Timmy's Birthday!

Sunday, Sept. 14th we celebrated Timmy's 4th birthday! Here's all the kidos getting ready to watch Timmy open his gifts. 

Opening his gifts. Here he is with the Jake toothbrush he got and loves.

The gift Timmy got from Mom, Dad and the kids was too big to wrap so we blindfolded Timmy instead.

He got a bike!  (That Lukey thought was cool, too.)

Here he goes riding it for the first time.

He and Sophia are looking at the gage that came on his bike. He can rev the handle and it shows him how fast he can go - it's all pretend but the kids get a kick out of it.

Going for a spin.

Since Timmy got a new bike, Lukey got Timmy's old bike (which actually all the kids have used.).  Doesn't he look happy?

Timmy and godmother, Aunt Kathy, getting ready for cake.

Ahh, look at our little angel. (I didn't pose him, I swear.) And what's that funny glow, his halo? Oh, no, a Lukey fingerprint on the lens of the camera.

Happy Birthday, Timmy!

This is his cake, a minion.

Sophia even got a party game ready for the party. Pin the eye on the minion.

Even mom got a turn. I didn't even get close to putting my eye in the right place!

And this is Timmy and Uncle Pat on Timmy's actual birthday!  Timmy got McDonald's on his special day.  My uncle was actually with us Sept.12-17. We had fun taking walks with the kids, playing Scrabble (while the kids napped) and visiting about lots of good stuff.

Mudder (as Timmy for some unknown reason has started calling me.) and Timmy on his big day.  Which every mudder knows, is such a big, wonderful day for them, too.

First days of school

School has started.  Alex had a 1/2 day Wednesday, then had Thursday off and really started Friday.  Here he is Wednesday on his first day of 8th grade.

Max and Sophia's first day was Thursday.  He's in 5th grade and Sophia's in 2nd.

Henry is in kindergarten this year! He had kindergarten orientation Wednesday from 9 - 10:30, that Randy and I attended with him. Then 1/2 the kindergarten class went Thursday and the other 1/2 on Friday.  Henry was in the group for Friday, so that was his first full day and first bus ride.  When asked how school went he answered, "Very well." He had lots to tell us, a song to sing us and a band-aid from a little scrape on his elbow.  Over all he had fun!

Labor Day Week End

Saturday thru Monday of Labor Day weekend we went up North to Kathy and Dale's cabin.  As always it was so relaxing and fun and just a great way to hang out together.  Sunday Sophia got right in a kayak and with a little effort paddled around quite well. I was surprised and impressed to see her jump right in and do so well.

I was equally surprised to see Henry give it a try. It was a little harder for him, but he still well.

Henry and I going for a paddle boat ride.

Then Timmy and I took a float around the pond.

Before our paddle boat ride about 1/2 way to the boat Timmy yells, "I have to go potty!"  Randy and I hollared, "Just go in the tall grass."  Ok," he said, "Nobody look at me!" Then you can see the rest.

Alex and Max also got in the kayaks.

Probably the highlight of the weekend for me was Friday night when all 5 kids played a board game together.  A mom loves to see her kidos getting along. After that game, on Friday and then again on Saturday Max and Alex played two very long games of the Farming Game.

Here's Tim on Aunt Kathy and Uncle Dale's tractor.  With a barn full of vehicles to pretend to drive on, rocks to move and a car jack to play with, Tim, Henry and especially Luke kept busy for hours on end.

There's always crickets to chase, dragonflies to watch and fish to see while at the cabin.  And this time we saw two caterpillars.  Sophia and I worked together to get some pictures of the little guys.

Make no mistake we took time to just relax! Ahh.

The highlight for the boys though, was swimming in the pond.  The smiles were huge and the swimming went on for a long time as they had a great time puttering around the pond together.  Here's Timmy just warming up as he walks out to Randy and Lukey kayaking.

Max walking on water, thanks to a little help from the big rock.

Henry and Timmy paddleing around with their life jackets on.

Alex and Max enjoying the pond.

While the boys swam Sophia got a ride on the golf cart from Uncle Dale,

and played bean bags with Aunt Kathy,

and hung out with Daddy. (Excuse the shorts that look like underwear, it was just such a good pic. otherwise of the two of them together, I wanted to post it anyway.)

Good-bye Ms. Jen

This is Henry with his speech teacher Ms. Jen.  Henry started speech when he was 2 years old and 9 months, that was as soon as he could receive services.  At that point the only thing he could say was, "Dat, dat, dat."  With a lot of patience, love and hard work Ms. Jen helped Henry say so much more. Then on Aug. 28  Henry had his last speech lesson with Ms. Jen. It was a session of just play and a few tears before saying good-bye. ( Henry will continue with speech but at school now, instead of at home.)

Oliver visited

After Wisconsin we brought Oliver home with us.  We were so happy he could come stay for the week.

Right away he was just one of the kids. Here he is the first morning at our house, helping to bring Lucas in after Lukey escaped outside.

It rained Tuesday and most of the days Oliver was visiting, so since we couldn't go outside really, we went to the tree in the mall.  Which is a big plastic tree with other plastic things for the kids to run around and climb on.  Every one's taking a break for a snack at this point.

Oliver and Henry played a lot of lego games, together and separately.

The boys also played downstairs in the lego room quite a bit.  We also went to Wegman's park.  The kids had a blast but I admit I didn't get any pictures.

Theyalso had fun playing ipad and watching movies.  After having watched the Lego movie everynight when they were on vacation, we somehow only watched it once while having Oliver with us.  Everyone was dissapointed when it was time for Oliver to leave with Aunt Kathy to go home. More than once I heard, "Couldn't Oliver have stayed one more day."

Vacationing in Wisconsin!

This year the annual camping trip with Randy's family was in Wisconsin.  Eight of Margaret and Cletus' kids made it this year. In the back row is Donna, Dale, Bob and Coco.  In the front is Kathy, Randy, Margaret, Joe and Sara (the kids are in age order).

This is all the grandkids that made it the trip.  In the way back, standing, is Eric.  In the middle row is Cody, Madison holding Elenaor, Max holding Luke, Alex, Kelli, Amy holding her son, Hunter.  Front row is Sophia, Julia, Timmy, Parker, George, Oliver and Henry.

Here is the whole gang!

This year we hardly left the resort, which was great! There was a terrific playground everyone enjoyed.  Just look at that big smile.

Two little boys I caught arguing over something, so they didn't want to smile to have their picture taken.  But don't let their frowns fool you, they had a lot of fun that week.

Even Randy joined in the fun and dug a big hole. . .

to bury Timmy in!

Cousins, George, Elenaor, Lukey and Julia (being pulled by Uncle Chris).

Alex, Max, and Sophia greeting Madison on her arrival.  Behind them you can get a look at the patios of the motel sweets, where we hung out visiting and eating quite a bit.One afternoon Dale and Audrey were nice enough to fry all kids of yummy goodies, including twinkies.  While the adults hung out the kids played water balloons,

played on the nearby swings (Oliver and Kelli),

(Timmy),

and played in the sand at the sand volleyball court. (Henry, Parker, and George).

We spent a fair amount of time at the pool. Here's a popsicle break on Monday, the first day we swam. Everyone took a turn getting wet that day.  A smaller group went later in the week. And Friday while I packed our suitcases, Randy took our kids to the pool, with Oliver, Parker and Eric. Where Alex, Max and Sophia played together the best they have maybe ever played, while Henry and Tim puttered around the pool.

There was also lots of fishing to be done. Here Timmy looks on one morning as Randy helps Alex get his pole ready.

Cousin George's birthday was right before our vacation started, so he got a few presents in Wisconsin.  He was nice enought to share his Planes Lego set with all his cousins.  Timmy, Parker, Oliver, Uncle Joe, Henry and George all having fun.

We were so glad to have Grandpa and Grandma Leymaster visit while we were vacationing. They have a trailer in Wisconsin about 3 or 4 hours from where we were staying, so they made the drive up to spend a day and a little with us. (Timmy, my dad, Henry hiding, Sophia, Cheryl holding Luke).

More fun at the park. Sophia, Tim and Oliver.

One morning the resort offered organized games for the kids.  Sophia was the only one who really played from our family. She did the potato sack race,

a race which involved caring a bucket of water on her head that had a whole in the bottom,

and some hula-hooping time.

Lukey decided he'd join in on this game.

Following the games was some food! Roasting hotdogs and then smores.  Here Madison does some grilling beside Aunt Sara who's helping Parker.

Timmy, Grandma and Sophia watching all the grilling.

Randy took Tim down to do a little fishing and Timmy caught a fish!

Randy helping Tim release the fish.

We celebrated the milestone birthdays while we were all together, so Max -10, Eric (Shook) - 30, Randy -40, Dale (Steffen) - 50, and Steve- 60, all got a grey or black cupcake, depending on how old they just turned or were turning.  Everyone sang Happy Birthday before the birthday boys blew out their candles.

Max and Randy with their birthday cupcakes.

Sophie and Maddy.

Dale was nice enough to take Sara and I out with Timmy, Oliver, Sophia, Madison, Henry, George, Parker, and

the two busy, wiggle worms, Lukey and Julia.  We were especially thankful for the very sticky, slimmy, rainbow Twizzlers someone was so kind to give each of the kids as they boarded the pontoon. :)  It was a wild ride.

Much fishing was done.  Here's Alex with one! (Somehow we never got a picture of Henry with one of his fish, but he did catch one.)

Max and Randy ready to catch a big one.

While on vacation we relaxed (like Parker, Eric and Timmy),

ate too much good food, (Julia with her plate full of chips and container of dip Aunt Kathy gave her.)

and just hung out enjoying each other's company.

And hung out a little more like Madison, Donna, Grandma, Sophia and Kathy.  We also had a couple camp fires in front of the motel sweets.  During the afternoon a couple days we sat in the shade of a tree instead of on the patios.  While relaxing on the grass one afternoon the sprinklers got us!  A couple days later Lukey got a sprinkler right in the face.

And no time together is complete without plenty of sword fighting.  Donna and Steve outfitted our bunch with lots of foam swords, which made some very happy kidos.  And although there are no pictures Randy and I were able to do some exploring on a canoe, including a little float through a culvert, with Randy's brother, Dale.  Also, Randy had a day of golf with some brothers and a sister-in-law.  And a couple days we had fun checking out the beach.