4

I am late with giving the spring/summer birthdays proper posts, but will try to catch up now.

Camille is now 4!

She celebrated with a special night at Noni and G-Pa's house, then we all went over there early to wake her up with a surprise 4 candle cinnamon twist and "happy birthday" serenade. We jumped on the trampoline with the sprinkler that afternoon and then enjoyed an early dinner at Cracker Barrel.

4 things that make Camille happy (according to her):

ice cream

playing princess

shopping

when new babies are born

4 old pictures of Camille - from before I started this blog

Dunkin' Daddy

My brave husband volunteered to sit in the dunking booth Sunday at our church's "Jamaica". This is pretty daring considering he has taught many of the kids involved with today's fund raiser.

Kilian was one of the first ones to sign up.

I have tried a couple of times each of the last 3 days to get the video on here, but no luck. Kilian hit the target 2 out of 3 times. It was great!


Lucy followed, but the one time she hit the target it wasn't hard enough to make Brad fall.


Brad complimented her aim anyway.

We spent the rest of the time sitting in the shade watching other people send him into the water.

Without planning it, 3 of our 4 wore red and white today.

Lucy is also sporting some purple glitter butterfly art on her face.

Busted, Part II

Alternately titled: How many kids do I have??

We have been trying to work on earlier bed times since school starts so soon. I was under the impression we had sent all kids to bed tonight, so I have been in our bedroom, doing some work as well as uploading video for a different blog post.

After hearing some strange *clinking* sounds for a while - I go out to see what is going on.

Poker lessons!

Click here to see Busted, Part I from November 2007.

Where, oh where

has my baby gone?

My boys before haircuts and my boys after

I mean...this little guy sitting in Kilian's lap is really cute, but where is baby Oliver?


and wow - now Oliver really looks like Kilian did at this age.

Kilian's Naming Rules

Before we even found out that we were expecting baby #5, Kilian had figured out that the first initials of our kids spelled the word "lock" (Lucy, Oliver, Camille, Kilian).


He let me know that when we had another baby, we needed to use a B (block), F (flock), S (locks), or if we were sure we would have two more kids, we could use E and then D (locked).


Now that we have been talking names for this baby -he has strong feelings on our ideas based on these rules. We actually have the name for either boy or girl nailed down now, which is crazy early for us! We're not telling if they follow Kilian's rules though. We're saving the name for a surprise as well as gender*.

*Full disclosure. When I had my 20 weeks sonogram I did tell the tech that I didn't want to know the gender. Then I proceeded to look as hard as I could to see what I could see...or not see. I think I know, but I'm not publishing my "unofficial" findings. Only 17 or so weeks until we know for sure!

Summer Summed Up

He turned 1

Click here to see him next to this elephant at 1, 2 & 3 months.

She graduated from Kindergarten

She turned 4

We were the proud owners of a pet turtle
(until it died about 19 hours later)

She baked

She baked and iced

and he "cooked" so much we started calling him "Little Chef"

(Also - "cook" was his fifth word)

She graduated from "tumblebugs"

He built things

We made evening trips to various parks (many, many times)

He trained an apprentice bug catcher

We went to

Canyon Lake

with cousins

He played ball

She got a haircut and we all went to an amusement park

finally, my belly grew ~ and "Cinco's" due date was moved to December 4th!

Excuse me, while I brag a little

Kilian actually deserves about 5 separate posts about all the blog-worthy moments and events he's had over the last few weeks. We'll squeeze them all into one, though.


I've been keeping a mental list of all that I want to mention - and now I shall unload that mental list to blogger in order to free up that memory space in my brain for other things.

• Jump Rope for Heart - After practicing for the better part of a year, Kilian won the 2nd grade contest at school. Imagine "Who let the dogs out" music blaring over the sound system while the kids jump!
  

• Insect Report - the spring project for 2nd graders was writing an outline and report, then creating a model and habitat of an insect. Each student chose a different bug - and Kilian picked the praying mantis. The easy part was finding interesting facts. The hard part was finding the right balance of parental help vs. kid working independently. I wanted him to do the work, but we had very different opinions on how neat the final draft should be (handwritten) and how large the model should be (he won)!

First Holy Communion - the most important of all! On Saturday, May 1st we got to celebrate this big step in Kilian's faith formation. Brad and I are so proud of how seriously Kilian prepared for this day. The 2nd graders all looked so handsome/pretty in their special clothes and the 3rd grade choir sang beautifully. I didn't receive Communion in the Catholic Church until I was 24, so this was a new experience for me and I loved it! Here are Kilian and Msgr. Ben at our church.

A honor roll - Here is Kilian with his wonderful teacher. He finished up the year on the A honor roll. He has already said he will miss Mrs. B. this summer. She is very supportive of bug lovers. Kilian started taking his butterfly net and butterfly house to school everyday soon after spring break. Recess became a big bug hunt for him and a few friends.

• Raingutter regatta - This was the last boy scout event of the year. Although Brad and Kilian threw this year's boat and sail together at the very last minute (using chewing gum instead of glue on the way there), he won 2nd place in the wolf pack. Either he had the 2nd fastest boat or could blow the 2nd most hot air :)
  

• I don't remember which day it was, but one weekday afternoon we found a letter from his friend in Germany in our mailbox, then came in the house to hear the phone ringing. It was another one of Kilian's friends calling (a first) to ask a homework question, and discuss bug finds.