The Short and Long of It

Annie is one of a kind.  She is feisty, sweet, temperamental, creative, smart, beautiful... I could go on.

Annie has quit growing it seems.  She is being passed up big time by her younger girl cousins, but we're monitoring her and hopefully she's gonna hit a spurt soon.

So in the theme of short, here are some of Annie's own little contractions:

hanitizer = hand sanitizer

sparage = spare room/storage room

goffleball = golf ball sized whiffle ball

KaPanda = Kungu Fu Panda

They make sense, right?

Tonight Annie asked me if I wanted to hold her little sister (her doll with marker all over her face).  I said sure and asked her what her name is.  Her response, "Lily, but people like to call her Lilliana."  Oh, that is a  long nickname, I'm thinking.  Then I asked her how old she is.  Her answer, "Zero and a half" So I'm wondering how old that is - is that 6 months?  I'm really not quite sure.

Annie is my girl and I love her to pieces!

Back to School 2012

Monday, Aug 6th the kids started back to school.  It's their second year at Granville Elementary.  We love the school and I'm excited for the year and their new teachers and classes.  It was a lot less stressful starting school this year compared to last year when we had lived in PV for a day and a half.

The kids had a fashion show the night before for Drew, Cyndi, Jeremy and me to show off their new clothes, shoes and backpacks.

Annie needed to be in a picture.  I'll be pre-schooling her at home again this year unless something better comes up.

Jake's:  5th grade - Mrs. Fulfer (though they switch for all classes)
Abby:  3rd Grade - Mr. Blundell
Hannah:  1st Grade - Mrs. Jack

The Beach

Last week we headed to Cali for our last summer vacation of the year.  We met up with the Ricedorff's, Joe and Cassie, and Brittney and Randy in Irvine.  It was such a delightful time.  The weather was perfect and we enjoyed some long days at the beach.  My favorite was boogie boarding with Abby.  On Ab's command  "This One!" we caught a wave that we rode all the way in.  It was so awesome - I usually don't catch them so well, but there were many, many attempts.

So here is the vacation in pictures - lots of them...and in no particular order...

Jay, Abby and Jake by their hole protecting their clams

 Kar and Jer

 Hannah - aka Bethany

 A self protrait of Karrie and Claire

 Cassie and Joe - is Cassie nursing under there or just chilly and wrapped up?

 Abby waiting for the car

 Jake's stupid clam.  A few days after getting home, his room started to reek so bad, I thought an animal had died and threw up rotten potatoes.  But alas it was just this clam that had died and the slimy thing inside was rotting.

Abby filling a bucket 

Jake and Jack laying down trying to divert the water to save their day's work of building the hole and walling it up.  It eventually came down.

 Jeremy.  Poor guy got a striped sunburn from the spray on sunblock. After that, we all used the really creamy stuff that lathered on very white

 Claire at the beach - she stayed in the shade most of the time

 The 5 Little Mermaids - Annie, Hannah, Kate, Kendal, Keelie

  Then later just 2 Little Mermaids - Hannah and Annie

Joe, Cassie, Hadlie and Keelie

 Abby and Jay up to their necks in sand

 Karrie and Abby - a self portrait at the top of the Newport Ferris Wheel

Hannah, Annie and Karrie - the rest of the self-portrait at the top of the ferris wheel

 Kate, Keelie and Annie 

Our Family looking over the water at Balboa Island with Newport Fun Zone in the back ground.

Volleyball

 Look at that form - knees bent, arms straight, thumbs next to each other, wrist down.

Future olympians, I tell ya.

 I love my kids' imaginations.   They decided to play volleyball in the basement.   They made their own knee pads with blue hospital rags.  They took off the couch cushions to be the net which would make it almost volley-tennis. (Janna and I dominating in VT is for a whole other post).  Anyway, they played for days and days.  Eventually the knee pads got tossed and they just played with the cushions/net.  Then finally one day, the ball popped and it ended. 

 I've never wanted to pressure my girls to be volleyball players, but secretly I would love it so much!

24th in St. Johns

I took the kids up to St. Johns for the Pioneer Days celebration.  Jeremy couldn't get that week off, so I went solo.  I played in the volleyball tournament with the same gals from 2 years ago (Gaylene Williams, and the Burdick Sisters), plus Lanae Wahl (?).  We were awesome if I do say so myself.  We won the CO-ED tournament with our team of only girls.  It was so much fun!
Koe and Jarred came up for the last part of the week and the kids played all day long in the jungle.  They picked berries, created a fortress, cut down trees.  They lived it up.
We had a great campfire circle - though shortened by the rain.  The rain continued with tons of lightening and thunder all night long.  It was so incredible.
 
The weekend was capped off with the best St. Johns parade I've ever been to.  The theme was "Pioneers and Patriots"  The commentators were so funny and kinda politically incorrect.  There were some good floats, but the 2 that got to me were one right after another.  1 - The statue of Joe McCarthy (from SJ) came through the parade.  He was photographed in Iraq giving candy to a child.  That picture soon became famous and now, years after he was killed in combat, a statue was made depicting the picture.  The statue was coming to rest in St. Johns.  2.  The next float was a trailer of flags, simple yet so profound.  Each of the 88 flags on it represented fallen servicemen and women from Apache County since 1900.  Though I'm not from St. Johns, I was so proud of that little patriotic town.    The parade ended in usual fashion with the fire truck soaking all the kids - a tradition lost on most communities now.

The soaked kiddos with their bags of loot- Oliver, Jake, Annie, Simon, Hannah, Abby

Pictures of Bugsy, Gee, Claire

My baby is growing way too fast.  We're all relishing her.  She can now roll over, though I thought she never would because she is never put down.  She is a chatterbox.  Her favorite word was gee (like geese, not gee whiz).  So Abby thought we should change her name to GeeGee.  Well as soon as we started calling her GeeGee, she stopped saying that and now just babbles away non-stop sometimes.  

We still call her Bugsy - like the hamster on Bedtime Stories.  "Those eyes would be big on a cow!" - Skeeter Bronson (Adam Sandler)  

Anyway, I love her guts and here are some pictures from the past few months of my sweet, sweet Claire...

 Hannah with Claire

Hannah and Claire again, in St. Johns

 Cyndi and Claire in St. Johns

big grins 

Meet Bugsy, our newest child.  She's got "bowling balls for eyes"

I love, love, love her 

Claire with her Daddy after his jog.  Nobody else will get near him after he jogs 'cause he's so sweaty 

Hannah again.  She loves her little sister

Jake cuddled Claire to sleep while watching a ball game.  He is the best big brother a baby could get.  He and Hannah fight to hold her the most.

All smiles after church.  

Then she got hungry and decided to eat the newspaper.  Claire is a very oral baby - everything has always gone into her mouth.  Today it was her fist, Hannah's chip, Jake's nose, my church blouse (that word is for you Mom) the newspaper, and rice cereal.

Abby the Missionary

My kids impress me a lot sometimes. I learn a lot from them.
Abby connected right away when we moved here with a girl in her class, Faith.  She invited Faith to her baptism and Faith came.  They have played together every week and get a long pretty well.  Today, Abby went to Faith's house and they did a lemonade stand.  When I went to pick her up, her mom told me that Abby made $6.25.  Then she told me that Abby told her that she first needs to pay her tithing before she can do anything else with her money.  When I asked Abby about it later, she didn't think of it as a very big deal.  She told me, "Faith asked me what my tithing jar was on my shelf once so I told her about tithing,"
She may not think it's a very big deal, but I for one do.  And I'm pretty sure the Lord does too.  Way to go Peanut!