First day of School!

School started last week!
High School (and early morning seminary!) and 7th grade.
Man, 6:00am came waaay too early!
Alexis gets picked up by sweet Jenna every morning at 6:15. I am sooo lucky to have their family in our neighborhood otherwise I would be driving Lex to Seminary every morning!
(seminary = early morning scripture study all 4 years of high school)

Here she is, up all early and ready to go.

And noooot happy about taking pictures!

Lexi on her way!!!

My little girl off to high school!

Christian was all up and ready to go too so he came out to pose for some pictures.

Only slightly more willingly than Alexis.

And his cute pink and black backpack.

And one more of my way too grown-up 7th grader!!!

We are all ready for some more structure!

So far, so good

5 Whole Monthes - by Frankie

I've been way too busy to worry about blogging! And I don't have a lot of pictures that my mom hasn't already shared, so this will be a short month.
I finally rolled over on the 17th. I've only done it a few times though.
Why roll when I don't have to?!

I sing all day, I have a beautiful voice! And when I'm tired I have a beautiful whiny voice.
I whine.
A lot.

I love eating ice.
My dad feeds it to me when my mom's not around.
It's so refreshing!

My parents left me with the sibs for the first time.
They had a date night or something.
It. was. horrible.
At least that's what Alexis said.
I don't know, all I know is they tried to feed me some bottle and then I was asleep when mom and dad got home, so I guess it wasn't that bad, right?

The weather is starting to cool down a little bit and we've been outside more.
I like being outside. :)
(my forehead is red here cause I had just fallen and hit it on the side of the wagon!)

Bath time also calms me down, at least when Addie behaves. She is only allowed to pour water on my legs but she almost always sneaks some to pour on my head. And then sometimes she tries to walk around the bath and falls on me.
It's okay, I guess.

I have a new favorite fashion accessory! My mom bought a bunch of bows for my hair... or lack of hair. She keeps saying it looks like I have a crew cut and that she'll never be able to clip a barrette in, so she glues a bow on and calls it good.
(non-toxic, washable glue of course)

Cute, huh?

Since I have a little bit of fuzz on top, I thought I'd share this pic.
(complete with the drool)
Looks like I might be a strawberry blond.

A rare sleeping moment.
I was boycotting sleep last week, but now I'm doing better.

There are always extra kids at our house and every once in awhile they hold me.
Love it!

Addie's bff Izzy came over and we all took a bath together.
That was scary for me.
Then we all read stories together.
That wasn't much fun for me either.

I love shopping at CVS!

My bubba came home!!!
Do I look worried?

We've spent some time lately on the boat.
I don't like the boat.

Not. one. bit.

I'm working on walking.
Or at least standing.

So much to do!
See you next month!
(waving goodbye!)

Love,

Frankie

aka

Frank-and-Beans

Our latest...

...toy, investment, adventure, family-fun maker!!!

Our 21 year-old new (to us) boat!
She's a beaut!
She's got tape on the seats and gross carpeting, but she's ours, and we love her.

We got a tube finally and headed out on the Patuxent River.
Here are the besties and Addie.
She is so lucky and loved!
And she loves the boat!

Frankie, not so much.
Good thing it puts her to sleep pretty quickly!

Me and my girlies!

Putting gas.
He's good with gas.
ha-ha!

I told Lex that I needed some pictures of me by myself.
She couldn't comprehend that at all.
Sigh, it's good to be the mom.

The babies with their other big sister.
They love her!

Land-ho!

Look at that hot boat!
And the hot driver!

Tubing fun!
There were tons of jelly-fish out so we took it pretty easy, even though they all spilled at least once (Lexi twice:)

Then they took Addie out. They laughed the whole time! It was so fun!

Yay!

This was before the spill.
I was driving (of course!) and somehow Addie lost her balance. We had told both the girls that if anything happened to Addie that they had to fall off with her.
And they did.
They did a really good job, they held onto her and kept her body floating on top so she wouldn't get stung by a jelly-fish.
We are sooo proud of them, they did an awesome job!

After that we had the three of them get right back on so Addie wouldn't be too scared. She was hugging the girls so tightly, then she covered her eyes, then she just cried.
But she didn't want to get off, so we let her keep going.

I took a turn but wanted Matt to go slow and easy on me and then I think I went too slow and kept sinking. Then I'm pretty sure I got stung by a jelly fish.
So I was done, even though it was fun.

We had soooo much fun!
We love our boat, which consequently doesn't have a name.
Any ideas???

More chorus

I started this post on June 10th and then... forgot about it.

Photobucket was acting up and I quit for awhile and then never remembered to go back to it.

I know, me, forget?

Crazy, right?!

It was already all written so why not publish it?!

I couldn't think of a reason, so here it is.

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I had the opportunity about a week ago to take Alexis, Christian, and their 2 friends Robin and Ryan to a Blue Crabs game so their chorus could sing.

Matt kept the babies.
And even though I love my babies to bits and pieces, it was awesome.
We turned the music up loud and rocked out the whole way there.

And at the game, I sat by myself!

I ate by myself!

I actually watched some of the game.

Yup, by myself.

Besties - Robin and Alexis

Before the game I sat by my lonesome and watched my 2 big kids visiting. I was able to see it all close-up through my camera lens

And then they started singing.

My singing angels.

Two big thumbs up on that night.

Two big thumbs down on forgetting about posts.

Sisters!!!

Today Fwankie wore her "Little Sister" onesie and I just had to get pictures of her with her 2 big sisters. Of course, I remembered I wanted pictures about 5 minutes before Lexi had to leave, so it was a quick photo shoot. And of course they all didn't smile and look cute for the same picture.
That would be too perfect.

Notice that Lexi looks the same in all of these. I can't control the little one's, but I can keep her still! I always tell her "Just keep smiling and be ready!"

#1 - Frankie looks bored/startled/scared

#2 - Addie gets distracted

#3 - blurry

#4 - Frankie's half-smile

#5 - Frankie's still thinking about smiling

#6 - Frankie wonders when it will all be over

#7 - Addie decides to eat Frankie

And then Lexi had to go to church.
Oh well.

I send Amy picture mail all day, every day, and one day she asked why in all my pictures Addie looks so happy and Frankie so sad.

This is a perfect example.

Gotta love those 3 sisters!

(and their cute brother who is coming home in 5 days!!!)