How They Change!!!

Like a lot of people I know, we have pictures flash on our computer screen as a screen saver. Yesterday, I saw this picture of Sarah at 5 years old by the fountain in Lake Tahoe and remembered we had a current one of her from this year, at 9 years old. I thought it would be fun to see the changes in her in the last 4 years!

My Princess Oldest is definitely growing and maturing in many wise and wonderful ways! Next week she will start 4th grade and has already started her readers for the year. She loves on the little ones and was truly the happiest of all the kids to find out we were having a 6th baby. Like a true female she laughed and cried at the same time! She appointed herself to be Lizzy's kindergarten math teacher and is seeing for herself how much patience it takes to teach math! She is helping me to cook more and more, especially now that she can see my energy is zapped in my 3rd trimester! God knew I needed her help since He knew how many kids we would have and how helpful girls can be to their moms! I continue to pray for her heart that it would cling to Jesus and she could know his love and peace for herself, but I will continue to pray and trust God for that joy! In the meantime, she is my beautiful first born and I love her so much!

More fun at the Dubois Park "Galoon" as Jakey calls it!

If you look closely, you should see dozens of dragonflies!
Lizzy and cousin Rachel up in a Mangrove tree above the water.

Sarah and her "bosom buddy" Ashleigh Connor.

So he found this and started playing with it . . . yes, it is a Heinekin Can

Leah really needed her comforts this day: Bear Blankie and Binkie-Boo.

Jakey has started calling the Lagoon, the Galoon. I LOVE IT. I just wish the older kids would stop correcting him, because when they say funny things like that, you try not to correct them for a while and just enjoy it. The older kids just think he needs grammatical correcting :-).

Bounce House Waterslide FUN!!!

Our steal-of-a-deal waterslide rental. It's good to know people !!!
Isn't this how it is supposed to happen?

Sarah and Lizzy hamming it up for me!

This was Leah's favorite part-THE BOTTOM!

We have some friends that own a bounce house franchise as a side-job. I decided that since we were celebrating both boys birthdays in June that we could splurge and rent a waterslide at my friend's great price. Then, in God's great providence upon my children (though not my lawn) my friends told me that the day I wanted it fell during their summer vacation and did we mind having it at our place for a whole week???? Hmmmmm, let me think about that!!!

I am SURE our neighbors all thought we hit the lottery or something since we had this rental for over 7 days! There were only a couple of days in there that we didn't blow it up, but it was pretty much up like this in our front yard for over a week ( for those of you not from this part of Florida-there was some weird opinion years ago that people would like a larger front yard than backyard-so our backyard is barely 12 feet deep, whereas our frontyard is at least 36!)

We had our cousins over 3 times, the neighbor kids, church friends and two birthday parties on the same day with LOTS OF BOYS!!! I am SO glad that was all a month ago, because I don't think I could have handled all that outside-wet and wild kids and laundry at my current state of 30 weeks pregnant!

Thank God for this special treat my kids got to enjoy with their friends for a whole week. I am sure they won't forget about it any time soon!

Sleep-Showering?

Last night as Marc and I sat in the living room chatting with friends we heard the shower turn on. As I went to investigate, I found our 9 1/2 year old taking a shower. Mind you, it was 10 p.m. and she had been in bed since 8:45. Is it safe to assume she was sleep-showering? When I asked her what she was doing she said, "I don't know. I don't know why I'm taking a shower." I can only guess she did wake up when the water hit her! :-)