Summertime in the Keys

We were lucky enough to be able to go back to the Keys with Nick's parents, brother and his fiance this last week.  It is one of our favorite places....surrounded by beauty with lots to do.  We had another great week of snorkeling (Nick and the big kids), scuba diving (just Nick), rowing, a little fishing, lots of swimming and some fun in Key West.

Unfortunately, we had a little camera deleting accident in the back seat on the way back from Key West and ALL of my pictures were deleted.  I was totally bummed as "all I wanted on this vacation was a good family picture," but at least my mother-in-law caught this picture on her camera :-)

Until next time...................

All Stars

Well, of course we think all of our kids are all stars, but this year we had two make the all star teams.  Colton played as one of only two 5 year old on the 6U team and Rahel made it on the team in her very first season of softball.  Way to go you two!

I've said it before, but Colton lives and breathes baseball.  It's pretty crazy how much he loves it.  In fact, he's broken 3 or 4 windows recently swinging bats (or anything else he can swing...sticks, golf clubs, light sabers...), my wall clock also took a hit (wall ball in the house ;-) and Nick slammed a tennis ball into the light post in our front yard this week (like father like son) when he had me "pitch him one."  I'm going to be on a first name basis with the window repair guy.

Colton played in a regional tournament this past weekend.  After the tournament, the fans went out for a little miniature golf.

Daddy won (one under par) and Colton came in second.  I was there, just taking the pictures.  I think I came in 4th (no natural athletic ability here).

We were missing Caleb and Rahel because they stayed home with my parents to go to Rahel's tournament happening the same weekend.  We did end up making it back for her games.

My two little Eli helpers.

Rahel's done pretty well this season learning the game and jumping in with girls that have been playing for years.  She seems to have a natural talent and I think with some hard work and training, she's got a lot of potential to continue to do well in softball.

Rahel's team advances to the state competition coming up in a couple of weeks.  Pretty crazy for a rookie!

Making Changes

Our family has expanded rapidly in the past 5 years.  When we bought our 3 bedroom, 2 bath home, we only had Caleb and Caroline.  A room for our boy and one for our girl (with room for guests.... she had a  pretty big room) and one for us.  It's a very functional house with everything we need, but we are getting a little more crowded now that we have grown from a family of 4 to a family of 9.

So a change is a coming.

We considered moving and then considered adding on an addition, but in the end, we realized that if we get rid of some stuff (ridiculous what we've acquired in our 11 years of marriage) and better organize our rooms, that our home has plenty of space for all of us....and who knows, maybe even more (an audible gasp.....don't worry, nothing in the works, but we're always open to God's plan ;-)

So, we moved the girls to the master bedroom.....giving them a bathroom and cutting down on the daily tooth brushing traffic jam.  The three boys moved into the girls room which is bigger than their old room.  That leaves the smallest room, the old boys' room for us.

Makes pretty logical sense:

biggest room = 4 people

medium room = 3 people

smallest room = 2 people

Now we have room for the kids to keep some toys in their rooms, so we converted the playroom into the school room and that made space for us to move our dinning room into the bigger space that was the school room.

I'm liking the change.  Sure, I'll miss my bathroom a bit and sharing with 4 boys may get interesting (might just end up using the girls bathroom after all :-), but in the grand scheme of things, we don't "live" our lives just in our home.  In fact, I want to "live" much bigger than that.  Our life shouldn't just exist within our "own four walls" as our church likes to remind us, but should extend to those around us.  I think our culture places a little too much emphasis on space, a room for every child, playrooms, game rooms, formal living and dinning rooms, theatre rooms......basically just more rooms to fill and more rooms to clean. 

Plus, I hear close quarters make close families and that is definitely a goal we're aiming for.

Rahel watched me paint the new "master" bedroom and then helped me prep the new boys room for painting.  When we finished removing all the outlet covers and taping off the trip, she looked at me and asked if she could paint (I was crunched for time, but....).  She beamed when I said yes and happily skipped off to get a paint brush.  Then she looked back at me and said, "this is my first time painting."  One of those great bonding moments.

I asked her if she wanted me to take her picture painting and she said yes!

  

While we worked, Eli got passed around like this, always well attended to (Prince Eli...yikes, we might be creating a monsters, he can hardly help but be spoiled with all the love he's smoothered with :-)

And my two little boys ended the night like this (their beds weren't set up yet).  Moving the house around was exhausting work, but we are just about settled in now and enjoying the new set up.