What we've been up to.....

Here's a few pictures of what we've been up to since I last posted some pictures....I promised a couple of folks far away I'd do this...I'm sorry it's taken me so long....things are a little busy around here, seemingly around the clock at the moment....

Here's maybe my favorite picture of little Simeon so far.....taken by my Dad....Simeon is 7 weeks old now.

My parents came for a quick weekend trip and the weather was perfect, so we spent a whole lot of time at the beach!  Summer has arrived in San Diego!  This was taken during a picnic at the beach at La Jolla Shores...

 One of my new favorite pictures of Malachi....what a happy boy!

 Miss. Hannah who loves the sand....

 Essie put on these glasses and hat to go to the beach, I asked her to smile for the camera and this is the pose she took....Hannah said the picture made her look like a 'rock-star'.....pretty funny, I thought....Essie loves to wear accessories...not sure where she got that from! (not me, that's for sure, I'm not one to dress up much-though I am working on it  :-)

 We purchased a 'Play-shack' from Craigslist for very inexpensive.....it's in our car-port....my mom sewed some curtains for it, and I'm collecting cans of free colored paint so we can decorate it later...it's providing some constructive entertainment for the kids.  Here's Malachi going to 'work on the house'...:-)

 When Simeon was born, I gave the kids aprons and Bibles as their gift from him...every time one of our kids have been born they've given their siblings gifts at the hospital....as a way to help build the relationship between them all right from the start of their arrival....Here's Essie and I in our aprons, getting ready to make home-made hamburger buns (which I did with all the kids in our galley kitchen), I was wiped out by the end, but I think it was successful....though we still need to work on our bread making abilities....

Here's Simeon on his inaugural trip to the beach....I think he enjoyed himself...can you tell?

Hannah and Simeon having a deep conversation.....Essie tells me every day that, "He (meaning Simeon) can talk, in his own way".....She's right I suppose  :-)

Malachi received a special treat last week and was able to attend the UCSD tennis camp all week!  It's really a camp for 7 year old kids and up, and it's a great camp.  Anthony is good friends with the coach there and he offered an opportunity for Malachi to attend.  We thought for sure that he'd be able to go for a day and then they would tell us that he's just too young....but instead he was able to attend the entire camp!  So from 9-4 every day he played tennis!  He had a blast and was far from being wiped out at the end of the day....he's got a lot of energy! Here are a couple of his coaches.... Thanks Eric!

 Another friend of Anthony's is a scientist.  He was over one morning for a waffle breakfast and mentioned that he was making ice cream later at work....he invited the kids to come and take part....apparently if you mix ice cream ingredients and then add liquid nitrogen to it, it becomes ice cream in about 30 seconds!  How cool is that?  And it's not poisonous either!  (I checked).  So they got a little science lesson and got to have some instant ice-cream that tasted pretty good.....Thanks Steve!

Simeon started to smile a little, which is a fun and exciting milestone....last night from 3am until 6 am he was sure showing a whole lot of bright eyed smiles!  it's cute....but much more cute during the day time.  we'll get there....we have other nights where he goes to sleep at 10:00 and sleeps until 6:00....we're working towards more of those nights  :-)  I am really looking forward to when he starts giggling and the kids can make him laugh....they'll love that!

Here's a group picture of us, my parents and Anthony's brother and our sister-in-law at the beach picnic at the shores the other day....all the little kids belong to us..... :-)

Thanks for reading and checking in on us....hope to hear from you!