When asked by Oma on her recent visit if she could visit E's classroom on her last day of school, E replied, "I am going to be in the kindergarten here next year, Oma." We are not sure if that was a polite way of saying, "No Oma, you've already been to my class this year." Or if E was just confused about what was being asked of her. Oma stayed home and played with J and read him some fun books instead. We LOVED her visit and look forward to her next one. (0pa better come, too!)

We got to visit a botanical garden in Michigan and ventured into wooded areas trying hard to keep the running little ones out of the poison ivy. So far we think no one got it. The second picture was taken at E's class picnic...unfortunately it was a rainy day, so the get-together was inside. We enjoyed eating our bagged lunches on her classroom floor and visiting with other moms and dads all smooshed into the school building. We are thankful for such a great school community on campus. Last Friday, Oma got to visit Big J's small office (called a carrel) on the 5 floor of the campus library and the Monday following he got to move his things to a 13th floor carrel where he will be closer to all the books he uses. Now we all have to visit his new 'office.'

It's been raining here.... flowers and weeds are growing! I bought some annuals to put in the front: white snapdragons, salmon and pink impatiens, salmon petunias, and some red salvia. I love to see the beautiful flowers around our house. My green thumb is getting bigger.

This is the official birthday cake messy face picture that we take when we let our 1 year old dig into her piece of b-day cake! C did not take many bites and let her mommy eat all the rest. She doesn't seem to like cake much at all, but will eat ice cream....sounds like her cousin, T.
E and J loved singing to C and I think she understood that we were singing something special just for her.
It has been hot here and the kids are playing well outside. Today we had the little pool out in the back....trying to keep it clean, even though the sand box wasn't too far from it. Well, they finally took the sand bucket and made a mud puddle in the top soil dirt pile that they are allowed to play in (they are NOT allowed to play in Mommy's flower beds, right). Needless to say, they had fun! And I have some DIRTY laundry to do.

This Thursday our precious baby turns one!!!! It's so amazing how the year went by so quickly. We love her and have lots of dandelions to put behind her ears! I can't write too much this week as big J has to use the computer to finish up 3 long papers for finals week. I post pictures of the birthday girl next week (I hope).

Our Daddy can take all three of the kids to the park on with his bike! Notice the kids are bundled up. This actually happened a few weeks ago when it was chilly, but the kids had a great time playing at the park anyway. Now we are enjoying the warm to hot weather and I have planted all my purple pansies and my Morning Glory seeds as well. We have met some new neighbor kids (ages 9,8,6&5) who want to come over every day and we will hopefully communicate our 'boundries' and 'limits' to them in a careful and kind way. We have enjoyed getting to know them and will have all summer to play and plant gardens. Pray for their family as their mom works two jobs and their dad is in and out of the picture. My poor husband is also very busy right now with papers and presentations at the end of the semester. We are definitely looking forward to the end of the school year.....and the added stress. The sun and the beautiful flowers do make the stress less potent, but the kids still feel it when Daddy is working a lot. We have a play date with one of E's school friends tomorrow at his house. He has a sister that is J's age and a brother that is a little bit younger than C. We will see how fun it is getting our 6 kids together. Apparently E writes him 'love' notes often (because 'I love you' is one of the few phrases she can actually write). He mailed her a love note just so he could give her the 'wonder woman' stamp on the envelope. They seem to be good friends as of late, which is different for E this year. She has mostly played with all the girls in her class and ignored the boys, so it is nice that she has another boy friend....just like all her good guy friends back at SVS.