Wednesday, July 30, 2008

SAM'S BIRTHDAY, BLUEBERRY PICKING

We all went out to a local farm to pick blueberries for something fun to do on Sam's birthday. It exceeded our expectations. It was such a lovely farm and the berries were wonderful. We all had a marvelous time filling buckets with gorgeous blue berries.




Beautiful Berries!!



Happy Sam!






BLUEBERRY PICKING CONTINUED...


That's enough for this year. Heading out.




Weighing and paying



Ben is very proud of the berries that he picked all by himself.
This lady was so nice. She had Sam guess how much his berries weighed before she weighed them. Here she is telling him that his guess, 3 1/2 lbs., was almost exactly right.






BIRTHDAY BOY ENJOYING SOME POOL TIME



DINNER

We really do like food. Sam's choice is always seafood, since we eat it so rarely. We had grilled salmon, shrimp bisque, corn on the cob and Sam's favorite San Francisco salad. Mmm....if I do say so myself.



PRESENTS

Sam enjoyed receiving a rubik's cube, a new Jonathan Park cassette series and a sling shot. I'm including these pictures so that Grammy and Papa can see their gifts being opened.















DESSERT

A happy boy with his ice cream sunday. We have so many birthdays around here that we don't do cake for every one. Sam settled on banana split sundaes. This one included brownies and the works.






Monday, July 28, 2008

SMILE

It's possible that you have to be his mom to appreciate this, but I love this picture. Be sure to click on it to see it in full size.

I am having so much fun with our new digital camera. I have found that it takes the greatest "in motion" pictures. They're so fun and they're not blurry like they would have been with my old camera. Here's two of my recent "action" pictures.



Friday, July 25, 2008

COOPER'S ROCK

Here's some photos from a visit to Cooper's Rock a few weeks ago. It was our first time to go and we were so glad that we did! The view from the lookout was breathtakingly beautiful and the rock formations were so fun and interesting. Great enjoyment for adults and kids alike.



























Wednesday, July 23, 2008

NOTHING HAPPENING...

In the absence of anything really going on around here, I'm posting some pictures of Amelia. We have several of those because she's so fun to photograph right now.



SICK

Everyone gets sick. It's always a pain. It's really special in a large family though. Sickness usually creates a memorable experience for us simply because of how many of us there are to catch whatever it is that's going around. Last night I think it was just some bad food. It hit me about 9:30 pm. After two trips to the toilet, I decided I'd better head to bed. I almost made it there when we heard a crying child and sure enough, sick person #2. Naturally, he didn't make it to the toilet. After getting him a bowl, cleaning the mess and getting new bedding situated, we decided we'd better check on the other kids. Peter went downstairs while I took another trip to the bathroom. When Peter didn't come back, I went down too. The two oldest were both huddled on the couch in towels. Peter had already showered them off because they were such a mess and was working on all the clean-up while they waited with bowls in their laps. We collected all new bedding, helped them get on fresh pajamas and then went to start the laundry. We finally got in bed, but not to sleep. The baby inside of me was kicking and punching like crazy and I continued to heave another 4 or 5 times before finally settling into some rest. Peter got up with a sick child at least once and then he dozed off too. It could have been so much worse. Thankfully, the two youngest of the family were untouched and Peter himself never got sick and was able to care for everyone else. Also, and this is big, we all slept the rest of the night and we're fine today. Hurray! A very memorable night, but thankfully short-lived!

AMELIA, THE PRINCESS

Yes, she might as well be a princess around here, with 4 big brothers to adore her. But here she is in a very princess like dress that my aunt Cathy sent her. We had fun watching her waddle around in it and taking her picture.




















Friday, July 18, 2008

PIGGY TAILS

It's hard to photograph these cute pig tails I put in Millie's hair.






Thursday, July 17, 2008

"HUDDLE, BOYS, HUDDLE"

They were conspiring over some important secret.

Just Fun

The boys helped Peter wash the van and naturally, that ended in some hose play.






1000 PIECES

Sam and Will were very pleased with having finished this big puzzle this week.



Wednesday, July 16, 2008

First Coloring

We gave Amelia a crayon and showed her for the first time how she could mark with it on a paper. She liked that a lot and spent a good fifteen minutes doing her first coloring!