Busy Days of Summer

Well, here we are in a busy week of summer. Monday, Jack and I were married 35 years. Wow!! That is a long time.

Tuesday, Stacey and I took the grandkids (and Salena) to Binder Park Zoo. Today, we are planning to take all the kids (minus babies) to Millenium Park for a while and tomorrow we will be taking the grandkids (and Salena) to Michigan's Adventure. Sure does make the week go fast. It seems like every week in the summer is filled with things to do. That is probably why it seems to go so fast. Before we know it, it will be fall again. Lots of vacations and time off so things are sometimes kind of quiet.

Amanda is gone now and we were very sad to see her go. She was a good worker and we wish her and her family the best. I had another girl hired and set to start this week but she changed her mind at the last minute. (better job offer) So we will be on the lookout again (especially for fall)

The kids are doing great and growing up so fast. The bigger kids loved doing our library excursions. I have to admit I was pretty impressed myself.

Monday we were at Kelly's ball game and there were all these daycare kids there, Sam, Taylor, Ashley, Big Jordan, Hailey. It was fun to listen to them. Ashley asked Taylor "what is your name" and she said "Taylor". Ashley says "I thought so I remember you from daycare, do you remember me?" Taylor says "No". How funny!

Changes

Okay, so I read Athena's blog and I feel like okay if she can do it, I guess I should do something on mine. By the way, I read your friends blog and all about changing. Pretty interesting!

However, there are always good and bad changes. Obviously, in my line of work there are always a lot of changes. I have old families leave (boo-hoo) and new families come in. I have assistants that come and go. My family is expanding all the time and that is exciting and new. I think I am learning to deal with change sometimes. On the subject of changing yourself or your habits that you are not happy with, I think that it is possible but a very hard thing to do. Especially the older you get the harder it is. I also think that everyone has something about themselves that they would like to change. There are plenty for me that could use improvement. Okay, I think that is enough on that subject.

So, speaking of change, Christopher's last day was yesterday and although I am sure he is ready to move on to school and going with his sister, Grace, it is hard to say goodbye. I had a few teary moments yesterday thinking back on the last three years and how much I will miss the whole family. Athena, you would always brighten my day in the morning. Thanks!

Alex C. is gone for the summer and will be back in the fall. I am not sure what fall will bring with Ethan and Taylor going to school all day and the possibility of preschool for others.

Taylor D. has her first tooth and is rolling all over the place.

Claire is army-crawling and has two teeth. She gets wherever she wants to go and wherever we don't want her to go.

Kendall is crawling, standing (without holding on) and pulling herself up on everything (including Claire and Taylor)

We are doing a few field trips this summer to the library and that has been fun.

Ethan and Owen are leaving for Colorado for a week and they are very excited. Hailey is going to Robbin's a couple of days a week now because we just didn't have enough room with the school kids here.

The wedding/reception is over and we had a great time and a few problems with the room flooding from all the rain and having to move upstairs to Sluggo's. Interesting but fun! Now we are expecting another grandchild in December.

The kids are all loving summer and being outside (as are we). The babies are growing up fast and life is good at the moment.

Hurray for Spring

Obviously keeping up this blog is more work than I thought. Just not enough hours in the day. Okay, so here is the latest!

Finally, the weather is looking better and the kids have been able to go outside. It makes our days much easier and they go by so much faster. I would assume they all sleep better at night because they play pretty hard.

Things have been pretty busy around here with vacation, weddings, birthdays, etc. The wedding in Vegas was beautiful and Stacey was a beautiful bride. It was wonderful that our whole family and a few really good friends could be there to celebrate. The weather was wonderful and although busy there was a couple of days of relaxing by the pool! We are now planning the reception for back here and then we should be able to have a breather for a little while.

Here are a couple of pictures taken in Vegas!

I will try to scrapbook some and you can see more later. (Kristy, want to do a wedding album?

Ha Ha)

We purchased our new stroller this spring with our pizza fundraiser money (well it helped pay some of the cost) It really works well for taking all the kids for a walk and the babies love it.

Sam, Christopher and Keegan all had birthdays this month. They turned 2, 3 and 4.

Ella T., Maddy and Christopher all went to Disney World.

Holly (one of our previous helpers who moved to New York) came to visit us last week and it was great to see her. She is getting married in October and Ella T. is in the wedding so they went dress shopping on Saturday. I am sure that was a totally girly girl day!!!

That's it for this time!

Winter Blahs

I have been requested to update this blog. I guess October has been a while back but the time just seems to fly by so quickly.

Daycare has had it's ups and downs. The kids went through some illnesses and then I picked up something and actually had to close for 2 days. That is about the 4th time in 20 years so I guess that isn't too bad. Anyway, we are just waiting for spring and to be able to open the doors and windows and get outside and run (well not me) and enjoy the fresh air.

We are blessed (somedays, ha ha) with 4 children under 18 months right now. There is Alex who will be 1 in March, Claire 6 months in March, Kendall 4 months and Taylor 2 months. It definitely keeps us busy, but they are all adorable in their own way. As soon as we get past this fussy, colicy stage we will be all good!!

Jack turned 1 recently and we don't get to see him as much but he is growing up and doing well. He is off the bottle and baby food and moved to a bigger car seat. Wow! All those changes at 1.

Ella B just had tubes for the second time in her ears and hopefully they will work out this time.

Owen is getting tubes in his ears today and we also hope it goes well for him.

Christopher is starting to talk more and the other day he said he was going to marry me. How cute!!!!

A new member to the tribe!

As most of you know we will be adding a couple of new tribe members. One will be Claire (Ella's sister) and the other is my new granddaughter, Kendall. Claire started this week and so far so good. Kendall will start in January. Some more girls finally. It seems to go in streaks. All boys or all girls.

I have been requested to update my blog and post some Halloween pictures, so here goes Athena!!!

September Days

It has been a little while since I posted anything so I will try to catch up a few things.

We had a few birthdays in September, mine (thanks to all), Amanda's, Alex C. and Braedyn (who is no longer in daycare). Now we are joined by baby Claire. Danielle's was October.
I assume she will be joined by the newest baby grandchild.

Alex and Jack are becoming great friends and I am so excited they can grow up together and hopefully remain friends forever.

Keegan and Owen also are great friends and play well together. Ethan is off to school now as is Nick, Salena and Taylor.

The children have been enjoying our preschool program and even Ella T. was singing "It's Mother Goose Time" this morning. (That is the program we are using) As you can see in the pictures, Ella B. likes to join in also and Taylor is great at being an assistant. I think Amanda is having as much fun as they are.

Carnival

What a fun day we had at our backyard carnival! We had a bean bag toss, baseball throw, duck pond, and sucker tree. We also made visors and had tattoos put on. It was a beautiful day and the kids enjoyed themselves a lot. Sam loved throwing the velcro baseballs at the target and fishing for the ducks. Of course, they loved the sucker tree (who wouldn't love being able to eat the prize). Nick said it was the best day ever and I think his last day was very enjoyable (but there may have been a couple of moments of sadness) Taylor was out of town that day so she had to miss the festivities but we saved her a bag of goodies and Salena was (of course) a big help. We followed the activities with a picnic lunch.