Tess at EIGHT

My sweet Tess is EIGHT. She is getting so tall and isn't looking like a little girl anymore. She is still our peacemaker, helper, silly, smilie, and ray of sunshine girl. For her birthday breakfast she requested ice cream. We woke her early with her healthy breakfast and a new watch. Then we quickly dressed and got in the car to drive to the Hill Cummorah pageant. Was she upset that she had to be cooped up in a car for 8 hours on her birthday? Nope. We tried to find a 7- Eleven along our drive so she could get a free slurpee but for some odd reason we didn't pass one.

Peacemaker-- Tess is quick to help her siblings be happy. For example, she gave Clara her tootsie-pop she'd saved just to stop her from crying. Tess went running to get a new toy when she heard me reprimanding her two younger sisters for fighting over one. One the way to church Jake was annoyed with the song Abby was singing and was pitching a fit. While Dan and I were trying to calm Jake down Tess got Abby singing a different song.

Helper-- Tess is Clara's buddy, which is such a huge help to me. When I need to fix dinner Tess will take Clara in hand and they happily play out back together.  Silly-- I've started to see more spunk and silliness from Tess. She is definitely developing more of a sense of humor.

Smilie- Her braces will be coming off next month! Sunshine - She is always happy. She is the most affectionate child. She is always writing sweet notes, giving hugs and saying I love you. Big Girl-- she is tall. She is going to be taller than me soon. She wants her ears pierced!

I can't believe our Tess is EIGHT!

Independence Day

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington Cemetery. 

 Its so much more than BBQ, patriotic desserts and fireworks!

My Man

CAN DO ANYTHING!

 Putting a engine cooling mechanism on the van to pull up our pop-up camper from SC in 2 weeks.

 Finishing the the septic job.

After a full year hounding and waiting on Kenny Maines, we decided to do it ourselves. Dan worked with a pick ax for a week on his own, sifting through the dirt and rocks with the sifter he made. The missionaries came to help him finish the job. He graded the hill as best he could and we put down grass seed and straw. Done and DONE! (If only he hadn't messed up his neck and shoulder from it.)

Found a huge hole all around the side of the current tank (the picture doesn't do it justice). Made me nervous to have him working there.

Kill da Wabbit! With a BB-gun and my favorite Hawaiian shirt! 

Dan had to "free" a tick infested rabbit from our garden a couple days ago.  Time for those bunnies to find a new home though! Funny story: our neighbor took care of a pesky disgusting ground hog for us. Dan was prepared to end its life with a gun but it ended up in the neighbors pool! Susie grabbed a rake and held it down under the water so it wouldn't tear up their new pool liner $$$ or hurt Boots (the shaggy dog). 

Power tools.

Dan spends hours working in the yard with his power tools each week. Trimming trees, working in the garden, and mowing. This is the weekly routine... Dan mows the front on the riding mower and edges all the yard, I mow the back yard with the rider, and Jake does all the push mowing! One hour of pushing that lawn mower is hard work! Proud of my 9 year old.

Clara's 2nd Birthday

Clara turned two today!

We had cupcakes and ice cream to celebrate. She spent her birthday playing out back in her new baby pool while Dan, with the help of the Elders, finished the septic tank project. 

It is fun, and exhausting, to see Clara's personality develop. We've got a fiery-red-head that 's for sure.

I love singing with Clara at bed time. She is such a cute little talker right now so hearing her sings is so cute. She knows Silent Night, I Am A Child of God, Whenever I hear...  She goes through the same routine every night with me, mimicking what I've done. With her pointer finger to her lips--Hmm What song to do?? I know! and then she sings. She has become so independent these days that she usually sits in the rocking chair ALL BY HERSELF while I kneel and rock her either reading a book or we sing. Then she insists on climbing in her crib herself. Heaven forbid I touch her or want her to move faster. WOW!

She copies everything we say and the tone we use. She is quick to reprimand the kids right after I have, with hands upon her hips. Oh'boy!

She wants our full undivided attention all the time. Her volume level increases at dinner time until I can't handle it and have to stop everyone and make them look and listen to her for a few minutes. She hollers "Stop-it" and "Listen to me". "I DO! Mommy I DO" is the most common.

She loves to play with "the guys". The "guys" being the older kids.  I'm grateful she goes down easy for a nap as long as I reassure her that after her nap she gets to "play with the guys".

She says the cutest prayers.

She is scared of "boom-booms" and "shadows". Really scared. There was an incident with "boom booms" when the kids were playing in the car while she was napping and they accidentally made the alarm go off. Dan may have also terrified her by telling her about the three little pigs and big bad wolf recently. Pretty funny.

Last month she got really sick. She had, what I consider a high fever, for 5 days straight. All she did was lay on me. ALL DAY LONG. I loved it, and was impatient, and then loved it. On the 5th day I took her to the doctor where the doctor informed me she was wheezing pretty bad, which explained the the very lethargic behavior. They did a nebulizer treatment so I got to wrestle with her for 10 minutes. I kept telling her that this would help her over and over. I think I did that more for my benefit and to keep from crying myself. Not Fun! We then did the nebulizer at home every 4 hours with steroids for a week. Poor girl.

She is into everything. She is a mess maker. She is a climber. She is stubborn and hollers no at me if I use that word too often with her. She has to do everything herself or a huge tantrum will follow. At the pool she doesn't want me to touch her at all, which just doesn't work in the big kid pool. While trying to get the older girls and myself ready for church the other day she climbed and emptied an entire cereal box on the floor. As I swept it up she hollered at me because she wanted to eat it and then sweep it. I have found the lid to the flour open on more than one occasion... I need to find a way to lock the pantry.

 I love her hugs and kisses. She is quick to give affection. When Dan leaves he'll say to Clara, "I'll miss you baby" and she'll reply "I miss you too". Melts your heart!

She is our very INDEPENDENT book-end! Which is quite fitting sense her name comes from THE Declaration of Independence. I'm going to miss the baby stage! Yes. I. AM.

Last Day of School

When I told Jake and Tess it was time to go out to the bus they came running up the stairs with smiles on their faces! "Last day of school!!!" I think this year "end of the year pictures" I'll capture different faces than last year (Tess cried unconsolably for a good 30 minutes when I picked them up from school last year because she was sad to be moving away from Clarksburg)...

YEP!

At Kemptown Elem they use the last day to introduce the kids to the teacher and classmates they will have next year, which I think is such a great idea. Tess has Mrs. Dalugus, which we are both very happy about, and several friends in her class already.  Jacob has Mrs. Wirtz, who I don't know much about but Jake said she was very nice, and some good friends with him as well.

Now onto a fun-filled Summer. We are not opening our pool this year. Instead we are going to focus on teaching the kids to swim at a pool we just paid a pretty penny to join. Goals have been made. Charts have been posted. Schedule will be followed! The kids will be earning their Carowind tickets by doing daily chores. Tess will be baptized in South Carolina next month. And I have a fun weekend get away with my Mom and sisters to see my newest niece!

Field Day

Abby and I captured a little bit of field day for Jake and Tess.

Jake was in the middle of sponge dodgeball.

May Highlights

FLOWERS: I spent hours out front weeding and preparing the flower bed for new flowers and mulch. I dropped off Abby for a play-date at a friends house one day in the middle of weeding and was talking to the Mom about how nice their flowers were. She informed me she hates to weed and so they hire out and just got it newly landscaped. I have to admit I was jealous. But now that our front yard is weeded, mulched, and new flowers planted I feel proud of my hard work.

FLOOD: Its kinda ironic...Mother's Day weekend I asked Dan to not have any projects on the "to do" list since he was leaving Sunday for a business trip. All we needed to do was cut the grass. So while I was at spin class he got started on the grass.  Dan accidentally ran over the hose with the lawn mower. The faucet wasn't anchored to the brick and so it snapped a pipe. The kids heard water and Dan came running! The water soaked the hallway from the very back to the "kitchen" area. Luckily we have a friend nearby with all the equipment we needed to get the water up. We contacted our home insurance to learn that we had to do what we thought was best, document with pictures, and save our receipts. So Dan spent the rest of Saturday and the time he had on Sunday before leaving for Tennessee getting the water up. I ran the dehumidifier and kept an eye on the constant dripping from the pipes all week. Then Dan, and his amazing ability to figure things out, spent the next Saturday fixing the pipes. We have a carpet company coming to relay matting and hopefully stretch our dry carpet back into place soon. It could have been so much worse.
I've decided to not put restrictions on Dan's "to do" list anymore. Many lessons learned!

 The kids read Rush Revere to him as he worked. 

Abby had her end of the year program from DCP! She gets quiet in group settings but did a great job when she was called on to count the boys, display the number on a graph and make a number sentence. On to Kindergarten for her. (I love how her new hair cut frames that adorable face of hers!)

For the past 5 years we've had a child at DCP, man will I miss those women. This past year I've stood on their front porch talking to Connie Hicks and soaking up her support, christian views, and love many many mornings. I'm going to miss her so much.

NEICES: Baby Karen Detrick (a.k.a. "baby awesome") and Baby Ellie Alvarez were born!!!

SINGING & DANCING: Tess grinned through all six songs of her 2nd grade choir concert today. I wasn't sure if I was up to wrestling with my 2 year old with a headache but I'm so glad I did. Even though the office lady told me younger siblings were not to come I thought about my 2nd grade student council election where my siblings showed up to support me surprising me and my mom, and I went anyway. Tess was thrilled we were there. Clara danced through every song, entertaining several women around us. I wish I had brought in my camera! But I took a mental picture of that happy tall curly red-head. (The 7 year old one. :) When Tess got of the bus today Abby told Tess "You ROCKED it today!"

INSURANCE: Abby and I had a long discussion about the word hate as she learned to read it in our reading lesson today. She was hesitant to read the word until we went over the proper contexts to use it. It is a word I CAN use to describe my feelings of insurance statements. I've spent the past couple weeks trying to resolve an insurance problem. We received an explanation of benefits for my physical therapy bills stating I was never pre approved and thus had a huge amount to pay. I am grateful for insurance, really, I just don't understand it and trying to has been difficult. I've spent a lot of time going back and forth between 3 different companies. Most of the people I've talked to have been polite except the source of the problem; ShadyGrove Orthopedics PT biller, Kim ,who is incredibly rude. It is all sorted out now and I have even schedule the dreaded/expensive MRI. Dan and I are ready to move forward and get me exercising without pain again! 

SEVEN POINT FIVE 

school days left before 

SUMMER VACATION!