We're Back

...and we had a great time. All of the kids loved the beach most of the time. Here is a picture of us on our last day.


If you look closely in the picture above. You will see something new on Brooke's forehead. Brooke decided to take home a very expensive and rather painful souvenir from Nags Head this year. We were getting the kids ready for lunch on Tuesday and then all of a sudden we heard a bang. We looked over in time to see Brookey flying through the air and onto the floor. She was jumping on the bed (after being told not to plenty of times that day) and hit her head on the nightstand and then fell on the floor. She put a nice gash in her head and needed to get five stitches. We spent about 2 1/2 hours in the emergency room.


She is showing us where she hit her head on the nightstand.

My poor little sweety. After it happened she cried of course and I cried too. By the time we got down to the van to take her to the emergency room she was finished crying. I was not finished and she was just looking at me like nothing had even happened. Thank goodness Dominic was there because he was able to keep his cool. I couldn't because all I could think about was that huge hole in her head. I had never seen a split forehead before and I thought she would have to live with a hole in her head the rest of her life. I guess you don't see too many people walking around with holes in their head from falling off a bed. I'm not very good at handling emergencies.

The emergency room was backed up of course. There was no need for all of us to stay there for a few hours. So Dominic took the boys to get some lunch and then back to the hotel room for a nap. He then came back to pick us up when we were finished.

The doctor looked at the wound and said that she was hoping to be able to glue it but after looking at it realized that it definitely needed stitches. It was too deep.

That was a part of the trip that we will not forget. And after we returned from the emergency room, we put a bandage on her head and went back out to the beach. There was no way that we could keep Brooke away from the beach.

Here's the rest of the story. The fun part.

Brooke

Since I started the blog with Brooke, I might as well start with her here. She is our free spirited little girl. Nothing holds her back and she has absolutely no fear. She LOVED the ocean. As soon as we get out on the beach she heads straight for the ocean. We had to keep a close eye on her because she would walk along the edge of the water and then out of no where she would dart right into the water. She's crazy I tell ya. Or she would walk to the water all determined and then plop right down in the sand as soon as she gets to the edge.

I've mentioned many times that she is our little social butterfly. Well, I'm even more convinced after our vacation. She met everyone on the beach and I'm not joking one bit. She even got a few snacks from some of the people. One time she was coming back up from the water and there was a woman sleeping in her chair. Brooke walked right up to her and just stared at her for a few seconds. She then realized the lady wasn't going to talk to her so she walked away. There was another woman near by that saw the entire thing and started laughing real loud. It was very funny.

I've always said that Brooke is our little fish because she loves playing in the bath water and the pool that we have here at home. Now we are sure that she is our little fish.


A rare moment where she was actually tired and let Dominic hold her. Most of the time she was running nonstop.

Nate

It took Nathan a little while to actually like the ocean. He loved playing in the sand though. He would play for a while and then start walking. It was so cute to watch him because he would just take off and walk real slow with his head down. Every so often he would turn around to make sure we were still there and that we saw him. We didn't stop for naps all the time so they got real tired. Nathan would be walking and almost fall asleep while he was walking. His blinks would get real long. It was very cute.

His favorite thing to do was to cover his feet or someone else's with sand. He loved it.


Here he is on one of his walks. Almost anytime you would look at Nate, this is what you would see. I couldn't get any pictures of him walking towards me because he was always walking away.


He was enjoying the morning view from our balcony.


Lenny

Lenny was on the fence about the beach. Some days he loved it and the next day all he wanted to do was play in the pool. Once we got him out to the beach though, he had a great time playing in the sand. He loved building the sand castles. He's still a little afraid of the ocean since it took away some sand toys last year.

The pool was definitely his favorite part about our vacation. The hotel had an indoor pool and an outside pool. He is getting very good at jumping in from the side of the pool.



Tuesday morning we decided to go play miniature golf. We got there when they opened at 9 but it was still very hot. Dominic and Lenny played while Brooke, Nate, and I walked along with them and cheered them on.


Friends

Our friends DJ and Carol were also at the beach with us along with their kids. They came to our house on Saturday and then we all headed out on Sunday. I didn't get many pictures of all of the kids together.

Here they are outside of Pigman's Barbque. That was one good dinner. I will definitely go there again. Dominic bought them all a push up as we were leaving so we sat outside while they finished their ice cream.


Lenny and Peyton in the pool.


Lenny and Kierra holding hands at American Pie Pizza place. We discovered this great pizza place several years ago and always have to go there when we are at the outer banks.


The Crew

Here are just a few other pictures. Dominic made a few sandcastles and we put the kids in the middle to take their picture.





The view from our balcony one morning.


The kids playing together in the sand. Brooke is always covered from head to toe with sand. Nate and Lenny don't like to get dirty too much so they stayed pretty clean. If Nathan gets his hands dirty, he wants me to clean them right away. You would think that our girl would be the one that doesn't like to get dirty.


Brooke and Nate about to get in the pool. You gotta love those swimsuits with the floaties in them especially when you have two little ones to watch out for.


Grave Digger

We had to stop and see the Grave Digger on the way home. Lenny and Nathan were so excited. Nathan wouldn't stop pointing to the Grave Digger. They both went crazy when we walked in the store. I have to admit that I was having fun there too.

It's not easy to get a picture of any of us with the kids. One of them is always trying to run away. This is the best out of three pictures I took before I just gave up.


All in all, we had a wonderful vacation. Brooke and Nate were much easier this summer at the beach. We are sure it will just get easier each year. As much fun as we have, it's always nice to be home in your own bed. Lenny always misses home much sooner than any of the rest of us though.

From the Mouth of a Four Year Old

Lenny loves to eat shrimp and crabs. I think he likes talking about it more though. He also likes to talk about food that makes you grow and get stronger. Today he said that crab makes you grow. I said, well yes but fruits and veggies really make you grow. He said, "Crab makes you grow because it gets the jelly beans out of your throat that don't make you grow." You can take away from this what you want. :-) I just had to put this in because I have no idea where he came up with that one.

Off to the Outerbanks

We are heading to the beach tomorrow and it can't get here any sooner. We are looking forward to this trip and hoping that the kids all have a great time.

In the meantime, here are some pictures of the kids and Dominic. I couldn't possibly have a post without pictures.

This morning I went upstairs to take a shower and left Dominic and the kids downstairs. I heard some noise and then some laughing so I came downstairs to see what happened. It seems that Dominic was building something with the kids with the tinker toys and Nathan decided to throw one at Dominic.

This is what I saw when I came downstairs. I have to tell you that I got quite a laugh out of it. I couldn't hardly stand up because I was laughing so hard. Poor Dominic.


Lenny's last day of summer camp was on Friday. Here's a picture of Lenny, Jacob, and Jack. Mikie was also in camp with them but was unable to make it on Friday. It was nice that Lenny was able to go to camp with his friends.


It was so hot the other day and I decided that the kids and I had to make a trip to the ice cream shop. Here they are eating their cones.




We'll give you an update on the trip when we get back.

My Little Helpers

One day last week I took the kids outside and put them to work. I needed to clean the stroller and all of a sudden a light bulb went on in my head. The kids would love this job that I dreaded. They did such a great job that I let them clean their play table and chairs too. I'm loving this new found activity for the kids.




They were so eager to help so I also let them water my flowers.


Next time I think I'll just make a to do list, give it to Lenny, and then sit back and read a magazine while they go to work.

After all the hard work of cleaning the stroller and their table, they decided to play in the sandbox for a while. Oh yes and Brooke decided to play in the mud and get it all over her. It was time to go inside for a bath, lunch, and a nap. After the nap Brooke and Nate enjoyed reading a few books at their nice clean table.


Speaking of reading, Lenny is doing a great job at reading now. He's been very interested in how to spell words for a very long time. He was always asking how to spell things. I didn't take the cue at that time to start teaching him to read. And to be quite frank, I didn't know how to start teaching him. Someone told me about Bob Books. About a month ago Lenny and I headed to Borders and bought him the first set of Bob Books. Lenny absolutely loves them! He wants to read all the time. He is moving along much faster than I had imagined and doesn't need much help from me. He sounds out the letters for the new words. We now have labels all over the house so that he can learn more words. We are ready to move on to the next set of Bob Books.

Colors

Brooke and Nate are learning their colors now and they are finally starting to talk more. Yesterday I bought some new posters to put in their play room that shows the different colors and how to spell them. I figured all three of the kids would benefit from them. As soon as we put them up, Lenny was going around the room spelling all the colors and Brooke and Nate were checking out all the colors. A little later Lenny asked me to read Green Eggs and Ham to them. I sat down to read it and got as far as the title. Brooke got all excited then jumped up, ran over to the green sign and pointed to it. Here she is all proud next to the sign.


Gotta Love Tomatoes

Each year when we plant our vegetable garden, we have to plant a cherry tomato plant just for Lenny. He always gets his own Sweet 100 plant. He has loved them since he was old enough to walk. We have another one in the family (besides myself) that also loves tomatoes--Nate. He gets very upset when there aren't anymore ripe ones for him to eat. He would stand there and eat them for an hour if we would let him. I guess he will be getting his own plant next year too. Brooke doesn't care for them. She wants one just because Nate has one but she just bites down on it and then spits it out.


Summer Camp

Lenny is going to summer camp all this week from 8:30 a.m. to noon. He really likes it a lot. Here he is leaving for camp this morning. It's so cute to pack his backpack. He always needs to look through everything that I put in it.


I just have to tell this story because it is so cute how Lenny will go to camp and have a great time but as soon as we pick him up, he is right back to being a big brother. I decided to put Brooke's hair in piggy tails this morning which is always an iffy thing because she constantly pulls them out. Anyway, we were in the van and on the way to take Lenny to camp. Lenny said, "I like Brooke's..." and before he said piggy tails, I made a silly noise so that he would stop because if Brooke heard those last words she would have pulled out the piggy tails. Well, Lenny just laughed hysterically about my noises. So he kept saying it as a joke and I would hush him up with another silly noise. Brooke and Nate were even laughing and they had no idea why. We dropped Lenny off and when we came back to pick him up he gave me a huge hug and then ran over to Brooke and said, "Brookey still has her piggy tails" and then laughed. Well, she didn't have them long after that.

From the Mouth of a Four Year Old

I guess the story above could have been included here but here's another one anyway. Lenny is a proud big brother. He really does love his brother and sister a lot. He tells everyone that he loves Brooke because she is soft and Nate because he is silly.

Okay, one more. I've been asking Lenny the night before what he would like to take as a snack to camp the next day. The first day was Doritos, today was bug crackers. Tonight I asked him the same question and he said, "I think I would like to take fruit tomorrow." I said, "Really? That's great. Why do you want to take fruit?" He said, "So that I can have energy and grow big."

Wii Still Love It

We are still having so much fun with our Wii. Every night we are playing it, usually it's MarioKart. Lenny is also quite fond of Monster Jam Wii. That could be part of the reason that I haven't updated the blog for a while. :-) It's funny because we have never been fans of video games but there is just something different about the Wii that has us hooked--all of us.




Young Chefs Academy

On Friday, July 11 we went to the Young Chefs Academy and Lenny learned how to make pizza. He had a great time.


They first learned about flour and how to measure it. Then they all made their own flour castles. Lenny is holding his flour castle.


Then they played with the flour for a little while.


Then they got their dough and had to knead it and shape it. Here is Lenny and Mikie working with their dough.


Now for the sauce, cheese and pepperoni.


While the pizza was in the oven the kids made chef hats.

Lenny ate all of his pizza that looked like Mickey Mouse. He was proud of it.



Brooke and her Cow

I've mentioned many times about Brooke's cow. She is so adorable in the morning when she wakes up. It takes her a few minutes to wake up so she just sits there with her cow ear up to her nose and mouth. She keeps the other hand on the other ear. Then after a minute or two, she switches and puts the other ear up to her nose. She looks so sweet!



Brooke's Surgery

On Monday, July 14 Brooke had surgery at Children's Hospital in DC to remove a cyst near her collar bone that she has had since she was born. It started out as a dimple when she was born and it kept getting bigger and came out as a bump. Her pediatric surgeon recommended removing it. Nunny came down on Sunday to spend the night so that she could take care of the boys for us while Brooke had her surgery. We had to be at the hospital at 6:45 a.m.

Here the kids are acting goofy with Nunny on Sunday after their bath and before bedtime.



Brooke's surgery went smoothly and when she woke up she didn't even know that anything happened to her. Brooke had a great time in the hospital before her surgery. She made a few friends. There was one little girl who was about 10 years old there for a surgery and Brooke kept taking toys to her. You could tell that the little girl really liked it. It was so cute. Brooke is our little social butterfly.

Sad News

After the surgery we went in to the recovery room and were waiting for Brooke to wake up. We got a call from Dominic's dad telling us that Dominic's aunt had passed away that morning unexpectedly. It was quite a blow and we were very sad by the news. We hurried Brooke along in waking up so that we could get home and let Gloria go home. We headed to Pennsylvania and needless to say the rest of the week was difficult. We really cared for her a lot and are going to miss her terribly.

Just Pictures

I just liked these pictures and had to include them. Brooke and Nate were wearing their speedo hats around the house acting silly. In this picture, Nate was playing peek a boo around Dominic. He looked so cute.


I just love this picture of Lenny and Brooke. They are always playing together.


Nathan with his blankie in the morning. Brooke and Nate only get a binky at night now. It's cute to see them in the morning because they know they have to hand them over. When Nate is ready for his milk, he slowly hands over his binky but keeps the blanket. Brooke always teases me a few times before she finally hands over her binky.


Nate has also picked up a new habit. He has watched Brooke put her cow ear up to her nose for so long that he recently decided that he must need to do that too. He now puts his blanket up to his nose and looks at us like he's doing something neat. We laughed so hard the first few times he did it. He has no idea why he is doing it except for that fact that Brooke does it with her cow ear.

After looking at all the pictures in this post, it seems like all we do is play MarioKart. We really do other things besides that. I had to laugh looking back at all the pictures with Dominic in them. In each of them, he has the steering wheel in his hand.

From the Mouth of a Four Year Old

I haven't done one of these for a while. I keep forgetting to write them down and I then forget the stories. The other day, we were playing MarioKart. We were playing the race that is in a volcano. Lenny said, "This game makes me hot." I thought maybe he was playing for too long. I asked him why and he said, "because it's in a volcano." Smarty pants.

Playing Catch Up

We've had quite a few visitors and a few parties to go to the last few weeks and have really been enjoying ourselves. I'll post a quick recap below of the past two weeks.

Vacation Bible School

The last week of June, Lenny attended vacation bible school every night from 6-8:30 p.m. He really enjoyed it. This was the first time (since daycare when he was 2 1/2) that he has ever gone to something like this where I have dropped him off and came back for him later. I wasn't sure how he would do but he really loved it. Each day when I picked him up though, he would ask me why it took me so long to come back to get him. It was fun listening to him talk on the way home and I loved to hear him tell me stories about Jesus. It was very cute. And he couldn't wait to get back home to tell daddy all about it too. Just today Lenny said to me that it makes Jesus sad when we do something we aren't supposed to do.

Everyday when we would drive to VBS, when we would turn down the first road to get there Lenny would say how much he loved this road. One day he said, "This is a beautiful driveway. We get to go over mountains and through the forest." The church is only 5 minutes from our house. :-) I'm really glad he liked the ride and the location because this is the same place that he will be attending preschool this fall.

Here he is with his VBS t-shirt on. The theme was Power Labs and the 4 and 5 year old class was called the squeaky beakers. I thought that was very cute.


Friend From Work

My friend Karen, who I used to work with, came to visit us too just recently. We had such a great visit with her and her son Brendan. Lenny was so excited to show Brendan all of his Thomas engines. I really hope that we don't wait so long to see each other again. She took some great pictures of the kids while she was here.



Nathan was being his usual camera shy self. This picture makes me think that he is saying, I will not smile no matter what you say to me.

Cousins Visiting

We also had a visit from Dominic's cousins and Aunt just recently. We haven't seen his cousin Rick and his wife Kathy for a very long time. It was also very nice to see Jeff and Aunt Angie. Brooke loved Rick. She wouldn't let him put her down. Rick and Kathy joked that they were going to take Brooke home with them. Lenny was not going to let that happen. He reminded them a few times that Brooke has to stay here with us. Anytime anyone jokes about taking his "babies", he makes sure that they know that he needs to keep them.

I'm so glad that Rick, Kathy, Jeff, and Aunt Angie stopped by to see us.


Fourth of July

We went to our friends Dale and Michele's house for a pool party and barbecue on the 4th. We had such a wonderful time. We hadn't seen them for some time and they hadn't seen Brooke and Nate yet.

As soon as we got there Michele asked Lenny if he likes monster trucks and then she said that Tyler has something to show him. Tyler showed Lenny all of his monster trucks. Lenny was very impressed. So was I, I can't remember exactly how many he has but I think it was in the 70s. Lenny is still talking about all of Tyler's monster trucks.

Here are the kids before we left.


Ashley has a pet rabbit and the kids really liked it. Brooke really loves animals. It took her a few minutes to get used to the rabbit but then I think she really liked it.


I'll tell you who Brooke really liked--Ashley. She had so much fun with her. It was cute because if Brooke walked out of a room, she would turn to make sure Ashley was right there. Most of the time Brooke made sure Ashley was holding and carrying her though. There were three girls there that took care of Brooke the entire time. Brooke loved all of the attention and the fact that the girls would do and get anything that Brooke wanted them to. Thanks Ashley for keeping Brooke happy all evening. :-)


Super shy boy Nathan wouldn't let anyone hold him. All of the girls kept trying throughout the night but he wouldn't have anything to do with it though. Although at one point, he turned to Ashley and held his arms up to her for her to pick him up. We were both surprised by that.

Dale and Michele have such a beautiful home and unbelievable pool area. We had a great time even though it did end up raining.

When we got back to our neighborhood there were leaves and branches all over. We kept saying to each other that we must have gotten a really bad storm at our house. We couldn't believe it. Then we walked in the door, looked at the back door and saw a soaking wet Wendel standing there wanting in the house. We left for the party earlier and forgot to let Wendel back in the house. He must have been so scared during the storm. He didn't look the least bit happy with us when he came in the house. We got quite a laugh out of that. Poor cat.

Old McZachary's Farm

Brooke, Nate, and Lenny had a birthday party to go to on Sunday. Their friend Zachary was turning one. Lenny and Zachary's brother Mikie are good friends. The theme of the party was a farm theme. Tracy, Zachary's mom, did a fabulous job! She always does. Everything was so nice and so well planned out. The kids all had a great time. On the invitation the kids were invited to "Old McZachary's Farm" for the party.

Here's a picture of the kids picking a duck from the duck pond. Nate is eating something from the feed sack.


Here they are sitting on some hay together for the group picture. I can never get a good picture of all three of them together. Can you tell? Luckily my friend Kim got a great picture. I'm excited to get a copy of that one.


Nathan's Big News

Excuse me for being quite frank here but on Saturday Nathan had a huge accomplishment. He pooped in the potty!! He is only 19 months old. The last few days, he has been telling me by pointing to his diaper. I would take him into the bathroom and sit him on the toilet. I think he was trying but nothing would happen. Then yesterday, he told me again and I took him in and to our surprise, he did it! He was so proud and so were we. Of course, Dominic, Lenny, and I were all making such a big deal about it. Nathan would get the little shy but proud look on his face. It was adorable. Brooke always has to try after Nathan but she hasn't figured it out yet. I think she just likes sitting on the toilet. Way to go, Nate! Don't worry, I won't post pictures. :-)

Nate's New Haircut

Nate is a lot like Lenny was at this age in the way that he doesn't like to get his picture taken. He will look every other direction except at the camera. So it was difficult to get a picture of his new 'do.

Dominic has been wanting me to get it cut short for a while but I just wouldn't do it. I finally decided to go ahead and get it short like Lenny's and I'm so glad that I did. He looks like a completely different boy. His hair looks much lighter and his eyes look bluer. He even looks more like Lenny now too. I really like it alot. I kept telling him all day how cute he looks with his new haircut. He would then get that bashful look on his face and turn away or either giggle real loud.