Here are some of the things we did in October....

George has been taking the kids in our backyard (7 acres) to clear paths.  They made a good one by following the deer paths that were already there.

We had a few litters of kittens recently.  David is playing with a few of the kittens in the dollhouse.  The kittens didn't really like being on the second floor!

Allie went camping with her girl scout troop.  It was so cold and rainy!  She had a good time though.  Here she is with her Flat Stacey....like flat Stanley.

Here's George, Katie and Maddie (all my teens) at the Peanut Festival in Suffolk.  It's our big local event!

David and George at Peanut Festival

Katie and David at the Peanut Festival

Allie at the Peanut Festival

George and Allie at the Peanut Festival

David.....Peanut Festival

This was David's FAVORITE ride....the Orange Whip!  Those bracelets ready paid off.  The kids rode rides AALLLL day long!  They are looking forward to the Peanut Festival next year.  Did you know that Planter's Peanuts started in Suffolk, VA?  Yep!  A guy and his wife... The Obici's came here from Scranton, PA and started Planters Peanuts....hence the Peanut Festival!

Driver Days...The Village of Driver in Suffolk, VA holds their annual Driver Days to raise money for their volunteer fire department.  Our Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops meet in Driver, so we got to participate!  Here is George, Maddie and Allie getting ready to line up for the parade.

Maddie helps a little Brownie hold the flag during the parade

Yep, that's me.  Leader's marched too!

Hee, hee!  A potty mobile!  He was in the parade, there was also a lazy boy chair mobile!  They should have combined them! lol

Our Girl Scout Troop!

Allie- at out face painting table

David got his face painted too

David was SO excited...he finally got to ride on the train!

Halloween.  We went to a friends neighborhood to trick or treat.  Katie and Maddie dressed as rag dolls (they made their own costumes....they even had glittery fake eyelashes and striped tights), George was a zombie graduate, we cut the corner of the hat and attached it to his head, it looked like it was stuck in his head(...one of my biggest fears at graduations! lol), David was a demon.  He didn't keep his mask on long...he didn't want to scare his friends.

Allie was a witch. ALL of the kids went to the doors with their pillow cases!  Wow...they got alot of candy!!! My favorite houses were the help yourself houses!  I got a piece of candy there too...sshhhh don't tell!

Maddie and Katie

George Eric

David

George (Dad) wore David's mask for most of the night! We had alot of fun.  It was a nice warm night and almost a full moon.  We stopped at Taco Bell for dinner on the way home.  They were really busy and we were not the only people in there in costumes.  I guess we weren't the only ones that did't have dinner before trick or treating!

Ok, this is the third time I'm typing this!!!!!  So you get nothing witty this time!  Katie and Maddie got their driving permits today and David and Allie got haircuts!  There you internet goblins......I finally got it posted!

It was a beautiful day today!  Not too hot or humid.  I have been working in the yard and outside all summer.  Today I worked on the back yard a little bit.  George went through with a BIG piece of equipment last year and cleared alot of the mess they left when they clear cut.  I have been mowing more and more of the back.  We've made paths for the kids to ride their bikes.  The back yard is about 7 acres.  Almost half way back we made a clearing and a brick fire pit.  Tonight we roasted hot dogs back there and made s'mores.  It was alot of fun to have all of us back there enjoying what we have worked on. 

I carefully packed everything we would need back there.  Of course I would forget something....I forgot napkins.  It wasn't too bad until David was eating his s'more. He had marshmallow all over his face and hands.  I told him to just lick it off.  He turned to George and said "Daddy, you lick it off!"  We all laughed and George did not lick it off.  It was so funny.

The cats and our Chihuahua, Roxie were back there too.  Roxie thought she could sneak a little melted marshmallow off of one of the metal skewers, well it got stuck to her fur and she took off down the path with a metal skewer stuck to her!  No, no Chihuahuas were hurt in the making of our s'mores, but it was really funny!

Some of the kids swam in the pool for a little bit.  All and all it was a nice holiday!

Allie's Room

David's built ins!

Here's the bottom ones.  You can tell he likes to play in there!

OMG!  What a summer so far!  I am at work right now.  Being in a tax office in July does leave a little time to get caught up on a few things.  Let's see...Allie and Katie have been to camp already.  George E. decided not to go this year.  Maddie will be going the first full week of August.  I didn't do ANY room cleaning while the kids where gone this year :)  Rooms were kept pretty clean.  The older kids DON'T want me in there, so they kept their rooms clean.  I told Allie that if her room was cleaned up before she left I could do something differant than cleaning in there this time.  She was VERY surprised to come home to a room that was totally painted!  She got Princess Pink and Princess Purple paint for Christmas and we hadn't painted yet.  The bottom 42 inches is purple and the rest to the ceiling is pink.  George built 2 corner shelves to replace her pet net above her tv.  I painted them purple to match the bottom part of the wall.  George installed them up on the pink part.  They look so nice.  I was able to find a white shelf with pegs, already decorated with pink, purple and yellow.  We put that up for her treasures and hung bags and backpacks from the pegs.  I was also able to find a cute shear curtain and topper for her window.  She still had the burgundy curtains up that came with the house!  I will post pictures when I can.

The last big construction project we did was split the family room again!  We added 2 small rooms.  One is my craft room and the other is David's room.  They have been in since just after Christmas.  George has been working on built ins for David's room. That's was happens when I get idea magazines!    It came out so nice.  (Once again I will post pictures, I promise).  He built storage cubies all across the bottom of the wall with the window.  Also ones all across the top of the wall.  Then  the rest of that wall have cubbies for David's clothes and a spot of hang  clothes!  It took a gallon of paint to get it covered really well, but WOW! that's alot of storage in a little room!  It only comes out 12" from the wall!

Allie went to the Outer Banks for a long weekend with one of her friends from the old neighborhood.  She had a blast!  I can't believe she's old enough already to go away with friends! 

George has been working the last 2 weeks out of town with a friend of ours.  He's been able to add his brick work in on the weekends.  George E has been working with him and doing a great job.  When did my kids grow up?  Weren't they just born?

We've had a animal population explosion since spring.  We had 2 litters of Labradoodles born on the same day.  That's 13 puppies in the house!  This happened just a few days after the cat had 6 kittens!  They were in the house too!  We have 1 more kitten to find a home for.  David named this black cat "Charlie".  We have 6 more Labradoodles to find homes for.  Summer and Denny, our yellow labs, just had a litter of 7 yellow babies 2 weeks ago.  Allie got a bunny for Easter and I just picked up another one while she was away.  Katie adopted a Guinea Pig from a friend.  The piggy's name is now Titan.  Katie will soon be getting one of Titan's brothers!  I think that's it.  Expect for the critters the cats bring home, but we don't need to feed them.  Looks like we will have more Labradoodles in about 2 months.  This time the Mommy will be Allie's chocolate lab-Angel.  The Dad is our Standard poodle- Casey.

Let's see.. we are also keeping up with some studies.  We are working on American Government.  I drew a tree on our chalkboard wall.  David walked in said it looked fingers.  I know it was a poor rendition, but I needed to respresent the 3 branches of gov't.  We labeled them with the appropriate names, talked about their jobs, learned all this great gov't stuff, then the kids declared my tree looked more like a chicken foot!  We now have the "gov't chicken foot".  At least they will NEVER forget what each toes is labeled!

I think that's enough updates for now.  I'll add pictures soon...really!  Why are you laughing?

Maddie was at the Oceanfront in Virginia Beach for 3 days this week. It was a Girl Scout trip, but the girls didn't want to let anyone else who was on Spring Break to know!  They had every minute of Tuesday afternoon, all day Wednesday and Thursday morning planned with activities.  They spent some time at the beach, did some service projects, went to the Virginia Aquarium, went out on a boat and hiking (cleaning up) at the state park.  Here are some pictures that she came back with.

Alex and Maddie making shadow pictures on the beach.

Maddie kissing a fish statue at the beach.  She did say she would kiss a fish while she was gone!

The girls out on the boat.  They went out on the Atlantic.

Sunrise over the Atlantic.

Self portrait of Maddie!  Oh look, her wallpaper border is "falling" down!

George took Allie and David to the church's Easter Egg Hunt.  They had lots of fun.  They played on the big blow-up slide, played games and did an Easter Egg Hunt.

David on the slide with some friends.

Allie with her full basket!

David, just starting out!!!

It was time!  We finally got David's haircut.  He's a big boy now!  George took him to the mall to get his haircut.  George E got his hair trimmed too.  This was David's first haircut.  He sat in the chair and did everything he was told!  He was such a good boy!  He looks so grown up now!

For those of you who don't know, I took on a full time job! AHHH!  It's been very nice to get out of the house, but hard to keep things here going the way I would like them to.  I am only working full time until April 15th, then it becomes a part time job.  Homeschooling is going slow, but going.  We are trying to incorporate more life situations into our schooling.  Wednesday night was the lunar eclipse which was really neat!  We got to see the moon totally covered by the shadow before the clouds took over the sky!

Working at night has disrupted any normal dinner we might have been having!  I have set aside time in the mornings to make something for the freezer, for use later.  Today I made stuffed shells.  I thought I would post the recipe here for anyone who is interested.  They are very good and convient because you only take out what you will use at the time.

Cheese Filled Shells (from the 30 day gourmet)  Makes 40 shells

12 oz box of jumbo shells

32oz ricotta or cottage cheese

16 oz shredded mozzarella cheese

3/4c grated parmesan cheese

3 eggs

3/4t oregano

1/2t salt

1/2t pepper

Cook jumbo shells 1/2 of recommended time until just limp.  Drain.  cool in a single layer on pan or waxed paper.  Combine cheeses, eggs, oregano, salt and pepper.  Fill each shell with 2T cheese mixture.  Freeze shells in a single layer on a lined cookie sheet or large cake pan.  When frozen place shells in ziploc bag.  Cooking: thaw cheese filled shells, Spread spaghetti sauce in bottom of baking pan.  Arrange shells in dish.  Pour more sauce over shells.  Warm at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Yesterday I made a big batch of Buttermilk pancakes!  Yumm-O!  Hopefully I can cook faster than everyone can eat!!!

October- very busy!  We have done so much.  I can't imagine what the upcoming holiday season will hold for us if October was so busy. Here are some highlights...

Oct 1- Girl Scout rededication ceremony.  Katie, Maddie and Allie have each been in Girl Scouts since they were 4 or 5.  This is Katie's 11th year, Maddie's 9th year and Allie's 5th year.  This is my 11th year as a leader!  This year I have Katie's troop, they are Seniors (9-12th grade).  They are a blast to work with, I'm really enjoying the older girls.  I have been a Daisy leader, Brownie leader and Junior leader in the past.  Last year I had 3rd grade Brownies (with none of my own kids), since we all meet together on Monday nights I still get to see them every week!  We had a great time at the rededication.  The whole family went and enjoyed dinner and the ceremony.

Oct 2- George E had Boy Scouts.

Oct 4- We all spent the day at the Virginia Air and Space Museum.  They held their annual homeschool open house.  We all went and took our neighbor and her son.  It's a really neat museum with tons of exhibits.  We saw alot of people we hadn't seen in a long time!

Oct 5- off to Pennsylvania for George's counsin's wedding.  The kids and I took the van and George drove his new motorcycle.  The kids and I made a few stops in PA when we got there.  Surprised a few of my friends!  We stayed the night with George at his Mom's house.  We camped out ALL over the living room!

Oct 6- We were able to visit with George's family.  We had a great time with his Mom and all 3 of his sister's where there.  We had a nice dinner with them.  Katie, George E and Allie spent the night at Nana's house.  Maddie and David spent the night with my sister Crista.  George and I were able to go out that night!  We met my sister at a neat Irish Pub, then met my friend Kelly and her husband and saw a friend of mine from high school play with his band.  We had so much fun, laughing and visiting.  George and I spent the night (just us!) at a hotel!

Oct 7-  This was the day of the wedding.  We picked up the kids-all dressed and ready and headed to the wedding.  It was a really neat Greek ceremony!  George's Aunt Irene and her family are Greek.  They had a beautiful and meaningful ceremony.  David really wasn't interested.  He wanted to go outside and play with the rocks!  So, he and I played with the rocks!  After the wedding, we split the kids back up to the houses they stayed at the night before.  George and I enjoyed the reception.  We were able to use the dance lessons we took at the beginning of the year.  He and I spent our night at the hotel again.  Nice and quiet!  We missed the kids, but knew they were having a good time too!

Oct 8-  George had to come home on this day. We gathered up the kids and headed to one of our favorite diners.  We had a nice breakfast together, then he came back home on the motorcycle.  I took the kids to the outlets in Tannersville.  They had fun looking around.  After that I took them to the candle shop in Henryville.  My mom used to take me there when I was little.  It was really fun.  After we left there, I took the kids to Big Pocono State Park.  It was beautiful to look out and see the changing leaves.  From here you can see 3 states- Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York!  Maddie and Allie thought was was really neat!!!

Oct 9- We went to a really neat place where rocks are moved to make differant formations.  There was a "letterbox" there, so we tried to find it.  We couldn't find it but had fun seeing the formations.  Maddie, Allie and I had a mini photo shot with the rock there. There are great pictures.  After that I took the kids to Delaware Water Gap to see where the glacier carved through a mountain a long time ago.  I got to tell them about the Delaware River and all the fun canoe and tubing trips I took on it when I was there age.

Oct 10- We got to have lunch with my friend Lynn and her 5 kids (plus her neice).  13 people for lunch at the Pizza Hut buffet! Too much fun!  The kids were asking us about all the things she and I did together when we were teenagers!  Everyone has that one friend that you always get in trouble with!  I was hers and she was mine!!!!  It was fun to visit with her family! The apple doesn't fall far from the tree...by the time we left the kids were all spitting spit balls!  We just laughed!  Later that day we went letterboxing with Crista and the twins.  We followed the clues to find one in Stroudsburg.  It was in front of someone's house.  It was neat to find one.  Then we headed back to find the one we couldn't find before.  We did finally find it.  Actually Maddie found it right before Crista got there.  After playing there for a little while, Crista headed home and we went to Coco Solo's for dinner. It's one of our tourist stops every time we are in town.  Crista's friend's family owns it and we get to visit with them while we eat hot dogs, cheese steaks and perogies!!!  After dinner we ALWAYS have to have their ice cream!!!

We did get to visit with my mom, stepfather Tom and Crista, Mike and their twins.  There was just TOO much to do in such a short amount of time.

Oct 11-  We started home.  We were hoping to visit the Philadelphia Zoo on the way home, but it was POURING!!!  We decided it wasn't a good zoo day.  Maybe next time.  The older kids wanted to stop in Baltimore to visit Duff from Food Network.  His shop is not open to the public so that was out too.  So straight home it was.

Oct 12- I had a dr's appt then took the kids to soccer practice.  Maddie's Girl Scout troop was camping at First Landing State park.  After soccer practice I took her to the camp site.  Allie and I stayed for alittle bit and had dinner with them.

Oct 13- David and I took Allie to Allie's soccer game.  After the game we went to Maddie's camp site.  Her troop was going to the Young Chef's academy to make homemade pasta and earn an Interest Project badge.  We visited for alittle bit before they went.

Oct 14- Maddie came back from camping.

Oct 15- Katie and Maddie had co-op classes, then the girls had Girl Scouts in the evening.

Oct 16- George E had a Boy Scout meeting

Oct 19- Soccer practice for Maddie and Allie

Oct 20- Soccer games for Maddie and Allie.  Then we RAN to the mall and I got my hair and nails done for the Navy Ball.  I was able to go the the Ball with my neighbor!!!  He husband's ship is out to sea, so I got to be her date.  I had a great time with her and the ladies from the ship!

Oct 21- Started going to a new church.  It was really nice.  We felt very welcome.  Allie and David enjoyed their classes.  I knew the Children's minister and the Youth minister from other churches so that was nice. In the evening we had Girl Scout roller skating.  I got to skate alittle.  I didn't realize how sore I was from dancing the night before until I got out on the rink!!!!  Maddie and Allie had fun with their friends.  I got to visit with adults and that was nice!

Oct 22- Co-op and Girl Scouts

Oct 23- Boy Scouts

Oct 26- 2 museums in Portsmouth had homeschool open houses for the first time.  George went in with the kids and I spent FOREVER trying to find a parking place (reminded me too much of parking in Washington DC).  I finally found a spot that would accomidate a large 12 passenger van!!!!  ARGH!  I finally meet up with them in the Va Sports Hall of Fame Museum.  They have alot of displays and information.  We worked on a Girl Scout patch while we were there.  We then went to a Chinese Buffet that was right there.  You could tell it was homeschool day!!!  Big families and strollers EVERYWHERE!  It was a good lunch. We were all refreshed and ready to hit the next museum.  That was the Children's museum.  The kids had a great time in here.  George couldn't stay because he had to run errands for work.  But I was nice to spend most of the day with him!  David was so cute in the museum.  There is a place for the little ones to play in with a gate, so they can't run away!  I took him out of the stroller and let him throught the gate to play.  He was SO funny.  He is almost always in the stroller when we go anywhere.  He just kept looking at me like...I can play?  He finally got the hang of it and had a great time. I ended up buying a membership for the yeat because the kids had such a great time!  Soccer practice was rained out. (Yay!)

Oct 27- Soccer game was rained out!!!  Nice quiet day!! Sold puppies.

Oct 28- church

Oct 29- co-op and Girl Scouts.  At Girl Scout my Senior troop was in charge of a Halloween Carnival.  They did a great job planning and working in each room.  After the Carnival each troop had a small party in their own rooms.  We all dressed up and had a fun time!

Oct 30-  I had an Orthodontic evaluation appt for Katie.  It was really interesting.  I learned alot.  Katie was born without adult 2 adult teeth.  They are the ones next to the big front teeth.  Actually on one side she had a piece of a tooth, but not a whole one.  The Dentist let me know what all the options were for changing, removing and replacing teeth in her mouth.  The one plan would pull out the little piece of tooth allowing her adult eye tooth to come down on that side.  Then putting on braces to to move her teeth making room to replace the 2 that are missing with a bridge. Katie is going to take is slow and one step at a time.  She's going to have the little piece of tooth removed and see if the eye tooth will come down.  Then she will make decisions from there.  It was Boy Scouts at night!

Oct 31- Halloween.  We haven't really done anything outside the house for Halloween for years.  I let the kids dress up this year and go trick or treating.  We went to our friends development.  There's just not much out here for Trick or Treating.  The kids got LOTS of candy.  David was so cute...  He was dressed in the little cow costume I made YEARS ago.  He couldn't believe we would let him just walk up to someone's door.  We are always trying to keep him with us!  Not only could he go up to the door, but they would give him CANDY and say how cute he was!!!!  After that we went back to our friends house for dinner and snacks.  They had their church group there and invited us to join them!  Yummy!

That's some highlights for October.  I know I missed stuff and we really did school work sometime in there too!  November is shaping up to be busy too!!!!!

We took a "field trip" to the beach yesterday! We had so much fun.  It's still nice and warm out and the water is still warm, but NO one was there!  This beach is a really cool beach at the Atlantic Ocean.  It's not really a tourist beach, mostly residential.  The waves are usually little higher here, and there are sharks.  We didn't see any yesterday, but we did see a few dolphins.  No matter how many times I see them in the wild, they always amaze me!  We didn't see it but there was a water spout out there.  It's a weak tornado that forms over the water.  We didn't find out til we were home watching the news.  It was right near where we were.  We played in the water for quite a while.  David didn't know what to think of it at first, but then we couldn't keep him out (even though he was shivering!).  We found lots of shells, horseshoe crab tails and skate egg cases.  Skate egg cases are really neat.  A skate is like a sting ray.  Their egg cases are also called Mermaid's purses.  They are black and almost plastic feeling.  David was collecting as many as he could carry.  We did find one live clam and a hermit crab.  Finding and identifing all this seafood made us very hungary!  Since we were in Virgiinia Beach we went to our favorite Chinese Buffet!  They have such good food!!!!  We are spoiled living by the ocean...fresh fish is never hard to find! 

Today Maddie and Allie have soccer practice.  They are getting ready for their games in the morning.

Today was pretty quiet.  We are all in differant stages of this cold.  It's the "September Back to School Now with other kids" Creepy Crud!  We all just kinda quietly got our stuff done and hung out together.  It was very nice.  I thought I'd get some pictures up here tonight.

Here's George, Katie, Maddie and Allie making candy this summer.  We were working on the "Sweet Shoppe" Girl Scout badge.  We made SSOOOO much candy.  It was a really nice "problem" to have.

The other day Allie was SO sweet and packed a picnic lunch for her and David.  They took it out back and shared with Maddie and Big Daddy Mac!  Silly kitty!

Allie at half time of her soccer game!  She loves playing. She's doing a great job too!  Soccer season starts with the weather being SO hot, it's been in the 90's for most of the games and practices so far.  By the end of the season we are all FREEZING!

This is Maddie playing soccer.  I am so glad Beach JA extended the ages for older kids to play.  She mostly plays goalie.  She's really good.  Poor thing will stop that ball no matter what-she's gotten kicked in the face when diving on the ball!

Last Sunday Allie attended an American Girl program at a historic house in Suffolk.  Here she is dancing on the side porch.  We love learning history through programs like this.  We had plans to tour 2 Civil War houses last Friday, but had to cancel because I was sick.  I hope to get there very soon!

Here's David helping with the new puppies!  We had a litter of 7 Labradoodles last Monday.  They are so cute.  This is our first litter that are not pure Labs.  We have a standard poodle that we paired with our chocolate lab.  We had 1 apricot, 2 blacks and 4 chocolates.  They have wavy coats right now.  Labradoodles are "designer" dogs breed for the temperment of labs, but non-shedding like poodles.

This was yesterday.  Allie was invited to play her guitar at Girl Scouts for the badge they are working on.  She "played" her version of Jingle Bells.  She did a great job!!!!  She was SSOOOO excited, she couldn't wait for Monday to come!

Ever since George got his motorcycle last month, David wants to ride on the "bike" with Daddy. He's the only onethat hasn't gotten a real ride yet.  He LOVES it though.  He looks out the door..."bike, bike, bike"!!!!  Allie and I have only been down the driveway, but the other kids....you can't get them off!  My babies!!!!....on a motorcycle!!!  The longer the ride, the more they love it!  George has enjoyed it too.  He has been able to save alittle gas money here and there and gone on rides with friends.  He hopes to do a charity ride soon.

I really need to keep up with this better!  Well it's Monday.  Today is our busy day.  The 2 older girls take co-op classes.  The "school" we went to last year closed so a friend of mine started a new small co-op.  She and another lady teach classes on Monday mornings.  Katie is taking Algebra 2 and American Gov't.  Maddie is taking Physical Science, Bible, Scrapbooking/Notebooking and Math Skills.  They are doing very well!  I've been VERY pleased with the work they have done so far.  Monday nights are our Girl Scout nights.  All 3 girls meet at the same place at the same time, but with differant leaders.  I am Katie's leader this year.  She is a Senior Girl Scout and working on her Gold Award.  Maddie is a Cadette and working on her Silver Award.  Allie is a 3rd year Brownie and having a blast.  She is taking her guitar in tonight and CAN'T wait!!!!  I have been a leader now for 11 years!!!  I have been everything but a Cadette leader (so far).

Maddie and Allie are in soccer this fall.  They are having a great season and learning lots.  They are in the Homeschool Junior Athletic division here.  I am SO glad they expanded the ages to 16!!!!  This is such a nice organization for them to play for.  We have been with them on and off since they started in 1995.  It's nice to see my old friends!

We are still building our shed.  We've had some inspector issues, but it's getting there! We are on the last steps now!!

I hope to have pictures up soon.  I'm sitting outside of the co-op now and almost out of time.  Hopefully I will be back soon to keep this up to date!

First Day of local public school!!!!!!!  We usually do something fun, but this year we celebrated by having Katie's teeth pulled!  Poor thing.  She had 3 cavities filled and 4 teeth pulled.  She had it all done at once and felt fine afterward!  The next town over starts school next Tuesday, we plan on celebrated by taking Maddie to the podiatrist.  Not our usual celebrations, but the kids are back in school!!!!!  It was unusually quiet here today.

Just a quick note about our summer- we finished our Girl Scout monthly projects.  June was lighthouses, that was really interesting and we learned alot.  July was "Sweet Shoppe".  We learned about candy.  This went along great with our trip to Hershey Park.  We made LOTS of candy! and learned about local candy and cake places.  August was zoololgy.  This was really neat.  We learned about endangered animals and programs across the US to help endangered animals.  We "adopted" tigers at the local zoo.  We spent some time at the zoo with the zookeeper that takes care of the tigers.  We got to learn about the tigers and about her job.  It was great that she took that time to talk to us.  Maddie wants to be a vet tech when she grows up.  We learned that vet techs are very important at zoos.  She's thinking of going in that direction.  She is being steered to go to Virginia Tech.  They have a great program for vets, vet techs and zookeepers.

All four of the other kids got their weeks at camp and their rooms cleaned!!!! (Some are even still clean!)

We are jumping into some big home projects:  George is building a big shed out back.  He will have a nice gym out there and room left for a workshop.  Inside we are re-doing our hallway with our school stuff and adding 2 more rooms to the family room.  One room will be David's room and one will be my craft/scrapbook room!!!!  We are very excited about all of our changes.  Hopefully a back deck will be in our future soon too.  I finally finished painting the kitchen.  We still have a few finishing touches to put on it-wanescoting, trim and wallpaper border.  Never a dull moment!!!

Hopefully I can find the time to keep this updated!  Everything is about to start for the year...soccer, scouts, enrichment classes, etc, etc, etc!

Wow!  I've really missed alot of updates!  I will hopefully get everything caught up soon.  I've been SO busy getting the kids rooms done while they were at camp!  We've moved beds around and added new furniture and bedding to the kids rooms.  Katie and Maddie each replaced their beds with futons.  This really gave them alot more space in their rooms.  Maddie also added a coffee table and DAVID!  The Saturday of my birthday party, David decided it was time to climb out of his crib!!!!  We put him down for a nap and closed the door behind us. Instead of settling down to sleep he climbed out of his crib, opened the door and said "yo!"  That was the end of peaceful naptimes!  Maddie put his mattress on her floor, we will see how that goes!  Katie found new bedding and curtains for her room.  I will hopefully get pictures up soon.

Allie left for camp today.  She will be there until Wednesday morning.  This doesn't give me much time to clean, but I got a head start when we changed her bed back into a bunk bed (the other one was in Maddie's room).

We are getting things straightened up around here, moving stuff around, adding stuff and ripping other stuff out.  We hopefully we will adding a big shed outside soon.  We will have to put the garage off for alittle while, but this will give George his own place for his workshop and workout equipment.  All the stuff we had in the old garage has been packed away or added in other spots since we moved!  Soon I'll have a QUIET scrapbook area too!!!!  We are planning on building a deck on to the back off the house soon too!

Allie and Snuggles getting ready for camp.

Allie's bunk

Allie was SO excited to see friends she hasn't seen since last year!!!!  This is Kara, Allie and Rebecca.

It seems like forever since I've been on here.  I'll add more and pictures soon.  I have been very busy with 2 at camp and cleaning their rooms. I did get them done before they came home from camp!!!  We are now moving furniture from one room to another!  We have futons and bed pieces seemingly all over the house!  I have to get Allie's room cleaned up so we can put the bunk beds back together in her room.  Maddie had one bed in her room, but has replaced it with a futon.

I had a birthday party here on Saturday.  It was alot of fun!  I was VERY hot out.  I enjoyed visiting with everyone!

Wow, what a day!!!!  George took George E. to meet the Boy Scouts this morning.  All went very well.  He was excited to be going  to camp for a whole week!  As soon as David went down for his nap I started on George E's room!!!  I've made a dent.  It will take some more sorting of little tiny Legos before it looks a whole lot differant. 

In the afternoon we took Katie to camp.  It took a little bit to get her settled in.  George, Maddie, Allie, David and I went to Dairy Queen for dinner and dessert.  We has SO much fun!  We giggled and laughed the whole time!  David was SO funny.  As soon as it was really quiet in there he would yell out anything in his vocabulary!  We tried so hard not to laugh at him and encourage him, but it was funny.  His vocabulary consists of words like AAHHHH, MOM, DADDY, HI, BYE and PEE.  Adding ice cream to this only added to the volume!  We laughed about it all the whole way home and moo-ed at all the cows in the fields we passed.  Maddie was very excited every time she saw a baby horse and Allie corrected her that it was called a foal!  Too funny!

Too tired to work on bedrooms tonight.  Hopefully I will get a bunch done tomorrow!

We have 2 kids READY to go to 2 differant camps tomorrow!  YEAH!!!  We got everything done!!!

The next door neighbors had a birthday bbq for their daughter today.  It was nice to go visit for a little while.  The kids stayed for a while then they ALL migrated over here.  They played until almost dark!!!  After dark there were 2 houses in the neighborhood doing fireworks so we watched from the porch.

Starting to get George E and Katie packed and ready to leave for camp on Sunday.  Lots of laundry and finding lost things.  Pretty quiet day as things go.  I was so happy to hear the mail carrier at the door.  She had the "cousins box".  We have a circulating box that goes from our house to my sister's house, to my other sister's house.  My kids fill the box with goodies for their cousins and send it on it's way.  My sister gets it, takes out the stuff for her girls and they add things for their cousins.  The box goes to my other sister's house, she takes what's for her daughter and they add things for the cousins.  This is the first time the box has been back to the starting house.  My kids were so excited to see what their cousins sent to them.  This is a really nice way for them to keep in touch and stay close even though they are far away!

"The Cousins Box"

In the afternoon I finally did "big" grocery shoppping.  I'm glad it's done!!!  Maddie made spaghetti for us for dinner.  She did a great job!!

We have worked really hard to make our house the "cool" house, so our kids want to bring friends here and be here.  This way we know what they are doing and who they are with.  We have had EVERY child from our neighborhood here lately!!!!  It has been nice to have our children here, but sometimes challenging to have others here.  You know, the ones who's parents hate to have their children home from school for the summer.  Ahhh, patience!!!

Well, I did get some things done here, then ran some errands.  George picked up all the groceries for a cookout and surprised me with the picnic table I wanted for the backyard!  He put it together, then cooked us a nice dinner!  We ate out on the new table and all went swimming afterward. 

George cooking our yummy dinner.

Allie and George E. enjoying our yummy dinner on our new table!

David eating his um-ums.

David "driving" the lawn mower!!!  He loves anything mechanical!