What life is really like at our house after school. We have a couple of plasma scooters that the kids take to the top of the drive way and ride down. Road rash is pretty common at our house.

I finally got the camera out tonight to take some pictures of the girls.

Grace posed for about 30 seconds for pictures until she realized there were fire ants.

Pretty Merry lasted a few minutes longer.

Toothless Merry

Both of Merry's front teeth have fallen out and I have been meaning to take a picture of her before her big teeth arrive. After the move, unpacking, visitors I finally got the camera out. Here is sweet, toothless Merry in our front field.

A visit from Papa

Papa stopped in for a short visit en route to some meetings on the other side of Florida. Luckily we still made it on his travel circuit. He gave us a minneola tangelo tree and valencia orange tree as a house warming gift. Brian planted the trees while I took the kids for a swim. He was so excited it did not take him a pick axe and 4 hrs to dig a tree-size hole like it does in Texas. We also ate some BBQ and played Settlers of Catan (Jacob loves this game and wants to play anytime we have visitors.) I have been spoiled to have 3 weekends of visitors.

Papa and the kids ready for church.

One day when I finally organize my stuff, I will start taking house pictures. This is our entryway, the stair case leads up to a loft that over looks the living room. At first, I was going to make the loft the toy room, but Adam and the open staircase are not a good combination. I was also pretty sure that toys and kids would eventually come flying over the balcony, so the loft became the office/craft space/ extra, extra guest room/ catch-all space. So a picture will probably never be taken of that room.

Grace carries the recessive genes for tongue rolling.

Grace has finally grown a couple of inches. She has always been in the 10th percentile for height and compared to Merry who has always been in the 90th percentile, she looks tiny. She loves to make people laugh and is always dressing up for Merry and Jacob's entertainment. Today she wore a unicorn costume and danced around then came and told us that "unicorns eat corn when they are hungry." Make perfect sense to me.

August and beginning of September

So after trying several internet providers we finally found something that actually works in the boonies. So here is the short summary of the past month.

The kids started school, both have fabulous teachers and we love the school. Merry's kindergarten teacher was actually taught in second grade by Jacob's second grade teacher. Grace started preschool and after adjusting to not having Merry around all the time is doing great. Adam is at the same preschool as Grace so she loves seeing him at school. Adam runs too fast out of the pictures so he did not make it in the picture.
We have slowly been unpacking all of our junk, it is amazing how much stuff we have accumulated in 11 years. We love the new house, minus the country blue front door. There is a lake behind our house so we have spent a lot of time canoeing and swimming. Well Merry and I swim and the rest watch from the canoe. The view from our back patio is amazing, here are a couple of sunset.



Brother Dan and Lexie came for a visit. We had a great time, so great we didn't take any pictures. We went to Honeymoon Island, which is an awesome natural beach. Dan learned not to flip a fiberglass canoe in the water. He did get a pretty great work out trying to tow a water laden canoe back to shore. We had lots of great food because Brother Dan cooked and I laid on the couch and drank a DDP. Did I mention I love when he comes to visit.

And finally Adam turned 18 months. He is at such a fun-naughty age. His favorite song is E-I-E-I-O or rather Old McDonald's, he only knows the chorus and randomly breaks out into tune. He loves being outside with the big kids, that is why his knees are always brownish. Climbing is his other skill, I frequently find foot prints going around in circle on my island in my kitchen. Here are a few snapshots of Adam at 18 months.

Chaos

So we survived the move to our new house. No pictures yet because the internet has not arrived yet and our house is still covered with boxes. We ended up with the quirky house on a couple of acres. The kids are in heaven, there is tons of room to play. The house had not been lived in for a couple of years, so I am at war with the ants.
Just to make our lives extra exciting, Adam nearly amputated the tip of his finger a week before we moved. It survived with only a minor break and a little super glue. I think his fingernail is never going to be the same.

Summer fun

Summer is in full swing here.

That means lazing around in your PJ's all day long.

Merry recently lost her front tooth. Okay so I pulled it out with napkin. So trusting, never trust you mom when she says I just want to see how wiggly it is.

She forgave me after the tooth fairy visited.

Now she can fit a bouncy ball in her mouth. Why? I have no idea.

Summer means not brushing your hair to Grace.

Adam is just along for the ride. Glad someone finally gave him a bouncy ball.

Note: We close on our new house next week and say that the previous owners may have loved blue a little too much. What color should we go with?

I really don't want puke beige.

Everything is stucco here.

The rest of our 4th of July trip

The first evening we arrived at Clover Hill, we let the kids run wild in the yard. Elias and Nathan were excited to show off their weaponry recently acquired at their viking birthday party. Ava showed Merry all the animals. Grace almost made friends with the Cinnamon, the cat (this is a big deal because she is terrified of pretty much anything that moves.) Adam definitely made friends with Cinnamon, however I don't think the feeling was mutual. After dark Jacob and Nathan started the Wii battle while Merry and Ava caught fireflies. A whole bottle full of fireflies were released in Ava's room that night, so they would have night lights while they slept. Unfortunately I think there are dead fireflies all over in Ava's room now.

The cousins all in a row, sort of.

Showing off weapons and spitting skills. I think the saliva is somewhere in the picture.

Adam meets Cinnamon.

Weapons of war.

On Saturday I was slacking on camera duty. We went and visited Mount Vernon. My favorite part was the gardens and the hippopotamus teeth dentures. The kids loved the in character Martha Washington. After the sweaty day at Mount Vernon, John took the kids sailing on the Potomac. Where was my camera? I don't know. This is what my kids keep talking about. I might just have to take sailing lessons. Then we went and visited my long lost BFF from college, Stacy and fam. Again I was slacking off on pictures. We had a great time catching up.

The south garden entrance.

Miss Martha.

Sunday we headed to church and then spent a lazy day around the farm. In the evening we snapped a few pictures of John and family, until the weather didn't cooperate.

Another family picture.

The family with the barn in the background.

Note on the barn. No nails were used, it is all pegged together.

Happy Elias

The storm clouds.

On the 4th we spent the morning taking pictures, then the afternoon we took a tour of the farm. We hiked around a little and found a lovely patch of thimbleberries and blackberries, unfortunately a bear did too. Luckily we had picked enough to make a quick batch of jam. John made a cherry pie. We stuffed ourselves and then headed off to see the fireworks.

After the fireworks we loaded up and headed back to Florida.

Most of the kids looking at Cinnamon.Grace.
Favorite past time of all children. Throwing rocks in water.

We drove through the stream in the Red Rover about 5 minutes later.
I found a nest while hiking and Ava decorated it.
Patriotic girls.

1. My favorite picture of Adam.

1. 
   

   
   

   
   

   The drive home.

1. 
   

   
   

   
   

   We had made it all the way to Ocala, which is about an hour north of where we live, we thought we would make a quick stop to pick up some new boots for Jacob. I took Jacob and Adam in to find some boots while Brian came behind with the girls. I set my keys, wallet and phone down in order to help Jacob try on the boots. Brian walked up and asked if I could lock the door to van with the clicker. I look down, the keys are no longer there, only Adam. So we search the store, the helpful sales lady kept insisting that I did not have them when I came inside the store. So we unloaded and searched the car.

1. 
   

   
   

   
   

   After about an hour, I decided to call USAA insurance and have them send a tow truck to take the van to dealership to have a new key made. The lovely lady at the Toyota dealership obviously didn't want to be helpful in the afternoon because she told me that she wasn't sure what kind of key I needed even though she could look up my exact model of van and she didn't know if the service department could make the key that day because it was pretty late (my clock showed 2:45pm). The tow truck driver arrives and refused to tow the truck because he didn't have the key to put it in neutral and he didn't want to break the van dragging it (actually cares, good job tow truck guy).

1. 
   

   
   

   
   

   Option #2 called enterprise because they will pick you up to schedule a rental car. They will not use a bank card because I am not a Marion county resident and I don't have my credit card activated because I don't use it that often and of course I have to activate it from my home phone which I have changed in the last couple of months. So we use Brian's card and sit and wait.

1. 
   

   
   

   
   

   While waiting I go back in to look 1 more time for the keys. Shaking all the boots at Adam's eye level. Miracle occurs. I find the missing keys in a boot at the end of the row right at Adam's waist. Quickly, I call and cancel the rental car and skedaddle.

1. 
   

   
   

   
   

   Side note:

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   we did buy some boots.