The end of Summer

I am feeling a little sad that summer is at an end. It seems like it just started. We have had so much happening that it just flew by this year. This is my new favorite plant in my yard. The kids saw it at the grocery store & thought we needed it, and I'm glad we got it. I love the bright flowers on it! They keep opening, and I'm loving them before everything gets grey this winter. Oh well, hopefully it will make it through the winter here & I will get to have lots of flowers again next year.

My Browns Boys

Larry & Kaleb were given tickets to go to the Browns game last night. THey were very excited to get to go & watch football, & they came home with jerseys for all the men in the house. I have to admit, they look really cute, but I decided it was better not to ask how much!

First Day of School

Well, the first day of school has come & gone. Mayson was so excited to start kindergarten, and Kaleb was definitely ready to go back. We started out our morning with a nutritious and delicious breakfast of cinamon muffins. How could you not have a good day when it starts with that much yummy goodness?
We then got some pictures of the kids. When I told Mayson I wanted to get a picture of her she went in the front room and posed just like this! She thinks she's a model already. All I can say is I think we are going to be in trouble when she's a teenager!
Dad rescheduled his 9am patient so he could stay & go to school with the kids. THey were really excited, and I know Mayson especially was happy he could come with us to bring her to kindergarten.
Here is Kaleb in his new classroom. He is in a 3/4 split class this year. That means there are third and fourth graders in the same class working together. It consists of a lot of small group work and a little more independent work than you would have in a normal classroom setting. Kaleb is so far ahead on his reading and math though that I think it could be a really good thing for him. Hopefully he will get challenged more!


Here is Mayson in here class. She is such a pretty little girl and she sudden;y seems so grown up. It is amazing how kindergarten can be so exciting to send them to, but it's also sad to let them go. It just seems like this unofficial shift from being your baby to being a big kid. I'm really excited for her because I know she is ready and I know how much she wants to be there, but I will definitely miss having her around with me during the day. There is a part of me though that is looking forward to the very quiet, peaceful couple of hours during the day that I am going to have now when both Rhyan and Asher are napping. What am I going to do with myself? Clean the house, I'm sure!

Lake Farm Park

The week before school started I promised the kids we would go do something fun every day. So, we started with Lake Farm Park. They love the animals, and this time they had out the tractors and a corn maze for the kids & they thought it was great.
You can tell that Asher was not quite as impressed with the tractors as the rest of them were!

As you can see, Rhyan started off with the right idea, then she gave up on trying to do the proper "put the head in the hole for the picture" thing!

The Zoo

Next we went to the zoo. The kids love the animals, and it was a beautiful, sunny 78º day. Who can ask for better than that. This monkey they were all sitting on startled Rhyan at first. She was busy looking at something in the stroller and wasn't paying attention. I wheeled her right up in front of it so it was about a foot away from her, she looked up, and was quite surprised to see this monkey looking at her. I think it took her a minute to realize it wasn't real. It really was quite funny. You can see she was quite brave though when it came to trying to touch the sting rays! She didn't want to leave when it was time to go.
Even Asher had a great time at the zoo. Definitely a fun trip for all!

The Science Center

We went to the Science Center the end of the week and it was fun too. We went with some of our friends, and as you can see, the ball pit is always a big his with everyone!
Kaleb looks like he needs someone to save him! Asher slept though the entire trip. I'm going to miss him doing that... it sure makes it easier.

Swimming

We went swimming three times last week. It was nice & hot last week & we love the pool. Well, the kids love the pool. It is a lot of watching kids for me because Rhyan thinks she want to jump in the big pool and obviously can't swim yet. And the baby spends a lot of his time at the pool in the stroller so I can't really leave him & go too far. The baby pool is great for Rhyan though because it is fenced in away from the big pool, so we take turns on where we let her go. Asher woke up one of the times & did not want to hang out in the stroller, so he had to wear the girly sun hat so he didn't get sunburnt. It was a little big, but he looked cute!

The Children's Museum

The kids last trip was to the Children's Museum. They had fun fishing in the boat they had there, and Rhyan thought climbing in & out of the boat was quite entertaining.

Asher had a blowout while we were there so he scored himself a new shirt so that he wasn't running around half naked. This is the smallest size they had, and though it is a little big on him, keep in mind htat it is a size 2. He is way too chubby for his own good! That's a Rhyan size shirt!!

Asher Hanging Out

Here is our cute Asher. He is just hanging out, not doing anything exciting.... Kaleb was just playing with the camera & thought we should put the video on.

I'm Two Months Old!

Asher was two months old last Thursday - I can't believe it, they grow so fast. We have some friends who have a brand new baby, and as much as I thought Asher was still tiny, once I saw their new little one I changed my mind. Asher is huge!! He went to the doctor on Monday and he is 13lbs. 12oz. and is 23.5 inches long now. He has grown a ton!! He is in the 90% for his weight so he definitely isn't lacking in the food department. He's getting chubby and the kids love his double chin! He started smiling last week and he is awfully cute. This picture is the closest thing we have to a smile so far & Kaleb took it so his head is chopped off. As soon as he sees me holding the camera he suddenly becomes very intent on staring at it and won't smile or anything. Maybe we have another Rhyan on our hands, I hope not. He is cooing at people now & has a lot to say. He has also discovered that he has a tongue now, so he sticks it out & is wiggling it around all the time. Everybody wants their picture taken with their tongue hanging out don't they? As you can see, he is not lacking in people who love him. His big brother and sisters think he is wonderful and are constantly wanting to hold him!

Our Newest Pictures

We got new pictures done of the kids. I had to put them on the blog because they are just too cute! We were getting Rhyan's two year pictures done, and figured we better get one with all the kids now. As you can see, Rhyan hasn't quite gotten past her aversion to smiling for pictures. We got one smile out of her, the last picture we took, and it's because I gave her a spray bottle and she was spraying me with water and thought it was funny. My favorite picture is this pouty one of Rhyan though... it is so her!!!

Twilight Party

Okay, so for those of you who do not know there is a book series called the Twilight series. Well, everyone out here has been trying to get me to read them for a while now, and I've kind of boycotted them just to be stubborn. Either way, apparently the new and final book in the series came out today, and Barnes & Noble had a Twilight party last night to celebrate the release and so that everyone could get their books at midnight when it was officially "release day." So, they wanted me to go with them, but I was required to read the first three books first so I would know what was going on. So over the last two weeks I read the first three books and they were good. We all made shirts to wear to the event, so I got to make myself a "Team Edward" shirt to wear. Larry had fun making fun of me, and I have to admit, I gave Tia and Julie a hard time about the whole thing. But, I have to admit it was a lot of fun. You get all the crazies that come out to these things, and the best part was laughing at all the goofy people who were there. It is amazing how into these things some people get. I'm sure it was the equivalent of going to a Star Trek or Star Wars convention... scary huh!! Either way, everybody loved our shirts, we got so many comments on them, and Julie even got a hug from a crazy stranger who liked her shirt. So, I will admit we were dorks for going, but it was a fun evening out!

Asher just gets cuter...

Asher just gets cuter and cuter. He holds his head really well, looks around at everything and he's getting chubby. He's pushing 13 pounds now... he likes to eat. I can't wait until everyone else gets to see him!

Rhyan's Baby

Rhyan got a baby for her birthday that sucks on a binky and a bottle, cries and sleeps and gurgles a little. Larry thinks it's creepy, but either way, Rhyan thinks it's the greatest thing ever. She takes it everywhere and is a very good mommy to it. It's really funny though, because she mimics what we are doing with Asher. When I'm on the couch feeding the baby, she is sitting next to me feeding hers. It's hard not to laugh when she decides her baby's bottle just it doing it any more and stuffs her baby's head up under her shirt. If I change the baby, her baby is laying on the floor right next to Asher getting changed. Well, you can see that when Mayson decided to rock Asher, Rhyan's baby needed to be rocked as well!

Safety Town

Mayson went to safety town last week and loved it. It is put on by the city's police department, and it teaches the kids about fire safety, safety crossing streets and around cars, 911, strangers, dogs, and much more. They went to the fire station and got to try an knock chairs down by spraying them with the fire hose. She thought that was great! They have a whole little town set up in the community center where the kids learn their street safety. They get to drive the cars around and learn what some of the signs mean, and what crosswalks are for. She had her graduation on Friday and Larry was able to adjust his patients to come. As you can see, the other kids thought the town was great too!

Rhyan's Birthday

Well, Rhyan is now officially two! Her attitude developed just in time for her birthday, as she suddenly wants to do it herself and screeches at you if she wants something you won't give her or can't do what she wants. Luckily, even though she wants to do everything herself, she is very reasonable in the sense that she will try for a minute, and if she can't do it she gives you that sweet little look of hers and says "hep." She is still so cuddly and lovable, and she is just so dang cute it's hard to get mad at her. She is definitely getting more mischievous though, as I have come down twice in the morning two clean up dish soap that she is so nicely rubbing all over the stairs, or when she sneaks up quietly to grab something one of her siblings has and runs as fast as she can. She was so excited about cake for her party. We were outside having a barbecue, but all she kept saying was "cupcake, cupcake!" She was pretty excited about the presents when she realized that was part of it too. She is such a sweetie and I don't know what we would do without her!!

Our Cute Kids

Here are just a couple of cute pictures of the kids. Our kids are getting blonder I think... if that's possible. I guess that's what happens when you go to the pool for swim lessons every day all summer. Mayson looks so cute with her rollers in!

Kaleb's Haircut

Kaleb decided he wanted his hair buzzed for the summer, so we cut it pretty short. A few days later he comes down stairs ro dinner, and he has a completely bald, I mean bic'd bald spot, on the front of his head. He was quite embarrassed about the whole thing & didn't want to come downstairs because he was convinced Mayson would laugh at him. I told him we would try to fix it, and his suggestion was just that we could shave the front of it like dad's hair. I tried to explain to him that most people don't do that to their hair intentionally! Either way, once we got passed that idea we shaved it really short to try to make it not stand out so bad. You can still see it up front if you looked close, but it was definitely better. It was so short though that his whole head got burnt at swim the next day, and that bald spot... burnt and peeled!!