Gabe's 1st Shower

Summer Fun

The swing set is complete!!!! Joel and Al put in a 7 hour day assembling the swing set for the kids. It looks fabulous and has already recieved the kids' seal of approval! It was a really warm day today and Isabel wanted to be outside, but was gettting kind of bored playing by herself since Daddy and Sabba were busy working. So, we called Ethan and asked if he'd like to come over for a day of swimming and swinging! The kids had a blast in the pool and were getting ready for nap when the ice cream man came through the neighborhood. We met him at the curb and bought ice creams to enjoy after nap. The kids slept for a couple of hours and when they got up, the swing set was ready to play on!!!! After testing out all of the neat features, they sat down on the built in picnic bench to enjoy their ice creams!! When that was gone, it was back to sliding and swinging! The swing set is a big hit with the kids and we are very anxious to enjoy it this summer!! THANK YOU, AL AND JOEL, FOR ALL OF YOUR HARD WORK TODAY!!

The Weed

Ok, many of you who have been to our house have seen "The Weed". For those of you who have not been to our house, "The Weed" is a gigantic weed that is growing in our neighbor's front yard just on his side of the property line. This weed has been growing since we moved into this house 2 years ago. Our neighbor, who we affectionately refer to as The Bohemian, is a very strange man of about 30 who has long, frizzy hair and appears to be afraid of people. He has not lifted one finger to do yard work since we've lived next to him. It is because of "The Weed" that we've had an invasion of weeds in our brick walkway. "The Weed" has been a constant source of frustration for us and we've long been plotting ways to get rid of it. We've recently had friends over and they mentioned that the first thing they noticed when they pulled up to our house was "The Weed". This was the final straw. On a Monday afternoon a couple of weeks ago, Joel decided that he wasn't going to take it anymore. He marched over there and pulled the weed up himself. When he brought it back over to our side of the yard we realized just how big it really was. It must have been at least 8 feet tall. Joel quickly tried to break it down so he could hide it in our trash can. (But not before I could get a picture of it!) The trunk was so wide and strong that he had to try gardening shears to cut it down. Our shears weren't large enough to do the job, so Joel had to step on it repeatedly to break it down. Once it was broken down and safely stored in our trash can, we realized that all the struggling we did to break it down had left various leaves and dust all over the sidewalk and road. The Bohemian usually comes home from work at around 3:30 in the afternoon and it was getting close to that time. So, Joel ran in to get a broom to sweep up the evidence. With that done, we gathered everyone up and ran inside so we wouldn't be outside when the Bohemian arrived home from work. I was very nervous that whole evening because I thought he was going to notice that his weed was gone and he was going to suspect us and come over to yell at us. I had decided that if he came over to see about "The Weed" I would simply tell him that the wind blew it down onto our property so we disposed of it. Well, as it turns out, the Bohemian didn't come home that day or any day for the next week. When he did come home, he never seemed to be bothered by the absence of "The Weed". I think we are in the clear. Now if only we could get rid of all of the baby weeds growing on our property. ARG!!

Swimming Lessons

Most of you will remember that Isabel had asked if she could take swimming lessons during the summer, so we signed her up for a two week session starting on June 2. We were a little bit nervous about how she would do because this was going to be her first class without me. Well, I am happy to report that she did really well!! We showed up at the pool on our first day of lessons and she met her teacher, Mr. Joe. She went right into the pool and had a blast!! After that first class, she ran out of the pool and asked me when she could come back. I was happy to tell her that we'd be coming back the next day and every day for two weeks! The second day got off to a bad start when she came up to me first thing in the morning to tell me that she didn't want to go to swimming lessons again. I told her that she had to go and it was going to be lots of fun, but she continued to feel apprehensive all morning and when we got to the pool she cried through about 30 of the 40 minute lesson. I was beginning to think that this was going to be a very long two weeks, but by the end of the class Isabel had become quite attached to Mr. Joe and she was excited to come back the next day. The rest of the two weeks went by without another tear shed. Isabel learned a lot during her lessons. She can now do a back float and a front float and she has gotten really good at holding her breath and going under the water (a task that, until now, was extremeley offensive to her). They also did fun things like jumping off the side and playing on the big water slide and Mr. Joe threw them through the air to Ms. Alicia (the assistant). She liked her lessons so much that we signed her up for the next class beginning in a couple of weeks. I hope she still likes by then!

June Update

Well, another month has gone by since I last wrote on this blog. I'm not doing very well here. I'll just have to compile all of the happenings from the last month into one post.

I think we left off right before Candice's graduation from nursing school. Candice started a new job in Utah the week before her graduation, and actually had to miss one of her ceremonies due to orientation. She was able to make it home in time for the main ceremony and Druh came home as well, so we had a very nice weekend with them. CONGRATULATIONS AGAIN, CANDICE!! WE ARE SO PROUD OF YOU!

The kids continue to grow and entertain us. Gabe is 9 months old and is all over the place. He is beginning to stand up on his own without holding on to something. Maybe he will be walking before his first birthday!! He has learned to play peek-a-boo. This is very cute because when you say "peek-a-boo" he puts his hand over his mouth instead of over his eyes. He has also learned to wave. He will usually wave to say hello. The other morning, right after he got up, I layed him down on his changing table to change his diaper and he began to wave at his ceiling fan. I wondered if he was waving, but wasn't sure until Isabel got up and came downstairs and he waved at her when he saw her. Since this is a new skill and happens so infrequently, I haven't been upable to capture it on the camera, but I will keep trying! He is also beginning to eat more table food. I have recently given him teething biscuits to occupy him while I am making dinner or doing other things. He LOVES them, but they make a HUGE mess!! I'm willing to deal with the mess if it gives me 20 minutes of freedom. Also this month, we have discovered that Gabe LOVES Dora the Explorer. This is Isabel's favorite show and she usually watches a little bit every day. When Gabe hears the music come on he will come crawling from whatever room he is in or stop playing with whatever he is playing with to listen and watch. He continues to be a very happy baby and is always full of smiles!!

Isabel took her swimming lessons at the beginning of the month. I'll post more on this soon. She is going to be the flower girl in Uncle Druh's wedding so we have been getting her ready for that. I am hesitant to mention her responsibilities to her too soon in fear that it will scare her and she won't perform them when the time comes. As of right now she only knows that she is going to be wearing a pretty white dress that matches Auntie Candice's and that she gets to wear curls in her hair and her "heels" for shoes. We have been practicing with the sponge rollers. This brings back memories of my own childhood when I slept in sponge rollers every Saturday night so that I would have curly hair for church on Sunday. I was trying to find a picture of myself with rollers in, but couldn't locate one. I'll have to keep looking. We also bought Isabel a new swing set. Joel and his dad are putting it together at this very moment so I'll post some pictures of that soon!!

Well, we are one week away from the big Palma-Bailey wedding and things are beginning to get crazy. We are expecting a lot of family from out of town. Many of whom we have not seen in years and several who have never met the kids. We are looking forward to seeing everyone and to celebrating with Druh and Candice. This wedding has been a long time coming and it's almost here!!!!! I'm sure you'll see more on the wedding in a coming blog!!

Until then, I hope you enjoy these pictures ......

Uh-Oh

Ok, well last night I was going through my recent photos and uploading them to my computer. I came across one that I had taken of Gabriel in his crib after a bath. He was very excited after his bath and he was jumping around and giggling so, naturally, I went to get my camera to capture the moment. Well, since he had just come out of a bath he was naked and since he was jumping around I was unable to get a picture that did not include his little boy parts. I wanted to include the picture in a slide show for our blog, so I set to work on disguising the unmentionables. I haven't made a slideshow in awhile, so when I went to slide.com I noticed that they had a feature I hadn't noticed before called FunPix. This feature allows you to take a picture and add certain stickers or dialog bubbles to it. I thought this was perfect for what I was trying to do. So, I set to work. I quickly found a burning flame and was able to move it around and size it to fit over the things I wanted to cover up. I saved it to my account and thought I'd come back tomorrow and put the slideshow together. Well, as I talked to various family members throughout the day today I realized that anyone subscribed to receive my slide show updates was getting a notification that I had put this new picture up. This would have been fine except that when you receive the notification, it shows you the picture without the flame and therefore reveals Gabe in all his glory. If you click on the View FunPix link provided in the email, you are then able to see the picture with the flame included. This does not make any sense to me ... it seems to me that if you save a FunPic, you would want your friends and family to see this FunPic, not the original pic - if you wanted people to see the original, you would have just sent the original and not bothered with the whole FunPix thing. Anyway, I was shocked and appalled when I realized what happened and immediately deleted the picture so that no one else will be able to see it, but for those of you who have already seen it, I'm very sorry for the inappropriateness of the email you received. I feel awful for what happened.
And to my little Gabe ... Mommy is very sorry for showing everyone your manhood.