Oh my goodness what a crazy couple of days! My dad had a heart attack and will be having quadruple bypass surgery on Tuesday. I hate that they no longer live close to us and that I am not there to be of any help. I can't believe it happened to him of all people. He is so active and always working on something or another, they guy never sits still. We have so many people praying for him, and I am so grateful for all of the wonderful people who are so willing to offer encouragement as well as share their stories of success with similar procedures.

 

Seneca had her friend Corbin over to play a few times that past couple of weeks. By play I mean they sometimes are in the same room and mostly take toys from each other. She gets pretty funny when I hold any other kid, all of the sudden she needs me. I am working in nursery again and a few weeks ago I had quite a few kids all by myself. We went out into the hall to get a drink and two of the kids quickly took my hands, before Seneca could. All those who witnessed this in the hall started laughing, she was just glaring at the other kids, then grabbed my leg and said "My mom!"

 

If you look in the bottom corner of the picture you can see a lovely ceramic cat. Seneca named it "Mowe" Seneca loves to carry it around and pet it and even sleep with it. I have named it Death Mowe because it seems to enjoy waiting unseen by innocent passerby's for the perfect moment to cause a fierce toe stub. I have fallen victim to this terrible beast many times and every time I put it outside someone brings it back in.

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 Katurah does not like to wear shoes outside. She tries to get around this by asking if she can "Jump on the jumpoline with foots." She is also quite fond of teasing people about their eyebrows "I see your eyebrows!" It is the most humiliating thing to have exposed eyebrows, I mean who does that? If you tell her you see her eyebrows she just might run away crying.

 Zeke is still my little reading machine. He is so funny to watch as he loves to run and crash still as well. He will place his book on the couch and stand as he reads a page then run as he is reciting what he just read, crashes into the nook or the wall, then turns the page and does it again. He makes reading a workout! This morning he was saying the prayer and said "Please bless that everyone will listen to their moms. And please bless that no one will listen to Satan."

Amari has had some crazy enlarged tonsils. On Friday she had to go get bloodwork to check for mono. They couldn't find her vein and she had to be poked 3 times. It was brutal, I was crying as she was crying. She knows from Zeke's recent experiences that each time you get blood work done you get to pick out a special toy. She wanted a beanie boo and the only place I knew to get them is like 20 minutes from our house and probably 30 minutes from the hospital we were at. I told her we could look in the gift shop, but it really didn't look like it had much of anything. Then we turned a corner and they had an entire shelf full of the toys that she wanted!!! Amari, this is what we call a tender mercy.

Pantera is begging me for a pet parakeet. This may be driving me insane. I told her if she can keep her room clean until her birthday in November I would consider it. That didn't last a day. But she continues to ask. Today they were playing outside and she came in saying "There is a huge swarm of bees out there." I asked where it was and she said "Well it's gone now." Uh huh.

We have been keeping pretty busy. I have been trying really hard to invite friends over for the kids at least a few times a week so summer is fun for them. It is a struggle for me, I have always been quite content just being around my family and honestly too much social interaction stresses me out. So my children, I hope you appreciate my effort on your behalf;)

 

When one of Amari's friends were over, our dog Olaf found a snake and a chipmunk. This caused quite the stir with the 3-5 year old crowd. This little girl was so funny about the snake and told all of us "Be careful it could bite you, kill you, or poisonous you!" We were very cautious of the gardener snake. They even made a snake trap using a sandwich bag, some grass, and a dog bone....totally foolproof.

 

I was so proud when Amari came in the house holding a huge toad. I love that my girls are not afraid of animals (most of the time). Unfortunately tadpoles are a different story. Pantera brought home some tadpoles from a friends house and that night I went in to her room to find a very  scared little girl. When I asked her what was wrong she said "I am scared of tadpoles. They don't have any legs, or eyes, or mouths!" This is terrifying because they could not chase you, or see you, or bite you.  

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 Zeke has been suffering from sleep deprivation maybe cuz Seneca likes to snuggle really really hard....

 The kids moved into the old master bedroom after we put on the addition. The plan was for the youngest 3 girls to share that room and for Zeke and Pantera to have their own rooms. Zeke wanted to share with his sisters and it was so funny each night to see how closely they would curl up on a king sized bed. It is a good sized room and I have wanted to build something fun for them so I went on Pintrest for ideas. Katurah saw a castle bed and just loved it so this past week I made them a castle bunkbed. Now there are 4 beds in the room and they still all sleep together.

I am constantly working on something or another and may have a spraypaint addiction. While I was spray painting one of my projects Zeke told me he was going to go somewhere that he couldn't smell the paint. I asked him if the smell bothered him he replied "No, I like the smell I just still want some brain cells."

 

Seneca is truly a joy. She is so darn funny. She is talking so much and loves to repeat EVERYTHING!

 We got a butterfly garden again this year. I absolutely love these things and so do the kiddos. It is so neat to see the whole process from caterpillar to butterfly and especially to hold the butterflies before releasing them.

 They loved walking around the house with butterflies on them. "He loves me!" Katurah would exclaim when one would stay on her.

Jess was putting in some pretty crazy hours a few weeks back. He had gone out to a location and got some nasty stuff on his clothes, so he left them out on the couch hoping he would remember to take them to work to be cleaned. Well he was pretty tired and ended up forgetting. This really stressed Zeke and Amari out. Zeke asked "Mom, where is dad?" "He is at work why?" "He forgot his clothes!" Amari quickly adds "He isn't wearing clothes, he went to work naked!" Good news, Jess came home fully clothed.

 Pantera has her good days and her bad days. Today was a mix of the two. She can have such and attitude and I know it is just going to get worse. Today I convinced her that the boy she has a crush on is related to us. Her reaction was pretty funny trying to find a loophole "It's just a second cousin right?" Gross!!!

Summer

Zeke is officially over Cars and even gave his collection to another obsessed little boy. I was so proud of him letting go of something he used to love so much so someone else could enjoy them. Also I am happy not to be constantly stepping on cars. He is way into his Skylanders and has quite the growing collection of those. The deal is, every time he has to get blood work done he gets to go pick a Skylander out. He is doing pretty well, but his first round of medication without steroids was a bust so we are trying something different and back on the steroid. He is so chipper and funny and back to running and crashing, it's funny the things that you miss when they are sick for so long! He is so in love with Seneca still. Everything she does is "Awww!" or "She's an angel!" or "Seneca hit me!!!" Amari came in and told on Zeke for hurting her the other day and he came inside after her saying "Sorry, it's just so hard to do karate without hitting people!" A very common problem.

 

Zeke is so happy to be out of school and enjoying the summer. He was quite weepy the last week saying he would miss his friends and his class so much. I am so happy to have them home!

 Seneca is either being so sweet and helpful or hitting people and going to time out. There is no in between with the child. She just loves to upset people, kind of reminds me of her father...

 Katurah is officially no longer using a pacifier or as we call it a "lala." She was known around town as the girl with three or four lala's and she would practically juggle them with her mouth. She would carry them and switch them out constantly, it was pretty funny to watch.

 She has a really sweet pair of furry boots that she calls her "Moose boots" you can see these lovely things in the picture below. She absolutely loves them and any time they are missing she blames my dad "Papa stole my moose boots!" She will call him and ask him why he took them and demand he give them back "They are little to you, papa!" I brought home a little furry vest on Saturday and she just grabbed it and said "Oh, my moose shirt." then she put it on and wore it the next 24 hours.

She is just quite the fashionista. She was wearing a long dark jacket and I told her how cute she looked and she said "Yeah, cuz I look like a vampire."

 Amari has been throwing random fits a couple of times a week lately. She got the memo about the terrible two's a bit late I guess. We were at a pizza place and they tossed the dough into the air, the kids thought this was so cool (cuz it is!). After a few minutes Amari looked at us and said "My talent is art, not flippin' dough." So take that lame pizza guy. She informed Jess that "when people in French hurt their butts they say 'oh my heinie!' "

We have just been hanging out with friends and enjoying the sun, I love summer!!!

Family pics

It is so insanely hard to get a decent picture of seven people at the same time!!! And our little dog jumped the fence to join us for the pics...beggars can't be choosers right?

Seneca

I have been creepy obsessed with how cute Seneca is lately. She is just so funny and has the most perfectly kissable cheeks!!! She tackles people at random and can take almost anyone down, even if they are standing up. She loves Frozen (I hate Frozen) although I don't think she has actually seen the movie. Any time she sees any character from the movie she says "Let doe." Oh and she sings "Let it Go" so beautifully "Let Doe! Let Doe!!!"

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 My dad was here for 4 weeks. It took Seneca about a week and a half to warm up to him. Once she accepted him into her life, she took it upon herself to scare him every time she saw him. Instead of  saying "Boo" she would say "Doo!" It was absolutely terrifying. This picture is her face seeing her Papa through the window shortly before he left.

 And this is the look right after she told him "Doo!" She loves her papa.

 She figured out how to get on this spring horse by herself and was on it constantly for about a week. I loved it when she was sad and crying while she bounced...so funny.

 This is her face when she belts out "Let Doe!"

 She is trying to talk a lot more. She says thank you whenever you give her anything. She is just a doll!!! This is about how old my other kiddos were when I brought home each new baby. I guess I didn't get to fully appreciate this age before because I was so busy with a new baby each time. It is so fun.

Pantera the Rockstar

 This girl has had quite the week!!! She has been practicing a song for a special family night at her school for over a month now. Finally on Wednesday night it was time to get the show on the road. She sang in front of about 80 people and was absolutely AMAZING!!! She had everyone coming up to her afterwards either just dumbfounded that she could sing so well or in tears because she can sing so well.

The next day at school one of the teachers who was at the family night pulled her aside and asked if she would be willing to sing perform her song again in he cafeteria at lunch. Pantera has always just kind of absolutely loved to be in the spotlight so this was like heaven for her. I got a text from one of her friends' moms that said "I heard Pantera got a standing ovation at lunch today!" She came home and told me about the whole thing. She said she signed autographs and had a bunch of fan mail from the third graders. I know this post sounds super braggy, but she is very talented I am so proud that she is brave enough to get up in front of half of her school and work it!!!

On Friday she had the 4th grade spelling bee. Jess went to see her so all our little kiddos wouldn't be a distraction to the spellers. She was so excited when he walked through the door. He is just the opposite of Pantera and hates a lot of attention, well he had the whole gymnasium looking at him because she was waving so hard in his general direction. She and Nick were the last two contestants standing and after going back and forth for quite a few words, she missed the word licorice. But she got second place and a sweet trophy.

"I got to be on stage 3 times this week!" Life doesn't get any better than that for a girl who loves attention.

Amari is 5

 Amari turned 5 on the 8th of April. I have been a lot busy and a big slacker so I am just now getting a post in about it. She was so darn excited for her big day!!! We were counting down for the entire month of march "How many more tomorrows?"

 She really thinks that age and height are directly correlated. She was expecting to be like a foot taller on her birthday morning, and boy howdy she wasn't disappointed! She informed us the night before her big day that "Tomorrow for my birthday I want Dad to give me 55 kisses. And good news, he won't even have to bend over to smooch me!"

 She woke up at 3 am when I was taking the dog our and asked "Am I 5?"

First thing she did was try to reach something on the counter and was thrilled when she could. Then she asked me to measure my feet against her feet. She was thrilled to see how big her feet where next to mine, then next to Seneca's, but when it came time to put them up to Katurah's feet something was wrong. "Why is Katurah's feet the same size as mine? I am 5." Later that day we went up to Jess' work to go out to the fanciest restaurant known to man (Denny's)  for her birthday lunch. She loved the attention from her dad, and was kind enough to let us tag along.

Amari, you are an amazing big girl. You are so funny, so smart, and so super cute. You make me laugh everyday. I love you so much! Happy birthday girlie!