Crawling already?

So Cami is crawling! AND pulling herself up on furniture AND falling down numerous times a day. Poor girl....fourth baby and I just can't catch her fast enough. She is a sturdy girl! She kind of does a lazy crawl by pulling her left leg behind her rather than actually making it "crawl," but she gets around.

Rodeo

We finally got Kalli a kitten for her birthday. She has been asking for one for months. I never thought I would be one to blog about a cat, but here I am, and we LOVE him. We adopted him from the shelter....and when Kalli walked up to his cage, he smelled her hand then did a backflip. So we took him home. He is so tolerant. He is very gentle with Cami and puts up with Kalli. She calls him her "little Honey Bunny," and says things like, "don't worry honey bunny, mommy is home now." It is way too super cute! Plus, he falls asleep in the most peculiar places and positions. Jeremie named him, and Rodeo is a very fitting name. He purrs so loudly (and I am not being partial...everyone who meets him says the same). I even lost him one day (well...turns out Kalli stuffed him in a drawer because "he wanted to be in there.") and found him not because he was meowing but because he was purring so loudly!

Cami

The many faces of Cami.

Bath Time

One day I caught the kids carrying buckets of water from the bathroom through the house and out the front door. So, I grabbed the camera, and this is what I found. When asked what they were doing, they said, "we are bathing like back then times." Priceless!

All American

The most All American treat I can think of: twinkies. Yes, the kids had their very first this summer on a camping trip. As a general rule, we do not eat "food" that can be stored for half a century and still be considered "good," but almost anything goes on camping trips so Alan got these for the kids. I did have one, and it was disappointing. They do not taste nearly as good as they did when I was a kid.

Camping

We were fortunate to take a week at Dunn's Camps this summer. For those of you not from the area, Dunn's was established many years ago as a camp for those in ministry and their families. The gal that runs it now has kept to that same vision and is a wonderful hostess. We enjoyed exploring, camp fires, canoeing, playing in the water, building sand castles, sleeping in a cabin, and getting to know various other families (all of which have been going to Dunn's every year for the past 20 or so years). What a treat. The teen center has since adopted a cabin, and we spend time working to restore the cabin and in exchange the teen center can use the cabin for events anytime from October until March. What a blessing!

Looking back

As we come into winter, I feel the need to look back on our summer fun and finally blog it all!!!! Besides, I really need to remember the warmth of summer as the woodstove is burning downstairs and the wind is blowing outside. We took the older two to Funtown/Splashtown this summer which is a water park and a theme park. We all had a blast and cannot wait to go again next year. A little prep for our Disney trip this January!

Cami

Cami sucks her high chair! She gets a kick out of sucking
the spilled oatmeal off her highchair tray!

Messy Baby enjoying her dinner.

Cami is sitting up now! Yeah! She also gets herself up on hands and knees and rocks herself back and forth. She will be crawling in no time (I don't think I am ready for that). I am sure this one will keep us on our toes. She has already rolled herself out of her swing, nearly out of her bouncy seat and rolled herself across the floor to the fire gate and tried to pull it down on herself. Yup, she is a busy one!

So, the nickname that has stuck has been "The CAMSTER!"
Now we have Peanut (Kaylynn), Zilla (Jeremie), Super Kal (Kalli), and Camster (Cami).
Our kids will thank us when they are older.

Super Cami! Baby by day, masked super-hero by night!

Cami LOVES to suck on her toes. She is the only one out of all the children that has done this.
I find her all the time with her toes in her mouth.

Here she has her foot right up near her mouth trying to put
both foot and hand in her mouth at the same time.

Cami is such an easy baby. She puts herself to sleep often.
She just fusses for a bit then falls asleep where ever she is.

Jeremie the Photographer

Jeremie absolutely LOVES to take pictures...and has followed his daddy's interest in taking pictures of his own face in weird positions. So here are a few of his most recent photos!

Well, it has been too long since I have updated this thing. So, here goes. I am going to just journal a bit then post pictures rather than try to organize it all. Summer flew by and I hardly know what happened. We had a teen living with us for 6 weeks which turned out to be more challenging than we expected, but God gave us grace for that season. We continue to pray for her and invest in her life and trust the Lord to continue to do a good work in her life!
Kalli turned 3, Jeremie turned 5, Auntie Dana came to visit, and I took a trip back to Washington to a family reunion. My dad just found out that he had a sister that he never knew about. WILD! So I met another aunt, uncle, and more cousins. My aunt looks just like my grandmother did! When I got home we took a week to get away to this wonderful little camp. Dunn's Camps is run by a wonderful woman who loves the Lord and uses the camp as a ministry. The cabins are rented for next to nothing for those in ministry to have a place to retreat. We did the camp fire, played games, walked on the beach, canoed, swam in the lake, and enjoyed time away from the phone and the computer. Working with teens is what we enjoy doing but sometimes it is so heart wrenching and we got to a point that we were getting phone calls every day about various teens at the teen center with their brokenness. Many of us could not even live one day in their lives. We needed time to be just us as a family, and we enjoyed it!
Other than that, we have been working on the chicken coop and getting things around here ready for winter. My garden did so much better this year than last year. I even planted a fall crop and am waiting to harvest that!

Ahhh....the mountains of the Pacific Northwest.
You will forever be one of my most favorite sites!

The four of us kids!

The Paddle boats at Silver Beach!

The Bandits in our ultimate Squirt Gun Fight
at the reunion. Not a soul was left dry!

Cami sleeping in a laundry basket at Aunt Angie's.

A ride on Will's motorcycle.

My older Girls growing up!

Enjoying a BBQ at the lake right around the corner from us.

Cami

Kalli being all shy at her third birthday.

half heartily blowing out the candles.

Presents!!!!

Lovely Auntie Dana comes to visit!

Cami LOVES Ray Bans!

Best part about being a mom: PLAYING!!!

Kaylynn enjoyed softball this year.

Graduation. We will miss so many of you graduates!
Here is pictured Tricia in the center of many loving teen center folks.

Kaylynn with two of her very good friends at ballet.
She did "Sunrise in the Jungle" this past year
and was an Orangutan in the recital.