Cousin Camden

We have enjoyed baby Camden visiting! The kids are thoroughly enamored with their little cousin. He bears their close perusal with good grace. He is fascinated by them for a while. Then he is a bit overwhelmed. I'm sure you can understand! Check out how much fun the kids are having with Cousin Camden.

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And now for something different. Rylee is a hoot and has learned that she can scoot the step stool across the kitchen floor. Here she is doing it with great gusto, if you watch the video.

The Face of Agony

I could have titled this blog "I have the best Family" since Savannah and Miranda pretty much spent the entire day watching my children for me. They were awesome! And the kids were alive and well and happy when I was all done.

Why the title, you ask? Why did my children need to be babysat, you ask? Well, I will tell you the story, but it will be a very lengthy one.

Today was Dan's Ragnar Relay. (http://www.ragnarrelay.com/race/dc/course_maps) That is a 201 mile relay that ends in the DC area. Usually it is composed of 12 man teams and they each run 3 legs of the race. Dan, feeling the need to prove that he is, indeed, superhuman, joined an Ultra Team. That is composed of 6 people, doing back-to-back legs. So they ran twice as far for each leg. Dan's 3 legs were 8.2, 13.6 and then 13.2 miles long.

Dan left Thursday to drive to the start point and he spent the night up there. His team kicked off at 9:30 Friday morning. Dan called me Friday night, sounding dreadful He was miserable sick and had been puking his guts out. His first run had been rough, since it was a lot of rolling hills, but that wasn't the problem. Something happened a few hours after he finished his run and his tummy was not happy, and violently ejected all contents. He was so miserable and he sounded so awful, I was really worried about him. We prayed that he would be better and healthier and able to finish. Dan called me Saturday morning and he sounded normal!

Dan had run his first leg around 5pm Friday. The team lost a runner after the guy ran his second leg Saturday morning; A guy who lacked Dan's intestinal fortitude decided to quit because he felt pukey. When an Ultra team loses a man, the options are to quit or have the rest of the runners pick up the slack. Dan's team decided they would persevere. And Dan was not feeling 100%. He was only able to eat a banana and swig a ginger ale before his race as his tummy was still a little grumpy. Yet, he did, indeed, persevere!

We (Marian and I) had a plan to meet Dan and ride bikes and cheer him on for his third and final leg. Dan had hoped we could meet by 9am. Unfortunately, he team lost a second man halfway through his final leg to a badly pulled muscle. So they had to redistribute those miles to the remaining 4 men. Marian and I drove out to get ready to meet Dan, but the team was moving so slowly, it was 94 degrees, morale was low, and they debated calling it quits. Marian and I ended up roaming the Pentagon City Mall and then going home.

Dan's team did not quit! They continued on, and I still really wanted to support Dan, so after checking on the kids and feeding Rylee, I drove back out. I parked at the Pentagon. I got on the metro (with my bike!) and had to transfer metro lines to get to Bethesda. I had to dash about 3 blocks to get to Dan's meet-up point. Unfortunately, it took me too long to get there, and I missed Dan by about 30 minutes. So I was hoofing it like crazy to catch up to him. I have never ridden my bike so fast! I was zooming along the trail and doing pretty well till Dan called me. Then I nearly crashed my bike and messed up my rear brake (it locked on and wouldn't release. Eeep!) but I discovered Dan wasn't too far ahead. I managed to rendezvous with him and I cheered him on and biked with him to the end of his leg. He ran 13 miles for his last leg! I was so beyond impressed that he RAN it! He ran a total of 35 miles in 2 days with no sleep.

He was even thoughtful enough to leave with me, rather than his team van. We walked to the metro and squeezed the bike on and headed to the car. Dan did what Miranda describes as "he pulled a King Lamoni." That translates into- he passed out on me. Had the train been less crowded, he would have gone down. However, we were squeezed in the train and Dan was squashed between the wall and me, so he just draped over me. That sure freaked out the other passengers, not to mention me! It was brief and he was okay, and we were quite fortunately 2 minutes from our stop! And the other passengers were very helpful. Dan decided to skip meeting up with his team at the finish point. So we just went home. Dan was in bed within an hour. His team had really hoped to finish the race in 26-27 hours, but it took them about 35, we think. (We came home when Dan's part was all over,and there were 13 miles left to run.)

Here are some pictures of my absolutely Amazing man, crossing the bridge less than a mile from his finish point, so he has been running 14 miles just now, and 34 already in the last 2 days. He is so incredible!

Pictures and my Favorite Quotes

My sister Miranda and my sister in law, Savannah are here to visit! We have been having a very good time. It is Savannah's first visit to DC and I feel like she must see everything! So it has been a bit crazy as we try to do stuff while juggling my 5 children and Miranda's super-cute 5 month old baby, Camden. We have done a lot in the last few days and boy, am I tired!!

We walked to the White House so Savannah could check that off her must-see list. My girls were unimpressed.

Camden enjoyed the Korean Memorial more than Delaney who was hot and grumpy. It was a pretty stinkin' long, hot (VERY hot!) day.

The Lincoln Memorial has cool AC in the lower exhibit part. Here Savannah and Delaney are taking a break and cooling off.

Rylee got reeeealy tired of sitting in the hot stroller. Did I mention it was 96 degrees out there? I let Rylee out to run around, and she kept running the wrong way. It greatly impeded our progress, but she felt better. That's the WW2 Memorial in the background.

Delaney had fun posing for lots of pictures.

And here are Camden and Rylee at the 911 Pentagon Memorial. They were properly somber.

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I must share my 2 favorite things that my children have said this week. They are such interesting little people and I love the way their minds work.

Joshua was talking about his friend who said he had better things to do on Sunday than to go to church. Joshua said to me, "What excuse could possibly be more important than church?!" I love my boy!

Marian was talking to Aunt Savannah and told her "My greatest wish in life is to kill somebody with my bare hands. That would be fun." I love my girl, but I am a little disturbed by that, and also strangely amused.

Life in Pictures

I have been remiss in blogging. I have been having fun! And I am still having much fun! Therefore, I am not even going to caption these photos. They are just here to show you what has been going on here. I'll get more in detail later.

What happens when....

This is what happens when you are making bread and let the bread rise a little extra long because you are busy Skyping your mom:

This is what happens when your 3 year old asks for a Nutella sandwich and then gives it to her baby sister:

This is what happens when you combine 8 children, 15 boxes, 12 markers and a gorgeous, sunny day:

This is what happens when you have a silly 3 year old who likes to have you take pictures of her so she can see her funny faces:

Story Time

Lessons in Biking

Today I rode my bike. I had Delaney and Rylee in the bike trailer and the 3 older kids all rode their bikes to school. Callie was SO excited to be able to bike to school. It was cute. I felt like mama duck with my entourage of accompanying cyclists as my 3 plus the 2 neighbor children biked down the sidewalk in a long line. After dropping the big kids at the school, I biked to Delaney's preschool. It was her first day and it is just over a mile to bike there. I learned some interesting things while pedelling there. I discovered that the other elementary school starts after ours and that biking past it is a little chaotic and busy. So we may go the other way in the future.

I also learned that I may want to bring the diaper bag. There is room in the trailer, but I didn't want the hassle. I should have put it in. Rylee blew out her diaper when we got to preschool and I had resigned myself to taking her home all nasty and poopy, but the preschool came to my rescue and she only had to go home pants-less. But she had a clean bottom and a clean diaper!

Oh, and Delaney went right into class and never looked back. She didn't even look up when I said goodbye. I think she'll be okay!

Joshua's Birthday

Joshua had a birthday party yesterday. I had planned a pretty good party, if I do say so myself. We had planned some great lego games and such. The kids all get out of school by 1pm on Monday's so we had a 2-4pm party. 4 of the 5 boys came and it went pretty well. They played with legos and then we had cake and ice cream and then we were going to play the games.

The cake was a hit and Joshua was pleased with his decorating job. Delaney helped blow out the candles.

The cake and ice cream were devoured quickly. My girls got to participate with pretty much everything, which was fun for them. Joshua was a great sport and didn't care that they were hanging around doing everything with him and his friends.

Rylee thought she was hot stuff, sitting at the little table with Delaney!

And then she climbed on top of the table.

The balloons were a big hit with my girls. I let them do the decorating and they had a marvelous time with that. It made me happy too, since that was one less thing for me to do.

Joshua was not shy about diving into his loot. He actually was peeking well before it was time to open them because he has no ability to wait for things. He was happy with all his gifts, which mostly were legos.

We had some games scheduled, but there was a little difficulty with one of the friends. I knew he could be a problem, but I hadn't anticipated that he could sour the whole party. Joshua ended up taking all the kids downstairs (where Rylee couldn't go) and they played his new lego board game.

They actually spent most of the time playing the game! It worked out really nicely. With the problem friend, I suddenly realized the games might not go well. So I just left them to play the board game in the basement and everyone had a good time. They finished up in time to do the one game I knew they should all enjoy. And they did, except for the problem child who had a minor tantrum. Joshua told me it was the best party ever, which was great to hear since the problem child had told me "No offense, but this party is lame,"

So it was a mostly good day and it was still a good party despite one child's issues. Joshua loved it and that's all that really matters!

Should anyone else want a Lego party, here is what we planned: Build a Tower Game: Dump legos on the floor and see who can build the tallest tower in 2 minutes. Pin the Lego: Create a lego mural or landscape with one element missing. The children are blindfolded and try to place the missing piece in the correct spot. Lego Toss: Draw lego shapes on posterboard. Toss the matching lego onto the board and try to land it on the picture of it. (The blue square lego on the picture of the blue square lego.) Lego Drop: Kids stand on a chair and try to drop 10 legos in a jar below. Jar: Have a jar of legos and the kids try to guess how many.

The one game the kids did play at the end was this one. Race Cars: Walmart sells lego racer cars for under $6, so I got one for each kid and they got to open one, make it and then they raced them. That was also their party favor.

The Big Drain Saga

For this one, I'm gonna let the pictures do the talking. After Joshua's party, Delaney stole one of the instructions to his lego kit. She then ran off and threw it down the storm drain. Here is what happened next.

(Also in the drain were 2 party hats, a party blower, and a lego mini-figure. Delaney needs a talking-to!)

What a Day!

I don't usually blog quite this frequently, but today just had some great pictures that needed to be shared. So, here are the noteworthy things:

Marian actually wanted her picture taken this morning. She did look quite cute. You can't tell, but she has a ponytail that is braided and has a super-cute daisy in it. And she was giving me her normal face, not the usual blank stare she does when I pull out the camera. I like this shot because it is such a Marian look.

And check this out! A smile! An actual smile! She was adorable this morning, so I had to share. This smile picture was posted especially for her grandparents.

I looked over to see Dan helping Joshua with his tie. It was a sweet moment and I had to ruin it by grabbing the camera! I love the eye roll there from Joshua. Note the fabulous tie there, as well.

I know, bike riding on the Sabbath?! Well, It went like this......

My friend Lanie came by this morning to drop off some things before church. One of those things was this little red bike her boys had outgrown. I put it in the carport. Fast forward a few hours to after church. I was busy making a cake for Joshua's birthday and Dan called out that I needed to come outside. I went out and there was Callie, riding this bike!! She had decided she wanted to and off she went! Well, mostly, off she went.

Sometimes she fell down.

But for a kid who has never really had or ridden a bike, I'd say she's not doing too badly.

And to be honest, if she would just focus on riding the bike, rather than mugging for the camera, she'd do better! She was fine when she wasn't trying to look at me and smile! I was quite impressed. She cannot wait to ride her bike to school with the big kids.

Joshua is having a Lego Birthday party tomorrow. He wanted to decorate his cake, and I said, Okay. He wanted a green cake and he wanted to just decorate it. I found these nifty Lego-brick candies and he was delighted. I frosted it with the specified green colored frosting and he got to work. He even let Marian assist.

This was his final result. Pretty great, isn't it?!

And the I made them brush their teeth and go to bed.