My baby...
Ok, so one last pic I forgot to post from Sunday. Luke is always ready and willing to have his picture taken. He needs a hair cut, but every time I cut it he loses a little more curl. So I'm not cutting it anymore. Jake told me a few days ago that he wanted to grow his hair like Jesus. I'm a little more prone to let Luke grow his hair like Jesus's.

And she finished with 1 shoe.... Em's state XC meet was today. She ran in the first heat composed of the fastest 7 girls from each 37 middle schools in RI.

They ran through trails Goddard State park, the fall foliage was amazing.

Em's wearing the light blue shorts...

The meet was supposed to be yesterday, but it rained all day and was postponed till today. The trails hadn't dried out yet, and Em lost a shoe about 2/3 the way through in a huge mud puddle that she couldn't quite go around. She said she coudn't really feel the pine cones, rocks, and roots that she was pounding on too much---adrenaline is awesome!

These next few pics are as she's finishing through the chute. Red splotchy faced and one shoe.

She finished 21st out of over 500 girls. Yeah Emma!! You go girl!

I hadn't noticed the shoeless foot until she held it up after finishing. We searched and searched, and almost left with out it. Finally a nice man found it and came walking back with it though.

I felt bad about breaking the sabbath and all, but I have to say, the weather was perfect, trees amazing, and it was a ton of fun cheering Em and the rest of her team along!!!

10 kids & tree removal, all in the same day! Our official "swing tree" had to come down last weekend. So sad. It was huge. When we got the new septic system last fall, they dug trenches right by it, and apparently damaged the roots, then with 40 days straight of rain this past spring, it drowned, or so the tree specialist tells me. It was going to be $900 to have it removed, so of course Adam took it down. It was seriously a huge tree. I wasn't sure how he'd do it. But just like he'd said, "just one limb at a time", he and our friend, Tadd Truscott took it down. Isaac and Luke, looking for snakes or anything else cool in the manure pile...

Luke seriously didn't know that Tinker was right behind him. Tinker kept nudging Luke's head, and it took Luke a few to figure out what was going on. It was pretty funny.

Emma gave pony rides to all the kids. Thanks Emma and Tinker!

Luke's always picking me flowers. Best part of motherhood.

My old roomate, Kashann, from Ricks (not BYU Idaho) came with her 5 kids and husband, Brent, to visit. They are in Buffalo for dental school right now. Even though we're 8 hours apart, be we've been wanting to get together forever since we're both so far from home. The kids hit it right off, her oldest 2 are girls the same ages as my girls.

Below: Savannah and Sarah grooming Tinker after pony rides.

Kashann and I all ready for church! Their stay was actually very short, and they left right before church because they wanted to check out some other areas in New England since Brent will be graduating this next spring and is trying to decided where to set up practice.

8/10 kids, a few had already gone to bed.

Such a fun weekend, thanks Kashann for coming!!!

Whoo--freakin--hoo!! Adam had gotten 2 Red Sox Tickets for Tuesday night a few weeks ago, he was going to take Isaac, but then at 3:30pm Tues. afternoon he called me and said, "I've got 4 more tickets, awesome seats, so get a sitter for Luke!" I threw a quick dinner on the road together, got Luke to the Truscott's (he was thrilled he was going for a sleepover), and the kids were out on the driveway waiting at 4:30, although it wasn't till 5:30 that Adam pulled in. Such a fun night, and they even won!

By the last inning, there were a few seats on the front row of the balcony we were on open, so we moved up. Adam immediately said to Jake, "Do not spit!" I thought to myself, "of course he won't spit". Now how long have I been a mom? Then within less than a minute, Emma yelled out "he just spit!" I could seriously not believe it. It was like Adam gave him a great idea, and he just couldn't resist. We were mortified!!! Didn't appear that he hit anyone, although I'm not sure how he couldn't have. Why????

A little weekend getaway kayaking in Maine.... Adam had the idea of going kayaking in Maine over labor day weekend. My first reaction was, we can't go, we still have too many projects and not enough nice weather to do them all before winter's here. But I decided, what the heck, the kids are growing up way too fast and we need to get away and enjoy them more. So, Maine it was.

We stayed on the Airforce Base in Brunswick, Maine. The first night consisted of frisby, football, pizza, and the watching the BYU-Oklahoma game. It was a fun game to watch, and I had one very happy husband when the game was over!

The next morning we woke up and rented kayaks from the base and headed to the river. It was slow moving, no white water, so fun and safe for the kids.

The first 1/2 I had an extra child in my tandem kayak, and then Adam's turn on the return trip.

Luke was very nervous about getting in at first, but as you can see, he soon g0t over it and enjoyed the ride.

Em and Sarah both had their own single kayaks. Emma was a little experienced from girls camp already, and it didn't take Sarah long to catch on.

And lastly, the bridge we did not go under, because just beyond it are some falls. We're good and all, but not quite ready to take on waterfalls yet....

80% of my children got on the bus this morning!! and I tried to save my celebration dance until I got into the house. Then Luke and I started the party, well, the laundry folding party. It was oh so peaceful and nice to get back to my routine! Emma told me several times this morning, "please Mom, take care of Duchess!", like it was the first time she's ever left her.

You'd have thought it was Christmas Eve last night. Sarah couldn't fall asleep until 11:30, and Emma till 1:00, and then they both popped up at 0600!! The big 7 hour day for Isaac this year. He was a little nervous about it, and exhausted when he got home.

Sarah, the new Aeropostale model. Or should be. She should be getting paid for all the advertising she's doing. Whatever makes her happy. And oh how I hope those new Chuck Taylor's stay pink for a few weeks....

Jake started kindergarten. He was a little nervous. Didn't really want to go. But did REALLY well this morning, I was proud of him. He just got right up on that bus with his Sarah and Isaac, no tears and no looking back. Love having siblings to help!

Notice, Jake and Isaac have the same bag. Yes, Jake is a little copycat. He INSISTED, and I had to make an emergency run to the Gap last night. He HAAAD to have it for the first day of school.

Luke was not happy at all about being left behind. It didn't show up in the picture, but he had a big tear rolling down his left cheek...

Isaac's First 5k!! Isaac begged and begged last night to be able to run in a 5k that Adam, the girls, and I were going to run this morning. I told him no, when you're 7, you need to train a little first, etc, etc. He woke up this morning still determined as ever to run it. So I finally thought, what the heck, if he wants to run it this bad, maybe he can do it!? So I told he I would run with him. He did awesome!!! He didn't stop once. At one point I noticed his shoelace untied, and told him to stop so I could tie it. He said, "No, I dont' want to take a break", but I made him, convincing him it was unsafe to keep running with it untied. He just kept running and running, the entire time, and then totally sprinted at the end even! He had quite a crowd cheering him on at the end, and got his picture taken for next week's base newspaper.

Our new John Deer Orange....
The morning of Jacob & Isaac's birthday party last month, the lawn mower broke. It was great timing. It was pretty unfixable, so we hit craigslist and started shopping. It took 3 weeks (the lawn was seriously up to my waist), but we found and got a great deal on a new one. One that goes much faster, it only takes Adam about 20 minutes and he's done. This one has a trailer too, so the kids are in heaven!

Bring on the rain, we've got a trailer now.... We'd been promising the kids camping over the 4th. As we got closer, the forcast was rain, rain, and more rain. Our tent had a huge hole in it, so we either needed a new tent, or little trailer like we'd always wanted. So we started the craigslist search. The kids would get so frustrated when we'd drive an hour away to look at one and then not buy it. We finally found a trailer we liked late Thursday night. We woke up bright and early Friday morning and worked on it all day (cleaning it, etc), and arrived at our campsite in Plymouth around 11pm that night. We noticed we the campsites were pretty close together, and our neighbors were a little too close for comfort. Needless to say, my efforts of keeping the kids quite in our first night sleeping in the trailer were lost....our neighbors were gone by 8am. There was a 4 night min. stay, but I went down and pleaded with the campsite host--either to let us leave early or give us a site a little further away---and she gave us a group campsite. It was FABULOUS. We had a ton of room all to ourselves, didn't bother a soul. And with 5 kids & 4 dogs, we needed it (3 puppies).

A little 4th of July parade around the campground...

Late night boggle game.....so happy my kids like to play my favorite game with me!!

They weren't big, but we caught a ton, and they were FUN to catch!

Even Luke caught 4 fish all himself.

Adam had to get back to work, so Sunday night he took 2 puppies and headed home. I stayed with the kids till Tuesday, and hooked up/towed the trailer home all by myself!!!

Go Red Sox... Saturday afternoon Adam proposed that we take the girls to a Red Sox-Braves game that night for part of his Father's day. It was a little spur of the moment, but we had no plans, except that we were not doing any house projects all day. My friend Karyn took the boys for the night and we were all set!

We had planned on getting some military tickets, but they were all sold out. The girls were so worried we were going to turn around and drive home. We did find some great tickets that were right behind home plate though. The girls are old enough they really enjoyed the game--Adam gave them play by plays of everything that was going on, and they were on the edge of their seats the entire time.

The green monster....

2 very happy girls...