Our new babysitter

Our family has a new babysitter.  He's really wonderful.  He knows my routine.  He's quite dependable and pretty cheap.  It's Big Brother J!

I had a sitter cancel on me and I had a doctor's appointment.  The husband was home, so I thought we would try him out.  I gave him explicit instructions.  He did great!  

I told him he had to pay attention to her the whole time.  He decided to program his Lego Mindstorms robot to talk to K.  He even uploaded her picture to the robot.

He is not your average babysitter.  K loved it!  He programmed his voice into the robot to say "Hello baby girl!" when she hits a button.  I never had a sitter program a robot for me.

She just loves her biggest brother.  She's walking now and loves for him to walk her down the block.

He does everything except change diapers.  He has no interest and looks at me like I am crazy when I bring it up.  Oh well!  I will just have to settle for the robot programming babysitter.

He's asking when I am going to hire him again.

4th of July 2013

We went to Fredericksburg for their 4th of July parade.  The weather was lovely for Texas.  

Here's the girl and I  in our hats.  I have to apologize to everyone at the parade.  We did not know that our daughter had contracted the highly contagious hand foot mouth disease so we were toting her all over the Hill Country.  Sorry for spreading germs.

We met up with some friends at the parade.  My friend helped me diagnosis our ailment.  That was a new one to me.

It was a great parade with all sorts of country charm.

The Pacific War Museum had a group of men in uniform in the parade.

What's a parade without a double decker tour bus.  I think every small town fire department was there with their sirens and lights a-blarin!

We had a great time and weren't melted when the parade was over.  Later in the evening, the boys all headed out to the fireworks.  This is the first year that we didn't use ear plugs to help the tender ears cope with the fireworks noise. The girl and I skipped the show as we had an early flight the next morning.

E's 10th birthday

After our last blog post, we drove to my sister's for my oldest nephew's birthday.  

Here's my sister and baby K.  The skin tones is a big difference between myself and my sister.

E, D, and J all posing before church.  I can't believe how big they have gotten.

Nana and Grandave were there with their dogs.  Baby K really enjoys Toby.  Thankfully, he is quite the trooper and lets her pet him.

Cousin A and S like to play animals and horses together.  W was there, but somehow managed to avoid the camera.  

Nana and her 2 granddaughters.

Cousin A made a playmat for baby K with toys for her.  It was so sweet.  Baby K seemed to enjoy the attention.  

We had lots of fun celebrating cousin E's birthday.  Just for my memory:  E had received a large gift for his birthday so his parents toned down the birthday celebrating.  It was a small party at his home with family.  I think it was a great party.  Apparently, he was a little disappointed.  

One evening, he was sad for some unknown reason.  My helpful son says, "Are you sad, because your parents didn't give you a REAL birthday party?"

We had a good laugh over that one.

A little girl update

As much trouble as she gave us eating baby food, she has turned into a champion eater and drinker.  Except vegetables.  She still despises all vegetables except cucumbers.  

Blueberries, bananas, pancakes, spaghetti, grilled cheese, sausage, scrambled eggs are a few of her favorites.  She drinks milk like it's going out of style.

She is very mobile now.  She has taken 2 steps on her own one time.  She prefers to cruise every where holding on to the wall or a chair.  She will be walking soon.

Here she is playing peek-a-boo with the sliding glass door.  Isn't she adorable?

Daddy spent a whole weekend installing this new sliding glass door into the playroom.  (The old one stopped sliding.)  She was with him every step of the way.  

She loved that the doorway was open for the better part of a weekend, so she had free access to the playroom.  She actually did quite well in there.  She doesn't try to put the legos in her mouth.  However, she continually tries to demolish the Batcave to the disappointment of her brothers.  

Lego camp

So what do boys who are crazy about legos do in the summer?  Attend Lego Camp, of course.

A lego robotics camp started this year in our town.  The boys were so excited to go.  We invited cousin E to join us.  They are having a blast.

They are using some of the Lego education kits to build battling robots.  From what I gather from the boys,  the teachers give them assigned robots to build and then they compete.  Then they are allowed to do some creative modifications and compete again.

Each day they form new teams and compete against each other.  They earn points for speed.  E's robot won for speed today.  They earn points for knocking other team out of the ring.  

J, W, and another boy were on Team Lego.  This was one of their robots.

E was on another team with another boy.  

Then they put all the robots in the ring and let them battle it out.  There was a 4 way tie for this round.  Many robots lost parts, but they kept fighting until the end. 

They have all asked for this kit for their respective birthdays.  They all come out talking/shouting trying to tell me about all their experiences.  Lego robotics camp has been a hit!

Some Father's Day

Here's daddy and all his little children on Father's Day!  (I am not sure why the pictures are so hazy.)

We had a wonderful day/weekend just hanging out with dad.  We went swimming with daddy on Sunday afternoon which doesn't happen too often.

We gave daddy his new lawn mower.  Our old mower has is 14 years old, has mowed lawns in 3 states and 4 different houses.  It still runs, but it was taking a lot of repairing and coaxing every year to get it started.  Plus, it was not self propelled and we have some hills in our yard.

It was time for an upgrade.  Daddy said he really liked it.  Plus it will make it easier for the boys to mow! :)

We are blessed to have such a wonderful man as a father in our family!  He spends countless hours with the boys and the little girl.  Thank you God for our Daddy!

Funny sayings from S

This boy has lots of funny sayings that keep up laughing.  He looked at me one day and asked, "Why do none of the houses in Texas have stairs?"  I kept asking what he meant.

Then I realized that we recently returned from Ohio Grammie's house which has stairs.  Then we visited New Mexico Nana and Grandave's house and cabin which both have stairs.  Alas, our house in Texas does not have stairs.  

In his 5 year old brain, that translated to all houses in Texas do not have stairs. 

He was invited to a little girl's birthday party from church.  I asked him if he wanted to come with me to the store to buy her a present.  He replies, "Just get her a Barbie.  ALL GIRLS LOVE BARBIES!" (his emphasis)  Then he looks at me as if I should already know that answer to that question.  

He is really excited for Kindergarten.  He is going to attend the same Christian school that W attended for Kinder.  He asks every week if it's time to start yet.  

He is constantly hungry.  He ate 3 chicken legs with sides for dinner last night.  One hour after dinner is over, he is saying how hungry he is.  

I have decided that they should teach a "Suturing for Moms" class.  Twice, I have had to consult our friend who is a doctor to help patch this kid together as he inevitably gets hurt on a weekend or after 5pm.  My first aid skills are getting quite good.

He keeps us busy!