October 2014, still blogging!

I'm officially a year behind in updating my blog on our family activities. Sigh. With instagram and facebook, is a blog a bit redundant? Maybe. However I like the archive aspects of it and making a family book out of it at some point as a family record. So I'm going to keep plugging away at it for now. But moving, working, homeschooling and having babies really makes the blog a low priority. I should be doing something else right now in fact. Anyway... on to October 2014.

First lost tooth!

We had a first lost tooth for Princess and many school projects of course. Dinoguy went to a merit badge fair for scouting and earned First Aid.

Building graham cracker houses for a school project.

Checking the family first aid kit

Mentos coke experiment for school project

He can make his own sandwich!

Newly 4

Brothers!

Happy dancing baby

 October is still sports season and we had two sets of soccer games each Saturday to attend. Trainboy and Princess loved playing soccer and had a lot of fun. Dinoguy chose to do wrestling this year and so only had practices in October. It was nice to not have meets yet for him honestly.

Princess is in Orange on the far left

Watching his little sister play

One of my favorite pictures of him all year

As part of soccer, Trainboy, Dinoguy and I attended a women's soccer game at A&M. Trainboy helped escort the players on the field at the start of the game, earning us free tickets. The boys enjoyed seeing the game, it was fun to watch people who know what they are doing play the game. However during the game I realized both boys needed updated glasses prescriptions as neither could see the scoreboard.

My little guy had his 4th birthday. He is growing up way too fast and I don't think I'm cherishing it enough. He's pretty wonderful. It is hard not to compare him to his older brothers though. He has a similar temperament to my second boy which is endearing most of the time. He spends a lot of time asking if he's big enough for things the older boys do though. Since he has older siblings his childhood is very different from theirs. I am a different mom too. I'd like to say its all improvements because I'm more patient and loving but I also believe I probably don't spend quite as much time with him as I did them at this age. We do preschool activities and play games but I have so much else going on...well he plays well independently and with his sister at least. I find comfort in the fact that kids left to their own play are doing important work and developing creativity.

Breakfast in bed

Great candid photo of him!

Cupcakes on his birthday

His official birthday cake two weeks later

My oldest boy turned 12. His birthday was on trunk or treat day so we did cupcakes on his birthday and a cake two weeks later after we all came out of our sugar comas. This birthday was equal parts exciting and terrifying to me. He gets to go to youth group at church now instead of children's classes! He gets to go on more camp-outs and do more with the scouting program! He is getting so old though! He is growing nicely overall and I am really lucky to have him around, he is a huge help to me in so many ways. How do you have lots of kids? You have older kids to help with younger kids, that's how.

Every kid got to paint a pumpkin this year.

Two kids to a pumpkin this year. They were still happy!

Traditional pumpkin face and Lord Business from Lego movie.

Halloween was a lot of fun this year. We did our first (and probably only year ever) themed family costumes from Despicable Me 2. Fixitman was on board because it meant shaving his head to be Gru. I was Lucy, and we had two good little yellow minions and one awesome little purple minion. The older two boys chose literature themed costumes that I didn't really know much about, but made them happier than being minions! Dinoguy was a dark elf named Drizzt and Trainboy was Cadderly from the Cleric quintet. We went to a costume contest at Fixtman's work and won 2nd prize. Fixitman took the older 4 trick or treating for a little bit and they collected plenty of candy, in addition to all they received at the trunk or treat at church.

A co-worker was Dr. Nefario being carried by a minion. Natural grouping!

Minion family!

August 2014

My sisters, my daughter and me

August should be more than one post! But being more than 6 months behind, its just going to be one long post.

Trainboy is standing behind the block waiting for the previous event to end.

The first of August found Trainboy participating in the State Swim meet which was held in our city. He had qualified at regionals and enjoyed the experience. We also played in our yard; the kids quickly learned to climb the tree.

He loved his fire sunglasses!

For most of August, The kids and I took a long three week trip. The goal was mainly to remove ourselves from distracting Fixitman from working on his dissertation. Unfortunately he didn't really get anything major done while we were gone. We had a great time on the trip anyway!

This is her lego version of a bewilderbeast from How to Train your dragon 2.

First we went to visit my dear friend in Oklahoma who it has been far too long since we had a good visit. She has 4 kids and so if we were sane we probably would have just stuck to visiting the park. But why be reasonable when you can have fun? We went and visited several fun places in Oklahoma including a botanical garden with a splash park, a military museum, a wild west ranch, and a big park that would have a beach but the drought had caused the lake to shrink up. Two women and nine kids! I'm sure we turned some heads. Oh it was so much fun.

She introduced me to Zumba, we had a blast

Splash pad that is art. It was beautiful and fun! Baby isn't sure about the water flower.

Helping his brother to stand and escape the mist.

Cheese, now can I go play?

It had a cycle including rain, heavy rain, mist, water flowers and fountains.

In the children's botanical garden tunnel, all 9 kids!

At the military museum. Very cool.

Friends!

A game of favorite vehicle outside the museum

On a tower at the wild west house

Seeing herds of buffalo

9 kids and I after an old house tour. My friend took the photo.

An old merry go round you power with your feet. Reminded me of my great grandpa's happy go round.

  The next part of the journey was to make it to Atlanta. Normally I drive straight thru to Atlanta but I decided to break the journey into two pieces and it was a good idea. I hate driving two days in a row but Princess threw up on the first day making it a long slow drive and I was exhausted by the time we made it to Memphis. I wish we had time to visit some of the sites there but we just crashed in a hotel and continued our trip the next day!

Crawling break at a rest area!

This tree heart wants you to remember its all about love

Kids running around at a rest area

game of red light, green Light

In Atlanta we visited lots of family. I have lots of extended family in the Atlanta area. My sister recently moved to the city to attend Physical Therapy school so she showed us Emory campus. I had wanted to visit some of the cool Atlanta  museums but then I looked at prices. Not this trip! We did go hike Stone Mountain though, tradition!

Meeting Dooley at Emory.

Part of a huge awesome medical history mosaic wall

On the way up the mountain!

There are creatures in these pools on top of the mountain that don't exist anywhere else.

Tired from the hike. Nap with Auntie

Two beautiful flowers

We drove to South Carolina and started a week of wearing my mom out. I had a plan! We went to the beach three times, we went birding, we went to the battleships. We visited my grandma and we went to a plantation! It was fun to do touristy things and it was also fun to spend time at the beach. I love the Charleston area beaches. They are generally well maintained and the beach dunes are preserved enough to have beautiful nature as well. There were additional things I had planned that didn't happen but being flexible with a plan is important right?

Beach selfie with mom!

These two were instant friends.

Mom what is this taste?

We had a great visit to a plantation with my bro-in-law as tour guide. Free roaming sheep!

Kids loved seeing cebu. Thanks to a Veggietales song.

SO ROMANTIC! Loved this bench in this picturesque location

Tired gramma

Birdwatching in the morning!

Beach fun in the afternoon!

I asked him to pose for a picture since I almost never get one of him at the beach. He squeezed his brother.

My mom snapped this photo, it shows how Baby travelled. He didn't usually look worried like he does here though!

Everyone wanted to fly the plane!

Pretending to be captain of the ship was a great game

I had no idea how cramped submarines were!

More beach fun!

Aww, my sweet nephew!

Without his hat, his head is very white and reflective!

Helpful LittleGuy walks Baby around the beach

Baby nap time at the beach

Sisters!

Driving around the yard, they are adorable. Scared for when the truck is real though!

Family swim party!

Mommy help me! Helpful cousins keep bouncing me!

Trying to get all three littles was not a success

Cousin babies!

I think he's tired of pictures now

My sister and her sweet boy

Handsome!

Love this pose in her new dress

Uncle's tie matches my shirt!

Seven grandkids for my parents so far!

1000 miles to go to home!

It was a wonderful trip!When we returned, it was almost time for the school year to begin. We went to an opening social for Fixitman's department and the kids got the opportunity to ride some gentle horses. Then being helpful, Dinoguy locked the sliding doors on the van not knowing that BOTH sets of keys were inside. So we were the very last to leave and the kids went to bed quite late after waiting over an hour for a company to come unlock our car doors out in the country. Ah, adventure!

(Somehow I didn't get a picture of Trainboy on a horse, oops!)