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