Sitting Up

Today was a very tiring day. Ben was up before Jared left for work and then he didn't want to go back to sleep. When Timothy got up I cleaned their room and got ready to clean his bed. He has had a few accidents and we needed to clean the mattress. So I spent all morning cleaning his bed. Needless to say it is still wet tonight and he has to sleep in a sleeping bag on the floor. Anyway, after lunch I had everyone have quiet time. Benjamin had fallen asleep before lunch. Timothy fell asleep on the couch and the girls were reading in bed. So I decided that I would lay down too. As soon as I reached my door I heard Ben. So instead of having him wake Timothy up, I took him into my room and put him on the bed. I arranged the pillows on the other side of the bed so that he wouldn't fall off. (he doesn't roll more than once) I then layed down and dozed. Well I must have fallen asleep more than I thought. I could still hear the girls creeping down the hall to check on Ben, but all of a sudden I heard this excited squeal. I woke up and looked at Ben and he was sitting up in the bed. He has never done this before. He saw that I was awake and leaned forward onto his stomach. He then proceeded to get into a sitting position another four or five times. He was soooo excited that he had done that. Now he is mobile. He can get onto his stomach, roll to his back, roll to his stomach again and then sit up. He is still trying to crawl, but this is a big step.

Sports

We signed the girls up for soccer before summer started. The season will be starting on September 6. We are trying to let the kids try things at least once. The girls have done dance, softball/t-ball, swimming, and piano lessons. The piano lessons are NOT optional. Since I can teach that to them, this is a must. Aparently there weren't enough girls in the nine to ten year old group to sign up. So Molly is with the eleven year olds. There are fourteen girls on her team. So she will probably not get much playing time. We got the list of girls for Emily's team. There are only seven on her team. However, there is no coach. Jared is thinking that he could do it if nobody else is willing. We are meeting with all the girls on Tuesday.

The kids just finished swimming. Molly finished level 5. The teacher was really impressed with her swimming skills. She said that not many 10 year olds (Molly is 9) are ready to go into level six, but Molly is. The main reason is that level six is an endurance level. They have to swim 500 yds without stopping to pass. There are also four different level six groups. They have the endurance training, life guard training, diving, and something else. She didn't remember what the other class was. Molly has been really excited about watching Michael Phelps. We told her that if she got on swim team that that would be the starting point to getting to the Olympics. She was really excited about that. We'll see what happens. Emily and Tim did really well in there lessons, but they are just not quite ready to pass their levels. Maybe we will sign them up for Winter. The pool is an indoor, heated pool.

Ben is doing a sport of his own. He is trying soooo hard to crawl. He sits on his bottom and leans all the way forward until he is on his hands and knees. Then he flops on his tummy and pushs backwards. He also loves to dance on our laps and tries to walk when we stand him on the ground. He also loves to try talking. He says, "mamama, babababa, papapapa, and dadadada. It is really cute. He also does a cute fish mouth. Hope you enjoy.

1st Tooth

Benjamin has cut his first tooth. Yeah. It is barely there, but I sure feel it. It is really cute. He can't leave it alone. His tongue is always moving around in his mouth. Also, Emily has finally lost two teeth. We were beginning to think that she was just going to keep her baby teeth for the rest of her life. I think it must be a record or something to keep all your baby teeth until you are going into 2nd grade. She was very excited for the tooth fairy to come.

Our Summer

We have had a very busy summer. Jared started his Math Master's program this summer. It was a six week course and he was taking 17 credits. He is very glad to be done and he passed all his classes (yeah!!!). I have been home with the kids. We have been involved in the library summer reading program. They had a program every Wednesday and then the girls got to go to a Book Group called the Bookworms. They read a book, did a project and had a snack. During this time I would take Tim and Ben into the library. They have a train set in the children's section as well as stuffed animals and puppets. Tim loves playing there. They even had a small tent one day. Ben usually slept during that time. So I could just take a book and sit in one of the big comfy chairs they had in the kids section and read while Tim played. The kids also started swimming lessons. Molly is in level 5, (Level 6 is the last level) Emily is in level 3, and Tim is in level 1. They are all doing great.

Molly is growing up so fast. I can't believe that she will be 10 soon. She is a great helper. However, I keep catching glances of what she will be like as a teenager. Help!!!

I can't believe that Emily will be eight soon. She is so excited to be baptized. She is even starting to think carefully when we ask her questions. Especially our latest fiasco. We have been trying to get the girls in a good habit of cleaning their room. The other day, they were both invited over to a friends house. I told them that they needed to clean their room first. So they started cleaning. Well, around noon, when we were supposed to leave to go, I asked them if their room was done. It wasn't, so they frantically started "cleaning". When I went in to check, I noticed tons of stuff shoved under thier bed. So I asked them if they had just put everything under thier bed. Emily thought about it for a moment and hung her head and said yes. Molly wasn't so honest. Anyway, they had to dig everything out and put it away before we could go. What silly girls. I love them.

Tim has finally decided to be potty trained. He is getting soooooo much better. We are now transitioning from having to remind him, to him just doing it on his own. Of course when he is finished, he has to always have us come and look. He did this once when my visiting teachers were here. He decided he needed to go and did. Then he came out with just a shirt on and wanted everyone to come see. Needless to say I was quite embarrassed. I am proud of him though. His newest phrase right now is, "Mommy, we need to talk." It is quite funny and is usually used to stay up after we put him to bed. Mostly he wants to talk about when we are going to go back to Disneyland. He says he HAS to try the new Buzz Lightyear ride.

Ben is getting so big. He is now 21 pounds and 28 inches long. He is sitting really well and folds over in half before getting on his stomach. He has learned to put his arms out so that he doesn't land on his face. He's not crawling yet, but he will scoot backwards. He is such a happy baby. If only he would realize that during the summer we like to sleep in. He is up at 5:3o every morning with a great big smile on his face. I know that he will be crawling and getting into everything soon. Lots of fun

New Blog

My sisters have been bugging me to get a blog. So I thought that I should go ahead and get one started. I don't know how often, I will update this, but we will see how it goes. Here is a picture of our kids. It takes forever to download pictures.