Sunday, September 19, 2010

What we've been up to...

THE GIRLS ARE SEVEN!

Wow - look at my hair! I was taking a trip down memory lane last month because our girls turned 7 on August 19th. I can't believe it's been that long. This picture is me holding them on their blessing day in dresses my mom crocheted for them. Lacey is on the left and Jessica is on the right.
Here they are at about 3 months of age. It's so funny that they don't even look anything like they do now. Except the face, you can see Jessica has the round face and Lacey has the longer one. That is still the case.

This isn't the best photo but it shows the girls around 15 months old. Can you guess who is who? Lacey is on the left and Jessica is on the right. And Jarom isn't making the best camera face, but I thought the picture illustrated quite well how his life was going at that point - "surrounded by sisters!"


Lacey and Jessica at 15 months. They look so sweet and innocent. Honestly, they were really good babies, at least I think they were! I frankly can't remember the entire first year of their life. So I am glad I took lots of pictures. (Oh, Lacey is on the left and Jessica is on the right.)


Fast forward six years and here they are on their birthday. August 19, 2010. It was a Thursday and they had to go to school but we opened presents early. This time Jessica is on the left and Lacey on the right.





I can't even remember all the stuff they got. We bought them some dresses, markers, club penguin toys and who knows what else.





Looking so grown up - hard to believe I used to carry both of them around at the same time!






Lots of club penguin figurines.





JOEL IS POTTY TRAINED!
Now let's skip forward to the potty train. We put this train on the top of our fridge about 6 months ago to entice Joel to start using the bathroom. (He will be four in January). It did not work. I kind of let potty training him go because we had tried so many times and he just wouldn't cooperate. About a week after the girls birthday I went grocery shopping and came home to find him in underwear. Paul had just changed a poopy diaper and declared he had "had it" with diapers and we were done. I raised my eye brows a bit knowing it would probably result in disaster again but whatever. To our surprise he did great. He had a couple of hard days in the beginning but then he just got the concept and ran with it. He was even pooping on the toilet earlier than any of our others kids. (I seem to remember a couple of them using diapers to poop in for awhile.) So we happily pulled that train off the fridge and he has been loving it ever since. And I love not buying diapers or worrying about changing him.

LAKE PLEASANT


We went to Lake Pleasant for the first time ever yesterday. Our friends David & Gilda Hill invited us up for a day of boating, jet skiing and playing in the lake. We had such a good time. We all got really sunburned and we totally wiped out by the end of the day, but it was great! None of our kids can swim that well so I was really glad there were lots of life jackets around. Poor Joel had to wear a girly one, but I don't think he noticed. It took like 2 hours to convince the girls that they really could float when they
had life jackets on.

We took turns taking the kids out on the jet ski's and then David took us out in the boat on a tour of lake pleasant. He is a fast driver, we hit some waves pretty hard, but all the kids laughed and begged for more.
Here's Jessica getting ready to go play in the water. The water was really dirty but it was cold and being that we broke a heat record on Saturday, 111 degrees, it felt awesome!




Lacey was ready to try out the water too.











David docked the boat on the shore in between uses and the kids had so much fun just climbing in and out of it all day. They even had water fights with the other kids who were swimming in the lake.












Paul and Jarom getting ready to get on the boat.













Here is Erika posing in front of Lake Pleasant.















Erika and Jessica heading out for a ride.














Paul and Lacey coming back in. We took Jarom and Joel out as well but didn't get pictures. Joel LOVED the jet ski, I actually had to take him out on it several times while he would yell "Go faster mom..."











True to the nature of kids, there was lots of playing in the dirt, collecting shells and building dams.















Joel hung out on the boat for most of the day. After laying on the horn for about 15 minutes, we had to give him strict instructions to quit pushing on it because it was starting to get annoying. But he didn't get sunburned at all so that's a relief. All in all we had a great time and the kids are already asking when our next trip will be.




2 comments:

  1. Happy birthday to Lacey and Jess! I can't believe they're seven! It's funny because last night we were talking with a gal who came by and she was saying that her daughter will be seven in February. I remember thinking, "Oh okay, so she's a year older than Courtney." And the Loren was all, "Wait, Courtney will be seven in January!" It totally blew me away!

    And congrats to little Joel for being diaper trained. So he doesn't need diapers at night either? Are you using the potty pager on him? I still want to get that.

    And I laughed out loud when you said that Joel laid on the horn of the boat for 15 minutes! I could just imagine my kids doing that and then us getting after them. I'm glad you guys had such a great time! For our anniversary we went jet skiing and our legs got burned and my butt killed like nothing before. But it was a blast!

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  2. That Potty "Train" is an awesome idea! We have one more to potty train, and I continue to put it off as he is only 2 1/2.
    Loved all the pics of the lake and Lacey & Jessica's Birthday.

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