puppy makes 3

3 babies, that is what it feels like with Maggie added to the mix. Harper was so happy to meet her, but just wanted to pat, pat, pat at her as she is doing here, so she didn't get to see her for long since we feared for her safety. We kept puppy and babies separated unless we were outside.

Harper wasn't too thrilled about sitting in the grass today, and Auna got a picture of her making a face about it.

Ava and Auna in the hammock, I love this picture, Ava looks so relaxed and happy. Both she and Harper had so much fun outside today, they love the swing and the stroller rides. We had a bunch of company this morning. Norma and Marta came over to visit, and James was here, too. Of course the regular bunch, Laury and Auna, Parker and Rielee. Love these busy summer days.

we have a winner

Norma's guess of 4 days of puppy infatuation was right on. Rielee was really happy this morning with Maggie snuggled up with her as she watched her morning cartoons, but later in the morning, when she had poop to clean up, it was a different story. Instead of Maggie doing the whining, it was Rielee, she said she only wanted to clean up the puppy's OUTSIDE messes, the inside ones gag her, and she was gagging, so Papa had to do the clean-up. Rielee is still very loving and protective of Maggie, though, it's just the clean-up part that she's lost interest in, of course.
I offered to pay Auna and Rielee to pick up pine cones today, a penny a cone, Auna went crazy and I had to pay her $5.50 before I told her to stop already. Rielee quit at 27, but tried to collect $3.25, Auna kept her honest though.

Will got his braces off today and came over to show us his new smile, and it looks so awesome!

Rielee and Maggie

You will never see a little girl more thrilled with a puppy than Rielee is with Maggie. She did everything for her today, from feeding her to cleaning up after her, but most of all, worrying about her. We left Maggie at home while we ran in to Target to get some toys and treats for her, and the whole time we were gone, Rielee just wanted to hurry and get home to her.

Rielee had to be told to put Maggie down once in awhile, she just wants to pack her around and hold her all the time. When she calls her, she says "Maggie, come to Mama". This morning when we took her out to potty, Rielee said, "do you have a full bladder, Maggie?" and then told me how she can feel her belly and if it's warm, that means she has a full bladder, which cracked me up, she listened to her Mom, I think. Papa said maybe she's like a mini-dog whisperer...

The kids have bets on how long Rielee's infatuation with Maggie will last, from 4 days (Norma) to a week (Macee and Marta)...but if today is any indication, I think she will prove them all wrong. And even Papa and I have to admit, Maggie is pretty darned cute.

Babies and a puppy

This is Ava's latest puckered pose, she gives kisses now, too.
We had a fun-filled day with the twins. Papa picked them up at 8:30, so I took Rielee and Parker to a couple of 8:00 garage sales. Rielee scored, finding a "like-new" dog crate for $6. Now she has everything she needs except a dog. When we got back the babies were here, so Papa took Parker to a couple more garage sales and I fixed breakfast for the girls.

They are still crawling and standing but no steps today. This is how they crawl, always taking things along with them. Ava was thrilled to have gotten ahold of a remote today, always there favorite thing to grab.

This was them when we loaded them up to head for home-very tired and grumpy-looking. Harper made it until almost 2 today before she finally napped.

Big news! Rielee finally got her puppy tonight! She named her Maggie Sparkles Gourde, she is a Chihuahua/Maltese mix (I think that's what they said) and she is tiny. Rielee said that she fit in her doll stroller just right...thankfully they have Marta and Norma around for a couple more weeks to help out with the training (their Dad is a dog breeder/kennel owner so they have some experience with dogs).

Wed.

Parker and Boris survived their night in the treehouse just fine, in fact they told me that they woke up a couple of times in the middle of the night and threw a pop can out the window and tried to shoot it with their airsoft guns...I thought wow, I wonder if that's what woke me up at 3:00 in the morning? They came in about 7:00 for breakfast then headed right back out to the treehouse to hang out. For lunch they made a fire so we could have hotdogs and smores. Rielee is happy in this picture for 2 reasons. First, she is wearing one of the new Hello Kitty outfits she got for her birthday, and two, she is drinking a Ginger Ale, which is pretty rare around Grandma's house. Since it was a super nice sunny day, the kids all went swimming in the pool, even though it was only about 68 degrees. Having the hot tub makes it a lot more tolerable, and they went back and forth between the two. They were so happy to be in the pool, even though the flying ants came out later and were bugging them, they still stayed in there.

Never a dull moment

Aldo came over this morning to say good-bye, then Norma and Marta headed back home to go back to bed. It wasn't but a few minutes before they were back though, to visit with us. Guess they couldn't go back to sleep and didn't want to stay home alone since Macee was at driver's ed. all morning. So they drank coffee with us and talked, played with Rielee and Marta fought with Parker. He bugs her and she finally has to take him down and straighten him out. It got pretty wild, and she even bit him at one point!It's all in good fun, mostly...he hit her too hard and she started to walk home mad, so he had to apologize, then they were all right again. Pretty much like a real brother and sister. Later Norma and Marta went to town with Papa to run a couple of errands. Then in the afternoon, Parker wanted me to take him to Target to use a giftcard, so James, and Auna and Marta came along, too. On the way home, it got a little wild in the backseat, and this time Auna bit Parker, (he really brings out the best in his girl relatives)...I had to resort to threatening them... James said, "what are you gonna do Aunt, ground us from Cardamom Bread?" which made me chuckle but I couldn't show it. Those three, they get wound up and it's a big party, forgetting that Aunt's car is too small for parties.

This is an important night for Parker and Boris as they plan to spend the night in the treehouse.

Macee's b'day

The 1st day of summer and Macee's birthday. It wasn't a sunny day but it didn't rain so we took the girls outside to play for a little while, and for a couple of stroller rides for fresh air.

Rielee and Macee had a birthday party together, Macee is 15, Rielee 5, and Parker is 10--it's easy to remember how old they are. Charb picked the babies up later so they could go to the party, too.

Charb's day, Father's Day

Charb got to celebrate both his first Father's Day and his birthday today.

5 years ago

No new pictures so I thought I'd find one from 5 years ago today when Rielee was born. Looking at it reminds me of how I worried because her hands stayed blue for so long after she was born, I was afraid something was wrong with her circulation. It eventually went away though and she was fine. I talked to her briefly tonight when they called "from the hill near the houseboat" where they can get cell phone reception. She was having a good birthday but the weather was crummy, so they may come home tomorrow if it doesn't clear up.
Rain, I am so sick of it. We have a fire, for criminy sakes, on June 19th, this is ridiculous!! On the up side, it is interesting to see so much growth on the plants, especially new ones I've planted which normally would have been struggling by now. Feels almost like we're living in a rain forest...

Last wacky Wednesday

The babies were getting hungry and tired at this point and did not want to be held for a picture, they wanted bottles!

Rielee helping bathe Ava, she loves her bath. So does Harper, but she likes to splash like crazy, you get really wet bathing her.

We had to pose for pictures today since I think this will be our last day with all 3 girls. Charb is mostly done with work and Kelly's last day is next Tuesday. Rielee will stay with us off and on through the summer (Macee will probably babysit a little to earn some money) and we hope to have the twins come up once a week at least so they don't forget who we are.

I'm so sad, gonna miss seeing the Ava and Harper all the time!

Rielee's day

Rielee celebrated her 5th birthday with a Hello Kitty bowling party at Split's. She had her party a little early since they will be at the houseboat over the weekend.

Her bowling form was kind of a sideways throw, but she managed to get one spare which was celebrated with high-5's and whooping and hollering by her and her little friends. Parker and Auna were hooked on the Deal or No Deal Game, and kept running from that to the bowling.

This was before bathtime this morning, the twins thought it was fun when Rielee was zooming around in the walker, and had to get up there and see what was going on.

Rielee is officially a kindergartener now, and she had her end of the year pre-school picnic today. We went and took the twins, so Rielee could show them off to her friends and teachers, something she has wanted to do all year. It was starting to sprinkle and the twins got heavy fast, so I didn't take any pictures. We took off early and left Des and Rielee there to enjoy all the food and fun.

Emmy with Ava (drool and all) and Harper (with a fist full of Em's hair)

Identical again, dang

The past couple of days, I've been getting the girls mixed up again. For awhile, they looked very different. This morning it was like, gosh I couldn't tell them apart without looking for Harper's birthmark. Once we had them in the highchair, you could easily see the difference in their faces, Harper's is much thinner. Below, she is on the left.

Papa was being funny and put a skirt on Harper's head, she played with it on for a long time.

Finally, a nice enough day to play outside. Rielee and Jillian were in the sandbox and it didn't take long before the twins were exploring it, too. Ava even tried a bite of sand, which absolutely freaked out Papa, so much that he went in the house since I wasn't reacting and ready to sterilize their little hands, like he thought they needed.

Jillian and Rielee playing on the teeter totter. Cathy and I tried our darndest to get a picture of all 4 girls together, but we weren't quite fast enough--each time Jillian would be off and running to play with something else!

Harper, on the left again, and Ava were so content and quickly got used to crawling around in the grass. Papa will be mortified to see Ava chewing on the shovel, I'm sure.

I got a phone call this morning to come over and watch Rielee in the pool, but she was cold and in the hot tub before I thought to take a picture of her. Parker was jumping in and playing catch with Gabe. The day started out sunny and I was working in the yard, then it clouded up and got chilly so I took Parker and Auna to town shopping. They were pretty good at the first store, but it went downhill from there, and they got progressively sillier and louder until I finally had to threaten several times to take them home. They had a successful shopping trip, though, each found their birthday presents for Rielee and Macee and stayed pretty close to budget, too.

Karate Kid

Norma and her Dad came over today and we walked throught the yard, he enjoys plants and collects what are called "Fat Plants", which are a cactus or succulent shaped to have a thick stem, I believe. They brought us 2 books, one on Milan and the other a cookbook, trying to entice us to visit someday. Oh, and we got a funny report on how Norma's graduation night went. First she said that she thought graduation was very long and pretty boring (since she didn't know the guest speaker and thus didn't get any of his jokes or stories), she was freezing and she had to pee like crazy the whole time! She had fun on their senior trip, was scared on the go-carts, but she loved the hypnotist.
Parker spent the night and we took him to see The Karate Kid, it was really a good movie that we all enjoyed.

Graduation

Ava had a bad diaper rash today, so she took a long soda bath in the morning. It seemed to help some because she didn't seem bothered by the rash at all after that.

Rielee entertained the twins by pulling them around in the little Duplo cart, after she sat in it herself, of course. Papa and I were reluctant to let her do it, but they seemed to love it. The twins were asleep when Rielee got home from school, so she wanted, once again, to play "Mom and Sister", she being the Mom. Today I got a baby brother named Andrew (her baby doll), and he made the rounds of all the baby equipment. Every time we play this, she pretends she is calling my "coach" to talk about me going to practice. I love this pretend play with her, she has such an active imagination. It always cracks me up because I don't have a name, just "sister", although she's supposed to be my Mom?

And then, tonight was Norma's graduation, something she has looked forward to all year. In Italy they don't have a ceremony for completion of high school, it is just expected that all students will graduate, so she really was excited to experience everything here.

It was a nice graduation, although very long. Emmy went with us to see some of her old friends from high school who were graduating. She couldn't get over the fact that a year ago she was there.

Celebrations

A day of celebrations, first Norma's family arrived from Italy. Sister Marta and Dad Aldo. Norma was so thrilled to see them. Marta speaks English really quite well but has a thick accent, she understands if you speak slowly. Aldo speaks a little English. They brought Papa a stein filled with coffee candies, and Italian coffee for me. Aldo will be here for 10 days and is looking forward to seeing Seattle. Marta will stay for a month and return home with Norma July 6th. She hopes to improve her English while she is here, and the deal is that Norma cannot speak Italian to Marta, only English, so she will learn more.

And this is the wreath Laury made for the other Celebration we had today, the one honoring Mark's life. It was held at a very charming hall in Chehalis that was very full of family and friends, pictures, flowers, a wonderful potluck, and a whole lot of love for Mark.

Harper stands up

This is what our morning looked like-Emmy was up bright and early as was Alan. We all spend a lot of time on the floor these days entertaining the girls. If you look close, you will notice that Rielee is in the walker, she just had to get in it and try it out, something she has wanted to do from day one.

So much for trying to put the babies down for naps, we decided that just wasn't working. The new system requires holding them down on your lap until they stop fighting and settle down, then they fall right to sleep. Staying asleep is another story though, today they slept for a whole hour and that was it for the day.

Harper impressed Auna and I this afternoon when she got up from a sitting position on the floor and then stood there balancing. She did it 3 times in a row. They have often let go from the furniture and stood balancing, but this is the first time we've seen this trick.

Emmy's home!

I was so happy to see Emmy and her beautiful smiling face come through our door this afternoon, with Rielee in tow (guess she ran into her on the walk over). We visited for awhile (while Rielee watched cartoons and ate dry cereal because my milk was old) and she filled me in on her end of freshmen year college activities, moving out of the dorm and such. We talked about Mark, who she doesn't have many memories of, of course, I told her how he was the type of guy that you were always glad to see, he had the biggest grin, he would always give you a hug and he just had a good spirit, "he was one of the good guys" as Charb said.

Emmy is looking forward to seeing Ava and Harper tomorrow, I told to come over and stay as long as she wants, we need distractions for those two!

A sad day

We are a heartbroken family today with the loss of Mark. We love you Mark, you will never be forgotten.

Norma's graduation party

Norma had her graduation party today. Lots and lots of her friends came and she had them dancing and singing in the basement, while all the "old folks" stayed upstairs.

Saturday

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We went to Toledo this morning to watch Will play basketball, all his hard work sure shows, he made several nice drives to the basket and hit several 3's, too.
When we got home, Rielee, Des and Norma came over to release the butterflies near some of my flowers.

Little readers

Laury and David came by this afternoon and entertained the twins while Papa and I sat and watched and drank some coffee. Papa had been complaining that he had nuked the same cup of coffee at least a half dozen times, having been interrupted by a baby every time he tried to drink it. David was reading them their favorite Touch and Feel book "My House" Macee came over Friday night to have me do her hair, Norma and Elena (the exchange student from Poland) came with her. Elena asked if I would do her grow-out, too. We had a lot of laughs with them all here.

Babies and butterflies

Our day started out differently when Harper woke up as soon as we got home but Ava slept for another 45 minutes. We had time to fix breakfast and feed Harper first with no rush, which was kind of nice for a change. Then when Ava woke up she got to eat solo, too. Not seeing the twins for a week, we noticed lots of changes in them. For one, Harper is patty-caking now. They are interacting more, smiling and squealing at each other as they crawl around exploring together. Both of them are getting up on their knees alot, and Harper will kneel with one foot down like she is ready just to stand up from that position. They are walking along the furniture, and letting go and balancing, too. They are busy, busy girls, and if one gets tired and wants to be held, the other is right there, too.

What a time we had trying to get a 10 month picture of them together. Harper pretty much refused to smile big at anything Papa did, yet Ava thought he was hilarious.

We got an excited phone call from Rielee after she went home today--2 of her butterflies had emerged! She was so thrilled and wanted to show them to us. She put sections of oranges in the house for them to eat.

Staying busy with Rielee

After the horrible news last night about Mark's motorcycle accident, I was glad to have Rielee around today to keep me busy so I wouldn't think about it so much. She didn't disappoint either. She wanted to play Barbies, then Ponies, then I taught her how to make french toast (no crust on hers). Then it was back to Barbies until I suggested a bath. That entertained her for quite awhile, then we decided to get out of the house and go to Home Depot and Michaels. Papa made it a fun trip as Rielee and I sat in the back of the van, he said he was "Bozo" our driver and we could call him "Mr. B". At Michaels, she bought a stuffed dog and a couple of outfits for her and named her Allison. She is still campaigning for a real puppy for her birthday and said her parents are still "discussing" whether or not to get her one. When we got home from town she wanted to play Barbies again, I tried to talk Papa into playing with her while I cleaned out the fridge, but that didn't make her very happy so he traded places with me. He kept trying to escape the kitchen so Rielee barracaded it with chairs to keep him in, he finally gave up and did a great job on the fridge.