Food and Fun!

My 4 monkeys!

This is how Abigail "holds" Boaz. She sits behind him, wraps her arms around him, and squeezes. Needless to say he isn't a huge fan.

 So, my plan to blog every week hasn't worked out yet, but that is still my goal. These past two weeks we have had a few things going on, but mostly have been enjoying our normal routine. And speaking of routine, Boaz is starting to get on a good sleeping routine. He has been going to bed between 7:30 and 8:30 and not waking up till 8:30 the next morning. He has been nursing once in there, but has had a few nights of sleeping all night long. It has been great to finally start getting full nights of sleep again.
 Boaz also started solids. All last week we have been doing rice cereal. Monday went great. He opened his mouth and swallowed it right down. He didn't thrust the food out with his tongue. He did enjoy holding the spoon with me while he was fed. The next few times didn't seem to go as well and he didn't seem as interested as Monday, but last night he ate it all down and I even had to make up a second batch of it. He is starting to get the hang of it.

First bites of rice cereal. Yummm

The Women's Bible study I am a part of is taking a break for summer, but we are getting together for play dates every week. This week we went to our town's splash pad. All the kiddos loved it at their differing levels. Davey and Cassia love running all through the sprinklers of all the varying heights. Abigail ran around the sprinklers and would run up to stick her hand in it. And Sweet Boaz had a blast sitting behind it and sticking his hand in the sprinkler. I was worried he wouldn't like getting splashed, boy was I wrong. He loved  the water and loved getting wet.

At the Splash Pad. Abby isn't very happy with Boaz spraying her :)

The boys at the splash pad. Boaz would not look at the camera he was too intent on the water.

 Today Davey finished his first workbook in our Hooked on Phonics kit. It is a huge accomplishment and I am so proud of him. He knows 30 sight words and knows all his short vowel word families to read any word with only short vowels. His last lesson was on compound words. When he read pigpen and backpack he was super excited that he is reading BIG words now! This week we will be finishing up his workbook and of course he is excited to start the next workbook after we get back from our annual 4th of July camping trip.
 Tomorrow we are flying to Santa Barbara for our camping trip! We are all so excited the kids were telling everyone how they get to go camping with cousin Charlie next week. They are also all looking forward to building Thunder Mountain in the sand with Papa. Since we will be camping I wont be able to blog next week, but will be sure to post pics and stories of our time the week after.

Ready for a walk to the park early in the morning to beat the heat.

Abigail and Davey running ahead of Mommy.

Cassia and Davey walking hand in hand.

Fun Times In Texas

Kids chatting with Aunt Jean on her patio.

 Over Memorial weekend we had a mini family vacation to Dallas and Fort Worth. Saturday we drove up to Dallas and visited the Kennedy Museum which is in the building where the man who assassinated Kennedy was perched. From there we went to my Great Aunt Jean's house to visit with some family and enjoy dinner together. Then we stayed 2 nights in Fort Worth. We visited the Stockyards, which is an area of town with historical/cowboy shops, restaurants, longhorns to pet, and daily cattle drives. We even got to see a Wild West Show. The cowboys came out full blast on their horses and started shooting their guns. Poor Abby was not expecting that and started running screaming every which way trying to get to the safety of Dave's lap. Talking with the kids the show was their favorite part of the trip. After a full day of walking around the Stockyards we drove around for the kids to take a little nap and ended up in downtown Fort Worth at the water gardens.

What a crew! Waiting for the wild west show to start.

Kids got to pet the horses after the show.

Mommy and Bo at the wild west show!

At the water gardens. There were steps that you could walk all the way down to the bottom of the waterfalls.

Another pool at the water garden. It was a hot day, but the spray from this pool felt like air conditioning.

Abby and Bo playing while Daddy took the big kids down to the bottom of the waterfalls.

This is a water wall that all the kids liked touching, especially  Boaz.

 Since coming home from our vacation we all came down with a little head cold and haven't been doing very much, just our normal routine. Davey keeps us on track with school. Everyday he wakes up from nap and asks to do school. He will pester me till we get to it. He really impresses me with how much he has learned. After the kids' long vacation I was wondering if he would have forgotten some of what he had learned, but he didn't and is doing great with both reading and writing. The next task to conquer is learning to tie his shoes. He is adamant that he has to learn how to tie his shoes before school starts.

Davey doing his writing.

Sweet Boaz watching brother do his school work.

We planted carrots a couple of weeks ago and they have started to sprout. Silly Davey said it was too bright to open his eyes.

Our carrots sprouting! The kids were so excited when they went out to water the carrots and found this!

 Nap time has still been a bit of a struggle for the girls. It is just too much fun sharing a room. We finally got Abigail to sleep in her bed. For so long she would sleep on the ground right at the door and not get a good night sleep. No matter how many times we would pick her up and put her back in bed she would continue to get out and lay at the door. Even at 3 in the morning after feeding Boaz I would put her in bed and by morning she was on the ground again. So, we moved Abby's bed right next to Cassia's and since then Abby has loved sleeping in her bed and we haven't had anymore nights with her on the ground. However, they do end up playing a lot more at nap and nighttime before they fall asleep. It isn't a horrible issue as I love hearing them having fun together, but I do end up having to be the bad guy often so they can get a good rest.

Nap time Fun! I went in to sternly tell them to go to bed and couldn't help laughing at this sight.  They had shoved every baby and stuffed animal they could fit in Abigail's shirt and Abby was dancing on Cassia's bed!

 We also just sent in an application for Boaz to get his passport. Dave and I are going to be going on a mission trip with our church to Peru at the end of July. Since Boaz will still be nursing we are going to bring him along too, which will be an added joy. Some of you may remember we were planning on going on a mission trip back before I got pregnant with Abigail and felt like it might have been leading to a long term mission God was calling us on. It was a surprise when I got pregnant with Abigail and we were actually trying to wait to get pregnant so we could do a mission trip. Finding out I was pregnant I felt like that meant I couldn't go. Then God impressed on my heart that He would work missions into our lives regardless of pregnancies/children and that I shouldn't try to plan pregnancies/children around missions. Because of this I have such a peace and excitement to serve with Boaz. God ended up closing the door for a mission trip back then, but has opened the door for now and we are so excited God has finally said yes to going on a mission trip.

Couldn't help putting another pic of Boaz. He just makes me smile!

On a sad note, we had to say goodbye to our good friends the Vicks today. They are moving back to California to start a church in Claremont. They have been a huge blessing to us and helped make Texas feel like home. They are such good friends and Texas is not going to be the same with out them. It is very bitter sweet as we will miss them, but are excited for the work God is going to do in them and through them.

Kiddos with our good friends Levi and Judah Vick.