School time is near

I have spent part of the day getting my "homework" done for the kids to bring to school tomorrow. We went back to Alamoosook Lake this afternoon. It was even hotter today and the water was like bath water. So nice! The kids were in the water for about an hour and a half before I dragged them out kicking and screaming, so Zoe could make it to soccer practice. It was a whirlwind of an evening getting the kids fed, bathed, and ready for bed/school tomorrow. We are never good at starting a school routine before school actually begins, so it will take a few days for us to adjust to getting the kids to bed at a reasonable hour and getting them up early.

Matt came home in time to give the kids a father's blessing before they went to bed. This is our first year giving them a blessing before school and I hope it becomes a tradition. Noah wanted in on a blessing as well, so he got one, too. He looked so cute sitting on the chair and folding his arms. Matt also got home in time to clean up many dirty dishes as well as the kitchen floor, while I sit in front of the computer. Such a great husband!

My one photo of the day. Kate and Noah are enjoying the cherry tomatoes we received from Jen today. It was like receiving candy, they were so excited!


School starts tomorrow! Zoe is a bit concerned that I am too excited that school is starting. I am looking forward to quieter times with Kate and Noah. I hope the older kids enjoy getting back into a school routine. I also hope to make time each afternoon to read with the kids (which is usually their homework) and to sit and talk with each of them about their day. There will be no computer/tv time on school days, so we will get to enjoy the afternoons/evenings together. That is our goal...well, it's my goal at least that everyone will be forced to follow. :-)

Last days of summer vacation

Matt and I had a nice day at the temple Saturday and the kids had a great time with my parents. :-)

The kids and I spent a few hours this afternoon at Alamoosook Lake. The weather for the past 3 days has been hot and beautiful, so the water was enjoyable for this time of year. I didn't snap any pictures of the kids while they were swimming, but I took a few when we were getting ready to leave.






Zach starts Kindergarten on Wednesday! We went to his Open House this evening, so Zach met his teacher, Mrs. Pelletier (all of our children have had her so far for Kindergarten :-) and he spent some time in his classroom. When Zach was introducing himself to another boy in his class and explaining that they would be in Kindergarten together it hit me...Zach is going to Kindergarten! I tear up whenever I think about it now.

Summer is ending

Today was the last day of swim lessons. Kate refused to get in the water. Fall is in the air, so getting into cold water on a cool morning didn't appeal to her. Emily, Eleanor, and Zach passed their classes. It didn't surprise me that Kate didn't pass her class since it usually takes 2 or more sessions to pass a class. Emily has completed all of the swim classes. I could watch Emily do the crawl stroke all day long. It is so beautiful! Zoe and Emily want to take the water safety course together next summer. I can see several, if not all of our kids being lifeguards when they are old enough.

Zoe spent the night with my parents last night and then finished up her school supply shopping with my mom this morning. Then Zoe, Emily, and Eleanor went shopping for pants with Patti this afternoon. We found a lot of shirts when we went shopping at Goodwill, but few pants. It was very sweet of Patti to call this morning and offer to take the girls shopping. :-)

I took Zach, Kate, and Noah to the last free swim of the summer. It was a sunny day, which was nice, but the water was still cold. I only know that because the kids said so. Swimming weather has come and gone for me.

Matt and I are going to the temple tomorrow on the stake bus trip, so the kids are staying with my parents until Sunday. I'm looking forward to being in the temple tomorrow. :-)

Family Field Trip

A comment I left on Facebook last week about Zach wanting to be a police officer (and Kate wanting to be a kangaroo) led to a family tour of the Bangor police station this evening. Our friend, Shawn is an officer in Bangor and he offered to take us on a tour of the station. We went this evening and we had a lot of fun!

Zoe loved the communication room where the dispatcher was. Eleanor was so excited when she met a lady officer and the seed was planted that she too could be a police officer. Matt loved the shooting room. After seeing the evidence lockers, Matt is unconvinced that the evidence is safe from tampering. He is still pondering and working things out in his mind. Noah loved his police junior officer sticker. A favorite for all of us was seeing inside the police cruiser. Noah was standing in front of the cruiser when Shawn turned on the horn. Noah ran over to me and clung to my leg for awhile. He was not a huge fan of the cruiser after that.

The other kids LOVED the lights and sirens! That was a huge highlight for them.

They also loved sitting in the driver's seat and making the lights and sirens go off!



The girls had fun playing with a button or two and then posing for the camera. Not Zach. He was VERY into the buttons and all the things in the cruiser.

When he finally looked at the camera, this is the look we got. As if to say, "Hey, I'm busy here. Leave me alone!"
Noah still had the concerned look going on.

Here is a random picture that Matt took of me, Zoe, and Kate.

Eleanor was the only one to leave the tour disappointed. She really wanted to see some people in jail!

Happy Birthday, Mom!

We had fun celebrating with you today!

Thanks for inviting the lobster over for dinner. It was fun to play with our food before we ate it. :-)



I enjoyed watching "The Last Song" with you and Grammie this evening. It was a fun way to end such a special day. :-)

Out and About

The kids and I left home this morning at 9:20 and arrived back home at 4:50pm. It was a non-stop fun day! Zoe and Emily went over to Sunshine's house to finish sewing their pajama bottoms, and Zach went with them to play with Kai and Koa. I took Eleanor, Kate, and Noah to a newly built playground in Ellsworth, which is awesome!

This was Kate's favorite spot.


This was Eleanor's bed while they played house.
Noah was hesitant about going down some of the slides. He went down this slide very slowly and whined the entire way.


After spending 2 hours at the playground, we picked up Zoe and Emily (with their finished pajama bottoms, yay!), and Zach and went to McDonald's for lunch. I have to write about our trips to McDonald's, so I have proof when my kids complain that we NEVER go there. :-) After refueling, we went school shopping! We went to Goodwill for clothes. All of the kids have their first day of school outfits now. Hooray! Then we went to Walmart for sneakers/shoes and other necessities. Zach was determined to get sunglasses and since he already owns a nice pair of sneakers, I let him get a pair. Kate got a pair too, since she reminded us that hers went down the toilet. It was funny how vividly she remembered the experience.

By the time we got home from shopping, I was ready for my night out, but first I had to pick up Caitlin and bring Zoe and Caitlin to soccer practice. Caitlin's mom, Jen picked them up from practice and brought them home. That was super helpful because Matt would have had to bring all the kids to pick Zoe up, since I was at the $1 theater with my parents and grandmother watching "Eclipse". Fun!

Soccer has begun

Zoe had her first soccer practice this evening for the middle school team. We don't know yet if there will be enough girls to have an A and B team. If there are too many girls for 1 team and not enough for 2 teams, then some girls will have to be cut. There were 19 girls at practice this evening and more are sure to join, so we shall see what happens.

Kate's ear has been slightly hurting all day, but tonight she was in tears because it hurt so much. We gave her some pain medicine and some medicine for Swimmers' Ear and now she is sleeping peacefully on the couch. Hopefully, she will sleep tonight and I will get to sleep tonight.

Logan's Day

Logan Dalton just got home from his mission in France on Thursday. He spoke in church today, along with some of his family members. Very uplifting! Logan had many special experiences to share and I LOVED hearing his testimony in French. We went over to the Dalton's home after church for Logan's open house. We had a fun time!

Matt's blogging for me :-)

I encouraged Matt to blog about his fishing adventure with Kate and Zach, so I could just link to it here, and he did! Bless his heart.

I'll just mention a fun activity to do with kids. Pop some popcorn, grab a picnic blanket, grab a book to read to the kids, and go outside. We had so much fun yesterday eating popcorn and reading Pinocchio outside on such a beautiful day!

Great News!

Noah's arm is 80% healed, so he doesn't need to wear his sling anymore. Yay! The doctor wasn't concerned that the bones wouldn't heal completely, so Noah doesn't need to be seen again. Yay!

Swimming & Soccer

Eleanor passed a swim test today at the pool during free swim, so now she can swim in the deep end by herself. She is so excited! I knew she would pass the test because she is a good swimmer and she swims in the deep end all the time during swim lessons.

The kids and I went over to the soccer field this evening, so Zoe and Emily could play soccer with other members of the community. This fun summer soccer program is for people ages 7-70 and it is free. There is a game every Tuesday and Thursday evening. I wanted to take the girls to play last summer and then all this summer, but the game is right at dinner time and right when I've had enough of the day and just want to stay home. I knew tonight was the last game for the summer, so it was go tonight or wait until next summer. Zoe enjoyed it more than Emily did. Emily and Eleanor actually went one time this summer with friends, but Zoe had never been before. Eleanor had no interest in playing tonight and Emily started the game, but didn't last until the end. I've heard that sometimes they have enough kids to have a kid only game, but that didn't happen this evening. It was mostly adults there. Zoe played until the end and scored a goal near the end! Way to go, Zoe!

We had swim lessons this morning and then we left the house at 1pm to swim and play soccer, so I am EXHAUSTED! Did I mention that we stopped at the pool again on our way home for a quick swim? The kids and I were so tired this evening when we got home. Some of the kids were begging us to let them go to bed before we even had dinner. I think we will all sleep good tonight.

Teddy Bear Picnic & Swimming

We went to the Teddy Bear Picnic at the library this morning (which is basically a story time that the kids bring a teddy bear to now). They used to feed the kids honeycomb cereal and apple juice in the library, but now the kids get animal crackers to go. There was a lady there today with a puppet named Lamb Chop. She was fun and very entertaining. The kids fell in love with Lamb Chop and were so amazed that she could talk! I haven't thought about "the real" Lamb Chop in years! The kids and I walked to the fountain on the waterfront after the stories were read, so the kids could eat their crackers and throw a penny into the fountain (which is Kate's favorite thing to do!).

We went swimming at the pool in the afternoon. The lifeguards had loud music playing, which is a first and hopefully is not going to become a habit. I enjoy the quiet at the pool! Noah posed for me, so I can show you that his tooth is coming back down. You can't see his tooth very well, but it's there!

Showing signs of being healed

Noah has realized that his "broken arm" doesn't hurt anymore when he raises it over his head and when he moves it around. This has led him to believe that he doesn't need to wear his sling anymore. If his sling is not pinned to his shirt, he'll take it off as soon as I'm not looking, as he did this morning. He hopefully only has a few more days to wear his sling. He goes back to the doctor on Friday to have an x-ray taken of his arm. It's tempting to just say he is healed and cancel the x-ray appointment since his last doctor's visit cost MORE than the ER visit, but I won't. It's still tempting, though.

Kate's Got Talent

She can balance a book on her head

AND

She can capture a great picture of Matt (Can you see him underneath her finger? :-)

Bring on the visitors

Our average attendance at church during the summer is 55. There were 150 people at church today! The Millis family blessed their baby girl, so they had a lot of family visiting. A few other members had family visiting and then we had our normal vacationers.

I ended up in the primary room during Sacrament meeting with Kate and Noah as I usually do. Noah kept getting into the diaper bag and getting out the camera, so I took a picture of him and Kate.

Then Kate took pictures with the camera. Here are a few of the many pictures she took. She got her fingers in the pictures at first, but then she kept them out of the way after I showed her where to put them.


She had fun taking extreme closeups.

Then she captured some views from a distance.

I tried to listen to the talks while Kate snapped away and Noah played with the treasures he found in the side pocket of the diaper bag.


We had around 30 children in primary today, which doubled our normal attendance. Getting all of the children to their classes after Sacrament meeting and finding a nursery helper was a bit crazy!

Guess who was in charge of Sharing Time with the children today. That's right, me. Fortunately, what I had planned adapted well to a large group. I invited Tiffany, my Mom, Matt, and Sunshine to participate in this activity that I got from our Primary outline.

Invite some ward members to come to Primary and briefly tell the following stories as though they were witnesses to the events: the raising of Lazarus (John 11:1–45); the raising of Jairus’s daughter (Mark 5:21–24, 35–43); the raising of the widow’s son (Luke 7:11–16); and the Resurrection (John 20:1–18). The ward members could wear simple costumes, such as a head scarf or robe. Encourage them to testify that Jesus Christ has power over death and that each of us will be resurrected.

The kids did a great job listening and Tiffany, my Mom, Matt, and Sunshine did an awesome job telling their stories. After the stories, the kids each made a resurrection slide show. I had my Mom make 10 extra copies for the large group, no problem. They enjoyed coloring, cutting, and showing off their slide shows, which told the story of Christ's resurrection. We had closing exercises during which Zoe gave a great talk. :-) Then our church day was done. What a day it was!

Truly blessed

My parents helped me out again today without me expecting it. They had made plans for the day, but decided to stay home. They came over in the morning to bring some kids home with them. They took Zach, Kate, and Noah. This was super helpful since I had made plans with the older girls to start school shopping today at Goodwill. Taking 3 instead of 6 was much easier! I also had made plans to take the kids to a birthday party for Morgan and Nathan (friends from church) and that was much easier with just the older 3 than with all 6. My parents had a busy, tiring day with the younger 3, when they could have spent a quiet day at home by themselves. I am so blessed to have such awesome parents who love to spend time with our children! Thanks Mom and Dad!

Blue Hill

After swim lessons this morning, we packed up and headed for Blue Hill. We returned an overdue library book and paid $.40...Ooops!, we went swimming, ate, played on the playground, made some friends, looked at little crabs that our friends had, skipped rocks, swam some more, and then came home. A fun, tiring day!

Matt left this evening with Don to go to Rockland on Don's boat. He'll be back tomorrow afternoon/evening.

The kids are excited to sleep in the living room tonight. We'll find a fun movie on Netflix for them to watch with some popcorn. A perfect end to a fun day!

A quiet, happy home

I have come to realize lately that I am a happier, more relaxed mom when we have a quiet house. Now, by quiet I don't mean that the kids are quiet, but the tv and the computer are quiet. I have also noticed that when I let the kids sit in front of the computer all day and watch tv shows all day, they fight more, they have less patience, and they are just plain grumpy. I get grumpy too because there is the noise of the computer games or the tv shows and the noise of the kids fighting. There is also the feeling of being lazy, which makes me feel guilty, and grumpy. I've noticed that the kids get along better and play more together when the house is quiet. They get more physical activity in and they read more when the house is quiet. The past few days, I have refused to let the kids play on the computer or watch tv shows. I did let them watch a movie together today. I've been thinking about ways to limit their tv/computer time and I'm leaning towards letting one child each day have a computer/tv turn. By tv, I mean netflix. They could pick one netflix episode and 30 minutes of computer time or one netflix movie or all computer time. When every child gets a turn during a day, then the computer is being used all day long. I don't like that. That's when we get grumpy.

The kids and I cleaned the bathroom today. I love spending time with each child as we clean together. Eleanor had so much fun during her turn that she begged me to let her help some more. Eleanor never asks for more work! She also begged me to teach her how to do the laundry. Courtney, I keep using Lucy as an example around here. :-) Zoe needs the least supervision and soon I'll be able to send her into the bathroom to clean an area by herself and she'll be able to do it without me watching. When Emily was cleaning the sink, she pointed out how the faucet gets dirty when everyone spits on it. It would be nice for the kids to pick up on how to keep the bathroom clean, so it's not so dirty when we clean it. Zach has such enthusiasm for every chore he does, and he does a great job. He had so much fun helping me clean the toilet today. Kate doesn't like the fact that I try to do most of the work when she is helping me. I need to let her do more because she always tells me how great I am when I do. :-)

I love being outside with Kate and Noah when they pick red cherry tomatoes from the garden and then eat them. I love watching them pick raspberries and then eat them. In the past, I have been opposed to having so many raspberry bushes around, but now I am happy that we have so many.

The kids found a caterpillar at the park today and brought it home. It kept Emily and Eleanor occupied when we got home. They worked together to make a home for the caterpillar.

There are so many fun and wonderful things to do when the house is quiet!

My Mom Saves The Day

I was on my way to the doctor's office with all of the kids for Zoe's sports physical when my mom called me to let me know she was home for the day. She met me outside the doctor's office and took Emily, Eleanor, Zach, and Kate home with her, so I only had to take Noah and Zoe into the doctor's office. Sweet! The kids and I spent the rest of the day with my mom, and my dad when he got home from work in the afternoon, which was fun. :-)

I forgot to post the cutest saying of yesterday. When I was taking a picture of the crawfish, Noah told the crawfish to "Say Cheese!". So cute!

Pond Day

As much as I'd like to keep Noah in a bubble these days, it was time to venture out of the house and have some fun. Zoe and Emily met with Sunshine this morning to cut out their pajama bottoms that they are going to sew and then we all headed to a pond in Lamoine for some swimming. Such a fun day!

When Emily found out there are crawfish in the pond, she was on the hunt to find one.

Emily didn't have any luck finding one, but another boy did.

A wounded boy can still have fun! Noah can get his hand wet now and he doesn't need his bandage, but I wanted his hand protected at the beach.

Noah and Bo felt so big and proud when it was their turn to wear the masks and snorkels! So cute!



Matt was home when we got home in the afternoon. He had this waiting for Noah.

Noah loves it! He wore it outside and asked us to put it on him several times. He is such a funny kid!

Mystery Solved

Noah had his first dentist appointment today.

I wanted our dentist to take a look at the area where Noah lost his tooth to make sure it was still healthy and well. Brad (Brad is a few years younger than me and we grew up going to the same church, so it feels more natural to call him Brad than Dr. Rand) looked at the area and took an x-ray. As he was looking at the x-ray he said, "Well, I found the missing tooth." Noah didn't knock his tooth out, he knocked it up into his gums. OUCH! Brad said that when a tooth goes missing like Noah's did, they look at the lip and the gums. He said Noah's tooth will grow back in by itself. That was good news! It was also good news that the permanent tooth didn't get damaged when the baby tooth went into the gums. It was sad to think that Noah would go around without a tooth until the permanent tooth came in, so I'm looking forward to his baby tooth coming in again. Matt is skeptical that Noah's tooth will grow back in. Noah was running this evening and fell once again, and I think he knocked his tooth up into his gum even further than before. Noah is really stressing me out with all of his tumbles and injuries!

BIG

This post is about Kate. Noah hasn't given me any new blogging material today. Thank goodness!

Kate wants to be big. Every time she does something on her own, she asks if she is big enough to go in the deep end of the pool by herself. It is so cute. She'll have milk in a big girl cup and then ask, "Can I go in the deep end by myself now?" I keep telling her that when she is 8, she can go in the deep end by herself. At church today, she did something that made her feel big, so she asked if she could go into Alea's primary class. Alea is 6. Kate is always asking if she is big. She is getting bigger and bigger every day. *sigh* Kate is my baby girl. She is at the super cute age of 3 and it makes me sad that she wants to grow up so quickly. Let's enjoy you being 3 right now, Kate! You'll have plenty of time to be big.

What title would you use?

Several titles have been going through my mind for this post.

Injury #3 for Noah
Strike 3
Noah proves the theory that all things come in 3's
So much for waiting for Noah to heal for his 2 year picture
Noah, stop giving me blogging material!
At this rate, Noah is going to end up in a body cast
Will Noah live to see the age of 3?
Toothless Noah


Here are all 3 wounds.


What happened this time, you wonder? He was running (Noah doesn't walk anymore, he just runs everywhere) into my parents' bedroom when he tripped and his face landed on the side of their bed. I was on the computer when my Dad came rushing into the kitchen with Noah, announcing that Noah was missing a tooth. Another injury? Great. I hate dealing with injuries when Matt isn't around. He's much better at it than I am. I looked Noah over, cleaned him up as best as I could, tried to put some ice on his lip, and cuddled with him. He has a missing front tooth, his lip is swollen and cut, and his chin is cut and bruised. We never found the tooth, so we are assuming he swallowed it.

Noah, please, please, please stop hurting yourself. I don't think I can handle another injury.

A must read!

Matt has updated his blog a few times this week! We love reading his blog, so it's exciting when he updates! You can go here to read his view on some things that have been going on and some things that he has been doing. Enjoy!

What is that smell?

I took Zoe's lunch box out of her school bag today and was immediately hit with a very disgusting smell. I peeked into the lunch box and saw a ziplock bag filled with an unidentifiable substance. What IS that? After a minute of inspection, I realized that it was the remains of a cantaloupe rind. It smelled and looked so disgusting! The lunch box and the ziplock bag both went into the diaper pail.

Zoe loves to hear stories about her past and our family. This will be a story for the future. Thanks for the memory, Zoe! Next time, I'll save the dirty work for YOU!

A day the kids have been waiting for

Emily, Eleanor, Zach, and Kate started their second session of swim lessons today. Zoe watched Noah at home. After swim lessons, I dropped the kids off at home to stay with Zoe while I took Noah to his doctor's appointment. His hand is looking better.

The doctor could tell that Noah is a very active little boy and he made the comment that he suspected that this wouldn't be Noah's last injury. Probably not, but one injury at a time would be nice. Noah doesn't need to go back to the doctor for his burn unless it starts looking worse again. We have supplies to change his bandage a few more times and then his hand should be healed enough for Noah to use again.

My parents, Zoe, Emily, Eleanor, Zach, Kate, and I went to the Bangor Fair this afternoon and evening. Matt took care of Noah. It is a summer tradition to take the kids to the fair and they were so excited to go today! We all had a great time!

Standing in line is part of the adventure now for the older girls.


Zach & Eleanor spent some time together going on rides.


The dragon ride is a favorite among our kids. This was Kate's first Bangor Fair experience and the dragon ride was her first ride. She sat behind Zach and Eleanor and she had a look of terror on her face the entire ride. Oops. That was not a good choice for her first ride. We found slower kiddie rides for her to go on and she loved those! She also loves her new kangaroo that Grammie bought for her.

One kangaroo turns into 2.

Now we have 3?

The older girls were off riding rides, so they missed out.

Zach & Kate spent time riding rides together.



Kate even tried the dragon ride again.

When the ride stopped I heard her say, "This ride is scary! I'm never going on it again!"

This truck ride was Kate's favorite.


Eleanor got tired of the kiddie rides, so she spent time riding with Zoe and Emily, and sometimes Grampie.


Toward the end of the evening, the older girls decided to ride some rides with Zach & Kate. That was nice.

Eleanor was being such a goofball! As you can tell in this next picture, the older girls have not outgrown their favorite ride! Kate did not join them.


Of course we enjoyed yummy food at the fair!


We enjoyed watching the Human Cannonball. We watched him once while we were eating dinner and we saw him again as we were leaving. We actually left the fair with nobody crying or upset. Nice! Thank you Mom and Dad for a great fair day!