Two months old!

If it wasn't for this sweet ride, I wouldn't get a shower most days. Thanks, Cory and Steph, for letting us borrow your baby swing! As you can tell, she thinks it's pretty cozy in there. Now if I could just get Chase to stop helping the swing swing, everyone would feel that peaceful. Tess had her two month Dr. appointment today and weighed 12 lbs. 12 ounces (97th percentile)! Who said this girl couldn't keep up with her brothers! She's wearing a 6 month sleeper today, so I'll be doing some girl-clothes shopping before long. Twist my arm. Good news on her ears. Tess initially failed her hearing test in the hospital. After more extensive testing at Purdue, we found that although her hearing is fully functional, it is significantly delayed. This is most likely due to fluid in her ears. We met with our ENT (who put tubes in Trey and Chase's ears) who confirmed that ear problems of this nature are in fact familial (not necessarily genetic, but proven to run in families), and that there is a pretty good chance that she'll have to have ear tubes as well. They'll do nothing now, but will recheck again in 3 months when she is big enough to go under anesthesia. She wouldn't be our kid if she didn't have surgery before age 4! All easy fixes, so we'll take it. God is good.

Jack is 7!

Jack at age 3

(with control issues, a huge vocabulary and a big heart!)

Jackie in our backyard this summer

(I swore I would never call him that!)

Jack turned seven years old yesterday, and for the first time I'm wishing that time would just stand still. So I'll admit it - all of you seasoned parents are right. The saying, "They grow up so fast" really is true after all. I'm feeling it. For the mom with four kids in six years, I had kind of been hoping for this day - the day of greater independence. And now that it's here, it's making me a little sad. He's too big. Too smart. Too impressionable. Too aware of the world around him. And darn it, Tyler and I can't spell words back and forth in secret anymore! Jack has come a long way, baby. I'm really enjoying this little person, the leader. I see God developing his gifts. He's grown in compassion and patience. He's learning that no one but Jesus is perfect. He knows that life isn't fair, but God gives more grace. He's figured out that the world doesn't revolve around him, but that it's hard to not want it to. There's still hope for me, though. My grown-up seven year old ran in from the bus this afternoon, jumped in my arms, squeezed me hard (for longer than any 7 year old cool guy would admit to his buds), and whispered in my ear, "Missed you today, Mom." I missed you too buddy. Happy Birthday, my sweet boy.

On Sleeping and Sacrifice

Today is Tyler's birthday and his day off work, so I had great plans all mapped out in my head on how I would create a nice, relaxing day for him. You see, Tyler doesn't need much in the way of things, but he sure enjoys sleeping in on a rare occasion, for example. Well, to make a long story short, Tess needed her Daddy to hold her while I got the boys ready for school early this morning, and Chase needed his Daddy to take him to the doctor for an ear infection later in the morning. Mommy also needed Daddy to pick up some groceries - and - oh, could he please pick up his own ice cream birthday cake from Dairy Queen while he was already out? It seemed more efficient that way. He also made his own coffee today before I could get to it! You get the idea. But, that's what Dads do, it seems, always rising to the occasion. And in my case, always without complaint. Happy Birthday babe. I promise that one day soon I'll pull off some sleeping-in-time for you! You make every day sweeter for us...

No, today isn't Father's Day, but speaking of Dads, I've been thinking about mine all day today. I just got a call that he made it out of surgery successfully. They cleaned his carotid artery out for the third time, this time because of more than an 80% blockage. Praise God that his doctor found another spot that ended up being nothing, but that resulted in a scan that found the blockage. The boys woke up and prayed for GrandDad first thing this morning, and Jack even promised that he would pray for him when he ate lunch at school, because that's when the surgery would start. My kids are crazy about their GrandDad for a thousand reasons. Maybe it's the way he's interested in each different personality. He seems to magically relate to them all in their own specific way. Maybe it's the Skittles. He even listened to me last week when I worried out loud to him about being "enough" of a mom to all of my kids. "Just be there, sweetheart" he said, and somehow the pressure didn't seem quite so overwhelming. If you're reading this today, would you pray a quick prayer for my dad? He'll spend tonight in the ICU with hopes of going home tomorrow (isn't that amazing with a scar going all the way down his neck?).

Only my siblings will appreciate this one...

When I was growing up, my brothers and sisters and I quoted this silly saying all the time. Maybe you've heard it, but then again, we might be the only ones who said it that often. It starts out with the famous phrase... "My name is Chubby..." If your family has this same proud tradition, you know that you have to squeeze your (already chubby, in our case) cheeks together with both hands while talking to get the full effect. I don't know which was funnier to us - how we looked or sounded - but we thought it was hilarious.

Chase often talks in his bed before falling asleep and the older boys and I get a kick out of listening to him in the monitor almost daily. So we gather round today, and this is what we hear (with his cheeks obviously squished together): "My name is Chubby. My Mama's chubby. My Daddy's chubby. Jesus is chubby. Why, even my dog is chubby!" The first thing I thought to say was, "Boys, listen to your Mom. Jesus is NOT chubby," as if it would hurt His feelings if He heard (and we all know that HE HEARD!). This game has never felt so politically incorrect until now. God created two year olds, so surely He understands.

The Bare Bundt

Many thanks to our friends who shared some nice meals with us for the first few weeks after Tess was born. These meals included some sweet treats as well -- like this yummy bundt cake! Whitney, Jack, Chase, and I enjoyed the cake very much. Trey enjoyed the icing! [One minute I looked he was "tasting" the icing . . . . the next minute . . . .]

My two school boys...

Jack Tyler has waited for 1st Grade his whole life it seems. Finally, lunch at Battle Ground Elementary, here we come! This kid can't get on to the next thing fast enough. He was talking about first grade half-way through his Kindergarten year, and now has thoughts of 2nd Grade swirling in his head! I'm having a really hard time letting Jack go to school all day. This is new for me. I've kissed his sweet pink cheeks so much in the last three days that he's getting a little tired of it. There's no question that this boy will succeed this year academically, but my prayer for him is that he would love people well this year. He already missed out on an M&M (and a trip with Mom to get his new shoes) for not waiting his turn in class. He was devastated. He knows a lot of facts in that crazy smart head of his, but I have a feeling that this year he'll learn even more about life.

Trey just started 1/2 day Kindergarten, which puts him on the bus at 7:45am, and at school until I pick him up at 11:30am. Trey is nonstop excited about life, so we'll see how well he sits still to learn (he admitted to me today that he got his first "warning" for talking too much. I knew this was coming.) It's actually a bit refreshing to watch his laid-back personality about the whole thing. I struggled as I watched him pack up his backpack by shoving, squishing and bending every supply on it's way in (For real, Trey, the Kleenex box is not going to fit!). Tyler reminded me what a nice change that was from our firstborn boy who has to have everything just-so, or it's the end of the world! Trey has learned something new in school already this week. He announced proudly at supper last night, "You know Mom, in the library you have to put all the books back on the shelf with the skulls facing out." I had to think for a minute and said, "Trey, don't you mean their spines?"

I'm missing these two lately. I'm the mom who wishes summer would never end. Especially a summer that went way too fast with a newborn in the house. And now that school has started, I can't get enough of these two rotten, smiling faces. As the bus pulled away that first morning, Jack pasted his face to the window and waved until the bus cleared the hill and I couldn't see him any more. Trey never looked up once... he was too busy giggling with his new friend next to him in the front seat. Typical.

First day of school -- 8/12/08

School's back in session today. Jack can't wait to try school lunch. Trey just wants to ride the bus!

Tess Elena

Had to share these great shots of the boys in the backyard. Thanks Emily!

We've succummed to blogworld!

Who tackled starting a blog with a six week old (and three other kids for that matter)? My overachieving, efficient, creative, hard-working husband, that's who! And I'm so glad he did, because this gets me off the hook when it comes to keeping in touch with people (which seems to be getting increasingly harder for us as we keep up with four kids!). You see, now it's YOUR responsibility to bore yourselves- uh, I mean - read with great anticipation - the day to day stuff that goes on in our family! We're excited that you're here, and we promise to at least try to keep it interesting. Thanks for visiting... ~Whitney