HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Jakob with his CLAW, best $5 spent. He loves this thing!

Jakob with his make shift b-day cake, he will have a real friend party next week.

Happy SIX to Jakob! Today he went to see WALL-E with his cousins and after a taco dinner will continue his day at Lynn Meadows Discovery Museum. We have had a busy two weeks and are anxious to get back home tomorrow evening. The weather and accomodations in Florida were terrific, the beaches beautiful, the kids had a fun time swimming in the pools and watching all the Disney channel they could. Nolan was the only one who loved the water at the beach, he was actually crazy about it. Sam enjoyed building sandcastles, and playing with trucks and army men in the sand, which that and other things were not kind to his skin. He is finally rash free after a new Rx of ointment & antibiotics this past week, finally a good nights sleep ;) I have enjoyed doing nothing this past week at my mom's house and have enjoyed watching cable myself. Chris is in the hospital due to cellulitis and is due to get out tomorrow, if not we will be stranded at BWI, so I may need a ride home. In the next few weeks I will post some pictures.

come fly the friendly skies

I am finally finished packing and cleaning the house (especially all the strawberries from yesterday's jam), just one more errand to run and then I can rest up for tomorrow's adventures. Hopefully all will go well so keep your fingers crossed!

just stuff

Emma's patriotic school presentation

Emma really wants to sit in the front seat

Anna's award

Anna's recital

Anna all ready for her class' day at the one room school house

I made the dress, good thing about kids is they just are happy because

you made it...they do not judge. I haven't sewn a dress since Anna was

about four, since then just blankets & curtains. I do not want to do it

again for awhile!! She of course would not wear the bonnet!

It won't be long before this is a reality!

some more attempts for cute family pics

the favorite food at our house Pop Ticles

We have been busy...too busy to upload pics to the computer (or lazy) anyway, the kids got out of school last Friday after lots more parties, field days, & one more presentation by Emma's class. Anna had her piano recital. She won one of three awards (there are about 17 students), one was for attendance, one for memorization, and one and all around great student who always does their very best...drumroll please, the last one went to Anna!! She was very excited to win her gold plated treble clef with a crystal, looks great with all her other little collectibles. The kids did great on their report cards. In the Elem there are no letter grades, just P for proficient or W for needs work, so it is kind of hard to gauge exactly how wonderful they are ;). Anna & Emma all P's, Jakob came a long way from all W's on his first report card to about 1/4 W's on his last!! He worked very hard this year. We have been spending lots of time with our good friends the Greenwoods (they have 5 kids too and started residency with us, but Than is in the ED so they are done!) they are moving to Guam for three years. We are sad to say good-bye to them, it will be odd not to have them around. Nolan has finally started to walk, the most steps taken right now are 7. He gets pretty excited and starts clapping everytime, b/c that is what we do. Sam has continued to be a monster as in the midst of the last few weeks all the kids had throw ups (and Chris never seemed to be home to help clean it up), he poured chocolate milk all over my clean laundry, had an accident all over the clean sheets (did I mention he is still NOT potty-trained!), poured an entire bottle of his pricey chocolate syrup all over the carpet, 2 boxes of his cookies crumbled all over the kitchen, and his usual pouring out boxes of cereal in various places. I am thinking of getting some type of vacuum system to wear as a backpack since I use it so frequently. He needs constant supervision which is almost impossible, since I am always doing laundry! So this week, I am starting summer canning season off with some strawberry jam...cleaning my house, packing for our fun trip to FL & MS, and did I mention laundry, that goes without saying as I am ALWAYS doing laundry.

Manly Men

Since Jakob was a little guy, he has enjoyed dressing up (in his sister's dress-ups), so we finally got some boy dress-ups for them to play with. But of course the girl's influence was there as nollie has his fancy necklace on.

Reading Parade

Nolan thought the band was fabulous!

Since I didn't get any great shots at the parade, here is a close-up

I finally got his attention for a picture

Jakob ignoring me, but his teacher Mrs. Mark smiled for the camera!

Every year at Hershey ECC the first and second graders have a reading incentive program with a big reward at the end of the year. Each month they bring home a calendar and when they return it to school get a something (this year it was a gold medal). One year was people in the community & a parade, the next year was Hershey Park 100 year celebration carnival day and this year the Olympics. Jakob's class were sprinters , had to dig for a red,white, & blue outfit. WIth each gold medal they got a new book, so Joe brought home 8 new ones!! Oh, I just noticed my friend Carol's hand in the picture. Hint to anyone who loves me...besides a new fancy camera, I really want a great photo program, scanner, and external hard-drive. Then all these blog pictures would look even better and I could crop out Carol's hand.

Yes, I forgot this post is about Jakob. We are so proud of the work he has done this year. He has come so far in Kindergarden...maybe "they" are right when they say summer boys might do better being held back a year, lesson learned. With that being said, he really has improved and shows way more interest in learning and is enjoying being able to read some.

HOT MAMAS!!

Anna and Emma had their dance recital last Saturday...it was a busy week with lots of rehearsals and late nights. One day I was putting the girl's makeup on before a rehearsal and Jakob said oh HOT MAMAS!! Who knows were he picked that up?, he said his teacher Mrs. Mark said it to another student. Funny, Sam saw this and said Hot Mamas, he remembered and now says "Sam, Hot MaMa!", lets hope not. The recital theme was one hit wonders. Emma's ballet class danced to Earth Angel. I had put her red lipstick in her bag incase it wore off before she danced, when she came out it was apparent she had been putting more & more on as she waited. It was pretty funny. Anna's tap class danced to SummerTime Summertime, she enjoyed sitting on the beachchair pretending to put on sunscreen at the end so much. Chris and I went without the boys, and got third row center seats last minute so it was nice to be so close. FYI this is the only time I will let Anna wear some TAN pantyhose!

Oh MY!

A favorite hang out spot to people watch

What were we thinking????

yes, I did get turned into Student whatever for my off the shoulder dress...Kara and I

were the DJ's for some dance. Nice black roots, now I have gray ones perhaps those

were better??!!