Grow, Baby, Grow

By the time I got Anna to smile, everyone else had decided to look away!

All by herself! Isn't she getting big?

I just have a quick minute to update you, dear reader, on the growth of baby Annalee. I hope soon to be able to have some time to update about all the boys, too, but right now, it's Anna. She is growing like a weed. Jeremy weighed her on the scale the other day, and we estimate that she is about 16 pounds. She can sit up by herself when we put her in that position. And she looks pretty cute doing it, too. She is also getting up on her hands and knees and rocking back and forth. I think she'll be trying to crawl really soon. She also likes to gnaw on anything she can get her hands on. I don't feel anything teeth coming in yet, but probably pretty soon. We started her on baby cereal about a week ago. Homemade baby cereal consisting of brown rice flour mixed with white bean flour, and then some applesauce or bananas added. She really enjoys it. We feed her cereal right before she goes to bed for the night, and it helps her sleep a lot longer, too. Last night, she slept from around 11 pm until about 10 am.

We are really looking forward to the conference here in California at the beginning of June. The SW district rep and his wife are putting together a Summer Connection in lieu of Village Missions conference. It is June 8-12, and will have something for all of the kids as well. We are very excited.

Sweet baby Annalee

Annalee enjoying some noses with her Daddy. Isn't she sweet?

I am going to try this again for the third time. I have tried to update this blog twice now, and something has happened both times. Jeremy finally got his new laptop, so I am using his old one, and I think there are too many programs on here. He is going to take the time to delete a bunch of his files, and things, but he hasn't yet. Anyways, all this to say, I've tried twice, and had it fail, so we will try again.

Anna is such a cute, cuddly baby. She loves to snuggle - at least with mom and dad. We have been giving her noses (nonees as we used to call them with the boys), but she will just sit there. It really is so cute. I got a picture of it a few nights ago, and got one picture before she was more interested in the camera than giving daddy noses. We also started her on some baby food a few nights ago. We have been making our own baby cereal, and she seems to really like it.

Last weekend, Robby and Josh got to go to a Christian concert at Great America. The board chairman took his son, Rob, Josh and two other boys from church down to San Jose to see Mercy Me, Lincoln Brewster, and two other bands. They really had a good time, and even brought me home a Mercy Me cd for Mother's Day.

Yesterday was the end of the year bowling party for Pioneer Club. We took 20 kids into Eureka to go bowling and have lunch at McDonald's. It was quite a riot! We had 3 cars and 5 adults to oversee everything. I think the kids all had fun, though. We are starting to plan for VBS this summer. It will be in July.

We are going through another heatwave. It's supposed to be around 100 today. Whew! Right now, we are just kind of staying in the house in the middle of the day. Quite a difference from the Alaska summer that we had just last year!

Beach Pictures

Here's a star fish that someone found and showed to our kids. Rob and Josh held it.

The boys and I - and the beautiful ocean.

Jeremy and the kids on a climbing rock at the beach.

The boys all having fun in the warm sand.

After we finished at the beach, we stopped at the marine laboratory (part of the Humboldt State University). We got to see an octopus that tried to attack us, but then realized he couldn't get to us, so he condensed his body back down to fit in his hiding spot, then a few minutes later, he had spots on his body to hide himself and blend into his environment. We also saw a flounder, some eels, and other things. They also had a touch pool where the boys got to touch starfish and sea anemones. We had a great time!

Wonderful Times, Wonderful Friends

What a weekend we have had! Rob and Josh have birthdays that are only 6 days apart, so we usually have their birthday party together. We had a party for them on Saturday. Some friends from Yale, Washington drove down for the party. We have heard that there are those that think they are crazy, but we really enjoyed having them down. They have 4 boys, which our boys love to play with, and had a great time while they were here. They even caught a brown toad while playing outside on the playground by our house. But Mom eventually made them let the toad go...

The party went really well. They also had a few friends from the church come. One girl, and the rest boys. It was quite a party. Jeremy took them over to the church to play games. We had planned to have the games outside, but, as so often is the case with well intentioned plans, it was raining cats and dogs. As for gifts, the boys were added a lot of cash to their savings - they are each trying to save for a hamster, so they were thrilled. Our friends from Washington left Sunday afternoon. Jeremy left for the church to work on his Sunday evening lesson, while the boys and I cleaned house for another carful of company Sunday night. Our friends from The Dalles, Oregon, arrived shortly after evening service started. Today, we took them out to see some of the California Redwoods. If you have never seen them, they are awesome to see. Huge, huge trees! However, it was still pouring down rain today. But we drove through them, anyways, and even stopped at one spot to get out of the van and take pictures next to the Immortal Tree. It is a tree that has survived a fire, two floods, and an axe, and is still growing. Colossal tree. Tried to take a picture, but couldn't even get all of it. Other than the rain, we had a pretty good time. We took all the kids to McDonald's for lunch (and met another homeschool family with a son with Silas' name - first and middle!), stopped for a while and let them play at the playground in the mall in Eureka, and even went to Costco for dinner. We spent less than $20 for dinner for 3 adults and 9 kids (okay, only 8 of them can actually eat, but I still think that was impressive!).

Jeremy finally got his laptop today. Hooray!! Now I get to keep the old one. It will be so nice for him to have his new one for preaching and study. The old one has shut down on him a few times on Sunday mornings - not a good thing. And tonight, I ordered a new set of encyclopedias online at e-bay. I got a 2005 set for $335 with free shipping. It will replace the set we had to leave behind in Galena. God is helping us replace the things that we left in Galena, and teaching us to live with things we didn't need.

The church is staying pretty steady at 80 in attendance. Some weeks we have more, and some less. We are discovering that larger churches are much busier - which is a good thing, but is a new learning curve for us. Galena was a very slow pace of life, which we grew to love while we were there. Now we are learning a more hurried pace, but praying that the Lord will help us not to get too hurried. Pioneer Club is over for the school year. They will have an end of year bowling trip next week. The teacher plans to have a summer service group for the kids. They will serve the elderly in our community with whatever they need to have done. I think it will be good for them to help meet the needs of others.

We went to the beach in Trinidad a couple of weeks ago. The weather was beautiful - a bit breezy, but walking in the hot sand was wonderful. We even got to see a star fish that someone had found - the boys held it a little, and then it was thrown back into the ocean. Such fun. I will try to post some pictures, also.

I don't know how many of you keep up with Village Missions, but they have recently lost $40,000 of monthly support. We have heard of a grass roots idea started by members in two different VM churches. If everyone being served by a VM church/pastor commited to $20 a month support to Village Missions, they would be able to more than make up the $40,000 a month that they have lost. If anyone is interested in becoming a part of that, please contact Village Missions - www.villagemissions.org.