and so hopefully I will begin to have some down time and will be able to blog more often. There is much to report on and share, starting with our fabulous trip to CA. With school starting tomorrow I will be able to do that!
About a week ago Hannah broke our toilet seat by standing on it and then jumping off. She had already broken one a while back doing this same thing. Alan decided that it would be good for her to have to pay for it so that she won't be tempted to do it again. He talked to her on Friday night and asked her who she thought should have to pay for a new toilet seat. Mom? No. Eden? No. Grandpa? No. Then who? Hannah. He even gave the example that if he got in a car accident, he would have pay for the damage, wouldn't he?
It was a hard night. She cried and cried and didn't want to have to give up her money. But we have stuck to our guns.
To drive the point home......
As a family we went to a house warming party on Saturday night. We had a great time but it was getting late so we decided to head out. While I was finishing a conversation, Alan took all the kids to the car. A few minutes later he came back in and told one of our friends, Amy Hutchinson, that he had just hit her truck as we was backing up. It is a midnight blue color, it was a very dark night, and he didn't see it. Unfortunately he actually did quite a bit of damage ($1625), breaking her side view mirror and denting her door in a couple of places, and breaking our tail light. Alan (of course) took full responsibility and made sure that Hannah heard that he was going to pay for what he had done, even though Amy was trying to downplay it and kept saying that we would work it out later.
On the way home Hannah asked if Dad was going to have to pay for it. He explained that Amy would get her truck fixed and then she would give us a bill and Dad would pay her the amount of the bill. She said, "Wow, Dad that is going to be expensive!"
The things we do to drive a point home with our kids!!
Eden is now 9 months!!
She has been such a fun baby. I think that I probably take more pictures of her than all of the others combined. She loves the camera! She has 
started this new thing where if she thinks she is being cute she will shrug her shoulders and cock her head to the side and give you the biggest grin. She is going to get away with a lot!! She has started shaking her head yes! Usually little kids will shake their heads no first. Not Eden, she raises her eyebrows, has her mouth in a little circle, and her head bobs up and down. It cracks me up. She also finds many things funny and spends lots of time laughing! She is so much fun and is a wonderful addition to our family. 
Crawls quickly all over the upstairs, we now have a gate at the top of the stairs.
When she is downstairs, she will crawl, very carefully, upstairs!
Pulls her self up to everything (especially my plants) and has started walking around furniture.
Loves to play games with the kids. No one can make her laugh harder then Hannah, Peter, and Joe, but if she doesn't want them to touch her she has this yell that lets me know that someone is touching her.
Did I say there were going to be no more toothless grins?? Boy, was I wrong!!
Peter has both top middle teeth missing and one of the middle bottom teeth is out too. Surprisingly I think he still has 2 or 3 that are still loose. We have officially changed his name to Jack, short for Jack-o-lantern!
Worst part of it is that he can't eat one of his favorite foods, corn on the cob!
We went to Ocean City, Maryland this past weekend. We stayed on the 15th floor of the Capri on the North End of OC. Alan's department chair has a condo there and was so very kind to offer it to us. It pays to have well established friends!!
Within 15 minutes of getting there, the high-rise next door had a fire alarm go off and people were running out of the building. Then a couple of fire trucks came along with an ambulance. They were fully dressed in their garb and went marching in as hero's only to come out shortly after having been a false alarm.
We spent a lot of time at the pool and on the beach. It was so much fun to just relax and be together!
Our sweet friends let us have access to their community pool this summer and my kids have just become little fish. Loving the water and not at all fearful...not at all the song we were singing last year. I decided that our children needed to gain some skills, so we have been taking swimming lessons over the last 9 days at the West Laurel Swimming Club. Joseph was in the level 1 class and Hannah and Peter were in level 2. They could not have been more happy and perfectly placed. Hannah and Peter really took off and are able to do fairly well with swimming. In their class they started teaching them how to perform the different strokes.
Peter just needs to get his legs working with his arms and he will just take off. His arms are very powerful!
Hannah is just "easy does it" with the greatest of ease.
Joseph is always so happy! Every time he would jump in the water it was on top of his teachers. They started to teach him some different strokes but they were mostly trying to get the kids comfortable in the water and to be able to go under without drowning.
All covered with cheese, I lost my poor meat ball, when somebody sneezed.
"They say when you marry in June you're a bride all your life"
I got the opportunity to do the wedding flowers for Natasha Nielsen. It was a lot of fun to use such bright beautiful flowers. I think they turned out just right. The bridesmaid bouquets were very similar to the brides bouquet. (the one in the picture to the left is laying on it's side)
