Sweet Brothers!

First Day of School

Okay, well actually these pictures were taken on the 3rd day of school for Jacob and Jordan, and the 11th day of school for Rachel & Joshua. I know - I'm a terrible mother. I completely forgot with the rush of trying to get to school on time the first day.

Here's Rachel all ready and excited to go to her "school". She loves going to school and asks every night when she gets to go to her "Miss Carolina's big class". Wish the boys had the same attitude that she does.

Here are 3 of the 4 (Joshua was already in his carseat). Jacob has started 8th grade. This is 2 days before Jacob's 14th birthday. I know! Can you believe it? Next year he'll be starting high school! Scary! Jordan has started 4th grade. He is almost done with elementary school :( Rachel is in preschool. She is learning her letters and learning how to write in a journal! She is doing lots of artwork that she's very proud of and loves to show off!

Rachel's such a big girl - she has to carry her Disney Princess lunchbox and her bag herself!

Here's Joshua in his carseat. He is 9 months old and is all over the place and into everything. We call him our "destructo-boy". He's so sweet and lots of fun!

Here's Rachel having fun at the end of her 11th day of school (heehee). I know - she needs a Disney Princess tricycle to match her Disney Princess helmet. She does have a Disney Princess scooter but she insisted on riding the Hot Wheels one instead. I try but she does have 3 brothers.

And here's Joshua having fun outside at the end of his 11th day of school. We have lots of leaves at our new house and eating them is his favorite activity. I don't know how they can taste good but everytime he's outside he manages to get one in his mouth.

Hope you enjoyed these "not the 1st day of school" pictures. I would say I was just trying to be different but I think we all know that's not true. God is teaching me that it's okay to let little things like that go. It's not the end of the world. I tend to get upset when I miss out on those perfect Kodak moments, but I know it's the time I spend with them not taking pictures that's important.

I Love Elmo (?) Dance

We thought Joshua was really enjoying his Hokey Pokey Elmo until he started to make this funny face! Watch and see!

Cousins Visit!

Jacob, Jordan, Rachel & Joshua visit their 1st and only cousin, Cole.

I'm so tired!

This could describe how I feel right now and how Joshua feels in this picture. He started running a fever today - 102.1 and we think he has an ear infection. He is in pain right now and won't sleep. I gave him Tylenol but it only seems to help a little bit and bring his fever down. I thought I'd try loading a video onto my blog and this is a video I took of Joshua last night. We were trying to feed him his dinner and he was falling asleep at the same time. Hope this works. Enjoy! Ok this didn't work. When I tried to load, I found out that the maximum size of a video can be 100 MB. My video was 324 MB. So I'm going to put another sleepy video of Joshua from earlier this month that is only 63 MB. I'm too sleepy!

Shaggy, Our Hero!

In case your wondering, Shaggy is our dog. We have had her for about 6 1/2 years. We got her for free from the Walmart parking lot. The people giving her away said that she was an Australian Shepherd Mix. The mom was Australian Shepherd and they didn't know what the dad was. We are sure she is half weiner dog (dachsund) because her body is totally shaped like one. Anyway, I digress. She has been a wonderful dog for the kids. She would never hurt them. She has never tried to bite anyone or even growled - she'll just lick you to death. Rachel has even taken her food before while she is eating and she doesn't do anything. She lets Rachel feed her and pretty much do anything to her. I would have used the phrase "She wouldn't hurt a fly." but after you read what I'm about to tell you, you would disagree.

Let me set the stage for you. We say that our dog has jaws of steel and a stomach of steel. She can chew up anything and eat anything and it doesn't affect her. Scot put out metal ant stakes at our old house and she ate them. He sprinkled out ant poison and she licked it up. She also licks up fertilizer. And she never gets sick! Now to my story:

Yesterday Jacob and Jordan were on the back porch and I hear them saying (really loud), "Oh my gosh! Good girl, Shaggy! Good girl!" They come running in and yell, "Come see Shaggy! She's got a rat in her mouth!" I freak out and tell Scot to come too. Imagine my horror when I see Shaggy shaking the biggest rat you've ever seen around in her mouth like a dog toy! I was freaking out! Scot told her to put it down and when she did, there was no head! It's head was gone! So she either bit it off and tossed it somewhere or she ate it. I'm getting the heebie jeebies as I write this and think about it again! She's up to date on her shots and I was worried about her getting sick or getting a disease. Scot said, "This is our dog you're talking about. The one that eats bug poison and doesn't get sick. She'll be fine." She seems fine today so I guess she really is a wonderdog. The boys thought we should praise her and give her a treat because she saved us from the rat. I told them she already had a treat: rat's head.

4th of July Photos