A Time to Treasure

Gloria 2 months

(Just to prove she's not always happy. She's not. Trust me!)

Bubble girl always has foam at the mouth! :)

We love you to pieces, little Glow-Bug!!

The Ultimate Superhero

How many people get to have a Superman/Spiderman combo living in their house, ready to save the world? I am a blessed lady.

Check out those biceps. :)

Peek-a-boo, Micah! I know it's you in there!

Chronicles of a Loose Tooth

Last week Ellie started looking a bit hill-billy-ish. That tooth just didn't want to say good-bye!

So we decided it was time to help it out. Literally.

Rob took Ellie downstairs to the bathroom to try and "tie" the tooth out with floss. This didn't hurt but Ellie was a bit nervous and was making some interesting noises that made the boys go 'oh-oh'...

.... and of course when they realized the camera was out, they continued their mock-shock at the torture in our basement.

This is seriously one brave kid.

The floss actually didn't work, and Rob ended up yanking it.

It was totally worth it:

To a six year old, losing a tooth is kind of like...graduating. Or getting married. It's a very. Big. Deal.

And of course, we celebrated with ice cream. Is there any other way?

Little Posers

T'was a Sunday morning and we were all ready EARLY for church (*gasp!*) and there

was peace in the house (*gasp again!*) ....

...when the kids started posing...

...and didn't stop.

(oooh I just love this smile!)

They must have caught on to how wonderfully cute I think God created them. :)

Summer (pre-Gloria)

I just realized I had better hustle my bustle if I'm going to keep up with all the photos around here. I just discovered a bunch of photos from just before Gloria's birth that I don't want to get lost in the abyss of photos on my external hard drive. So please bear with my 64-photo blog post, filled with memories that will otherwise be lost in the deep recesses of my baby brain. :)

Gettin' a garden = gettin' muddy.

We call these things 'ponna ponna poofs' at our house (long story). Micah hadn't quite mastered the art of blowing the seeds off.

He's excellent at spitting, however.

Yummy. :)

Slinky boy saved up enough allowance for yet another slinky that would last all of 3 days. (I'm secretly loving Joshy's obsession with all things stretchy. :)

Summer in the city!
We stuck to our tradition of only doing things that were free or extremely cheap. We save our money for our annual trip to Tinker Town. One nauseating day per summer is enough for us.

That would be Josh's 'I'm going to squish-hug the life out of you' face.

That smile is worth the $2, 1 minute ride.

Josh won. Rob lost. HEHE!

Third-born Micah doesn't get out much, and goes into silent observation mode in new settings.

A puppy!

Our friend Amanda is a wonderful artist!

Waiting...

Hmm...Josh chose to be a blue dog. Who would have ever guessed?

And Ellie chose to bless Josh by becoming his pink dog friend.

Waiting for our tractor-train ride to start.

Rob got impatient.

Mini-donuts make everything better. :)

These kids rock the bouncy castles.

Rob and I could feel heat-stroke coming on (particularly me - 9 months prego!) so we bribed the kids back to the van early by buying them each their very own bottles of sugar. :)

Father's Day at 'The Zoo'.

We got rained out.

It was a fun picnic however. And then we spent the rest of the evening in a McDonald's playground. :)

Here's a good chunk of the kids and their cousins...including a few friends who have become family.

Apparently I took a lot of pictures of Micah this day.

He likes to use the freedom of picnics as opportunities to gorge himself on chips.

...so do all the kids.

At the Lake

My parents have started renting a cabin for one week in June each year, and we join up with them for a night or two. The highlights are daily ice cream parties and long hours spent at the beach.