A recap of a busy December

December was such a busy month for our family. I really meant to post weekly and keep up, but it just never happened.  Here's a recap of some of our many activities.

Monday December 9th Matthew turned 15. I can't believe it has been 15 years since the night he was born.  He has an interesting birth story.  I knew at lunch time the day Matthew was born that labor would start soon.  I took a nap in the afternoon and thought that I hadn't felt the baby move much that day.  I had a Primary Presidency meeting planned for that evening and Neil was supposed to take the Young Men to play raquetball.  We didn't do either of those, we went to the hospital instead. When we got to the hospital the Dr. didn't like how his heart rate wasn't fluctuating at all. They decided to shock him and see if that helped his heart rate.  It helped some, but I could tell that the Dr. and nurses were nervous about how things were going. One nurse told me that the baby wasn't liking labor at all.  They started to talk about what we needed to do and the possibility of a C section.  Luckily for Matthew and for me, he was born on the very next contraction.  I just told the Dr. to catch the baby because he was coming now.  He was on tangled up baby! Dr. Ellis said he had never seen a baby so wrapped up in his cord. He must have been turning somersaults.  The only place the cord had pulled tight was around his ankle.  He had a bruised ankle for the first several months of life.  I felt very blessed to have a baby to hold and love.  He was a sweet and good baby.  So loved by his three older sisters.  He has grown into a fine young man.  I really enjoy Matthew's sense of humor and listening to him share his vast trivial knowledge. I also love how he wears a BYU shirt almost every day, just like I used to. I am proud to be his mama.  I love you, Matthew! 

We made his tradition Death by Chocolate birthday cake, and he requested deer steaks for dinner.  It was a fun day to celebrate an important birth. Happy Birthday, Matthew!

Along with turning 15 comes getting a driving permit.  Neil took Matthew to Cody on Thursday after his birthday to take the driving test.  He passed and came home with his permit.  He is a good driver and really likes to drive.  Friday after getting his permit he asked me if there wasn't anywhere I needed to go so he could drive.

December also meant school concerts.  Emma had a concert on December 10th and David's was December 17th.  Both of the concerts fell on evenings that Neil had to teach. He barely made it as the 7th grade band was getting started. Emma was glad he could get there.  He didn't make it to David's because his class had their final that evening and the test went long.  Both Emma and David did great! It was the first time David has done a school concert. It was fun to go back and watch a Parkside program. They still did some of the same songs the older girls did when they went to Parkside.  Fun memories!  Bethany and Julia enjoyed watching Parkside again.  Christmas music and concerts are always fun. I'll include video of the concerts in the slideshow below.

We had a great time decorating the house together. We wanted to have Bethany home to help and with busy schedules we didn't get it done as early as most years.  I love watching the children get excited about getting the decorations out and feeling their excitement. It was a fun evening together.  We made cookies and had hot chocolate while decorating.  Good times together!

Rebecca flew home for Christmas on Monday the 23rd.  We were so excited to have her here with us for a few days!  Christmas could finally come because everyone was here together.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were perfect (at least until we went downstairs to put kids to bed on Christmas night and discovered the sump pump had flooded).  I loved  having everyone here together.  We did our traditional Christmas Eve activities and dinner.  We had ham, potato soup, clam chowder, rolls, cheeseball, red jello and green punch.  It was delicious! We all took part in our annual Christmas Eve concert, even Mom who forgot to practice much and wasn't sure the song she was playing was the one she practiced.  We also read the Christmas story from the Bible.  Next, we headed out to look at the Christmas lights around town in our slippers.  When we got home the children watched How the Grinch Stole Christmas on tv. Lydia LOVES the Grinch! She watched the animated classic every chance she got.  This was the first time she saw the live action version. She was so excited to see baby Grinchy and was enthralled to stay up late and watch.  Our tradition is for the children to wait at the bottom of the stairs for Mom and Dad to come get them for Christmas.  7:00 am is the set time for us to come down.  It is fun to listen to them talk and sing as they wait for us.  I love Christmas morning!  Everyone was happy with what they gave and received for Christmas.  I love to watch the children as one of the gifts they have bought for someone is opened. They get so excited to see how much the person receiving the gift will like it. They love giving gifts.

Eagerly waiting to see what Santa brought

Joshua's wish for his birthday was to hold a real baby puppy.  I mentioned it to our neighbor, Tina, who is a dog lover. I figured she might know someone who had puppies.  She took it seriously that he wanted to hold a puppy. She thought it was the sweetest thing she had heard.  She found a couple from Frannie (about 45 minutes away) and talked to them.  They were kind enough to agree to bring their family and two puppies to our house on Christmas day.  Joshua held the puppies a little bit, but he didn't stay with it for too long.  Rebecca and Emma loved holding the puppies. They were totally surprised when I let the puppies come in the house.  It was so sweet of the family to spend part of their Christmas sharing their puppies with us. They offered to let us buy one at a reduced rate, but we said no thanks.

Friday Neil, Matthew and MaryAnne took Rebecca back to Cody to fly home.  It was so great to have her here with us for Christmas! She had to get home to pack up her stuff and move to another house.  She and her roommates are moving as soon as they can.

December was also busy with clogging performances.  We have one last one today.  Emma and I drove home from the first performance in the worst snowstorm I have ever driven in. It didn't help that the power was out in our subdivision and I couldn't see any houses.  We made it home, but we had to stop a time or two and decide if we should go on or not.

We also made a trip to Bozeman to pick up our van.  Neil drove the van and I drove the Kia.  Matthew, Julia and Emma went with us because we went after a youth temple trip to Billings. Bethany was good to come and stay the day with the younger children. It was an all day trip.  It was interesting that when we stopped to get gas part way home the Kia wouldn't start.  We had to jump it at the gas station.  We had just bought a new battery and it was no good. The store tested it and then replaced it for us.  Now both cars are running which is a good thing.

Here is a slideshow of December pictures and happenings. Hope you enjoy seeing what is happening at the Waite house.  We hope each of you had a Merry Christmas!!

 

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The weather outside is frightful!!

Yesterday our high temperature was 57 degrees, and then a storm started to blow in. Last night was our clogging Christmas recital.  The weather was awful!! At least we were in doors.  We drove home in the worst blizzard I have ever driven in.  I had to stop several times because I couldn't see a thing.  The power was out in our subdivision so there were no lights on to let us see where home was.  The power came back on just as we found our driveway. I was grateful to see the lights and get home.  Our weather forecast is for below zero temperatures all week with wind chills making it even colder.  We will be glad to stay in and decorate for Christmas.  We are looking forward to hot chocolate, cookies and Christmas stories during this frightful weather.

Our weather forecast for the week looks frightfully cold

Our Thanksgiving adventure

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays!! I love cooking and baking with the children the day before so we don't have much besides cooking the turkey on Thursday.  We usually have a grateful tree.  Each of us writes things we are grateful on leaves and we glue them on the tree throughout the month of November.  I love concentrating on being grateful, good food and family.  This year Rebecca couldn't come home so we sent her money to buy what she wanted to eat for Thanksgiving.  We missed her, and are so glad she is coming for Christmas.  We skyped with Grandpa and Grandma in Scotland on their mission.  Being able to keep in touch with them while they are gone is one of the many blessings I am grateful for.  Modern communication is amazing!!

We had Brother Ogburn over for dinner and enjoyed his company.  We had plenty of delicious food.  We made 5 kinds of pies and all the other yummy Thanksgiving foods.  Julia and Emma look forward to pink jello salad all year because we only make it at Thanksgiving.  It was a wonderful day!!

Friday we  drove to Ashton to be with the Waite family. It was fun to see Grandma Karan and Grandpa JimMolly and Scott, Gerry and Valerie, Blaine, Candice and the nieces and nephews.  The children went sledding down Grandma's hill and had a great time together.  There were lots of games played, good conversation and catching up with each other. It was wonderful!!!

We left early Saturday afternoon to get ahead of a coming storm.  It was a great plan, but it didn't work out quite like we planned.  About 5 miles outside of Bozeman, Montana the van made a very loud popping noise and got very loud.  We didn't know what was wrong and decided against heading into a storm not being sure the van would keep running.  We got a recommendation of a mechanic in Bozeman and left the van there.  We called a friend in the ward with a vehicle big enough to bring all of us home.  Julia and Bethany had stayed at home so we asked them to drive the Clark's suburban and come to get us.  We were 200 miles from home so we had quite a wait in Bozeman. Brother Clark decided to drive himself rather than have Bethany and Julia try to make the trip. The girls were very glad they didn't have to drive.  We walked a little over  a mile to Walmart in Bozeman and waited there.  You can find all kinds of things to buy when you spend close to two hours walking around Walmart.  The children did really well and didn't ask for too much.  We were just glad to have somewhere to wait and that Brother Clark was willing to come and rescue us.  It will be a Thanksgiving trip the children won't forget.  The funny thing is that when we drove through Bozeman on our way to Idaho the children said not to stop there because that is where the van breaks down.  We told them that was Riverton where we had problems before and it was fine to stop in Bozeman.  We should have listened to them.  We got home about midnight instead of 7:00 like we had planned, but we made it and felt grateful to be home.  It was an adventure!!!

The four day birthday (Happy Birthday, David)

David was born the day after Thanksgiving eleven years ago. This year his birthday fell on the day after Thanksgiving.  It was kind of interesting timing to celebrate his birthday because we were going to Idaho to be with the Waite family that day.  He decided he wanted to have his cake on Wednesday (he baked his cakes himself), his presents on Thursday, Friday was the real day even though we were traveling, and Saturday Grandma Karan had a cake for him.  He managed to spread the party and fun out over four days.

I can't believe David is eleven. He recently earned his Arrow of Light in Webelos and crossed over the bridge to join the Scout troop.  He is an easy going, fly under the radar kind of boy.  He loves playing with his K'nex and working with his hands. He loves to help Neil with any kind of fix it or build it project. David keeps us laughing and smiling. He is a smart and considerate boy. We are grateful to have him in our family.

Happy Birthday, David!!! We love you!!

Happy 7th birthday, Dallin!!

Tuesday was Dallin's seventh birthday!! He was so excited to have his birthday.  He played his own Happy birthday song on the piano as we sang to him. He did a very good job.  He wanted a three layer chocolate cake with white frosting in between each layer.  He also wanted it to have Happy birthday Dallin on it.  I think it turned out just how he hoped.  He had some friends over to play in the afternoon. We made cupcakes for them and up Happy Birthday Dallin on them.  He was so excited to let them eat cupcakes.  One of Dallin's presents was a new kite.  Neil was such a good dad yesterday and took him out to fly it.  There are a few pictures of  Dallin, MaryAnne, Joshua, Lydia and David flying the kite.Dallin is such a good little boy.  He loves to have things in order and is very list oriented.  He likes to check things off as he gets them done.  He stays caught up in school because he is so careful and concerned about getting things done.  He is an early riser, and can't stay awake in the evening if we do anything quiet like watch a movie or read together.  He falls asleep on the couch or floor most evenings.  He loves to jump on the trampoline and play with his friends, Adam and Stuart.  I can't believe he is already seven and will be ready to be baptized next year.  He is a joy in our family!! We love you, Dallin!!!

Dallin had an interesting entrance into this world.  We didn't want  a repeat performance of barely making it to the hospital, but I didn't want to be there too long either.  Dallin decided it was time to come in the middle of the night.  We got to the hospital about midnight and Dallin wasn't born until a little after 2:00 in the morning.  He was facing the wrong direction so his labor was different than any of the others.  He is the only one I didn't have back labor with.  The doctor remembered hearing about how fast MaryAnne had come and expected a repeat.  He was tired and wanted to go home and go back to bed.  I don't blame him in the least, after all it was 2:00 on a Sunday morning.  When Dallin finally turned he was born quickly.  Neil had to get all the children ready for church and conduct Sacrament meeting later that morning.  He announced Dallin's arrival and said he had a good excuse if he looked sleepy on the stand that day.  We are so blessed to have Dallin as part of our family.

It's birthday time at our house!!

For the longest time in our family we each had our own month to celebrate our birthday.  Neil had September, Sarah June, Rebecca July, Bethany May, Julia February, Matthew December, Emma October and David was November.  This worked great until MaryAnne and Dallin were also born in November.  Three November birthdays and they are all in a row besides (2002, 2004 and 2006)  Then Joshua decided (well the Dr.'s decided) to share December with Matthew. Lydia wanted to have her own month so she waited until January to be born.  It is interesting to me that we have all the girls birthdays (January-November 4th) and then we have all the boys (November 12th to December 31st).  I knew when Lydia wasn't born in December that she would be a girl instead of a boy because of where birthday fit.  Well we are right in the middle of birthday season at our house.  We have seven birthdays between October 20th and January 5th, plus Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years.  It seems like it is one party after another right now.

MaryAnne turned nine on the 4th of November.  She has one amazing birth story.  She was overdue and we were schedule to have her induced on the morning of the 5th.  About 8:00 on the night of the 4th I started having contractions, but they weren't too hard.  We decided to go to bed and go into the hospital in the morning. You would think I would know better by our 7th baby.  I don't know what I was thinking.  I woke up about 10:00 and told Neil the contractions were coming harder and I couldn't sleep through them any more.  We called our friend Jeanette Cox, who was planning to stay with our children in the morning and asked her to come now instead.  She lives a little ways from us and by the time she got there I was in transition labor. It was a quiet drive into the hospital, I was feeling every bump down our dirt road.  We don't live too far from the hospital and it was a good thing.  We had called the hospital before we left to let them know we were coming.  We checked in quickly and were walking down the hall to the delivery room. When she heard this story my sister in law, Molly, asked why I was walking instead of riding in a wheelchair. I honestly hadn't even thought of asking for a wheelchair. As we were walking the nurse asked is I needed to stop and wait through a contraction. I told her that if I stopped we were going to have a baby right there. She told me to just keep walking.  As I walked through the door MaryAnne made her entrance without any doctor around. It was quite exciting for a few minutes.  The best part about having a baby that fast is that you don't have to get an I.V.  She was a beautiful, healthy little girl.

MaryAnne is full of personality and spunk. She really keeps us hopping with some of the things she comes up with.  She loves horses, playing with friends, and reading Addy books.  She makes her opinion known and likes to be listened to.  We are grateful to have her in our family.  For her birthday she really wanted to try a cake with polka dots.  We gave it a try and it turned out pretty good.  We baked mini cupcakes and colored with really bright colors.  Next, we put the cupcakes into the pans with the batter and baked the cakes.  When we cut the cake it looked like polka dots.  I think it would work better with a donut hole pan to make the polka dots more round.  MaryAnne's birthday was on a Monday, and  a busy one at that.  She wanted ham for dinner.  Right after dinner we had to leave for a family service project and then Family Home Evening.  We had her cake for our Family Home Evening treats.  It was a good, but busy day!! Happy Birthday, MaryAnne!! We love you!!

Halloween 2013

 Ok, a confession to start off the post with.  I am not a good halloween mom.  I don't really like much at all about the whole day, but I try and make it fun for my children.  I guess I do like carving pumpkins.  We had a good time carving the pumpkins we grew in our garden. We didn't get as many as last year, but there was one for each child plus some extras. I finally tried using a template and I thought they turned out really good.  We'll have to remember that for next year.  We carved them on Monday evening for our Family Home Evening activity.  The children picked out the template they wanted earlier in the day and we put the outline on the pumpkins so when carving time came it would be fast and easy.  It always seems like carving pumpkins runs later than I plan, so I was really glad we did the prep work early.  They turned out great!!!   It was a cold and windy night when we finished so I didn't get any good pictures of the pumpkins lit, but they looked spectacular.   Emma, MaryAnne and Dallin love dressing up with their best friends our next door neighbors, Emma, Linda and Adam Andreasen.  This year Emma and Emma were darling M&M's (I thought their costumes turned out very cute) Linda and MaryAnne were PeterPan and Tinkerbell, Adam and Dallin were a dragon and a knight.  Julia wore her cloak and carried her dagger. I told her she was a hobbit.  She ended up staying home and not going with us because she was babysitting Junior.  Matthew thought he was too old to dress up.   Bethany didn't go with us, but she went as a Renaissance maiden to the Young Single Adult ward dance the week before.  Joshua was a dragon and Lydia was Cinderella. Lydia didn't feel very well that night and she was sad that she didn't get to eat any of her candy.  David couldn't decide what to be until the morning of Halloween.  He finally decided to be a s'more. It turned out really easy and cute.  The children and I did downtown trick or treating and then the church trunk or treat.  They came home and did the annual candy trade with each other. It is a tradition they love.  The day turned out busy, and I didn't win any mother of the year points when I didn't let them go into the church and do the carnival. It was more than I wanted to do with hungry, tired kids.  We came home and had dinner instead.  

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State Cross Country Meet

Matthew went with the Cross Country team to Sheridan yesterday to run in the final meet of the season.  He was excited to make the varsity team as a freshman and get to run at State.  He told me he didn't want to be last. He took 67th out of over 100 runners.  He ran the course in 19:59 so he took about two minutes off his time on the same course at the beginning of the year.  Great job, Matthew!!  I love to watch you run!!!  Here are a few pictures from the Conference meet in Cody the week before. We didn't go to Sheridan and watch, but we were thinking of you and cheering you on from home.

Waiting for the race to start

And their off

Great job, Matthew!!

All I want for Christmas

Friday evening as I was making pizza for dinner (By hand, because my mixer died earlier in the week) Dallin came over and told me his teeth felt funny.  He hasn't lost any teeth yet, even though he will be seven in about two weeks.  I looked in his mouth and saw a permanent tooth coming in behind his baby teeth.  We went and showed Neil and discovered the two baby teeth were loose and ready to come out. He was brave and let Neil pull both teeth right then.  Now Dallin can really sing All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth.  I'm sure he wants more than that, but he was really excited to be the first child to lose two teeth instead of just one at a time.  He was a little sad because he dropped one of his teeth and we haven't been able to find it again, but  the tooth fairy still came. He was excited to find his money under his pillow from the tooth fairy.  Now he has a really cute little toothless grin.

Smashing pumpkins

We grew pumpkins in our garden this summer. The children enjoyed picking out their pumpkin and bringing them in the house until time to carve them.  They've been in the house for awhile now.  They are sitting on our stairs down into the family room. They make pretty fall decorations and a great climbing challenge for Joshua and Lydia.  They can tell you exactly which pumpkin belongs to each child.  Sunday evening as we were eating ice cream together I noticed Joshua standing at the top of the stairs, somehow he had moved on of the bigger pumpkins (Julia's) across the dining room and to the stairs all by himself. I still don't know how he managed to move it without anyone noticing.  He was poised to give it a shove down the stairs when I noticed what he was doing. Unfortunately, I noticed a half a second to late to stop him.  The next thing we heard was a thump, thump, and then a smash as the pumpkin went down the stairs and smashed at the bottom.  At least he picked Julia's so no one was too upset about their pumpkin being smashed, and at least it wasn't the neighbor's pumpkins.  It was kind of funny. Leave it to Joshua to smash the pumpkins.

Emma Lee Waite

Emma was our surprise early baby. She came two weeks early and I was in denial of being in labor because I had never had a baby early. Neil and I took the children to the Powell football game that night. We went home at half time and put the children to bed. Neil thought we should go to the hospital but I didn't want to get sent home. I figured by our 5th baby I should know if I was in labor. We finally decided to go to the hospital, but it was the one year anniversary of the Billings Temple. The temple was open for 24 hours straight and our ward had the middle of the night sessions. Everyone we had planned on watching the children were in Billings attending the temple. We finally got a teenage girl from our ward to come over. We got to the hospital about 11:10 and Emma was born at 11:58. We weren't sure if her birthday would be October 20 or 21. Neil liked the 20th because 10/20/2000 is a pretty cool birthday. She sure was a pretty baby. I was glad to have her here safe and healthy.
 Our sweet little Emma Lee turned thirteen yesterday. She is a sweet girl and works hard to make sure everyone is happy. She is a good sport about sharing her king sized bed with a little one or two at bedtime. Joshua and Lydia love to have turns sleeping with Emma. Emma is playing in the band for the first time this year. She started a year late, but she is doing a great job of catching up. I will try and upload a video of her concert from last week. They did a great job playing. Emma had a busy week last week with a band concert on Thursday evening, a birthday/volleyball party on Saturday, and her birthday on Sunday. She helped clean up the downstairs on Friday evening instead of watching a movie with the other kids so it could be ready for her party. We enjoyed getting to know some of her friends she has met at school this year. The girls seemed to have a good time together playing games, eating pizza and watching a movie. There were 16 girls at our house for the party. Emma wanted cupcakes with volleyballs on them for the party. I think they turned out pretty good. Emma was happy with them, and that's what really matters.

Joshua's film debut

When we went to Doctor Wiggins in August they approached us about featuring Joshua for a fundraiser for St. Vincent's Healthcare. I agreed because Dr. Wiggins and his staff are very important to me. I remember before we brought Joshua home the first time wondering what we would do about his checkups. I thought we might have to make trips back to Salt Lake on a monthly basis at the beginning. I was really worried about that for a couple of reasons. 1)I would have to do it by myself during the school year (Neil gets lots of time off, but you don't get to choose when you get it off.) 2)I wanted to know that we were close enough to see a doctor if Joshua had a need that a pediatrician couldn't handle. When Dr. Burch at Primary Children's told me that they were arranging a followup visit with the pediatric cardiologist in Billings I was amazed and so grateful that we could see a doctor in Billings. I have complete confidence in Dr. Wiggins. He is amazing!!! He reminds me of President Eyring in looks and in his calm, peaceful manner. He really does do all he can to help these special heart kiddos. I also love his nurse, Melissa. She is so good with the kids. I think she could be a child photographer if she ever wanted a different job. She is so good and patient with the kids and amazing at getting them to smile. Dr. Wiggins and his office have become important parts of our life. This didn't start out to be a post about pediatric cardiology, but I just wanted to let you know the reasons that we consented to doing this video. Actually, when Dr. Wiggins asked me about featuring Joshua I thought it would be a billboard in Billings and would just involved pictures so I agreed. When I found out they were coming to our house to film our family and do interviews I seriously considered backing out. The children hope that someday I will learn to say no to newspaper interviews, and fundraising videos. I think I should take their advice and say no in the future. Anyway, I don't really like my part on the video, but I do feel grateful to share Josua's story. Emma played in her conference tournament on Saturday in Cowley, Neil went to watch her play. Her team took 2nd and she was happy about it. The girls really have gotten a lot better throughout the season. They had a great time and learned a lot. Emma made some good friends and had great coaches. It is fun to watch her play. Matthew ran here in Powell on Thursday. Neil teaches on Thursday evening so he didn't get to watch much of the race. Matthew didn't feel very good. I love to watch him run, maybe it is that I am glad I'm not the one out there running. One of the dads cheered his son on by hollering "Hurt Good." I think that is a good definition of running. We also had our practice for the Primary Sacrament Meeting program on Saturday. We had a good turn out and I feel good about how it will go on the October 20th. We practiced earlier than normal because the 19th is Super Saturday. I will be glad when we have the opportunity to share out thoughts and songs on the 20th. (It is also Emma's 13th birthday) Thirteen years ago when I planned the program to be finished before she arrived in November she came earlier than I thought and I had a week old baby to take to the program and we also blessed her that day.

The Dynamic Duo or Masters of Disaster...it all depends on your viewpoint

I feel like I have spent the last few days just trying to keep up with the Dynamic Duo at our house. Joshua and Lydia are constantly finding new ways to keep me busy.  They sure can get into mischief together, but they sure are cute!!

 Joshua and Lydia have been into so much mischief this week.  Monday we took everyone over to watch Matthew's cross country race in Lovell.  Matthew took over a minute off his time and did marvelous!!  We had to go and get Joshua off the course a time or two. He thought he was running the race along with the team I guess. Lydia was more than happy to follow right along behind Joshua.  Tuesday I began to wonder if I can really keep my children home for school and keep an eye on Joshua and Lydia. It seemed like I was putting out one fire after another all day long.  First, they locked themselves in the car and chewed almost all the gum I keep out there to keep my awake when I have to drive. "Chewed it and swallowed it" according to Joshua.  Not ten minutes after I got them out of the car, they were playing downstairs and Joshua shut Lydia in the storage closet in the playroom.  It wouldn't have been too big of deal except that closet door has a lock on it (don't ask why..there isn't a need for it).  Joshua locked Lydia in and I have misplaced the key.  Neil was coming home for lunch, but I couldn't wait. Matthew and Dallin helped me take the door off to rescue dear sweet Lydia.

The adventures of the day weren't quite over yet.  When Neil left to back to school Joshua and Lydia went out and didn't want to come back in. I went in the house to get my shoes and only got distracted for one minute, but by the time I got back outside I couldn't see them anywhere. I looked all around our yard and house. I decided they might have gone next door to the Andreasen's house. I knocked on their door, but they hadn't seen them.  By now I was starting to really worry. I got Matthew and MaryAnne to help me look and a couple of Andreasen children came out to help.  Matthew rode his bike around the Jason/Henry loop looking for them. Matthew finally found them over on Jason Road playing in someone's backyard. They said they went to see the dogs.  They made really good time for being barefoot and wearing princess shoes.  I bet they were missing for at least 20 minutes and I was really, really worried!!!  So glad they were found safe and sound to have more adventures together.  I left them home with Julia in the evening while I went to watch Emma's volleyball match. I was a little worried that they might be a handful, but they behaved very well and Emma did great playing.

Today they have only locked themselves in the car and finished off the gum they didn't get to yesterday.  It sure can be a challenge to keep up with these two. I am trying to figure out a good way to keep them in the house. Dead bolts maybe?  It is fun to have children who like to play together and keep each other entertained.  I hope they will grow up to be the best of friends.  It is good to have them to keep me hopping.  I love all my children so much!!!  I am so grateful to be a mom and to be blessed with this opportunity to love them.