Summer fun.

My happy girl!

We're going to sleep where???



My Campers

Jack in the water!

I have to say summer has been a blast. We've been swimming, bike riding, camping in the back yard, movie watching, fire fly catching, and so much more. Here's a few pix.

Jack's birthday!

Jack and Eli our neighbor

Jack with his Uncle Ian



Jack blowing out the candles on his mickey cake

We had a great day for Jack's birthday! It was a beautiful day for a swimming party. He loved having his Mickey cake and all of his awesome Mickey presents!

I cannot believe that Jack is 4. Time has flow bye. He is an amazing kid. He's full of life and energy. I think about the day we got him and cannot believe how far he has come. He is my little dare devil and my drama king. He can almost swim and is very coordinated. They love him in tumbling class. He is speaking well and is a really likable kid. He is also the most dramatic child ever. I'm pretty sure he got all of Ethan's drama. Unlike Ethan he would ham it up on stage!

Ethan's Graduation

That's right Ethan has graduated from Kindergarten. The kids put on a little show and then received their diplomas. Ethan was so stage fright he just stood there the whole time. He did manage to say his lines in the poem, and go up for the diploma. Let's just say acting is NOT in his future :)

Ethan's birthday!

Ethan turned 6 May 14th, and we had his birthday at Entertrainment Junction. He had neighbor's, friends, and family at his party. Ethan had a great day.

I have to say I cannot believe my little boy is 6. He has grown into such a sweet little boy. He could not be a better big brother, and is the most Christian child I know. We love watching him grow up. His favorite foods are hot dogs and Chinese chicken with red sauce. He also loves cake and ice cream. He loves to fish, bowl, and play on the computer. He's really into Transformers and Power Rangers. We love watching Ethan practice his Power Ranger moves :)

At 6 Ethan can now read. It has been fun watching him learn! He is amazing at math and loved Kindergarten. He is very close to swimming. He can cast a fishing line and bowls pretty well too. He had a great time running track and he played T-ball. It's been a good year for Ethan.

Umm catching up...a lot

So, what I've learned is having 4 kids under 6 will make you behind on well about everything! I've also learned that that's okay, cuz I'd rather spend the time having fun with them. In the next several blogs I'll attempt to catch up on my blogs. Why do I have time now you ask? Because my kids are at grandma's and Papa's this week!!! Yay!!! What are we doing? Everything we're behind on: Cleaning, laundry, car rust, pictures, fixing lawn mowers, yard work ect. ect. Of course dinners out for us :) It's been a great week so far, and the kids are having fun. The grand parents, well they might be exhausted. God bless the grandparents. This is better than vacation. It's a staycation with no kids.

Breakfast on Easter

Yep, there it is...What? There's protein and dairy???

So we tried to have the kids eat some healthy food Easter morning, well we didn't try too hard...After all even I wanted candy for breakfast. We did manage some hard boiled eggs.

More Easter

Reagan enjoying her basket of bibs :)

My not so early bird, but enjoying the egg hunt

My 3 early birds!

Happy 1st Easter Reagan!

Look at that outfit!

She's so happy in her tutu

So I'm only a week or so late! Not bad .... We had an excellent Easter. We all went to church, and the children were very well behaved. Then we had an Easter egg hunt at church. After that we went to Eric's mom's for lunch and some more Easter fun! We now have enough candy to last us until Halloween.

Reagan Updates

The motivator for all of my children for both crawling and talking. She is an awesome cat :)

There's my little sitter.

There she is, ready to move...backwards.

Reagan just had her 6 month well check. She is 15lbs 2 oz, and almost 25 inches. She is at the 10% in height, and the 10-25% in weight. Yah, she's small just like all my kids, but nice and round :)

She is now sitting on her own, and is starting to scooch around a bit. She's real good at sliding backwards. I keep finding her under my dresser! She is always happy, unless she is tired or hungry. Her brothers still adore her, especially Cam. He is amazing with "Baby Reagan" as he calls her. He insists on being the first one she sees each morning. It is really cute.

I have to say I have had so much fun having this baby around. I did not expect another baby, and I have looked at her as a bonus. I'm so much more relaxed with her and have had a blast! I also have to say having a girl is so much fun!

Our Track Star

Ethan with his ribbons from the Track Meet

Ethan is the one with the hood on and grey shirt. He's running the 75m

Ethan recently joined track at his school. They actually have a team for K-8th grade. It has been really wonderful for him. I have to say watching the meets is so funny. The first meet a little girl ran zig-zag through all the lanes, and another one stopped half way through and said, "this is too long", then another one waved to her mom half way through the race. I laughed for 3 hours! Although Ethan doesn't place super high, he does a great job running and he follows the rules. Most important he LOVES it!

Other March happenings.

What to do on one of our many rainy days...have a floor picnic

Or cuddle with 2 very cute boys.


Okay, so they might look a little alike. I wish the yellow squash on Reagan's face showed up more!

When its nice, play in the dirt with the neighbors!

Just a few pictures to enjoy.

Jack's Gotcha Day

Our new red couch photo! These are some of the kids adopted with Jack.

My cutie. Two years after being home. Isn't he amazing.

Every year around Jack's gotcha day we gather with our China family. This year we gathered in Indiana where we had a blast at a park and then on to an arcade. We always have such an amazing time with this group of people. There's a connection there that is so strong. We feel so incredibly blessed to be a part of this travel group. Everyone is amazing. The adults, the kids adopted with Jack, and all of their siblings. Can't wait to meet up again!

About Jack. I still am so amazed by the progress he has made. When we got him he was 30 inches and 16lbs. He could not walk well, he uttered no words, had not eaten solid foods, had a hole in his mouth, and wore a size 3 shoe! Now he is 28lbs, 37 inches, wears a size 7 shoe, has amazing gross motor skills, has tested out of speech, and has more drama and personality than any of us could ever imagine! Not to mention the incredible amounts of food he still consumes! So amazing!

Happy Gotcha Day Baby!!!

Umm, a bit of catching up!

Green pancakes with shamrocks on them.

My little Irish Cutie!

SO Happy St. Patrick's Day about a month late :) We've been a little busy around here, but I didn't want you to think we completely left! Everything is going well. I'm just trying my best to have fun with all the little ones. Not much free time, but that's okay because these days already fly by so fast! I cannot believe it is already the end of April!

Naked Baby Pictures

Cutest bottom around!

Insert foot in mouth.

Okay I couldn't resist. Who doesn't love a naked baby :) Reagan's 4 month stats are : 13 lbs, 3 oz. 24 inches long. She is at the 25-50% in both. She

is now beginning to eat foods. She likes barley cereal, sweet potatoes and carrots. We get to start some fruit this week!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Reagan liked hers too!

Happy Valentines!

My cuties on their pillow pets

So for Valentines this year we had a special hunt planned for the kids. They followed a trail of heart candies to their prize. Their prize was pillow pets, and they were a huge hit :) We also had pink hear shaped pancakes for breakfast, and a heart shaped pizza for dinner. It really was a fun day.

Everyone's birthday

In China it is a tradition to celebrate every one's birthday 7 days after the New Year. We thought we would do just that. We even found a bright cake like the ones in China (manager's special no less). I can't imagine why :) We sang happy birthday to everyone and blew out the candle. The kids had lots of fun with it!

House of Yick

So everyone in our house looked like this for the first 2 weeks of February. We had colds, coughs, stomach stuff, ear infections. You name it! Good times, good times. Luckily everyone is better now. I hope it stays that way.

Happy 4 months Reagan!

Reagan's first bite of food.

Daddy with sleeping baby

Cam's favorite sister.

I get food "yay"


I cannot believe Reagan is 4 months old. Time is flying! She is doing just great. She can roll from front to back and back to front. She pushes up on her arms, she smiles and laughs, she sits with support, and babbles. She is waking up once during the night to eat, and takes one long nap and one short nap during the day. On the Chinese New Year she had her first bites of food. Rice cereal, which we deemed very appropriate for the day. She wasn't so sure about it at first, but she got the hang of it after a few tries.

Chinese New Year

This year we had a fun family Chinese New Year! We started the morning with breakfast rabbits because it is the year of the rabbit. Later in the day we gave the children envelopes to decorate in red (for luck). They then had a coin hunt to fill their envelopes. Usually in China children are given red envelopes with coins to mean good fortune. After that we had Chinese for dinner and decorated Almond cookies for dessert. We had noodles for longevity and dumplings for wealth. We capped the night of with party blowers, chocolate coins, and glow sticks. It really was fun. Unfortunately Jack was still a bit under the weather.

Fabulous February!

Us eating groundhogs by candle light.

These are our groundhog heads (donut holes) popping out of there holes (donuts)

We made groundhog masks.

Ethan had his hundredth day of School. This was breakfast, and the pretzel and cookies were snack.

So truth be told I hate the month of February. I always say it's the longest short month ever. I'm ready for spring, but clearly it's not here yet. So this February we decided to celebrate every holiday. This week started off with Ethan's 100 days at school. Then came Ground hog's day. On Ground hog's day we woke up to no electricity. Brr it was cold! So we started the day with our special donuts by candle light. Cam came down and exclaimed "This is the perfect day!" We made shadows since we had no lights. All in all it was pretty fun, until Jack came down and threw up...Oh well. At least two of the kids enjoyed it.

What to do during those winter months?

Grow up before mommy's eyes. Laugh and smile lots.

Take out every car in the house and play demolition derby, or race, or obstacle course.

Love on your siblings

Make cookies with way too many sprinkles, then eat them!

Take a nap with daddy. Could they look anymore alike?