Summer - looking back

I love summer. I mean I really really love it. I've loved it even more since I have kids in school now. It makes me realize what a busy, crazy time the school year is. I try to keep my kids' schedule fairly open during the summer to they have time to read, ride bikes, imagine, create, explore, and so many other things that fall by the wayside during the school year. I really love the summers here in Ohio. Yes, it can get humid, but I'll take it if it means so much green surrounding us. One thing we all anticipate, almost as much as the end of school, it seems, is the return of the fireflies. I had never seen a firefly before we came to Ohio, and the first time I did, I felt like a little kid. I gasped and ran in to tell Chris, and we watched them, mesmerized. Anyway, before I post some pics from this summer, I wanted to post some of my favorites of the past summers since we got a digital camera.



2006

Nelson's ledges


Geauga Lake

Relaxing in our front yard on a Friday night

In Grandma's front yard

4th of July

Picking blueberries at Voytko Farms

2007

Creek walking in Sulphur Springs

Picnicking in the South Chagrin Reservation

Annie and Noah watching the fireworks on the 4th. They had to sit on top of our swingset in order to see them through all the trees.

Meeting friends downtown for the annual 1812 overture concert



Eating ice cream at Kokomo's, which is the best place for ice cream in the summer!

At the Hill Cumorah

Niagra Falls (great trip with Grandma and Grandpa!)

2008

All the kids reading - I love it!!

Creekwalking

Fairport Harbor on Lake Erie

After picking strawberries at Patterson's Fruit Farm

This picture just makes me giggle whenever I see it! The kids had been playing in the kiddie pool, and afterwards I saw Brigham just sitting on the swing. I guess he didn't have his swimsuit tied up very well.

These pictures are from when we were in Tennessee. Chris' dad has a cousin who lives on the west side, so we've been able to spend time with him and his family while we've been here in Ohio. They have a cabin just outside of Knoxville, on Norris Lake, and they were so nice to let us stay in it for a week. What a fun, relaxing time we had!

10th anniversary in Chicago

Chris and I had our 10th anniversary this past January. We weren't able to do anything big at that time, but Chris had a conference in Chicago at the end of April, so we decided to use that as a delayed anniversary trip. My parents were so kind to fly out and watch the kids for 3 nights while we were there. We had such a great time, and thanks to the Clinic and Delta skymiles, it was pretty much free, except for a couple of extra things we splurged on.

We flew out to Chicago on Friday, April 24. After we rested up in the hotel we ate dinner at Gino's East, which has great deep dish pizza. Look at that thing - YUM. The restaurant is also famous for letting you write all over the table, walls, seats, ect. Pretty cool.

After dinner we just walked around the different stores downtown. This is at the Lego store. R2 D2 here is made of legos - whoa.

The next day we just explored. It was so nice to just walk and if we saw something we wanted to check out . . . we could! Wow - what freedom! These pictures are in the courtyard of the law school at Northwestern.

This picture is of a beautiful old Presbyterian church that we walked by. There was a free concert inside so we sat down to rest and listen for awhile. The concert happened to be by a high school group from Chardon, which is a town in our stake here in Ohio. Small world!

That afternoon we ate lunch in the John Hancock building. The food wasn't all that impressive, but the view was awesome!!

You can't tell in the picture, but it says that the restaurant is on the 95th floor.

That night we went to a little Shakespeare theatre on Navy Peir. They did Twelfth Night, and this was inside the theatre. Yes, that's water - the actors used it in the play. It was an incredible performance! I think this was my favorite part of the trip.

The rest of our time (which I didn't get pictures of) was spent trying to find a church to go to on Sunday (scary downtown spot trying to get on the subway, then getting turned around once we got off the subway!), eating dinner with the our friends the Larsons, who were also there for the conference, and just relaxing and reading. I also relished in the time I had to sit on the bed in the hotel room and watch HGTV. I know, it's lame, but that never happens at home! It was a much-needed break, and I absolutely loved the time with just Chris, and the freedom to do whatever we wanted. But this trip also helped me to remember that I love noise and chaos of my life with the kids.

Catching up - Hudson

I really love it when my kids turn one - they are sleeping through the night, I'm finished nursing (it's so inconvienent when there are 3 other lives I have to attend to - like nursing while sitting on the bleachers during Annie's swim practice and trying to keep Noah and Brigham from tripping over piles of life jackets and falling head long over the railing. Or, this is my favorite - nursing while trying to wipe Brigham since he is just potty training and he can't do it himself. I think I was also talking on the phone at the time). Another thing I love - they do the cutest things. Hudson is toddling around now - he was 15 months before he really started walking around on his own. He's also saying all sorts of words: mama, da, cah ("car" in a high, excited voice), no no (which he says whenever we ask him for a kiss), mm hm (he says that instead of "yes"), bapple ("apple" which is usually said in a low, husky voice, much to the delight of his siblings) and so many others. Here are a few of my favorite pics:

He's walking!

Hudson loves being outside! He is always bringing me his sandals so I can put them on and take him out. His favorite things to do are throwing rocks in the garden, going down the slide, swinging, and riding his little trike. Here's an example of how he looks much of the time.

It's so nice to have older kids to help with Hudson. Annie and Noah are so extremely helpful when they see I need it. Whenever I need to get in the shower or make dinner, or whatever, I just have to ask, and I know Hudson will be fine.

I love this picture. This was after dinner (hence the shirtless look - he soaked it while he ate), and Hudson figured out how to climb onto the stool; he was so proud of himself. He would climb up, wave excitedly at whoever was around, then climb down and start all over again.

He is loving books lately. I often catch him sitting by himself, looking at them and babbling. It's one of my favorite things in the world when he climbs onto my lap with a book in his hand. He especially loves books about animals and cars.

Whenever I ask him if he wants to take a bath, he starts heading upstairs, saying "ba ba ba."




Hudson gave us quite a scare a couple of weeks ago. He walked into the kitchen one afternoon with one of Brig's pirate coins in his hand. I saw him put it into his mouth, so I immediately took it out. What I didn't know is that he had put another coin in before he came into the kitchen. He started gagging, and so I did exactly what you aren't supposed to do - a blind sweep. It was so scary to stick my finger down his throat and feel a coin down there, and not be able to get it out. I turned him upside down and banged him on the back, but it didn't do anything. I ran outside, banging him on the back (our next door neighbor is a nurse, and I figured I could use some help). As I was out there, banging and running, the coin finally fell out.

As I talked to Chris about it later, he mentioned that it's good to have little scares like this every once in awhile (not too often, though!), just so we can be reminded of what really are the most important things in our lives. They are also good reminders of how precious life really is, and that it can be taken from us or our loved ones at any time. Yes, I know this is sappy, but I'm going to say it anyway: what a different world this would be if we could live each day with those things in mind.

Catching up part 1

Curses! I'm way behind again! Part of the problem has been that our cameras are now permanent Chicago residents. That's right, they were left there when Chris and I went for our 10th anniversary at the end of April. Chris got a hold of the conference center that he left the cameras in, but they had not been turned in. But, lucky for us, my dad had just gotten a new camera for his birthday, so he let us have his old one. We still don't have a video camera, which is so unfortunate because we've missed Hudson's first wobbly steps, and him saying all his new words. *sigh* So, for some reason, the missing camera situation made me not want to blog. So, here goes my attempt at catching up with the last few months (minus May; we were camera-less for that month):

Birthdays!

Annie had a friend party this year, and she decided she wanted to do a Laura Ingalls/pioneer theme.

Making rag dolls

Pop the balloon game (supposedly in pioneer times they used pig bladders as balloons!)


Scavenger hunt for "old pioneer" things (old leather book, yarn, flowers, ect.)

Making soap (all this really consisted of was me melting chunks of soap and pouring them into molds, then letting the girls choose one to take home. I don't recommend this; it was sooo hard to clean up!)



The "quilted" birthday cake. A word about this: I don't really make fancy cakes, as you can see. I was getting stressed because I ran out of pink gel to make all of the quilt "stitches" before I even got halfway around the cake. Right as I was trying to figure out how I was going to get more gel when all the stores were closed, I decided that Annie was not going to care. . . and it was true. Even though it basically was just a rectangle cake with lots of gel patterns on it, there were plenty of oohs and ahhs from the girls.

Opening presents!! Happy 9th birthday Annie - you are growing up so fast I can hardly believe it. You are so beautiful and so sweet. We love you!!

Brigham's 4th birthday

It was Brig's turn to have a family party this year. I think most of you know that Brigham and Annie have the same birthday, April 7th. So we trade off every year, one has a friend party, and one has a family party. Brigham is so easy to buy for because he loves so many things - cars, play mobil, star wars, sports. The big thing he got was Noah's old bike (all cleaned up with new pedals). It took him awhile, but he's cruising around as fast as he can go with training wheels (which isn't so fast, but he loves it). Brig also decided he wanted to eat at Wendy's for his birthday dinner.


Here's his cake, just like he wanted - chocolate with chocolate chips, and all sorts of sprinkles all over. We love you so much Brigham! You're getting to be such a big boy and you're learning to do so many things on your own!

Preschool:

Here's one of the few pictures I took of our little co-op preschool. It was a small group this year, just these 4 boys: Logan Anderson, Gavin Shupe, Wesley Stelter, and Brigham. They cracked me up all the time. Any school stuff was finished at lightening speed so that they could get back to play time, which pretty much consisted of fighting with light sabers. Also, anytime I had them make a craft, one or more of the boys would somehow twist it around to create a light saber. Example: on beach day I make sand dough, which they could mold into any shape they wanted. I also had sticks and beads and such for them to stick in. Wesley announced that he was going to put a blue bead into his mound of sand dough and make it a light saber.