Birthday Day

Meron celebrated her 7th birthday on June 10th with a trip to Lego Land.  All the kids had been wanting to go, so the girls' birthdays were a good excuse to make it out there.  Plus, home schooling families get in for just $8 per kid on Mondays and her birthday landed on a Monday, so we were in luck!

  The two rides she wanted to do were the carousel and the "big kid cars."  She wasn't old enough to do the cars last time we went.

 

 

 The highlight for the boys....a pretty impressive lego star wars exhibit.

Then we were off to the water park.  We found out the hard way that the water park is NOT included in your $8 "field trip" admission.  But, we had waited til high noon to head over there, dressed in our swim suites and sweating our tails off, I had to cave and bought tickets to go in anyway.  It was worth it.  It was not crowded at all and was super fun.

Then we were off to Gee Gee and Paw Paw's house for dinner and cake for my newest 7 year old.  Again, I ask, "how did she get to be 7 already?"  We brought Meron home as a shy, timid and TINY three year old.  She's turned into a friendly, silly, beautiful girl.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

Great Dad

Our kids are lucky to have such a great dad.  He's fun, he's present, he's engaging and hard working, he loves his family and devotes most of his time to us.

Not many guys out there signing up to parent 7 kiddos. I'm so thankful that he is and that he has followed God's call and said yes even when it seemed crazy.

When I look at our kids, I couldn't imagine not having one of them.  What if we had stopped welcoming kids after we had the "perfect family" of one boy and one girl?  Boy would we have missed out.

                      Very thankful for our house full of children and especially thankful for their dad!

What We've Been Up To

May 14th kicks of Spring birthday season in our house.

Hermela turned 9!!! How did that happen?  My little girl is all grown up.  Nearly 3 1/2 years home and she has grown into such a beautiful girl inside and out.  She's a thoughtful, helpful, loving girl with a heart for others and a giving spirit.

Don't grow up too fast! (I'm always saying that to my kids, but they all keep growing up anyway???)

Sweet Caroline had a super sundae seventh birthday just two weeks after Hermela on May 29th.

Caroline is our feisty funny girl.  She's a girl with a plan, always knows what's going on (we call her "the reporter") and likes to lead. She's smart and friendly and loves helping out with her baby brother.

Meron's up next on June 10th.

Aside from birthday bashes, we've kept busy with baseball, softball, ballet and piano.

We've entered the summer baseball season with Colton and Rahel playing all stars and Caleb joining a wood bat league.  Last weekend was a marathon with 5 games and this weekend we have at least 6, maybe 8 games depending on how Colton's team does tomorrow.  It's a whirlwind, but we all enjoy it.

Eli has gotten good at napping at the field.

We've all gotten good at entertaining ourselves in the down time.

A little color fun at the field.  The girls have made friends with all the other  sisters on the sidelines.

A new site to see on the sidelines...the first time ever that Nick is not coaching.  I told him not to tell anyone that he knows anything about baseball at  the wood bat league :-) It's nice to have him on this side of the fence! He is coaching Colton's team, so this won't last long.

Caleb pitched for the second time ever and did awesome!  Two strike outs and threw for an out at home  all in the same inning.  Great for his confidence and so fun to watch.

Real baseball rules here with lead offs and stealing.  Caleb  holding the runner at 1st.

Little slugger swinging his air bat last weekend.  He lives and breaths baseball !

Talk about growing up too fast.  My big boy graduated from preschool last week. He's super excited to start Kindergarten and join us full time at home.  He can't wait to learn to read.

Then he went and lost not one, but two teeth this week.  One yesterday...he didn't even know he lost it.  We  think he lost it at lunch and swallowed it  Then tonight at dinner he lost another one.  Just fell out.  We are literally losing teeth about every week around here.  Someone always has a wiggly one.

Off to the ballet. Spring 2013 recital.  The girls were cats in "Sleeping Beauty"

And then my big girls gave us a show on the piano.  They just started lessons last September and have made so much progress. 

And one of my favorite pictures.  My oldest and my youngest playing around at home.  I came home and Eli was all sported out Ethiopian style with "Rah Rah."  These two are good buddies and have such a sweet relationship.

Love these two!

Happy June!!!

ps. This is my 400th post!! It's been a crazy 4 years!