Surprise!!!

I don't know how we managed to pull this off without the kids knowing, but we did. Gabe and I got the family a new puppy. He came to us from Washington state and we are so totally in love with him. He hasn't been with our family very long, but he seems to fit right in. He has some pretty good manners and doesn't seem bothered by all the kids wanting to put and love on him. He is about 11 weeks old now. He is a pure English Springer Spaniel and we have dubbed him Benelli. We are going to call him Ben for short. I have been on pins and needles and I felt like I did pretty good at not spilling the beans (at least to the kids). I knew that the would be excited and I am happy that they are.

So the story behind us getting Ben. We had found him on the internet shortly after Bear passed away. I knew it was really soon to be getting another one, but I missed him and needed that companionship. He would have been ready on June 4th, but we couldn't make the right arrangments to get him here. I told his "mother" that we wouldn't be able to get him. (I cried after that because I was already in love with him). Then about a week and a half ago, Ben's "mother" emailed me and told me that she still had him. She asked if we were still interested and made us an offer about how we could make that happen. I talked it over with Gabe and we decided that it was something that we wanted to try and make happen. Since Ben was currently in Washington State, one of the major hurdles was getting him to us. I think things were working in our favor, because Gabe's step sister happened to be needing to travel to Washington to get her daughter. I talked to her and asked if she would be willing to pick up a package for us....she said that she would love to! Then things began to fall into place. We had a ride for him home and the price was right. So we made the deal. But we still had to wait a week for her to be able to get there and get him to us. That was a long week. I did tell a few of my friends that we would be getting Ben, but I NEVER told the children. Then this morning, Gabe's step-sister pulled into town after a long night. We went over and I felt like it was Christmas. He is so cute and lovable. We are enjoying him a ton!

Wyatt's Doings lately.

Wyatt has again had a lot going on. We had a pack meeting recently and he was awarded his Bear.

Then he also had a birthday. We had found a cool website that showed how to make cakes without being too elaborate about it. (Just what I need). So I asked him to pick one and he decided to do the robot. I think it turned out really cute. He had some friends over to help celebrate and I was impressed that Wyatt asked for me to save the "head" for Gabe as he was working and Wyatt wanted his dad to have part of his cake too. His friends weren't too happy as the head had a lot of fun goodies on it: a blow pop, gum drops and some gum. I can't believe he is 10!

Wyatt and his friends being silly as we were showing the cake off.



Wyatt just after we finished the cake. He was a big helper in getting it done.

Pool Party

I finally got some pictures of the kids playing in the pool. We finally had a day that was worthy of getting in and cooling off. The kids had a lot of fun and we had invited the neighbor children over. I know that this pool will give them hours of enjoyment throughout the rest of the summer....it already has so far.
This is Jacob. Just trying to see what I was doing.

Bethany has been pouting a lot lately. This is her pouting on the tramp because something wasn't going how she wanted it too.

Katherine, just looking cute in her suit.

James even joined us for a minute. He didn't get into the water as it was WAY too cold for him and I.
Amanda just being silly in the water.

Flowers

Just a picture of flowers that I cut from my very own flower bed. I needed to trim them back a little and I decided I didn't want the blooms to go to waste as they are very pretty. We have been enjoying them inside for a while.

11 months

As happens frequently with children, you wonder where time goes, but James is now 11 months. I am continuely enjoying him. He is so full of energy and happy all the time. He loves to eat and it seems that he is always doing that, even when he isn't supposed to. He finally cut some teeth and now has 3 with a couple more close behind! He is getting so fast at crawling and loves to dash for the door when the kids go outside to play. He is cruising around the furniture and will occasionally stand by himself. He hasn't figured out how to walk yet, but I don't think that will take him very long. We love him and can't imagine our family without him.

Father's Day

My mom was here with us for Father's Day and it was nice to have her around for a minute. We really didn't do anything fun, but we did give Gabe something that he really wanted. That is a rare treat for me because usually if he wants something then he just goes and buys it, leaving me in a lurch when it comes for presents for his birthday or anniversary or something like that. James was funny as he got into the action of opening the present with Gabe. We hope that everyone had a nice Father's Day.

This is Gabe's new scope for one of his rifles. He is really liking it so far and hopes that it will come in handy for the upcoming hunting season.

Sister's Visit

It was really nice to see my sister and her family last

weekend. She came through on a Tuesday and then again on Saturday. On Tuesday we had a big BBQ and gathered all our siblings in the area and that was a lot of fun. I was so busy being social that I forgot to take pictures of that! But when she came back through on Saturday I snapped this picture of all the kids. It was so cute because the girls (my sister, mom and I) were trying to get dinner ready and Gabe called all the kids into the family room. After a minute this is what we saw:I don't think that ALL the kids were in there, but most of them and they were so engrossed in the movie that they didn't realize that we were taking pictures. Cousins are so much fun!

Oreos

I know that every child somewhere has a picture of their very first Oreo. This is James'. I totally love his little smile that he has. It says to me " Ha, you can't be mad at me for this mess". And since a picture says a thousand words. I will let the picture tell you how much he enjoyed it:

Summer toys

My children are living the high life this summer. Thanks to hand-me down toys from our friends we have things that we normally wouldn't have had. One of our friends gave us a small pool, a wading pool that is about 12 feet in diameter, but a pool none the less. The kids have enjoyed it even though it has been still pretty cold to be swimming. I have tried to keep them out when it is too cold, but sometimes you just have to let them learn their lessons. I sadly don't have pictures of them swimming yet, but I probably will have a ton by the end of the summer. I just know that their first time of swimming the wind was blowing and it was cold out that I could see their lips turning blue and they were shivering and I finally had to pull a parental override and call them out after about 10 minutes as I didn't want to have any hypothermic children.

The other fun toy was a trampoline. Another friend gave us the frame and springs, but we discovered the jumping mat wasn't good. We looked online and found one for the right price and had it shipped. We put it together this weekend and the kids have been outside on it most of the time. We are going to have to replace the sliding glass door to the back yard with a revolving door because they are in and out of it so much. It has been a constant come in and tell me they want me to come and see what they can do, or come in and see how much time someone has left. As a safety thing we have told the kids that they can only jump 2 at a time and we have even had to go so far as say who they can and can't jump with (there is just too much size difference in some of my kids to have them jumping with younger siblings and still be safe). We have also put a time limit so that everyone gets fair amount of time on the tramp. I took this picture right after the tramp was fixed....we let them jump all at once just to see how it would go. I think that the look on their faces tells the whole story. They have never had a tramp and have always had to go to a friend's house to jump. Now we are going to have some fun in our own backyard.

Chalk Drawings

I was at the dollar store the other day and found some chalk. On a whim I picked some up because I didn't have any at our house. The kids had a ball with it. These are their works of art. The pictures don't do the kids justice because it was sunny out, but their drawings sure showed up good. But for me it was an afternoon of relative peace as they were enjoying the drawing and didn't have much to argue about.

Look at me now!

James is getting so big and it has been hard to keep up with him sometimes. He is crawling all over the place and still loves to play with things other than his own toys. I don't remember why we got all them in the first place when I should have remembered that the favorites are always the old box. His new thing is the stairs. He loves to jet out of the family room at any possible chance and he will head straight for them. I really don't have a problem with that, other than the fact that he hasn't yet figured out that there is another way down other than falling.

He is finally getting teeth and now has 3 teeth. He is starting to get them fast as the 4th one is on its' way. He loves to eat and he is trying to eat anything that he can get his hands on. This is going to be one of my favorites:

He was given his first oreo cookie and by the looks of it he loved it. I love the grin on his face. It is priceless.