Matthew

Matthew celebrated his 8th birthday at the end of June. Eight is great, because he chose to be baptized--right on his very birthday. We are so proud of this little guy. He has such a great heart, the best smile, and is such a smarty pants! Here are some quick Matthew facts: Has read four, and now on 5th Harry Potter-loves to read (especially HP), still a dinosaur fan, loved baseball this year, still has not lost top two front teeth---probably the only kid in 3rd grade that still has them, talks a mile a minute!
Finally, a picture from our camping trip we took right after school ended. We went to Greer. It was beautiful, but whew, so much work!!

Last Day of School Picture

Happy to be out of school, but unhappy we had to stop for a picture. Oh, and then we stopped at the grocery store on the way home...double torture.

Wake Up!

Yawn...Stretch...time to wake up my hibernating blog.
I want to keep track of what we do this summer here.
Summer is starting.
School is ending ...tomorrow.
Baseball ended last week.
As busy as they have both kept of for the last few months
it is sad to say goodbye to teachers and coaches
that have worked hard for our kiddos.
The kids found out about next year, today.
Everyone is happy.

Since last time

Mom said it had been a month since the last blog-just about! We've had two birthdays-Meg and me. She loves being 9, and although I've bee dreading this one-it's not so bad!!!
Michael had his big band concert. We have been practicing one song for so long, so long that I can't remember why/how we thought it was the right one....it was a terrible one. We have been suffering through it for months...and they didn't play that one! Oh well--he thought it was great.
Everyday for school we are out the door by 7:55, but for some reason getting out the door early one a Saturday is a momumental task.
There is always a lot of whining, compaining, and general "I'm not going" attitude.
Doesn't matter what it is, a game, walk, family outing. They don't want to.
It it's a chore...like this morning we're going to clean the yard---WATCH OUT
Today Matthew had to be at a test in N Scottsdale at 9am.
Lizzie had her preschool Rodeo (no sibs allowed), also 9am.
Dave went with Lizzie.
I flew up to the test with everyone else in tow, somehow made it on time.
We finished at 10:30--off to PVCC track meet--drop off our 4 oldest.
Go get Lizzie who Grandma rescued from the rodeo so Dad could run the meet.
Home to clean the house ALL day because it has really never recovered from Christmas.
My expectations are always high with only 2 of our 6 home, but these 2 little ones are tornados.
So while I decluttered(only when big kids are gone -declutter=throw away) and organized in the bedrooms, they dumped and scattered everything in front. So with my 5 hours with only 2 kids at home, the house looks a little bit worse than when I started---ugh!

Happy Birthday Jon and other stuff

Jon has been counting down to his birthday since about July--MADE IT!! He started off his day with with a bang...made soccer goal straight through our front window--notice the broken glass behind this beautiful birthday face? Just as a side note--each of our three boys has broken a window in the last 7 months, starting with Matthew--on the first day of summer break--a golf ball through our bedroom window. Then Michael, football, through the other front window, and now this. No more balls in the yard, boys!!
In other news....
School kids finished up another quarter working really hard-especally Michael. We love his teacher, but SHEESH she is a hard grader--love the high expectaions, though. He has really had to stretch, but made honor roll again.
Meghan made the all star team in soccer and her team won...onto softball next week!
Starting with Saturday of the all star game, a stomach virus got us--Rachel first-then bang, bang, bang--all of us. Christmas day was the first day we had no throwing up--6 straight days. I have just finally caught up with the laundry.
This is all of the kids trying to look happy making gingerbread houses. Such a bummer--candy everywhere, but nobody could eat it.
Loved the break, and sort of sad everyone has to back tomorrow. We needed another week since the first one was spent being sick.