Liberty has been dancing since she was old enough to sit up, let alone walk.  Here is the first time I caught her movin to the music in her head.

Since then she has danced her way to everything, breakfast, bedtime and everything in between.  She has been waiting anxiously for the day she could take ballet when she turned four years old.  That milestone just passed, so we signed her up for ballet.  Here are some pics and video from her Ballet Camp.  This was just to give her a taste to see if we should really sign her up for lessons.  Most of these were taken through a window, so I apologize for the low quality.

She LOVED every minute. But then, that’s not a surprise.

I’ve had some funnies I’ve been saving up from the kids and I now have enough to share these gems with you!

Levi was thrilled this week to to read his first Dr. Seuss book all by himself.  So the other night when I went in to check on the boys after they’d been put to bed, I found him reading this book, in the dark, with these night glasses.

He was reading it out loud to Cade!  I couldn’t really be mad because he’s so excited about reading and in fact, I laughed quite hard.

On Wednesday Liberty, who is very aware of the boy/girl differences at our house because she’s the only girl besides mom, went over to the bookshelf and pulled out the church hymn book.  She sat down on the floor, opened it up and said, “Mom, is this a ‘she’ book?”  I had no idea what she was asking so I said, “What?” And she asked again, “Is this a ‘she’ book?”  In exasperation I said, “No, it’s a HYMN book!”  And the second I said it out loud, I realized what she meant and busted up laughing.  A HIM book!!! 

A few weeks ago, the kids came home from a birthday party with live goldfish in a jar.  I was a bit bugged that I now had to try and keep these fish alive.  The next day, when Cade found his fish belly up in the jar he said perplexedly, “I don’t know why my fish died.  It didn’t eat anything!”  He meant of course, it hadn’t eaten anything bad, but it was still pretty funny.

I can’t remember if I shared this one or not, so forgive me if I have.  Levi has been losing his first teeth lately and the other day I overheard him telling his brothers about the $14.00 pack of Pokémon cards he was planning on buying.  I asked him how he planned to pay for something so expensive.  Looking at me like I was a little slow he said, “Mom, I have teeth!”

This last week Alli and I took the kids to Denny’s where kids eat free on Tuesdays.  After helping all the kids figure out what they were going to order, I finally took a look at the menu to decide what I wanted.  The waitress came up right then and asked if we were ready to order so I told her we needed a little more time.  As she walked away Liberty, who was hungry and impatient for her food, called after her, “But I don’t need any more time!”

And one last one I just heard last night from our neighbor.  Liberty was wandering the cul-de-sac talking to all our neighbors as she always does.  She was dressed in her princess dress this particular day.  When our neighbor Tom asked her if she was going to be Miss Idaho someday she said, “No.  I do not want to be a state.”

I realize these might not be as funny second hand, but we sure love remembering them after the fact.

To celebrate our 13th wedding anniversary (which isn’t technically until this Saturday, the 26th) Rock and I went to McCall, ID for a few days last week.  It was wonderful to get away. McCall is beautiful. 

On Monday we slept in nice and late and then went to the Pancake House for breakfast. 

The food was so delicious and the atmosphere so fun that we ate there for breakfast both days!  We ate outside on the flower covered, wrap around porch.

After breakfast we rented a canoe to take on the Payette River at the north end of Payette Lake.  It was peaceful and serene and wonderful not to have to answer any questions or stop any fighting. 

That night we ate dinner at the Shore Lodge, a fancy ski lodge that we’ll stay at when we are rich and famous.  The professional pictures are better than mine, so I’ll use those.

The restaurant had the most amazing view of the lake!

(Note, there was no snow on the mountains last weekend.  lol)

The day ended with a beautiful sunset. 

On day two we drove up to the Brundage Ski Area and explored the surrounding area. 

This one is worth a click to enlarge.

Brundage Reservoir

Beautiful, relaxing, awesome getaway!  Thanks for watching the kiddos, Grandma and Sarin!

We had my parents and siblings over for the 4th of July this year and had a great day.

Liberty

Liberty was fascinated by Alli’s star earrings. 

Shucking corn

Hangin with Sarin

We got them all to sit still for a split second.  Ok, not Levi, but close enough.  They made their own shirts this year!  Thanks for the cute idea, Penny!

Watching Fireworks

If you’re wondering what Liberty is wearing on her ears, look here: Ear plugs the Monster Jam way  She looks ridiculous, but they allowed her to actually be outside this year to watch.

Setting off Fireworks

God Bless America!

For those of you who don’t have a pink addict living at your house, you might not know about the children’s books called Pinkalicious about a little girl who is, yes, addicted to pink.  Liberty turned four last week so here are some pictures from the big day and some funny ones I’ve been collecting for a while. 

First, the Birthday Party

We’ve lived in our house for a year now and we are just finally settling on what rooms the kids will be in, so now I can finally do something to Liberty’s room.   For her birthday we graduated her to a twin bed and painted one wall pink.  We won’t talk about how many shades of pink it took before I got it right.  Ok, just two.  Luckily one wall does not take much to repaint.  The room is not done yet; still needs a comforter and some curtains among other things, but it’s a start. 

Her favorite gifts were this ballet outfit from her Hymas grandparents (for her ballet camp coming up next week) and this ribbon wand from her Wesel grandparents. 

Now on to the collection of pics I take every now and then.

She wears this dress every other Sunday.  It would be every week if I didn’t require her to wear a different color/dress in between.

Nope.  This is not Cade’s shoe basket.

Fashion show host:  “Liberty is wearing a pink dress by Hand Me Down, with a Mama’s Sweater designed by Great Grandma Norma Wesel.  Her hair is in the Messy Modern Bun Come Undone Look.” 

On top of the world.  At least at Target.

My cousin Katelyn got married last week and Liberty couldn’t wait for the reception when she could see Katelyn in her beautiful dress.  “Is she going to dance, Mom?” 

Katelyn looked amazing!!

My mom and I took Libby shopping to the mall, which apparently I’ve never done with her before.  She squealed with delight at every mannequin she saw.  She was fascinated by these fake people everywhere and it was quite the adventure for her.   Better than the zoo! 

A few weeks ago she was getting a little talkative in church so I gave her a warning by saying, “Do you need to go out in the hall?” To which she responded, “Yeah, it’s getting boring in here.”

 
We love our little pink addict. 

I decided it’s way past time to update my blog look, so while I try and figure out what I like and how to make it look cool, bear with me.  🙂  It might look different every time you visit!

We ordered caterpillars this month to watch them turn into butterflies!  Even though we’ve done this before it was still exciting to see. 

Once they create their chrysalises we transfer them to this:

Four out of five caterpillars made it to butterfly this year, but one was a little mangled.  His wing never fully opened.  He couldn’t fly too well and so he hung around on the kids, which they of course loved.

When we let all of ours go, we went to see the ones at the zoo butterfly house.

Waiting for one to leap onto his finger.

It leaped onto his back instead!

Such amazing little creatures!  Thank you, Heavenly Father for giving us this wonderful creation to enjoy.

Cade is back in baseball this year and loving it. 

I have to admit I love it too.  No rainy, muddy fields like in Jersey or Washington.  Just blue skies.  It’s great!

Reagan has been doing a lot of baking lately.  He has help sometimes.

He picked the cherries for this pie from our very own cherry tree!  He pitted the cherries and made the crust from scratch.

A few days later he made Rock’s Father’s Day apple pie from scratch too. 

And I made my first batch of freezer jam! 

My children now call me blessed.  Who knew Winco jam was that bad. Picky picky people.

We planted a garden this year!  We started small, just strawberries and tomatoes, but it’s something.  
 

The odds have not been in our favor, though.  The birds have been eating our strawberries (we haven’t gotten to eat a single one!) and Levi was trying to help one day and weeded one of our tomato plants.  He was devastated when he realized what he’d done.  It was so sad and funny at the same time.  But at least everything is growing! 

See the green balls!

So are the birds going to eat my tomatoes too????

I realize that with four kids I should be grateful I’m not in the doctor’s off ice all the time.  Admittedly, Levi has tried hard to make sure I don’t miss out on that part of motherhood, but for the most part the apples I buy seem to do the trick for my other kids.  But this week they really tried to help me catch up on all those doctor visits they’ve been missing out on. 

On Monday Reagan jammed his finger catching a soccer ball.  When it was black and blue and rigid Tuesday morning, I took him to the doctor to see if it was broken.  They didn’t know, so they sent us for X-rays at the hospital.  Later that night while waiting to hear back from the hospital, Liberty ran out into the street in front of a boy on his bike, got totally run over, and fell and hit her head.  For the next hour she was totally disoriented.  She couldn’t remember what happened.  She kept crying and asking us over and over again what had happened.  We looked up concussion symptoms and she had none except for the disorientation, so we didn’t take her in at that point.  I’m not one to rush to the doctor as soon as my kids get hurt or show signs of sickness and now that we have a $40.00 copay, I am even less likely to do so.  She had a good bump on her head and some scratches and bruises, but that was all externally.  When we tried to feed her some bread she kept asking what it was there for.  At one point I asked her who Sleeping Beauty and My Little Pony were and she couldn’t tell me!!   After an hour of this we finally decided to distract her a bit with some TV and she seemed to calm down and went to bed mostly herself.  I will say that I checked on her about four times that night worried that maybe I should have taken her in and maybe she’d die of a blood clot in her brain.  But she slept fine and woke up her usual self-except that she still couldn’t remember what happened.  (She still doesn’t, actually.)

The next morning when the doctor called to tell us Reagan’s finger was not broken, I asked them about Libby and they politely told me that I should definitely bring her in to be looked at and that I should have brought her in right after it happened because it was a head injury.  Nothing like the doctor’s office to make you feel guilty.  So we took another forty dollar trip to the doctor (two days in a row) for him to look at her and tell me she had a mild concussion and that I should make sure to keep my three year old from doing anything where she might hit her head again.  (Don’t you love it when doctors say that? It’s all I can do not to laugh in their face.)

You think I’m done.  But I’m not.  That weekend while I was out of town, Reagan stubbed his toe and took a big chunk out of it.  Had I been there this time, we would have gone to the doctor for sure, forty dollars or not.  But he and Rock opted to band aid it.  I didn’t even hear about it until two days later when Reagan showed me the horror show that was his foot after two solid days sealed in a band aid.  So, Monday morning, we went BACK into the doctor’s office for the third time in less than a week.  This was also the third time I was bringing a child in AFTER the fact and I’m sure they are ready to call CPS on me.  Sure enough he did need stitches but it was too late by then, and his foot was slightly infected.  Doctor’s orders:  antibiotics and no swimming lessons for three days (the first three days of his class, no less). 

Not to be out done by his siblings and because I’m sure deep down he was really missing the doctor’s office, Levi fell down on his scooter and got three good bloody scrapes on his knee.  We put some band aids on and not two hours later he was back in with another bloody scrape on the same knee right next to the band aids for the first three wounds. 

Count em.  1,2, 3, 4! 

I think there was definitely something wrong with our apples this week.  They sure didn’t do their job. 

Sorry I’m almost a month late on this.  It’s mostly pictures, but they are too cool not to post.

This is the “Field of Honor” near our home.  People all over Boise can put up a flag to honor a war hero in their family.  It was really cool to read their names and the wars they fought in.  Perfect thing to do with small children on Memorial day.  Twenty minutes in and out! 

Wesel boys at the BBQ