Happy Birthday Loulou Girl!

Alahna celebrated her 9th birthday today! One more year until she hits the double digits. 3 more years until she hits YW.  4 more years and she's a teenager. Stop girly-girl, STOP! You must not keep getting older...but she's growing so beautifully, it would be wrong for me to wish her to stay nine forever. 

She was very surprised to get a digital camera and opted for ice cream again rather than cake. We are very proud of our Little Loulou who isn't so little anymore. She has a sweet soul and is always thinking of others. She is a peacemaker, an artist, a giggle box when she's in the mood, an avid reader, good at math, loves peace and quiet, but best of all she's our daughter and sister...forever.

Still blind as a bat

Robert has his eye check-up today.

His bad eye is now up to +9 with +3 more for the bifocal.

His better eye is now up to +6.5 with +3 more for the bifocal.

Still patching 4 hrs a day.

Good news is, his new doctor's office is much faster. This appointment before would have taken 4 hrs. Today, we were completely done in 1 hr. 15 min. Have I mentioned that I love Kaiser!

Here's a rare picture of him minus the glasses. I just love how blue his eyes are! 

(taken last summer.)

Another funny quote

William, this morning...

"I got my oatmeal out. I got my bowl out. I got my spoon out. All by myself.  See, I all grown up now."

All said in his very best Eeyore voice. 

They do listen...

We are big Dave Ramsey fans, anti-debt finance/money guy, and we are currently on baby step 6 (pay off the home mortgage).  Clearly, this is a frequent topic of conversation since Robert had the following to say today. 

"You guys are working hard to pay off the house right" 

Right 

"Well then I will give you some of my pennies (he has quite a few) to help pay off the house if you will get me a fork."  (since he was too lazy to get up a get a fork for himself). 

I guess he listens afterall

At the beach with family!

Finally, some pictures from our surprise visits earlier this summer!

This is the beach we visited. BEAU-T-FUL!

This is why we went there. So G-ma and G-pa could go diving! Aren't they cool. I hope I am doing fun things like this when I am their age...not that there old or anything...because there not....at all....I mean it.

Austin wanted to be turned into a merman. They messed up. Oops! Good thing he's such a great sport.

Robert thought he wanted to be buried...then he got a little too buried. This is right before the tears started.

It was our only beach trip this year. Very unusual for us. Hopefully next summer we will make up for it!

Dishnwasher fun

This is from a while ago...Robert's job was emptying the dishwasher and he loved to count how many of everything there was. So, we decided to keep track and then graph it. He did all the counting and coloring. (The different colors represent different days.) Doesn't he look proud!

It was a fun activity and we learned that we dirty a LOT of plastic cups!

Some pool fun

Look what we found!

Last night we heard a strange sort-of buzzing/clicking noise during scripture study. It became very distracting so David went to figure out where it was coming from. This is what he found....

A 2 1/5 inch long katydid. We had never seen one before so the girls went running for their bug book to identify it. We kept it in a jar overnight and the kids did some research on it this morning. It is now back where it belongs.  I can't believe I am about to say this about an insect, but I think it's rather pretty.

Teeth problems

Just got back from an unplanned visit to the dentist. Anna has an infected tooth. Antibiotics and then she will get it pulled on Friday. Luckily, it's a baby tooth. Luckily, I have been feeling so good that hauling a bunch of kids to the dentist then sitting at the pharmacy waiting to get the prescription filled with a very restless bunch of kids didn't do me in. Luckily, we have good dental insurance. Luckily ibuprofen works. See how lucky we are... although I think a more accurate word would be blessed.

Summer Surprises

Earlier in the summer we had some surprise visitors come!









Hopefully some pictures will be coming soon...

my babies are back!

Wednesday, David loaded up the car and we drove the 5 hour trip to meet Grandma and Grandpa and pick up the girls. I really missed them, but they had the times of their lives. I survived the drive up and did even better yesterday for the drive home.  And proof that I am doing even better today is that I am blogging. Let me just say that a true spinal headache is pain like nothing I have ever experienced before....and I have given birth ....5 times. I'm glad it's over and I hope we get some answers from this experience.