First Day!

Another year, *sigh*....

After a very fun summer I am sad to say the kids are off to school again. This was a tough one for me. Summer is never long enough. It is pure chaos all summer long, but I love having them all home!


As soon as I sent this beautiful girl off to her first day of....Middle School (yikes!) I called Kris and told him he better start working out again so he can fight off or at least intimidate any boy who tries to get within 10 feet of her. Be still my heart...

I can't possibly be this old.

Then there are these two silly kids. They were very excited to get to school. Samantha lucked out and has a bunch of her best friends in her class this year. Hopefully the drama will be kept to a minimum as all the girls get used to sharing each other. Luckily for Joshua he got a teacher that Samantha had a couple of years ago. She managed to leave a perfect impression with this teacher so I hope he doesn't wreck it by the end of the first week:) He just has so much energy!

4th grade cutie-patootie!

1st grade super boy!

Seriously, I hope his teacher survives the first week...

In less than 8 hours...

In less than 8 hours we went from watching Gabriella run all over the Strong Museum, to getting a cast put on her leg. To say it was an eventful day would be a huge understatement. One minute she is playing with her big sister (on the trampoline--but don't tell anyone) and the next we are trying to get Daddy out of the operating room so he can fix up Gabriella. Poor girl was really scared. It is not a bad break so we are lucky. He did not have to reduce it or anything. It has been a really busy week for all of us, but especially Kris. He has had a lot of late nights and the kids went to bed several nights in a row without seeing Daddy. I guess I need to take them more seriously when they say things like "If I break a bone can I go see Daddy at the hospital?" Joshua has said this on more than one occasion. Once Joshua even told me that it would be ok if he broke his head because Daddy knows how to fix it.

There has got to be a better way to have quality time with Daddy.

This is going to make traveling across the country next week with 5 kids by myself so much more exciting. I was worried I was going to be bored.

In other news, Olivia is 6 months old. Not a great picture, but here it is. Don't you love the toy she is slobbering all over?? There is such a difference between baby #1 and #5. My standards have gone downhill very quickly:)

Too fast...

Olivia Grace 5 months old!
(ok so she is actually 5 1/2 months old in
these pictures, it was the best I could do)

Why do these cute little ones have to grow at all? Olivia finally got to graduate from her cradle to the crib. She was getting pretty wiggly in her cradle. It is a good sign they are ready to move out of the cradle when they can rock it themselves. She is such a good girl!

Here are a couple of pictures of her when she was still cradle size...

Sigh...where does the time go?

Can't get enough?

Kris' family wanted to see a few more pictures of our redneck party...not sure why. I kept telling Kris he looked gross. Enjoy!

We gone Redneck!

At least for the afternoon. We attended a fellow orthopedic residents "redneck birthday party" and were asked to come dressed to impress. Kris had waaaaay too much fun getting ready for the party. I had no idea he had such an inner redneck fighting to come out. It was a fun party, but we did have a hard time getting Bree off the 4 wheeler!

May Happy Times

Some sibling love...Joshua was trying to be so patient with Gabriella as they played XBox. She is completely clueless and just pushes buttons and then yells at Joshua for her guy to go the right way. He was such a good big brother to let her play for a long time.
As they were trying to play Xbox, the older girls were enjoying a movie on Daddy's phone.
And here is Joshua with his brother from another mother:) Joshua decided to forgo a real birthday party and enjoy a special outing to the Monster Truck show. However, he did require that he had a birthday cake, more presents, and goodie bags. So that is what he got. He had a great time at the show and I appreciate Jon and Bryan taking him since Kris was on call at the hospital.

I went to pick him up from Michael's house after the truck show and it was really late. He fell asleep in the car and had to be forced into pajamas. In the middle of the getting ready for bed process he informed me that he was bored. I guess brushing teeth would seem really boring after the truck show, but it still had to be done. The poor kid was asleep before I could even leave the room. When he woke up the next morning he was already telling me all the things he wanted to do for his birthday next year. I wonder when he will get too old to care so much about his birthday? I hope it is not for a very long time, he is too cute about his birthday.
Four months old! Little Olivia is full of smiles these days. She loves people to talk to her and she is quite the little talker herself! She has learned to brace herself when she hears Gabriella's voice coming at her. Livi is such a good sport about all the steamrollers she gets! Still such a sweet baby.

It's Joshua's Birthday!!!

This boy is the best! He is such an adventure. His sisters adore him...


He is learning SOOO much at school. He loves to read to us each night. He even reads to his baby sister, and makes sure to show her the pictures.
He loves his Daddy and wants to be just like him. I hope he turns out just like his Daddy! These guys gotta stick together.

His first birthday was such fun. Our little monkey loved his cake. I have never seen a kid eat so fast. He had not tasted chocolate or real sugar before so he was in HEAVEN!!!! It was all down hill from there...
This kid loved "aminals" so much. We had his 2nd birthday at a farm in Virginia. He would climb up the fences and lean over and just stare at the "aminals". However, not just any animal was an animal. ONLY farm animals were ok by his standards. We spent a lot of time at the farm during his first couple years.

Love this boy! Love, love, love him! Happy birthday little man, and please grow a little slower!