Rainbow Eva

Happy Birthday to our little Eva!

It's hard to believe that my baby is two, but it's true. 

She is delightful and full of spunk. Her dad says she is mirthful, which is true. 

She has a happy little personality and is always giggling, playing, or smiling with one of her siblings. 

She's spunky too....after all, she does have red hair, but I think that almost every two year old shows some spunk!

She can say almost anything, and her loves are:

* Any baby she can find....even if it's not a baby and she's pretending it is.

*Cuddling with her mom

*Playing with Zach

*Having her big sister take care of her.

* Getting to tag around the yard with the boys.

* Her grandparents

* Animals

* Just being silly and laughing.

* Having her dad comment on her clothes

* Shoes and accessories. 

*....and of course, her Rainbow Eva Dress.

--Katie

Joel....my favorite seven year old.

I love Joel. The picture above is a great representation of him. I even tried to bribe him with ice cream to take a decent picture, but....nope, only weird faced ones from Joel.

I love all of Joel's uniqueness. 

When asked what he wanted for his birthday, he repeatedly said he wanted to take a trip to the dump. He loves finding garbage and making things out of it. Unfortunately, I often have to scold him in parking lots, and lecture him about picking up just any garbage, but however odd it is, I have to say that going to a junk yard sounds pretty fun for my own birthday! lol

I guess the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree.

Joel is a self-titled "Fruitatarian".  

So he wanted fruit cakes for breakfast on his birthday. 

John made him this fruit cake, with lots of fruit inside and on top...and of course John made it the size of the plate! 

It was pretty delicious, and although Joel can put away an incredible amount of food, he couldn't finish it.  You know Luke was just waiting to eat Joel's leftovers in this picture. 

I sent Chloe and Luke into the dollar store by themselves, to pick out four presents for Joel. One from each kid. They did a terrific job! Joel, who is an animal lover received all bug/animal related presents from his siblings. 

Eva was not so happy that she didn't get to open the presents, so Joel wrapped up some of his shorts for her...random yes, but they were the first thing he could find, and no, they weren't the ones he was wearing. 

Joel is the middle child. Sometimes I can tell. He loves attention for being funny, and he does have an adult-like whit, but he often gets overshadowed by older siblings, and less attended to than younger ones. 

He, like so many little boys, has a difficult time focusing and sitting still, but he's incredibly smart. 

I call him my nutty professor. He's the kid who does 3rd grade math in kindergarten, but can't seem to put his clothes on right....ever!

He's incredibly caring, except if you're his sibling and then he teases and bugs you relentlessly. 

One night he got out of bed and I was overwhelmed and crying because I had so much to do and the house was such a mess. He said, "I'll clean it for you mom". and he went and got Chloe and Luke out of bed and they all cleaned and cleaned....until it was done! 

Joel is amazing like that!

Later in the day, we went to watch Chloe cheer and Luke play football. 

Luckily this was the (one) game where Chloe cheered for Luke's team, saving us from sitting through two games.

That afternoon, John took Joel to pick out a fish, while I stayed home and made our fruitatarian his birthday cake.....which was actually fruit pizza, requested by Joel, of course. 

I know, the pan looks gross, I haven't figured out how to get Pam cooking spray off yet. 

This was one of Joel's birthday presents that they picked up. Her name is Blanketee. (I have no idea why). 

Joel is an animal activist you could say. I have no idea how he became this way, considering both his parents are from farming families, and really don't think twice if someone's going to go hunting, or kill a cow for beef. 

However, Joel won't even kill a spider. He "escorts" the spiders that are in our house outside by picking them up and setting them outdoors....(before I can get to them!)

For a family movie night, Joel picked out a BBC movie about.....you guessed it, ....animals. Here's our basement lounge.  

So there's a recap of Joel's 7th birthday. 

Just for future reference I wanted to make a list of what Joel likes to do and what he's good at, at this point in time. 

*  Joel is a fantastic artist!

* Joel has just realized how much he loves running....and we realize how good he is at it. He can run 3-4 miles with his aunt Suzie (who is training for a marathon) and keep up to her pace....with no problem.....in Crocks! 

* Joel is the best "sharer" I've ever seen.

* Joel loves to wrestle his dad.

* Joel gets board when his big brother Luke leaves.....really they do spend about every waking moment together.

* Joel loves to bug the heck out of his big sister Chloe. 

* Joel loves to boss his little brother Zach around, but he is also a big help with him, and he also really encourages him.

* Joel loves to love and take care of Eva....and she loves him too and hugs him a lot. 

* Joel is a super-smart kid. If you can get him to focus, (which he can do), he can do math that's usually 3 grades above him, and the crazy things is, he can do lots of it in his head. 

* Things that are tough for him are writing letters and numbers the right direction, and as I mentioned before...putting his clothes on the right way. They are often inside-out and backwards. 

* He loves to talk about gross, shock-value things, like owning a "Gross Buffet" with boogers, snot and worms. 

I know God has great plans for this guy! 

--Katie

Summer company and concerts

It's Sept 1st! The summer is coming to an end. 

Here are a few more pics to remember all the highlights. 

Vacation bible school 

Eva loving Joel....and she does and says it often. So sweet. 

Our good buddy Jake came for a visit. He joined the crazy crew for an epic raft trip, and a windmill tour. Wish he lived closer! We had a great time :)

The Neriems came for a visit too. 

Here is Brooke about to bat her birthday pinata. 

Pinata = candy. ...which makes some children crazy. 

Greg helping Eva take a swing.

Chloe trying to break it open. 

Zach batting part of the leg off. 

and Greg....who found the ultimate prize. A Lil' Chub packaged weenie. Blek!

Ethan, who actually did break the pinata. 

and then mastered creating hats out of the pinata legs. 

Double fistin' it. 

Possible candy hoarding problem? I think yes!

Picture during the candy high.

The next morning was Brooke's birthday. The kids were entertained for an amazing amount of time making a banner and card for her. 

Awww, these two are adorable, and Eva runs around saying, "Acheriah (Zacheriah), wherw ah u? I wuv u."

The whole crew.

The whole crew un-posed. :)

More summer highlights to come. 

--Katie

My Short use of Instagram

Well the photo talk this summer is Instagram. Everyone LOVES Instagram. Sometimes it seems like every blogger but me has a "follow me on Instagram" option. 

So....I decided to give it a try. 

and...

You can make pretty cool photos. Like this one I took, showing how this summer the boys have started working on Origami.  Is that a little weird, or is that what every 6 and 8 yr old boy does first thing on a summer morning? lol

But all together, 

I'm unimpressed. It's so hard to get clear movement shots! I might as well not bother and just use my regular phone camera.....which is also way too slow. 

Eva as Dinohead. 

Really though, I just need an Iphone. From what I've seen, their camera is MUCH FASTER. 

....and if I had one, maybe I could get clear shots of this.

Who needs toys right? 

This is the only picture I have of our outdoor movie theater. 

I threw a huge fit about John buying it, but I'm actually pretty in love with it. 

Nothing like watching a movie in the backyard during the summer!

The Munchkins.  

This was our epic bike trip on the Hiawatha trail with Aunt Suz, Grandpa Bob, Kelli Ann, her daughter and all of us......except for Luke and Grandma Genie, who stayed behind because Luke had hurt his eye playing fuse ball at church that Sunday.....um....random? 

Father's Day Brunch Papa, Nana, Brady, Carinn and Jason

Love this face in the morning.

Racheal and Kiddos came to town. B-day party for Josh. 

The kids have also been really into snakes this summer. They are kind of cool, and we find a lot of them by our yard. 

So there's my Instagram recap for the summer. I'm assuming you won't have one for the fall, unless I get an Iphone some how, which really isn't happening. 

Can't believe we're in the middle of Aug!

--Katie

13th Anniversary!

Wow, am I really blogging on here two times in one week?! Good for me! I have some pics I really like from our anniversary date. I put them on Creatively Living...which means I hook them up to FB, and twitter, and Google + and other places, then I put them on my FB page because I liked them, and wanted to share them with friends/family, and now I'm putting them on another spot! I sort of feel like I'm plastering myself all over the internet. Don't really love that, but oh well.

So anyways, wow was Walla Walla fun this year! This is the 3rd time we've gone there for our anniversary. This time, mom and dad took ALL the kids overnight! We had a great time, ate way too much good food, camped and rode our bikes around the town, checking out all the huge turn-of-the-century houses! It was really, really a great time!

Here are some pics mom took. She edited a couple of them. I just love them. Probably because John and I only have our pictures taken by a kid, or my mom twice a year. lol

This one is by far my favorite. Mom edited it and I really like the coloring....and the pose. 

 I'm going to have to get the better quality copies of this one, since I can't seem to make this "unfuzzy" if it's larger than this size. 

...and one more edited one. 

--Katie

Goldsworthy Farm Trip 7/2012

Oh wow, I'm actually posting to my family blog. It's been sooo neglected!

This weekend we headed  up to our old stoppin' grounds. We hit WSU first. I don't think I've been there in 8 yrs! John possibly even longer. It was fun to peak in some windows, ask to walk through the ROCK, and tell this kids millions of stories of "firsts" and "I used to's".  

Then it was up to the farm. There were baby kitties, a bunch of old balloons, chalk and bubbles. The kids were entertained and the sunlight was perfect for pictures. 

Eva LOVED the kitties. Those kitties were pretty tolerant!

Like I said, the light was just right!

Kitty hunting through the lilies!

Here are the unedited phone pics. When we get on the farm gravel road, John always lets the boys take turns "driving" back. I know John has control of the wheels and petals, but it still gives me a heart attack every time. 

The next day we saw all the great grandparents. The other pictures are on John's phone....hopefully I'll get around to hooking it up and getting them off. 

 Here is a Grandpa Dick picture. 

I love this picture! Chloe screaming while Luke, John and I sing 99 bottles of pop, on the way home! haha

I know I haven't posted much and it's already the very end of July, but the summer has been filled with fun. (besides that 3 weeks where the kids had to live outside and I had to clean like a crazy lady to get the house on the market). We have done quite a bit of traveling (despite the fact it was supposed to be a "Tri-City" summer), and we have a lot of company coming in August. 

Right now we are just starting to learn how to balance the yard and house and keeping it clean while we are trying to sell it. What do you let go and what to tend to everyday....I'm learning, I'm learning. John is working on school most every day and the kids are in VBS this week. I can't believe it's almost time to start gearing up for full-time Fall school!

Tomorrow is our 13th Anniversary! Hopefully I'll be inspired to post pictures!

--Katie