting up early to finish preparing for it, so I was trying to keep them from waking him too much.  I finally got Bennett down but Miles was still putting up a fight.  We were watching reruns of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse at 2am.  He was really cute-kind of clapping and putting his hands up in the air.  But I also wanted him to go back to sleep.  And he finally did around 2:30.  It may have been the teething and I did give them a little Tylenol.  Thankfully we haven't had another night like that again, yet.  Wal-Mart is still an adventure/challenge for us.  After the disaster with the big double-seater cart, I decided to try something new.  I made a bigger Wal-Mart/Aldis run by myself Monday night after dance and dinner at my parents.  So Thursday was a smaller run to just Wal-Mart to pick up some stuff to roast hot dogs and s'mores, so I thought it would be a good time to test my new set-up.  I put Miles in the front part of the car where you usually sit a child.  I strapped him in tight and he was good.  Then I brought along a little seat I have had since Jackson for Bennett to use.  It is supposed to be like a portable, inflatable booster seat.  It is all fabric and has an inflatable inside to make the seat higher if you want it to.  I strapped it into the basket of the cart and put Bennett in that.  It actually worked, at least this time.  We were able to get through our trip fairly easily.  Hopefully it continues working for us.

Jackson had another football game Friday night.  They had team pictures after the game but I didn't get a picture because I was watching the other four kids.  But then I saw that someone posted a picture of the first grade team and I found it pretty entertaining.  I still laugh everytime I see it.

Anyone notice Jackson and Zach in the upper-left corner? :-)

After the game we had a little wienie roast at our house.  It was kind of a last minute thing and very low-key.  Just hot dogs, chips, and s'mores.  It was great though.  The Vincents and the Wilsons came over and the kids had a great time just running all over doing who knows what.  And they had free reign with the chips, soda, and s'mores fixings so I think they thought it was a pretty good time.

Saturday was pretty busy.  Andrew took Jackson and Lincoln to the ranch in the morning while I took the twins with me to take Ellie to her first Rah Rah Rookies.  She has been looking forward to this for a while and was so excited.  It was from 9-12 but we also had soccer pictures and games.  I ended up getting Jackson's picture time wrong and we missed it.  I thought it was at 11:45, but they were at 11:15.  Andrew took him and Lincoln to the game and the twins and I picked up Ellie.  They were supposed to be done at 12, but they didn't finish things up until around 12:20.  Thankfully, the twins didn't act up too much as we were waiting for her.  She changed into her soccer stuff in the car and then we caught the last of Jackson's game.  Then it was time for Ellie's pictures and her game after that.  It was pretty windy out and kind of cool.  The twins last for a little over half of Ellie's game, but then it was time to pack up and head home.  Bennett kept trying to crawl onto the field.

Bennett wanted some of Jackson's chips

Getting a little coaching from dad.

I then spent the rest of Saturday trying to figure out the office stuff.  Not fun.  I haven't really messed with it today though.  I did my grocery shopping before church and then we headed outside after lunch and stayed out until almost dinner time.  It was a beautiful day.  Jackson and Ellie played with friends, most of the time around the construction site.  Lincoln tried to help me out a little.  I cleaned off our front porch, put out some mums, and started ripping out our old landscape lights.  Some of them weren't working anymore and others had broken off of their stakes and were just stuck in the ground and would keep tilting.  So putting in the new ones is my next project.  I needed to get some new wire, but thought I would go ahead and dig the little trench for it.  But there was no way I was getting through the dry, hard dirt.  So I set the sprinkler on it and visited with Tiffany while the kids played.  I had to go in to finish dinner but Andrew had just gotten home from the office (it is nice when he gets the chance to ride his bike to and from the office) and he took the kids out back to play a little soccer.  Later in the evening, I was trying to set out some of the kids' laundry for them to put away and then Lincoln comes up to happily inform me that he made his own pancakes in the microwave.  He got some out of the freezer, put them on a plate, and started the microwave.  Andrew was actually down in the basement on a phone call with a client (he ended up having to go to the office for a little bit tonight to try to get the client out of jail).  I guess we need to do a better job of supervision:-)  Lincoln is usually adament about helping me with the different steps of getting his oatmeal ready in the mornings, including turning the microwave on.  So I guess he knows how now.  Except I know that he will one day stick something metal in there.