The Final Countdown

I thought Rachel's expression in this picture was just precious!







Kirstie is spending the night tonight - Grandma and Grandpa get here tomorrow - Daddy comes home on Saturday - the end is in sight!

Lost Tooth!

So about a week ago the girls were playing in the bathtub and Eliya starts crying saying that her tooth hurts. I figured she bumped it or something and didn't think too much about it. An hour later she is still crying because her tooth hurts, she shows me and sure enough her bottom tooth is loose. So I'm asking her what happened in the bathtub and the story comes out that she bit a washcloth that Gabie than pulled on and it 'hurt my tooth'. Hmmm....

I about freaked out and told her not to touch it, to swish with milk and be very careful not to bump it - after all, she just turned 4 and probably wouldn't be getting her permanent tooth in for a couple more years. 2 days later it was still loose, so I took her to the dentist to have them check it and they said that her permanent tooth was right there pushing it out. I couldn't believe it! I have never heard of kids loosing teeth this early, but the dentist reassured me that although early, still normal, and that the only way for it to really get loose with a washcloth tug was for it to already be a little loose, and that the bathtub incident was not the cause - whew! So we went ahead and let her wiggle it and with each passing day the permanent tooth pushed a little higher up. Well, today was the big day - it came out! She was so excited - and insisted I post it right away so she could show everybody. :0)

The good, the cute, the gross and the keys

I suppose our most 'newsie' news is that we have now survived 3 whole days without Mark/daddy. Only 6 more to go! We have been counting down the days....the girls really miss him at night and first thing in the morning - can't imagine why when that's when they usually spend all their time with him.

As for what we've been keeping busy doing - Eliya is taking swimming lessons - all last week and this next week. She's doing great! I can't believe how far she's come in only a week. Gabie and Rachel and I hang out in the baby pool while she swims. Today I got a bit of a break. A friend from church took the girls while I went running and then asked if she could just keep them at her house for a couple of hours - hmmm...she really had to twist my arm on that one - ha! Monty and Lori had also invited us out to the farm for the afternoon, so after I picked the girls up we headed out there for a fun afternoon of play.


Eliya taking swimming lessons


Rachel "helped" Lori make cookies today

Now of course there are the amusing stories....
1)this was actually a few days ago, but I forgot to blog it....we can't go too long w/out a poop story! Gabie had pooped her pants and instead of just waiting till we noticed or trying to clean it up herself she decided to play with. First she used her play kitchen set and dishes and used it like food on the plates, stove, sink, you name it. When that wasn't fun anymore she pretended to take a shower with it and used it like soap/shampoo washing her whole body in it. Sigh....all in a matter of less then 10 minutes that she was alone. Words can't even describe.....

2) I got locked out of my house today....by a four year old. Unfortunately she (and her sisters) were locked out too, so there was no one on the inside to unlock the doors. I'm not sure that all of the doors even have keys to them, but the one I know does was locked inside too. Thankfully we always leave our bedroom window cracked, so I just had to bust out the screen - I'm sure if the neighbors were home they were scratching their heads wondering why the crazy pastor's wife was trying to break into her house with a screwdriver....Sigh...

Here's to the start of a new week!

Headed South

Mark, Samantha and Steven met up with Bob Hinckley's church in MN and Faith in Pierre to head south for a mission trip this morning. We had some flooding in town this morning, and I honestly thought I was going to strand the mini-van, but thankfully God took care of us and got us down to Pierre safely after getting up at 3:30am (yuck!).

5am - you be the judge...


Eliya and Gabie spent the night at the Lake's last night, so it was just me and Rachel hanging out this morning. We took a 2 hour nap when we got home and then while I was doing some stuff in the kitch she created her own drum set, and I had to grab the camera it was so cute (and loud!).

A Couple Days Worth

*note* I did finally add the lollipop video to a couple posts ago.

Rachel LOVES prayer time at our house, at least when we say either the chocolate or superman prayer - she loves the arm motions. She woke up this morning asking for a cracker - do you think we could get her to say that on the video though?


a few days ago I trimmed up Elie's hair - I hardly took any off, but it sure seemed shorter after taking off all the uneven ends.


a knight in shining armor


We usually don't let the girls sleep with us or in our room but...


this past week we have had some pretty nasty storms come through almost every night, so there has been more than one morning that we have found ourselves surrounded by kiddos that came trooping in sometime during the night.

A Day at the Beach

Andy, Amber, Neva and Olivia invited us to join them for an afternoon out at the river. We had a great time and Amber's parents have a boat that we got to ride around in too - what a fun day!


Eliya swam almost the entire time, only taking a break to take a ride on the boat.


Gabie actually got in too - she's not usually so brave.


the girls were happy to play with the twins


Andy and Mark had fun playing catch in the water


Rachel loved playing in the slate and sand


Mark had a go at water skiing - never got too far, but said he had fun trying


lounging on the beach after a swim

My butt isn't working....

Okay I know that is quite a title, but I do have an explanation. Mom and I are standing in the kitchen and Gabie just casually walks in and says quite calmly, "Mom, my butts not working." Hmmmm, no idea what that meant. We are potty training - quite successfully I might add, so I'm not sure if that's where that came from? I sometimes think that Cosby in his show "Kids Say the Darndest Things" could have just been filmed at our house ~ there's always something!

So what have we been up to? Well, Mark has been gone all week for circuit Bible camp, so that is my main excuse for not updating, although my mom is here helping out, so I'm not sure that it's a very good one. We've been trying out some new recipes, some of which are quite good. The girls all have little aprons and love to help me with anything I will let them do, although I feel that part is limited beings as I won't let them help with anything hot or sharp. Our favorites so far were homemade salsa, shrimp scampi on angel hair pasta, and pesto-pit-zas. Yum!

The other exciting news we have this week is that my college roommate, Katie, got engaged - congrats you guys, we're very happy for you!

Helping make quesadillas and salsa.



We love breakfast!



Gabie has been playing the role of big sister and picked out Rachie's jammies one night, they were just a little big...



I think I have a video of this too that I might add later - nana taught them the lollipop song and brought dum-dums to 'help' with the singing.



my mom and I were just rolling...this video is the tail-end of a 20 minute show-down of Rachel putting the towel on her head and then just laughing which would make all of us laugh which would perpetuate the cycle. It was hilarious!


Eliya thought maybe she should wear a crown instead of a towel.

Guess What We Did Today!

Monty and Lori invited the girls to go out fishing on their pond this summer. We only had one 'kid' fishing pole so we did get another pole the last time we were in Pierre. The girls have been playing and practicing all over the house for the past week and finally had a chance to try out their skills today.

First we had to hunt for worms. It's been so dry here lately that we had a hard time finding some w/out digging pretty deep. Once they grasped the concept the girls enjoyed catching them and dumping them in the bucket. My favorite picture from today is the first one where Eliya and Gabie are standing in the tall grass watching Monty dig worms (you can't see him in the picture).

Monty and Lori were very patient with the girls and helped them each to catch a couple fish. Eliya was hilarious when she caught her first fish....I'm not sure what she expected to be on the end of the line, but it wasn't a fish, she was reeling in like an old pro and when the fish popped out of the water she screamed and dropped the pole! Luckily Monty was holding the end of it, so we didn't lose her brand new princess fishing pole (wouldn't that be tradgic!). It took her awhile to get brave enough to finish the job and pose for a picture though.

Poor Rachel was stuck behind some mosquito netting in her stroller the whole time. She didn't fuss at all though, just patiently watched the proceedings and only squawked a little when we all drifted too far away from her.

I would say our first fishing adventure was a success - although poor Mark only almost caught one fish - a bass - that jumped off as soon as it was pulled out of the water. The rest of us just caught a plethora of bull heads.

Sorry for so many pics - but they were all so good it was hard to pick!

All Dressed Up with No Place to Go

The newspaper did pictures today for 'future subscribers'. The girls did awesome and looked very cute in their Easter dresses. I got some good pics after we got home.

Lazy Dayz

This week has been very lazy. This is the first time all summer that there aren't a thousand things on the calendar. And in the spirit of laziness I have barely touched the camera. It's amazing how easy it is to get out of the habit of taking pictures. Not that there weren't some cute opportunities....

On Tuesday Mark got called on a hospital visit to Pierre early evening. Gabie and Elie were playing over @ Kirstie's and since he is going to be gone for most of the rest of this month I wanted to go with him so the girls could spend a little more time with him before he leaves. So, we took Kirstie with us too, went to the park on the river and had a picnic and the girls and I stayed and played and walked on the path around the river while he went to the hospital. (but I forgot the camera!).

Wednesday we went to the park here with Amber, Neva and Olivia, and I even had the camera, but just when I started taking pictures (hence the one of Rachel) Eliya wiped out scraping up her knee but good. Luckily there were swimming lessons at the pool in the morning right now so I was able to get it cleaned up and bandaged w/out having to go home. We had popcicles @ their house before heading home which is always amusing to watch 5 little girls suck/chew/push/tip little plastic tubes of ice all over everything but in their mouths!

Which brings me to today (Thursday). It is Mark's turn to present for Rotary, and I will be his presenter, addressing the NCLB Act. For some reason in front of a group of students it doesn't occur to me to be nervous, but in front of adults.....well let's just say I'm already shaking and it's still 3 hours away! Say an extra prayer - thanks!

Swimming Swimming in a Swimming Pool

Today was our first trip to the Gettysburg public swimming pool. I know that it's kinda sad that in four years this is our first trip, but this year they had a large sum of money donated to them and they added 2 huge slides. What fun! They also have a large 'baby' pool that is the perfect depth. I think now that I'm familiar with the territory I'll be more inclined to bring the girls by myself, it was really fun. I purposely did not take the camera as it is not water proof.

Camping

Both Mark and I are camping people, but we have not been very brave since having kids. We still went camping when there was just Eliya, a few times after Gabie came along and we had yet to brave the great outdoors since Rachel joined the family. So we figured this weekend would be a perfect opportunity to try....the backyard. It's the perfect place to camp with swimming pools, swingset, campfire, grill, all within feet of our tent, and the added bonus for mom is that I didn't have to stress about all the stuff I might be forgetting! Whew! I did make a list so that when we do start to brave the camp ground terrain again I will be prepared :0) In the meantime we've been having a great time camping in the backyard, although we did pack it in for tonight as Rachel HATES the noise that the fireworks make and we figured everyone will be out late setting them off as they are legal in South Dakota, but we had a wonderful time in the great outdoors in the meantime.

Teddy Bears

The girls posed this picture themselves...I was working in the kitchen and Eliya came in and said, "mom, come here and bring your camera!" so in I came to this adorable site :0) We made each of the girls a bear @ build-a-bear as babies and had a lullaby put in - they love them!

The Finishing Touches

I got this post at the arts in the park this past weekend - it's got a solar powered lamp on the top and was just very cute. It gives the garden a little perk for it's lack of foliage this year.


This is our attempt at covering up the poles on the front steps, and 'cleaning it up' a bit. We are going to secture these to the poles and hopefully the plants will draw the eyes away from the steps. We need to glue to carpet down yet, we're just waiting for a day when the temps aren't so high (as the adhesive recommends).


We've been looking for a nice porch swing for a long time and this was a bonus in that it converts to a hammock as well - plus it matches the house. So it was Happy Anniversary to each other (a little early) ~ although notice who's enjoying it the most!