Our wild and crazy Lucy

Lucy has finally chosen walking as her main method of getting around!

We think that her style of walking reminds us of Steve Martin in the old Saturday Night Live skit "Wild and crazy guys."

We just had to take a video last Saturday morning, she is too cute.

I am a little embarassed that my hair and makeup seems to never be done in the pictures of me on this blog, but I have to keep reminding myself that is isn't about me or my looks it is about my awesome kids and husband and our experiences together. So, now that I have called attention to it--please don't look ;)

Our household super-hero

I don't know how popular the movie Mystery Men really is, but in our house it is a much quoted movie. Why? First of all our taste in movies is a bit dorky. Second, it has a little known super hero in it called The Shoveler. He uses his shovel to fight crime. John likes to quote the movie-- "Lucille, God gave me a gift. I shovel well. I shovel very well." I often compare John to superheros, because he has so much energy when it comes to projects that it is almost super human. I have tried to put my finger on which super hero I should compare him to, and it changes according to the project. Right now John is the shoveler. The project in progress now is our sprinkler system. In a neighborhood where most people hire out the landscaping it seems strange to see someone working hard everyday, and sometimes into the night on their own yard. John decided to do this himself because he loves to get out and work hard, and he also likes to save money. Two things that I love him for.

He has installed the system in our front yard and almost all of the west side and back yards. It is a race against time because the water is turned off for the winter in the middle of October, and we at least want to get the front side and back yards seeded. Our east side yard and park strips will probably have to wait until next spring. We also were able to get half of our curbing put in, we were very excited about that. We will do the rest when we get the rest of the sprinklers in.

Jumping beans and Rock candy

John just returned home from a three day trip to southern Arizona, he is always so good about bringing souveniers home for the kids--even on the little trips. This time he brought home rock candy and Jumping beans. The gifts were awsome and we were all glad to have him home again.

Safety week

This week the school had green ribbon week--for safety. They really did a great job at making it fun by having lots of fun activities for the kids. Thursday was silly hat or hair day, here are Hannah's and Johnny's homemade creations. In fact we cranked these out on Thursday morning before school. That afternoon Johnny came home blowing a green whistle. Everyone was supposed to get one, but Hannah said that they were all gone by the time she came around. She was a little sad about that. Johnny tried to make her feel better by saying that he would watch over her and blow his whistle if a stranger ever tried to get her, so sweet! When I asked what they had learned this week about safety, Johnny said that if a stranger ever tried to get him he would punch all of his teeth out. Then he would gather them all up and save them so that he could get money from the toothfairy.

An evening with Lucy

Last night Aunt Vera decided to have a cousins sleepover party. Since Lucy is still so young we kept her with us. It was so cute to see how pleased she acted about getting so much undivided attention from mom and dad. We discovered a few things about Lucy while the others were away.
1. Even with being so young, she is just as talented at making messes as any of our other children.
2. She talks just as much as any of our other children, we just can't understand her yet.
3. She absolutely loves attention, from anybody, when siblings aren't around that attention must come from mom and dad.

This time together helped us rediscover how incredibly cute this little girl is, and how much we love her. Here she is helping her dad with his Labor Day project--putting the newly stained porches back in place. I still have a bit of touching up to do because after assembling the porches we discovered that the top step was missing. We salvaged the broken step and John made it almost as good as new.

By the way, Hannah, Johnny and Maddie had a great time!

This was TERRIFYING, but I did it!

John and I have been talking about how we have been doing so much work lately and not having enough fun. John is very good about combining the two, but I had a hard time with this until yesterday. Maybe I wouldn't go straight to "fun" but it was the same terrifying feeling that I got last month when we went to Cherry Hill on a date and climbed the rock wall. I am not sure that I picked the right color of stain for the project, but I think that it does make the house look better cared for.

And in the end, I was very proud of my self, so I gave myself a big ol' sticky brown pat on the back.

Partners is crime

I am on a roll right now with my blog posts. I love that Maddie and Lucy have both taken naps for the past two days, and I have had a little me time before I buckle down to do chores. This is what happens when you have a very tall stool by the sink in your bathroom, and you spend your morning focusing on getting your older children ready for school. In a moment of quiet I realized that Maddie and Lucy were nowhere to be found.

Where were they? Getting ready of course! Maddie was prepping Lucy's hair to be done by dumping toothpaste lids of water on her hair, and Lucy was brushing her teeth. By pure luck she is actually using her own toothbrush. I love that she is wearing a princess shoe on her left hand.

Luckily nobody consumed any toothpaste, or fell off of the stool. Got to love those silly girls!

on one September morning...

I really should be cleaning my kitchen right now, but after cleaning 5 cups of birdseed out of Hannah's carpet, I need a little rest. Anyone want some birds? I just had to share a few bits and peices from our morning

Out of the blue this morning, Hannah blurted out--"what if Barney didn't have any arms?" then she started singing: "I love you, you love me, I wish I could hug you but I don't have any arms." I just had to laugh, it was so random.

I love the days where everybody wakes up happy and healthy, and this was one of those days. For a few minutes I was in heaven and completely in love with my children. Not that I ever don't love them--but there are moments were things can get a bit crazy. My heart did a little backflip this morning as I watched Hannah and Johnny walk to their bus stop, they are so cute!