Elsa Honigbraun

German translation "Honey-brown princess"

Here is our newest addition to the family. She is now 11 weeks old and has been with us for 2 weeks now. She is adapting quite well. Full of energetic bursts and lots of puppy naps! The kids are enjoying her as well, though she is very aware of who is in charge...and it is not the kids! She takes full advantage of them when either Dennis or I are not in sight. What a stinker :) More on puppy training later if you are so inclined...

Pool Deck Project

This week, Dennis took off from work to complete a pool deck around half of our pool. When we originally put the pool in, we built the narrow gangplank out to the pool as a temporary, budget friendly fix. This year we were able to put on half of projected plan for decking. What a huge difference it makes!

Before

Eric, being a HUGE help to Dennis this week. He worked out there with Dennis for 3 days straight, all day. And cut the grass in between :)Partway finished

Completely finished, except for the deck stain.

Lego Star Wars 6th Birthday Party

Bay turnedd 6 two weeks ago. He grew 1 1/2 inches in 4 months! He's getting ready to lose his first tooth. Just too much to take in. All of my babies are growing up :(

He requested a lego star wars party this year. It was 9 kids his age, plus many older siblings and Eric and Leah. It was controlled chaos!

The lego cake. Covered with square fondant lego bricks.
Lego tower building contest. We made iron-on yoda shirts for the boys and ahsoka shirts for the girls.

Lego playing at the lego table. we had a starfighter build session.

Knocking candy and legos out of the Death Star pinata

a hord of young jedis chasing after darth vader (aka Eric-he shed his vader mask very quickly since he couldn't see who he was up against!)

For the birds!

This morning we woke to a beautiful spring day. The birds all seemed to be out, in every tree and bush, singing, twittering and making the morning known to all. The kids noticed at breakfast the beautiful music, so we decided to write some poetry this morning. Hopefully you can click on the picture and it will enlarge, but just in case it doesnn't I have written the poem out for you below the picture for clarity.

The Morning Choir by Eric

The morning chorus sings the best in the spring

The mother blue jay twitters to her heart's delight

The sun says to the morning dove, "I cannot sing as you do,

Please sing for me". So it does, it awakens all the animals

the mockingbirds, cardinals and sparrows sing the harmony

while the babies join the choir, the sun shines its brightest

All for the glory of the Lord.

Bird Songs by Bay

Birds sing songs

in the morning

mommies sing to babies

get worms

make nests

birds tweet

birds twitter

joyful sounds

And Leah, well you may need some help interpreting. Read from bottom left to right, then go up one line and read from right to left, and then go upu again for the last letter. It reads, "Birds B Birds sing in the morning"

We're Getting a Dog

Okay, so it's been a long long time in the "talk about it stage", actually about as long as Dennis and I have been married, maybe even before that. A few things put us over the edge to make the plunge: the kids are old enough now (no more babies in the house for me to take care of) and can all help out in some way AND Bay is an extreme dog afficionado, and by that I mean that he could be the dog whisperer. Every dog he meets acts like he and it have been best friends all of their lives!

Anyways, we have always wanted a boxer, so it didn't take us long to find one. We went and saw her and the breeder last weekend and will be bringing her home in a couple of weeks. She'll be just a little more than 8 weeks. Here she is at 6 weeks.

Of course the kids are super excited. We are too! We have been reading books, and the questions have been pouring out of the kids...where will her food bowls be? where will she go to the bathroom? will we give her people food? where will she sleep?... We haven't 100% decided on a name yet, so we'll save that for you to find out once we bring her home! Hint... it will be something of German origin since the Boxer breed originated in Germany!

Soccer and stuff

We have been full of activity lately. It is soccer season, and the boys are having a great time, but haven't been able to have many practices due to all of the rain, but so far no games have been cancelled. Dennis is coaching Bay's team again. My brother came down for the weekend to celebrate Bay's birthday and also got to squeeze in his soccer game as well. He took some great pictures. The other two were at home with me getting set up for the birthday party...post soon to follow on that adventure!

Dennis looks like he wants to do the throw-in for Bay!

Eric had a soccer game on a Sunday evening and we enjoyed that change. Usually they are all on Saturdays, but having it in the evening was nice. Eric is number 9 above...the team they played had some great plays and super players, but our team still managed to eek out a win with the score 2-1. They were thrilled and it was a hard-earned win.

Gramps recently had his big sailboat hauled for some bottom paint and other work to be done on it. Leah (in curls) went with him to check out the work site. (That is not his boat in the background...not sure where his is???)