Bartlesville Trip

This past Saturday, we decided to go to Bartlesville for the day and visit Woolaroc and take Rachel to the Kiddie Park. Jim had never been to Woolaroc before and the weather was so great. When we first got there, we stopped at the Mountain Man camp and we all took turns at shooting a powder rifle and throwing an ax. The rifle was extrememly heavy for me, good thing they had a tree for me to use to hold the gun up! Mom and Dad met us there for the day and we had picnic lunches and spent most of the day at Woolaroc. Afterwards we had dinner and then went to kiddie park. Needless to say, it was a long day but fun. Mental note though, do not go to the Kiddie park on the last day that it is open. The place was packed!!!

John enjoying his toys as we walk around the museum.
Rachel petting the llama (or sheep as she called it)

We tried to get a face shot but he just wouldn't turn around. He was about 5 feet away from car.

Sarah striking a pose! This was down in the rock trails by the lodge at Woolaroc.

Rachel showing her dirty hand after touching some sort of slime on rock trails.

Sarah and Derk holding the 3 week old baby goats.

Jim and I posing!

Sarah and Rachel on the playground!

Rachel riding the boats at the Kiddie Park!

Grandma and kids riding in turtles at Kiddie Park.

Rachel driving her car.

Rachel giving the big kids a ride in her pink diesel!

The big kids are really too big now for the kiddie park but took advantage of the few rides they could still ride! The great part is the rides are still .25 each!

Daddy playing with Rachel in her Hello Kitty Tent at home!

A few more pics!

I have added some more pics taken the past two weeks!

Taken at the zoo a week ago! He is so cute!

Sarah and Rachel riding the camel at the zoo.

Derek and Sarah on the first day of school! Derek is in 5th grade this year and Sarah is in the sixth grade.

John taking a bath. He doesn't seem to mind too much except when I accidentally get his face in the water. I try not to do it too much!

Rachel moving in on John's playmat. Rachel is really enjoying all of the new baby gear that is out. We have a bouncy seat, a couple of playmats and a baby swing that sits real low to the ground. Rachel sees no reason as to why she should not be able to sit in and play with all of these items. Needless to say she stretches the swing cover and bouncy seat to their limits.

She also enjoys playing with John whenever he is in these and she will turn his music on for him or the vibrations.

Well a couple of weeks ago, John was in his swing and I was in kitchen and Rachel was running around. Before too long, Rachel comes running in the kitchen saying "Baby John fall down, swing". So I look around the corner and baby John is laying on the floor right at the bottom of the swing. Now mind you, this swing only sits like maybe 4 inches off the ground. I guess Rachel had gone to say hello to him and she put her knees on the bottom of the swing where his feet were and he just kind of slid out on his side. He never did cry or anything. I have now learned my lesson to always buckle him in the swing even if only for a few minutes and if I am just around the corner!

My goodness--very busy!

This is Rachel back in May after church. She loves sitting by this particular statue whenever she gets the chance. It is the statue in Memory of the unborn. I tried to get a picture of her imitating the statue with her head in her hands but miss it every time.

This is Baby John's "Uncle Fester" picture taken when he was about a month old.

Here is Rachel enjoying an ice cream cone at McDonalds the day after her 2nd birthday.

This one was taken a couple of weeks ago and I had to capture it. Rachel was sharing her "night-night bunny" with John. As most of you know, getting that bunny away from her is like pulling teeth. Not as bad as trying to get the pacifier though which we are going to try to break her of very soon as she is just getting too old. It is like a drug to her!

Well the past few months have been very busy for some reason! I can't believe how the time has gone by and that John is now almost 3 months old.

I of course have many pictures but keep forgetting to bring them to work with me so as to post them to the blog. I did find the few above on my phone though. Also, you should all be receiving hard copies of his professional pictures sometime in the next two weeks or so. Another thing I have been very slow at. The kids have all started back to school and John has started daycare. He and Rachel have to go to separate places though because Rachel's did not have a full time opening. Luckily they are within 2 miles from each other so not too much further out of the way but does add another stop on my route to work.

Rachel loves her baby brother quite a bit and is always giving him kisses and hugs (sometimes by laying on top of him). We have to watch her since she doesn't really understand that she can hurt him when she lays on him. She still keeps us entertained with her vocabulary increasing daily and just by being silly.

The "Big Belly"

I added two video clips after the belly clip! Also if you haven't looked at blog in awhile, scroll down through next 2 blog entries both dated 5/26 to see some pictures I have added!

Well view with caution, could make you ill! Ha! Anyway here is a pic of my belly as I "patiently" (heh) wait for John to make his appearance.
Gosh I am going to have to do alot of exercises to get this belly back in shape afterwards.

The kids on trampoline and Rachel sliding! Of course the one time I try to video her, she slides right off instead of stopping. She got right back up though and kept climbing and sliding.

Memorial Day Weekend

Still no baby yet! I really thought it would be sometime over the weekend but I guess he enjoys being on the inside! I go to the doctor again tomorrow so we will see what happens tomorrow. My due date is 2 1/2 weeks away still but she really doesn't think I will make it past this week.

We started our Memorial Day weekend by just staying home and cleaning and Jim did some yard work and the such. He ended up having to borrow the neighbors riding lawn mower after discovering that the dog for some reason decided to rip out the wiring on ours. It was parked in the grass by the patio and we think there must have been a creature hiding that the dog was after because there was a hole dug and the wires were just a mess. What a pain.

Sunday we went over to our friends house and just cooked hamburgers/hot dogs and sat around and watched the kids play. They have a trampoline so that was the main attraction for the kids. Their baby is 6 months younger than Rachel and watching the two of them interact was quite amusing. Of course neither one grasps the concept of sharing and they pretty much wanted whatever the other one seemed to want to play with. So they kind of took turns crying when they didn't get their way.

Yesterday we took the kids to the Aquarium and then another trip to the park just for something to do! I added a couple more pictures in another posting right before this one so scroll down to see some more!

I really don't have too many stories to tell for the most part! Rachel's favorite phrase the past week has been "stop it" to whoever it is that is agitating her. Also, if she wants someone, she will yell out in the house "c'mere daddy" or "Sarah/Derek c'mere". It is getting much easier to understand her now but she still has some melt downs when we don't quite understand what it is she wants!

Sarah, Ella, Madison(Sarah's half sister), Rachel and Derek on the trampoline.

Rachel at the park with her flushed cheeks! She is also wearing the hat that she picked out at the Aquarium! Surprsingly enough she actually kept it on the whole time at the park!

Derek at the park doing who knows what!

Sarah at the park!!

Feeding the turtles at the Aquarium.

Rachel drinking the milk out of her bowl after having some "fwoot woops" aka Fruit Loops. One day afer giving her cereal, she just picked up the bowl to drink the remaining milk and now it is one of her favorite things to do. We usually end up refilling the bowl with milk and cereal a couple of times each sitting.

Early May

Here are some more pics!


Rachel actually saying cheese for the camera! She saw it and was like "cheese, cheese, cheese" until we took her picture and then of course she wanted to see it.

Rachel sliding at the park by herself! She loves to slide!

Walking across the bridge to the slide after climbing up the stairs by herself! This was all fun until it was time to go home and then you would have thought I was kidnapping her based on her screams!

Sarah being a great big sis and helping Rachel ride the pony at Broken Arrow Rooster Days! Something else Rachel wanted to do over and over but at $5 a pop once was all she got!

Jim and his two sisters Janine & Janet at Janet's college graduation.

Miscellaneous

Well over this past weekend, we moved Rachel's bed to Sarah's room so we could set up the crib for the new baby. Rachel has actually been doing pretty well in there. She has slept all night long for 3 nights in a row now! Yay!!!! Hopefully she won't give her big sister too much grief!

I also attached some misc pictures and a video! I have noticed that all of our pictures seem to be of Rachel. Yes we do have 2 other children still! Ha! I will try to get some good pictures of them over Easter weekend and add them next week.

Rachel waking up. We do keep the door closed at night still!
Rachel on slide at Duck Pond Park in Ponca in Feb.

Rachel laying down and rolling around with her baby! Jim does this thing with Rachel where they lay on floor and roll and Rachel loves it, so now she does it with her babies.

When we had the snow/slush, Rachel decided to write with markers. She really enjoyed it but has a little trouble with the lids. Sometimes, she even has trouble staying on the paper(see below).

What? There is marker on my chin? I looked over and she had put one of the markers on her chin and I guess she liked the way it felt so drew a little bit. She didn't do it again after I said no though so that is good! Washable markers are great!!! It was all off in time for church that evening.

Rachel likes her various riding toys. She gets on this one and will say "rock, rock" as she goes crazy on it! This time she had her MP3 player in the background playing classical music.

"Melmo"

We took Rachel to Sesame Street Live last Thursday so she could see "Melmo". She actually did pretty well. She watched the whole show and even danced a little here and there. After the show was over, I guess she did a re-enactment of some of the dancing and stuff out in the lobby area. I of course was in the bathroom so missed it. Jim said people were stopping and watching her. I guess she was talking and moving her arms around and her body side to side. She talks about "Melmo" quite a bit.

Rachel moving her head to the beat while having a little snack.

The one and only "Melmo".

Standing up and dancing!

The Great Blizzard of '09

So, we had our snow/slush day. It was not much fun since the kids couldn't play in it because it was so wet. It was just like walking through water pretty much. It did look pretty while it was coming down though.

It snowed all day Saturday.
(looking out our backdoor)But it was a really wet snow.

Fortunately, it had stopped snowing before church. Mom and dad's Murano is in the background.

Unfortunately, that meant we had to walk through 3 inches of slushy water everywhere!! Notice my(Jim) giant "Sasquatch footprints" in the foreground.
We all had wet pants legs from it.

In other news, Rachel's new word to try at home is "move" and occasionally we will get a "move please". She usually uses this when I am in her way as far as sitting in my chair at the kitchen table and she wants in it. She also was using it on both Jim and I the other day in the bedroom. Usually on Sat/Sun mornings we get to sleep in. Once Rachel wakes up, we bring her to our bed and just sit or lay there while we try to wake up. However, this past weekend, we were in her way when she wanted to look out our bedroom window. Her routine is to look out our window, and then we will discuss all the parts of a face and then of course her legs, arms, feet and hands. She is quite funny.

I continue to get bigger and bigger in my pregnancy. Hopefully I can make it about 8 more weeks. The doctor seems to think I will be about 2 weeks early again which puts me towards the first of June or so. I passed my glucose test, however, my blood count was low so now I have to take an iron supplement. Yuck. However, I have found that since I have been taking it, I am not near as tired as I have been so that is good.

Jim and I have decided to upgrade to a king size bed. We end up sharing so much with a certain 20 month old and now with another one on the way, our queen size is just not big enough, plus it is old and needs replaced. We have bought the frame but haven't bought a mattress yet. I think it will be sometime towards the end of this month when we do. I can't wait. We just wish we would have done it sooner. Maybe now we can sleep w/o waking up in pain. Or maybe that is just we are getting old already. Ha!

Baby John!

Forgot I had CD with me. Here are 2 pics from ultrasound! We are pretty sure the first name will be John. Still debating middle name.

I think he is laughing or smiling, or maybe just passing gas!

Trying to sleep if people would quit poking and pushing him around! The session lasted about 30 minutes!

Spring Break

Great Grandma, Rachel and Derek planting some potatoes! Rachel wasn't sure about those slimy things!

A trip to the river during Spring Break.

Derek trying to fall off cliff! Ha! Good thing he had help.

Well last week was spring break for Sarah and Derek and for Jim (sort of).

Jim had to go back to Massachusetts for another training class on a new printer they have at work so he was gone Sunday to Friday. So, Sarah went to her mom's for the week. Rachel and Derek went to PC for the week.

Sarah said she got to have an in home spa day with her mom and sister and then another day they did a craft. They made necklaces out of pantyhose and decorated craft bottle caps. The necklaces looked pretty cool.

In PC, the kids helped Granddad plant potatoes but from what I heard Rachel only did about 2 and then she was tired of her hands being messy and the slimy potatoes. She also was suffering from allergies so kind of had good days and bad days. I guess they kept pretty busy doing some other things during the week, like a trip to Wichita and out to the river and then visiting with Great Grandma and Aunt Marta.

I stayed home, went to work and then cleaned out Sarah and Derek's room. I was able to remove alot of toys from Derek's room to either put in the garage sale or save for Rachel and the new baby. It is still cluttered but not near like it was. You can actually see the floor. Sarah's I just organized and then Jim and I rearranged the furniture so that we can fit Rachel's crib in there as she will start sleeping in Sarah's room soon so we can start preparing for the new addition.

The kids didn't seem to complain too much about having to go back to school yesterday. I can't believe this is already the last quarter of the school year. It sure went by really fast!

Before spring break, we went and had one of those 3D/4D ultrasounds done. We actually got some pretty good pictures. I will try to post one.
Mom and Jim's parents along with the 3 kids went to it also and thought it was pretty neat.

The latest with Rachel, she is saying more and more words and will occasionally say almost whole sentences. Her favorite phrase the past week was "what's that"? She also has started requesting Spongebob cartoons as soon as we get into the car to go anywhere. She points to the dvd screen and says "Spongebob". She definitely keeps us entertained!

Now for some pics!

Rachel enjoying a baby ice cream at McDonalds when we picked her up Sunday!

We kept trying to get the tongue sticking out but missed it!

Sarah does altar serving also and here is her picture with Father. She does really well. For regular mass, her and Derek just get to be the candle servers. For her school mass though, Sarah got to carry the cross in.

Rachel with her step stool/foot rest/whatever else she needs it for stool. She saw Jim sitting in his chair using this for a foot rest so she immediately said "mine" and proceeded to then sit back and put her feet up. She carries this wire shelf thing around the house using it to help her climb up and reach various things throughout the house.

Rachel playing guitar hero and sitting in Sarah's beanbag chair. Of course Rachel thinks that it is her chair but big sister is really good about sharing!