Happy Birthday Meredith

(We needed a little "deco" so I stayed up way too late last night making this cute banner)

Today Meredith turned 9 years old. She's getting old and so are we. It also happened to be the last day of school today. We celebrated with friends, presents, and way too much Ice cream. Mer started off the morning with a french toast "cake" topped with a little fruit and a candle. She also opened presents from Max (a webkin) and Jack ( a purse). Then it was off to the last day of school.Jack and I did a little last minute shopping and then met Mer and Max for lunch where they handed out birthday treats to their classmates...ice cream sandwiches. This was the view from my car as I picked them up from school. Goodbye, 1st and 3rd grades, 2nd and 4th here we come. They are standing with Max's teacher.
After school, to celebrate the last day of school, we met some friends at Ben & Jerry's for our second Ice cream treat of the day. We even indulged in chocolated dipped cones with sprinkles.
We had a nice family dinner of hotdogs and watermelon,

And then got down to the business of opening presents.


They played Heavy Heavy Hangover and even Luke caught on.Thank you Grandmas for the cute clothes, Mer loved them.
Then she blew out the candles on the third ice cream treat of the day, mint ice cream pie (she helped make it yesterday, mint oreos and andes mints in vanilla ice cream)
Yes Luke ate Ice cream 3 times today as well, and loved every bite. As he put the last chocolate chunk in his mouth he said "mmmm"
All in all it was a great celebration. We are so glad to have our little mommy, Mer, in our family. She's so helpful and good and tries real hard to get along with all these brothers. She's growing up too fast. We love you Meredith.

Happy Birthday!!

Tasty Tomatoes and Frosties

I have a ton to say but here are just a few things. It's been raining and raining all week long. I'm currently waiting for some stripper to work on my cabinets in the bathroom so I can stain them tomorrow. We plan on finally tiling it this weekend. But anyway, here are some pictures from today and yesterday. Today Jack picked his first cherry tomato from his tomato plant. He has been taking good care of it, watering it and checking on it and he finally got one ripe enough to pick. He ate it and said it was good. It must have been good because later...

...when we were out taking this picture he told me he was just going to pick some more to eat. Too bad there aren't any more ripe yet. I told him to give it a few more days. We are also growing cucumbers (Max's) and Mer planted a cabbage she got from school.
When Doug and Jack were walking outside to pick his tomato, they spied a Hawk, we think, sitting on our back fence. One more bit of wildlife we can add to the list that we've seen in our yard or neighborhood. (along with an armadillo, opossom, turtles, sandhill cranes, bunnies, raccoons, skinks outside and in our bathroom, lizards and snakes, just to name a few)
And finally... yesterday evening Doug was so excited that mutual got cancelled that he took the whole family out for Frosties. Everyone got their own including Luke with his very own tiny size. Of course he's at the age that he wants to do it all by himself and he screams if you are even touching the cup, so we let him have a go at serving himself. He did fairly well until...
...until I looked back and saw that he was shoving his whole hand down into the cup. I hollered "no no no" at him and he started crying.
He recovered quickly with another bite and I think thoroughly enjoyed his first very own Frosty.

Meet Lucy

Max and Mer played their last soccer Game today. It was the first game day in the real heat, with a game at 10 am and one at 11:30 (the car read 100 outside when we got into it but I think it was . Max's game was so fun to watch, the kids seemed to finally turn the power on and they tied at 7-7. No goals for Max but that wasn't for a lack of trying. He played his heart out. Mer's game was rough. It was so hot outside that they kept stopping the game entirely for water breaks. They won, 2-1 and Mer played great as well. Max's team had a little pizza party afterward and he got his trophy.A couple of pictures from the week... Mer has been throwing parties again. She checked out a kids party book from the library and came home and threw a Jungle party for dinner. She made sandwich kabobs, green jungle juice, and decorated with stuffed animals.

And for dessert she made "bug" jello cups. (if you're wondering, those are Chocolate chips on peach jello, yummy.)And finally... introducing "Lucy" our new little sister, compliments of Mer. She's bound and determined to get a little sister.

Back to Reality

We are home again now. It was only about a 3hour 45 min drive so we got home early enough to actually unpack the car and suitcases. Meredith busted out the rest of her school work and since we were home in time and done with everything, we were off to soccer practices and to the store for the week's essentials. This might have been a bad choice as everyone was completely exhausted by the time the evening was over. It was nice to not wake up to the aftermath of a trip this morning. But I still have a lot to do to keep this house under control. The simplicity of vacation life where you only have a few possessions to pick up and tidy is wonderful. We really need to purge some junk over here. Here are a few pictures of our last day and morning there.
Sunday we had a talent show. Grace started it off with "I'm a little teapot" and a few other songs

The rest of the line up went as follows:
Mer: Jump roping and a couple of karaoke songs
Jack: Nursery Rhymes
Liz: French Braiding demo
Doug: Fung Shui by gnarles barkley
John: Card tricks
Sarah: juggling
Max: headstand and a recap of the belly flop, jack knife, and cannonball he did earlier in the pool.
Grandma: animal noises/calls
Grandpa: Recited "Casey at the Bat"

and the babes played.The next morning we packed up
took a few more pictures

Ate breakfast at Chick-fil-a

and hit the road

with a Chic-fil-a balloon filled car.

Rondesvous in St. Simons

We are on St Simon's Island this weekend with Doug's family. We have had a ton of fun swimming...

and playing at the beach.

The sand here is like mud and Luke was in heaven with a little splash pool to himself.
We went to the top of a lighthouse, the kids counted all 129 steps.
And watched the sunrise over extremely calm beaches full of horseshoe crabs.

We finally met our cousin George, who we have been dying to see in person, and have had fun hanging out with Aunt Lizzy, Uncle John, and silly, curly haired Grace.

It's been a great, relaxing, much needed vacation, and we're all coming back a little more tan than we were. Thank you Grandma and Grandpa. We will miss you Balena's. For a few more pictures check out "beingbalena"

School News

Last night was the annual talent show at school. This year Meredith decided to play the piano instead of sing. I forgot my camera so maybe I'll try to record her playing it at home tonight so you can hear her. She did great and pulled it off with confidence.
We went to school today to eat lunch with the kids and stayed around to watch Max's egg drop. He and his partner wrapped an egg up in recycled materials and the 1st grade held a contest to see who's egg would survive a 30 ft drop without cracking. Our friend the firefighter brought his fire engine and that is why Jack wanted to go, so he could see it. Mr. firefighter even let Jack sit in the driver's seat but Jack was scared and wanted to get down too quick for a pic. He raised the ladder up over 50 feet, and climbed up part way to do the drop.We watched him drop all of the packages. 3 out of about 20 survived. As you can see in the picture below, Max's was not one of them. This was his face after he saw the egg juice dripping out of his container. Priceless eh?


Luke enjoyed showing off how he can stand up everywhere now. Meredith's class was at recess behind us, so he got a lot of attention with all her friends fawning all over him. Here is a clip of him walking, I think it's from Monday. It is so cute to see him toddle around. He's getting so good now that he stands up in the middle of the room and just takes off. Mer counted 20 step with out falling this morning.

Oh, and Max came home this afternoon he was all smiles holding his egg trophy (an easter egg hotglued to the top of a mini m&m canister.) He took third place in his class for the egg drop. Even though his egg broke, only 1 egg in his class survived so they gave second and third place to the heaviest and the lightest package. Max's was the lightest.

This Easter Morn/Spring Break update

After a very busy Spring Break week of playing and playing and playing with friends, a trip to the zoo, learning about sharks at the river....

mischief in the car with the (we love the flip down seats)...

a day trip to Tampa Aquarium and beaches...

A father and son campout...

and a night of dying eggs...

It is finally Easter Morning!!! Happy Easter! The Easter bunny left some clues as to where the kids could find their baskets in these eggs. They followed the clues and found them in the oven (mer), on a plant shelf up high (max), and hanging on the Jacket hooks (jack).

Luke found his in his favorite danger zone, under the brown table.

They hunted eggs and found jelly bellies and fruit snacks inside, Luke gobbled up everything he could get his hands on. I think he has eaten more fruit snacks in the last 3 days than he has in his entire life....
He has become a pro at opening up eggs but I think he most enjoyed pulling the grass out of everyone's basket.
The plan is church next, and hopefully some pictures in the cute new Sunday clothes the kids got. Oh...Luke has been taking steps this week. Of course we haven't been able to catch a video yet. Earlier in the week he was taking 2 or 3 at a time, and yesterday he took 7 straight. It won't be long and we will finally have our little slowpoke walking.

Here they are...don't they look spiffy??