Fun on the Beach

I think I became spoiled on this trip. I am the type of gal that likes to see what she is swimming with. Usually when I go to the beach, I stay in the sand or in the very shallow water. This is the first time I have been to a beach where the water is so clear that even when you can barely stand in the water with your face above the water you can see the fish nibbling at your feet! I don't mind the fish, when I can see them! The water was beautiful and I did not want to leave!

We saw dolphins several times (although I did not get any pictures of course) each day. They were not too far out either. Luckily, there were NO jellyfish on this visit!

Mady could not get enough of the sand or water. She is definitely my water baby! She did not even mind when the waves came up and splashed her and she rather enjoyed when they tried to wash her away! We had to keep a close eye on her. Andrew did great until Thursday night. When we went for our sunset walk on the beach and his older brothers started pointed out all of the hermits crabs and sand crabs, he started getting concerned about them. Especially since he heard Dad when we had been swimming in the ocean earlier, talking about the fish that were nibbling on his feet. We really had to coax him to get in after that! He still had a great time and did lots of playing though.

If we were not at the beach, much of our time was in the pool. Paul and I spent our time catching Andrew and Mady as they jumped off the side of the pool. Neither of them has any fear of the water, which is kinda scary for mom! They were both dunking themselves - completely under water. If we laid them on their back or stomach they would kick their feet like they knew exactly what they were doing. Several times Andrew was on the steps playing and I would turn around to check on other kids. When I turned back around he had tried to get a toy or forgot he couldn't reach the water and had stepped off the step. He was trying to tread water, but was under. Only once was it enough to really scare him, but it did not last for long.

The pool also had a slide that all of the kids enjoyed. Andrew would go down the slide whether there was someone there to catch him or not (and it was too deep for him to stand in).

Bryce is still not a fan of water. Well, he loves the water, just likes to be able to comfortably stand without feeling like he is going to go under. This happens every year. We get him to where he is getting comfortable with the water and then we leave the water and start all over again the next time. He will not even let us hold him and try to teach him.

A HUGE Surprise for the Kids

Last Sunday Paul came up with this great idea that we should go to Florida for a few days. Then I had to go and throw in the idea that it should be a secret until we got there. Yeah, it was as hard as it sounds. Not so much the not telling them part as the logistics of getting a family of seven ready for a trip without letting anyone know we were going somewhere!

We decided we would leave that Wednesday after Caleb's open house/orientation. Monday I spent packing. I was walking in and out of kids bedrooms carrying arm-fulls of clothes into my bedroom. No one gave me a second glance. I managed to get everyone packed and the house ready to go by Tuesday afternoon without ANYONE even noticing.

Tuesday night we packed the car. There was a suitcase and tub of beach toys in the garage waiting to be put on the hitch hauler when we got back from the school. At one point Wednesday morning, Andrew ran in his room and got his travel pillow, monkey and backpack with some "necessities" and put them in the car. Then he came in and said he was ready to go to the volcano (no clue where that came from). His brothers kept telling him we were not going anywhere and that he was crazy.

We took the dog to the vet (we said he was getting groomed...no one wondered why we took dogfood, his bed and his toys for a groom), ran a couple of more errands and then headed for the school. We were almost at the school before anyone asked why there was a r/c boat in the back (nevermind the other traveling supplies).

The story went like this....we are going on a picnic, but before we go on the picnic we are going to go home and eat lunch because it will take us a while to get to the picnic spot.

They were fine with that story. No questions asked, they just continuously tried to guess where we were having our picnic.

No questions when we got into Mississippi. A few comments when we got into Alabama, but no questions. Some raised eyebrows and a few guesses as to where we were headed when we got into Florida, but the entire time they still think we are having a picnic and going home.

Along the way we had pulled into a shopping center and parked in the back of the parking lot to check on the stuff on the hitch hauler. I told the boys we were having lunch there. They said that was a lame picnic. When we got to the hotel someone asked if we were going to have a picnic in the parking lot (they could not see the beach yet). We said nope and Paul went to check us in.

We went up to our room and told the boys that we decided we were going to stay for a while. Then we opened the curtains so they could see the beach and pool. There was a lot of excited kids. The most amazing response was from Mady though. As soon as we opened the curtain she started screaming as loud as she could and jumping up and down. To say she was excited was a HUGE understatement!

Over dinner Thursday night Caleb commented on how much work it must have taken for us to pull off this surprise with noone knowing, especially going to FLORIDA! He said it was a huge surprise and he never had a clue as to what was going on until we got in the hotel room and he saw the beach.

This is the things memories are made of and we definitely made lots of new ones this week. I am so blessed to have my family and glad Dad had the idea for one more fun outing before school starts in ELEVEN more days!! It was so fun doing a surprise like that for the kids and I am glad we chose not to tell them!

If you know me, you KNOW I have LOTS of pictures! They will be coming soon.

Middle School

Yesterday Caleb went to his middle school open house. They split the boys and girls in to seperate open houses and there were still a lot of kids. After a brief orientation where they went over rules, expectations and discipline we went around to all the different "stations". We had to pay school fees, get his school id made, get schedules, get books, meet all of his teachers, etc.

He is excited about starting middle school, but he has the normal elementary school to middle school intimidations. The campus is quite large and he has two minutes to get from one class to the next. I have no doubts he can do it, they really are not that far apart, but he was nervous about it.

Something that his MOM is nervous about is the fact that they do not HAVE to stay in the cafeteria for lunch. They have concession stands outside and they have vending machines (with water and juice) outside. Just seems to mom like a good oppurtunity for kids to get in trouble. BUT, they have to learn now before high school when I think they can leave campus during lunch.

Which leads me to discipline. MAN! They have TRO, which is an all day detention room where you have to do all of your work, have lunch, EVERYTHING in this one room. Then they have afterschool homework clinics if you don't do all of your homework when you are supposed to. They have Saturday school - yeah, self explanatory. I think he got the picture that it was very important for him to be at class on time, have all of his homework and have a perfect uniform.

We did have a schedule issue while we were there. He had signed up for band and did not get put in it. May not have been as big of a deal except we have heard by several people that if you are not in band in the sixth grade you cannot be in the seventh or eighth grade either. I asked the band teacher, she said you could be but it was VERY difficult to get in to. They did get the schedule fixed before we left, so he IS in band now.

I am SOOO not ready for a middle school student with seven teachers and lots of homework. Luckily, he is pretty self-sufficient when it comes to homework!

Some New Things with Mads

Mady played dress up and at one point she had the necklaces on the dog. She loves Beaux, and Beaux loves her right back!

She decided to fix her hair the other day....with some apple juice!

Mady has become quite the chatter bug. When she talks she points to what I assume is what she is talking about, she uses facial expressions, she looks you in the eye and she just chatters away (of course rarely can you understand what she is saying). Last week she said "I love you" for the first time. I was the only one that heard it and I could not get her to repeat it. The other night when she was going to bed Isaac gave her a hug and kiss and told her he loved her. She responded with "I love you!" MADE ISAAC'S DAY!! She still does not say it much, but she was getting into stuff yesterday and I said "Is Mady being a bad girl?" She looked at me, smiled and said "I love you. Bad Girl!"

We have a bookshelf in our living room that has the kids books on it. Mady tends to usually pull out the pink books if she wants us to read her a story. Last week we checked some books out at the library (she got her own library card). She checked out a few books, but there are two books that she always brings to us to read to her and if we are not reading them she is sitting on the floor looking at them. They are Do Princesses Scrape Their Knees? and Do Princesses REALLY Kiss Frogs? both by Carmela LaVigna Coyle. It is neat to see her already have some favorite books (and they are not even pink!)

15 Month Check-up

I wrote this post after her drs appt last week. I don't know why I didn't publish it then.

My gorgeous baby girl is quickly becoming not so much a baby! The 19th she turned 15 months old. Here they do a 15 month old checkup (the other kids had a 12 month and then 18 month, so this is new for me). She weighed in at 22.07 pounds (pretty average)and was 31 1/4 inches long (79th percentile....explains why she can be hard to shop for).

The nurse tried to let her stand on the scale for the first time (instead of using the baby scale). She would not let go of me or stand on it. So we put her on the baby scale, which she wasn't much better with! She screamed (squealing, top of her lungs, deafen the whole office scream) everytime the nurse tried to get her height, head circumfrence and all through the dr exam! Then started again when I set her on the table for her shot (only one - MMR). She screamed so loud and hard that I don't think she ever realized she got a shot. As soon as the nurse took her hand off of Mady she stopped crying!

She is growing great (too fast though). She is quite the drama queen and decided to show that while we were there. Really, she is at that stage where she does not do well with people she is not used too. She is a lot worse than the boys were, so she may actually be somewhat shy (none of the boys are).

She is walking, running, climbing, etc. all over the place. She likes to grab things she knows she is not supposed to have and RUN as fast as she can. She just hasn't figured out not to corner herself yet, so she is usually pretty easy to get!

The dr was asking if she was walking and running well. I told him she was and that she walked about a mile almost every evening. He says "is Mom getting more exercise by carrying you or are you in a plush comfortable stroller?" He was shocked when I said she actually walked and usually walks it all without me picking her up.

Her favorite thing to take is still shoes. ANYONES shoes. She does, however, love to wear my shoes around the house. The other day I started to take them from her (they were REALLY loud on the hardwood and tile floors) and then I realized how long I WANTED to hear the clanking of my baby girl wearing my shoes around the house. So, instead I let her continue to clank clumsily through the house in them. She has the biggest smile on her face when she is wearing them.

She still has the perfect mix of girly girl and tomboy. She still picks out her tutus and dresses to wear and then goes outside and plays with bugs and dirt and mud! I love it!

Her vocabulary is growing daily. She is always picking up new words, but last week when I told her "no" for something and she looked at me and said "Momma NO!" it really caught me off guard! It was one of those things where you are speechless when you hear it (and then you have to turn around and laugh).

She is already becoming very independent and busy but is so much fun! I still thank God everyday for surprising us with a little girl! She was the perfect completion to the beautiful family we created!

22 Days

22 hours, 36 minutes and 6 seconds until the kids start school. But who is counting?

Okay, I am! I love my kids to death, but if I hear "I am bored!" "Can I...?" or "I want..." one more time......

All of the kids are actually looking forward to school this year. Caleb is normally the one that doesn't want to go, but he is so excited about being in Junior High (JUNIOR HIGH??? HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?) that he is ready for all of it. He is going to be in band and wants to be on the swim team, so he is really excited about those. We will see how long that last though!

Isaac amazes me because no matter how hard school is he is ALWAYS ready to start back!

Bryce feeds off Caleb's attitude, so since Caleb is ready - Bryce is ready!

I only had to buy school supplies for Caleb. The other two I just pay a "supply fee" of $50 each and the school gets the supplies. I SO prefer that way because of how ridiculously precise they are with the supply list. For example, on Caleb's list they want EVERY SIXTH grader to get 4 red single subject, non-perforated notebooks. Then there is the fact that it has to be ELMERS glue, CRAYOLA crayons, FISKAR scissors, etc. Now, I can imagine when EVERY sixth grader is looking for a certain color of a notebook, things are gonna run out FAST! It was hard even finding non-perforated notebooks! Needless to say, we have already gotten his supplies.

He cannot carry a backpack either. They have a set of books for home and books at school, so they only have to carry their notebook back and forth (and lunch and trumpet). But, I only had to buy two backpacks this year.

Here is a question though....if I am buying his supplies and some community supplies (tissues, sanitizer, etc) WHY do I still have to pay a $35 "school fee"?

I thought kids were supposed to get a FREE education!!

I got uniforms last week too. Caleb can no longer where shorts to school. He has to where khaki pants and a monogrammed blue polo shirt! So, every uniform shirt cost an extra $8 on top of the price of the shirt!

Can you tell this all IRKS me!

But, back to the positive - 22 days, 22 hours, 23 minutes and 45 seconds until school starts and we (the little two and I) get back on a calm, quieter schedule - that include DAILY naps for ALL!!

Me and My Sweetie

Family Pictures

As I previously mentioned, the day we did family pictures (which was also the day we left) was the day after the tropical depression hit. The beach was flooded, so we didn't get to do near as much as I would have liked. The entire beach was under water, so we were limited to standing for them. As you will see, there are a couple of boys who must have lost their best friends right before the pictures were taken. I don't know what was with the doom and gloom look, but it is typical of those two when they are forced to take family photos!! It was also very windy! But, thank you Dad for taking some pictures so we actually have some family (the complete family) pictures!

The last picture is a BIG family picture, but unfortunately it was taken after my two brothers and their families had left.

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