We have never lived near family since we have had kids, so the reason I started this blog is so they could keep up with our lives and watch the kids grow. With that in mind, I want to welcome my cousin Melissa to my blog. Melissa, I am going to put more pictures on this post than you will probably ever want to see.

On to the business at hand...We had a great family mini vacation this past week. We started at Six Flags. The kids all loved it. Rachel has always loved the "high and fast" rides as she called them when she was really little. Rachel, Hailey, P.K. and even Aaron got in on the high and fast rides. Hannah was able to ride one roller coaster. The train around the park and the carousel are more my speed.

This is just inside the gate to the park in front of the carousel.

Hannah and Hailey on the carousel.

The Mardi Gras King and Queen.

Aaron and the Batmobile.

This place is full of foam balls that can be shot out of cannons. Guess which "kid" had the most fun here.

Aaron is behind the blue rail under P.K. When he saw me he starting yelling, "Let's shoot mommy."

P.K. had a little too much fun shooting at mommy.

Hannah thought throwing balls at mommy was fun. I guess I should have put the camera away and taken cover.

Hannah won a stuffed Scooby Doo playing a game. As soon as she saw the statue of Scooby, she started calling for us to take a picture.

The girls got to meet Dorothy the Dinosaur...


and Wags the Dog from the Wiggles. Aaron didn't want to get too near any of the characters. Hannah on the other hand wanted her picture taken with every character we saw.

Rachel's face is hilarious in this shot.

I love Hannah's expression in this one. She is not afraid. I think she was just being silly for her daddy while he was taking the picture. She has no fear.

Mommy, Hannah and Aaron on the train

The next stop was a tour at Jelly Belly. The kids and I had taken the tour several times when we lived nearby. At the end of the tour everyone gets a free package of samples. In the gift store there is a booth with more samples including flavors such as booger, vomit, pencil shavings, earthworm and rotten eggs. Rachel tried the pencil shavings flavor and Hailey tried baby wipes. On one of our previous trips Aaron tried earthworm. I thought he was going to vomit. I'm not sure how much one would get paid for the job of taste tester, but it can't be enough.

These pictures are made entirely of jelly beans.

The gross samples.

Our last stop was at Gurnee Mills Outlet Mall. The kids and I also spent quite a bit of time here when we lived in the area. There is a store with a reptile zoo in the back. We didn't go through the zoo this time, but we did get our picture taken with an Albino Burmese Python.

Aaron was having no part of touching the snake. Here are the girls.

P.K. and I had a turn. The snake was very active. I couldn't believe how strong it was. They had a bottle of sanitizer sitting nearby and I used it!! P.K. said I probably get more germs from Hannah. Oh, well.

The Drive-In

When we lived in California, one of our favorite family activities was to go to the drive-in. We didn't have one nearby in Illinois. I was thrilled to find we have one not to far from our current home. Since it opened for the season a few weeks ago, I've been waiting for a kid friendly flick. It is also one of the things on my list of things to do with Hailey while she is visiting. Last night we went to see Kung Fu Panda.

Aaron's Birthday Party

The party was scheduled for 2:00 p.m. and was to be held outside. Here is what happened at 1:00 p.m.

That would be hail in my dear hubby's hand from the severe thunderstorm that was passing through.

We had 16 children coming to our house and we really don't have enough room in any one room in our house for that many children. So I told the kids and P.K. that I had prayed that God would hold off the rain until at least 4:15 and we were going to go outside and set up.

This is a picture of the sky in the middle of the party. We didn't have any rain. We heard some thunder and our neighbor's son kept saying, "Mrs. Jody, I hate to tell you this, but it is going to start pouring any minute." I kept telling him that I had asked God to keep us dry until at least 4:15 and we were going to have a little faith. We did stay dry and the kids had a great time. Thank you, Father!

We had a representative from Noah's Ark Animal Workshop (like Build-A-Bear, but they come to you) help the kids make their own dinosaur. They all loved it.

The cake. One little boy who was invited to the party attends our church. When he saw me at church the morning before the party he asked me if we were going to have cake. Let's make sure we have the important things in order. :)

Aaron is the only kid I know who really does want to read each card before opening the gift.

These two are for Kari. If you can see in the top one, he is immediately saying thank you for the awesome water gun. I think his face in the bottom clearly expresses what he thinks about the cars. Also a thank you to my neighbor Beth in the red shirt for writing down all of the gifts for us.

I love their birthday parties. It takes a lot of work to pull one off, but they are always so happy. It is well worth it.

Spy Kids

P.K. made it home safely last night! Yeah! It is good to have him home. He and Aaron were having some male bonding time this morning in our room while P.K. unpacked. I needed to talk to P.K. about birthday ideas for Aaron so P.K. told Aaron we needed to have a private conversation and asked him to leave for a bit.

We could hear someone at the door and P.K. gave a reminder that whoever was on the other sided of the door needed to knock and wait for permission to enter. I glanced down and this is what I saw.

It is the end to a toy stethoscope from a doctor's kit. There were two under there, but we didn't get to the camera fast enough. We could here Aaron and Hannah on the other side of the door talking about what we were saying. Of course we started feeding them misinformation once we saw them there and we were talking in very low voices beforehand.

The guilty party. After taking pictures of the hilarious moment we did have a talk about respecting privacy

Happy Birthday, Aaron!

Today is Aaron's 7th birthday. I know it sounds cliche, but how can it possibly be? Seven just sounds so grown up. He will start second grade in the fall. Honestly. Can't we slow down the clock just a bit?

Aaron has the most tender heart of anyone I know. Adults included. He is so sweet and compassionate. One night we were watching one of the Land Before Time videos and he was getting all teary eyed over one of the characters. It was the same day his best friend at school was sharing that his dad had left his family and moved away. Aaron said, "My eyes filled with water and my throat got all tight." I pray that God will use this precious quality for His good. His little heart is already all for God. At the end of the school year he brought home his journal. I didn't even know his teacher had them keep one. Here is one of his entries exactly as he wrote it. "May 22, 2008 My family has a Godly hart. We know lot of people. We're all special." Makes a momma proud!

He's a thinker like his daddy. I often catch him in the midst of the P.K. stare. He loves to go fishing and to wrestle with his Papaw.

We affectionately call him Boyb (if you haven't heard us call him that it sounds like boy-b, but all together.) None of us are sure where the nickname came from. When he was a baby I use to recite the nursery rhyme Little Boy Blue to him, and would call him Little Boy Blue. (I know. Sickening.) I think it derived from that, but your guess is really as good as mine.

We aren't having his party until Sunday so P.K. will be home to celebrate with us. Watch for pictures then. You know it kills me to blog without them.

Summer Reading

This summer I am committed to having my kids read every day. This morning I was getting morning chores done and was planning to take the kids to the park afterwards because I am also committed to getting them outside for at least sixty minutes of physical activity on non rainy days. But all the kids started reading on their own. I decided while they were entertaining themselves with books (the teacher in me was totally thrilled) I would read some too.

My heart melted when I saw Aaron reading to Hannah. He read her three books.

Then I caught Rachel and Hailey hanging out in Hailey's temporary room.

The Light is Yellow

My niece, Hailey, is visiting us for three weeks. My good friend, Becky, and her daughter are visiting for the weekend. Today we took them to tour a local dairy. I knew if Becky ever came to visit that she would love to visit the dairy because visitors are almost guaranteed to see a calf being born.

One of the things we saw was the cows being milked on a carousel. They are trained to get on and off without assistance. I really could have pulled up a chair and watched the cows get on and off that thing all day. Yes, I am easily entertained. Once a cow boards the carousel it is properly cleaned before being milked. The cows wear an electronic device on a collar that tracks how often they are milked and how much they produce.

We had grilled cheese and quesadillas with cheese made on the premises for lunch. They have really good grilled cheese sandwiches. I think they are the best. Here's Aaron enjoying his.

There is a building called the birthing barn. Outside is a stoplight that lets people know when a cow is close to giving birth. Red means nothing is happening. Yellow means the hooves have appeared. Green means the baby is being born. Today was a slow day. The technician who monitors the cows who are giving birth said it could possibly be because of weather changes that were occurring today. Becky and I thought sitting in the birthing barn awaiting the chance to witness one of God's miracles was awesome. The kids thought it was o.k. the first 15 minutes we made them sit and watch. We finally gave up and took them for ice cream. We thought maybe the light would be on yellow before they finished, but no such luck.

We let them play a while longer and then decided to load up and head for home. After we were all buckled in the car, we drove by to check the light. No luck. It was still red. I was so disappointed because I so wanted Becky to see a cow being born. We turned on to the road heading away from the dairy and at the same time Becky and I looked back and saw that the light was yellow. Big U-turn!! We made it in plenty of time to witness a somewhat difficult birth. At first only one hoof appeared and the vet (or the person who oversees the birth...not sure of the title) had to go in and get the second one out. They let the cow labor a bit longer and then put little straps around the calf's ankles to help pull it out. It took three people to help that momma deliver that baby. Two adults were pulling the straps with everything they had in them and a third was trying to help from the inside. At this point Becky's daughter said she wanted to just pet the cow to make her feel better. To which Aaron replied, "I would rather drive the tour bus." He made it perfectly clear that he wanted no part of putting his hand inside the cow. Cracked me up!! Finally we were told it was a girl and momma and baby were fine. My camera battery died so I missed pictures of the delivery, but here are a couple more pics of the the girls in action.

Rachel with Ms. Cowline

Rachel tried her hand at milking.

Hannah also tried her hand at milking.