"This would be boring!"

While the kids were building dams, re-structuring a river, digging a lake, building levies, watching dams break, creating a flood plateau and then doing it all over again with different variables at the beach today (there was a little area where a tiny creek was flowing onto the sandy/rocky beach), my oldest daughter was taking photos of the process while I was video taping, and she commented:

"This would be boring if we only had two kids!"

I think she was very right!

[gallery order="DESC" columns="2"]

This time I had a good excuse!

I know I have been committed to blogging regularly, but it was nigh unto impossible since last weekend...I was in Las Vegas and internet service in the room as "Only $15.99/day" or something stupid like that - I have a blackberry with internet access so I just did that, but I hate doing a lot of typing , so that meant no blogging (that and I really didn't want the whole world to know we weren't at home!  And, by the way, the children did not come with us (I will NEVER take a child to Vegas!!!), and we used the business trip to also celebrate our cominb 25th wedding anniversary (in March, but who can afford to take two vacations in a year - not us that's for sure!).

I'm not the Vegas type, if you know what I mean!  Everytime I told someone I was going to Vegas that knows me even a little, basically reacted with "what?" "Why?", etc.  So at least I have a good reputation!  I went to Vegas for the ABC Expo - "All Baby and Child".  This weas the biggest exposition of baby and children's products in the US every year, and probably the biggest  in the world.  There were 2 stories of exibition booths and each level was so large you couldn't see the end of the ceiling from one end of to the other and it had around a 30 foot ceiling - my guess is that is would be like putting around 8 football fields together side by side - on each level!  I've never been in such a large building!

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="ABC Expo ceiling into oblivion"][/caption]

During the Expo, the RDIA (Real Diaper Industry Association) had it's annual get together and meetings.  I got to meet in person nearly all the people behind the other big names in the cloth diaper industry - as well as many of my own retailers, as well as a few future retailers!

Anyway, I've got so much to do (right now I'm calling the shots on morning chores), and I'm sooooo tired!  I'll post more later about stuff that happened just before I left, as well as a few posts about my trip!

Here's a few hightlights you can look forward to reading about :

We stayed in the New York, New York:

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="The New York, New York Hotel"][/caption]

The Shelby Musem and manufacturing plant (as in Carroll Shelby...Shelby Mustangs, racing cars etc),

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Shelby Race Cars"][/caption]

The Hoover Dam,

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="The grave of the Hoover Dam Mascot"][/caption]

I'll also tell you about The Chris Angel "Believe" show, a 20 million dollar, 70 lane bowling alley,  a weird take on shop lifting, The 4 story M & M Store, Ethyl M Chocolate Factory, riding a roller coaster past the age of 40, and why you don't go to Vegas if you are a Christian unless you absolutely have to, and what we'll do different if we ever go again!

I'll leave you with this - the highlight of our vacation - we upgraded our rental car from a compact to a Dodge Challenger -

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Now That's a Classy Car!"][/caption]

That was my gift to Daryl for our anniversary!

Busy, Busy Week + Comment Contest going Well!

Sorry I haven't been posting this week - Monday I spent goofing off since it was a holiday!

Tuesday I think I was still in vacation mode, but got a few things done around the house, and did great bowling! Last week was my first week bowling, and I didn't do very well, but I was OK with that. I had an average of around 110. This week, my average was closer to 130! Yeah! I'm getting better, so there's hope!

Now, I'll give you the story behind our joining a bowling league! My son, Jason, bowled for the first time in his life last spring, and did so well, he decided to join a summer league with a friend and his friend's father. They did so well they ended up taking second place for the season! In practice Jason was even getting over 200 occassionally!

But his team mates couldn't do the winter season, so Daryl and I decided to bowl on Jason's team to encourage him to continue - he has the makings or a pro-bowler in our humble opinion as well as being able spend some time with him. He's 21 yo now and it's hard to get time with your children when they work full time and are busy doing outside activities (Jason also plays ultimate frisbey, volleyball, and softball regularly when they are in season!). Over the last couple months of the summer we went bowling with Jason a couple of times and he showed us how to throw a curve ball, and we started working at it.

This led to getting our own bowling balls and shoes, and a lot of fun! My curve is quite severe, but Daryl is still struggling to get the kind of curve he wants - he's getting closer all the time. Daryl has always been the athletic one, so it's driving him nuts that I learned the curve throw faster then he did! So for this "season" our date night is bowling with Jason, and we're just fine with that!

So that brings me to Wednesday - that day started with Esther little strawberry birthmark on her cheek breaking open and bleeding...for 1 1/2 hours! Creepy! Then in the afternoon, it did it again and it took 1 hour to stop. So I took her to the Drs (first time she's had to go to the Drs for a non-well-child check-up in over 2 months! Yeah!), and he said that they just do that and to keep it covered as it heals. Esther doesn't tolerate band aids well, so I just kept it covered that night and most of yesterday...so far, so good.

Thursday was planning an event I'm attending next week, making our menu and shopping lists, taking Dayton and Esther to Therapy and getting all the shopping done. Dinner at 7 (we usually eat at 5:30), then a movie and off to bed! Today, I'm still busy getting ready for the event next week, and we are working up to moving Esther out of our bedroom and into the girl's bedroom (right next door to our bedroom) so when I get up at 5 am, I won't wake her up and I can work in my room first thing (like having my quiet time, make my bed, tidy the bedroom), as now if I did any of that I'd wake her up, so I'm having my quiet time in the living roon and just not getting my bedroom stuff done most days!

That's all for now - except to say that the comments contest is going well - I've probably had more comments left in the last two days, than I have this whole year!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Ruth

A Blog Comment Contest!

It was been way to long since anyone has posted a comment!  And I've been trying so hard to post more regularly!  I know lots of people check my blog, both from comment in person/via email and from stats of visitors on the pages.  So, I'm going to start a contest!

For every comment left on a post that was posted after 7/1/09 (I'm even giving you the opportunity to leave a comment on old posts!), your name will be entered to win your choice of a $15.00 gift certificate to either of my stores, or a $10.00 gift certificate to Starbucks Coffee!  I decided to include starbucks for those of you that read my blog, but don't have a need for our products!  I might even have a runner up for whoever posts the most comments!  The contest will end at the end of September, so post away!

So make my day, and hopefully I'll make yours!

Ruth

PS. I supposed the lack of comments might be due to some problem with leaving comments, if that is the case (if you are unable to leave a comment), please email me at snap-ez@snap-ez.com and let me know what error you are encountering so it can be remedied!

Esther's "So Big"

We have been teaching Esther to do "So Big" since last spring. At first she just thought it was funny and enjoyed the attention. Then she would do it, but only if you were holding her hands...she didn't realize we were trying to teach her to do it by herself!
Now she has it down pat, and does it randomly all day long!

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="499" caption="How big is Esther???  "So Big""][/caption]

Oh - and I have two new hobbies this year...guitar and bowling.  I played in a bowlin league for the first time yesterday and did OK?  It was quite intimidating, but I had fun.  More on why guitar and bowling to come later!

Phew! That was scary!

I thought I had lost my blog!  I don't know if anyone else had even noticed, but my blog was not around for the last day or so!  I was going to blog yesterday, but decided it was finally time to upgrade my version of WordPress.  Only it didn't go so well!  The upload error-ed out halfway through, several times.  At that point some files were missing, others were not update yet, and so forth.

I decided to bag it to create a forum for another purpose and get back to the upgrade later yesterday, or today (I was assuming that the update did not effect the ability to read my blog, of course).  Well, the other application took all day yesterday (HUGE upload) - it just kept my computer busy, not me - so I never got back to the blog update and didn't even think to check to see if it was still available!

This morning I get on, and there is no blog, I can't post or anything! So for the last 6 hours I've been painstakingly going through every file/image that supports my blog (there were so many incomplete and non-updated files it was crazy!), and still errors!  Ack!  So I called the support line, and within minutes they had fixed the problem!  Somehow an access code had been changed that didn't allow me to access my own files!

So, I'm back now, and I'll start a day late on my new resolution to blog nearly every day!

So what's been happening around here lately?  Recovery, mostly.  I was really sick and it took a long time before I felt human again.  I'm doing great now, and am starting fresh this week by getting up with Daryl every morning at 5 am to get a head-start on the day!  I did this for years, but starting a couple of years ago, I just couldn't do it.  Then with my pregnancy, the new house, the move, bed rest, Esther's first wild and wooly months, etc...I just couldn't get to bed earlier enough to get up at 5 am again!

Now that Esther is (still) sleeping through the night, and we are quite settled in our "new" (we've been in the house for 18 months as of next weekend) home, summer/late sunsets is winding down, my health is good etc...it is time to start getting up early again!

The best part of getting up early is getting time to read the Bible and pray with Daryl while he eats his breakfast and puts his lunch together!  and then the quiet house with no interruptions to have my quiet time/make my bed/tidy my bedroom/do some laundry or other household project, and maybe check emails or blog!

I've succeeded 2 days in a row now! Well, at least at the getting up early.  Last night Esther took a late nap and was not interested in sleeping until after 10 pm, so after my time with Daryl, and my quiet time, I slipped back into bed and slept in until 8 am!  That sleep felt ooh soo good!

So, speaking of things happening around here, we got some great bath-time photos of Esther last week:

[caption id="attachment_300" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Esther Loves to Splash"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Esther loved to play with mommy's scrubby"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Is that a Happy Girl or what???"][/caption]

Esther no longer looks like a little heart baby!  She looks like a sumo wrestler!  I just weighed her, and with her clothes on, she is 1 oz shy of 24 pounds!  That's double her weight since her surgery!

Here's a photo of her a couple of days after her open heart surgery for comparison:

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="She's was wearing 3 - 6 mos outfit and it was a little too big!"][/caption]

And here she is bursting out of a 12 mo size shirt after the a fore mentioned bath:

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Isn't she a happy baby!"][/caption]

Oh, and by-the-way,  can you see her scar in this photo - nice and tiny and light! Yeah!

Birthday Bash, Part2

First of all, I found out that I posted the same baby twice instead of one of each of my friend, Ruth's, twins! So I've fixed it now - one of each!

So, after the pancake toss, the great Cotton Ball Race was next. In this game, you hold a spoon in your mouth, and there's a cotton ball on the spoon. You go as fast as you can with out dropping the cotton ball off the spoon, and once you make it around the bucket and back to your team, the next member goes until each person on the team has finished. Here's some great photos the race:

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Everyone is ready!"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="The Race is On"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Jessica Helps Malia"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Oops - that silly cotton ball jumped off the spoon!"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Almost halfway!"][/caption]

The next event was the Jump Rope Contest!  We divided the kids up by size/gender so there was room to jump - here's some of the action:

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Zoe's levitating!"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="That girl's got some serious air!"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Can you tell who missed?"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Who says white boys can't jump!"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="These girls can jump too!"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="The boys got some serious air too!"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="The "big" boys outdid everyone though - these three just kept going and going - we even went really fast and they kept going!  For some reason, Wes won - I'm sure his firefighter training helped out on this one!"][/caption]

The next event was the "triathalon" - not a three part event, but you had to have either three feet or three heads!  This meant either you had two people with the legs tied together to make three feet, or one big person carrying two little people, making three heads - here's some of the triathalon competitors:

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="This group is going to be 3-headed"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Three heads again - Jonathan holding Zoe and Mordecai is on the back!"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Three legs here - you go girls!"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Jonathan is in there somewhere!  See, I told you it was Mordecai in the back!"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Three legs here too!  I think Boaz is enjoying himself!"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Three heads this time - but I'm not sure whose legs those are!  Christian is carrying Tucker, I think?!"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="I believe there's a fireman under those cute girls!"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Adelia is giving some helpful instruction to these newbies to the art of the three legged race!"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Perfect Synchronization here!"][/caption]

The hoola hoop race came next,  (it was on the driveway to get the kids out of sight while the treasure hunt riddles were hidden), and the treasure hunt was kids just running everywhere and massive confusion when the wrong riddles where in the wrong place...I still have no idea how I messed up so badly on that one! Then it was the invention game - each team found a bin of "stuff" at the end of the treasure hunt and had to create an invention that they had to "sell" to a group of judges.  This was really fun and each team did a great job - here's a few pics of that one:

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Can you hear the cogs turning - this is serious brain activity here!"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="This was a funny invention - an arrow shooter, plus a potato head target (off screen, but that's what they are laughing about!"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Here's the old potato launcher!"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="And this one was last, but best - a blow gun that actually worked!"][/caption]

And then while the BBQ was BBQing,  Jeff led the kids in some really fun round of musical chair with his AWESOME guitar playing - he even had the kids count the beat to start (1, 2, 3, 4...)

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Round and Round we go...When we'll stop, nobody Knows!"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Who's out of a chair??"][/caption]

After that, it was time to eat.  Then after everyone had gotten a belly full - we had burgers, hot dogs, salads, chips, watermelon, vegies, juice, and of course Birthday Cake from Costco...Yum!!!

Lastly, we pulled out all the stops and had a great carnival, complete with a prize booth!

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="The ducks even matched the ducky pool - "][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="This was a very popular game as you always won something!"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="Jessica was dishing out the Snow Cones "][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400" caption="We also had a balloon Pop game! "][/caption]

Then everyone went home with their goodies, we spent a while cleaning up (thanks to the VanderPols for helping so much with that).  Also I want to thanks the moms who helped in the kitchen, the dad's who played with babies, the moms who watched over Esther, and all the kids for being such great kids all day!

Phew!  I think it took almost as long to post about this party as it did to host it!  Not really, but there were soooo many great photos, that I just had to use lots of them!

Until next year!

PS - I've decided that next year, and subsequent years, will not be as elaborate and will definitely NOT be held on the day before we leave for camping!  I do plan to have a theme for each party though - only 11 months to figure out what next years theme will be!