OH POPPY!

Grandma and Poppy are back in town, and, as always, Poppy is messing around with us. The subject lately is electronics. Boy oh boy! He is always asking "How do you know so much"(the fact is, I'm only guessing). Every time I stop in to see them, Poppy is always ready with a question about his new tablet. I don't mind much, except for when he teases me if I don't know the answer.

 It is also fun listening to all their travel tales, and each of them calling each other names like Princess, Old Man, The Woman and others. Anyways, I've had fun and will miss them when they leave.  

By Ellie

FRESH NEW START

 Hi! Ellie here. I've taken over my moms blog. And I thought I'd start off with the latest from our family (and all our odd perks).
Mom:
         Our cook, driver, guardian, housekeeper, referee, and, of course , mother.
Dad:
        He's the regular dad, joker, torture machine, Disney Dad, hummer specialist. And the
      supporter of the family.
Emma:
            15 going on 16, the oldest and busiest kid (I mean teen)in the family. Is now in the
           the highest level at the ballet school. 
Erik:
        The 14-year-old 7th grader,GOES to school at TLCA (the first one in his grade to make the
       8th grade B-ball team).
Me:
      12 years old, and almost as tall as Emma. I'm in many things now, 6th grade, ballet (three days
     week), physical therapy, flute, and homschool choir.
Everson:
              9 and proud of it. Now complete with a pet lizard named "Toothless"(from the movie HOW
            TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON". Is a average little boy.
Elisha:
           5, and as silly as ever. A part time kindergartner, KIPPER fan, and little squirrel (others very)
Egan:
         The one and only Chawalla Nubster. 1 Adorable year old.
That's the gang (for now)..

Our musicians

Our annual Homeschool Band and Choir concert was a few weeks ago.  Erik first picked up a sax just 9 months ago.  He wowed us with this version of Carnival of Venice. Ellie played Theme from New World Symphony.  We're so proud of the progress they made since they began last August!  ?Emma had a beautiful french horn solo that she had been working on.  But getting braces this spring really messed things up.  She quickly reverted to almost beginner status.  I'll spare you the details on the condition of her mouth after trying to play her horn.  We pulled her solo, but she made a valiant effort to play a few pieces with the band.

Ellie's Photography

No doubt Ellie has an eye for photography.  We all defer to Ellie for taking pictures.  Emma has already secured Ellie's services for her wedding...whenever that day comes.  We're encouraging Ellie to hone her natural ability...could be a great job as she gets older.

This is a picture of our red wagon with dirt and water in it.  Ellie had Everson lift and drop one end of the wagon, so she could get a picture of the water movement.  I think it's so creative.

Wouldn't this make a cute greeting card?

This is a self portrait taken at the Mutton Bustin Rodeo last fall.  Those are stick horses next to Ellie.

Ellie takes lots and lots of self portraits at all kinds of funky angles.

We don't often have such heavy cloud cover, it's a great contrast with Ellie's green shirt.

A pretty exciting week...
Someone learned how to sit up

And someone joined the metal mouth club...

The cool thing about Emma's braces is that the top braces are white, while the bottom are silver.  Makes for a less shiny smile under the ballet stage lights.  18 or so months to go for Emma...and Erik and Ellie are going to be joining her in the not too distant future...we could have 3 in braces!  We're learning all the soft foods that Emma can eat, so that when the time comes, we'll know what to feed Erik and Ellie.

An interesting night...A long, but seemingly short night
A night in which I interacted with 4 of my 6 children
All between the hours of 1 am and 6 am...

I stayed up late so that I could take Emma and her best friend, Micaela to the midnight premiere of The Hunger Games.  They were meeting up with several friends from ballet (and way-cooler-than-me moms).

1:00 am, Egan teething for 2 weeks woke me again...
2:47 am, Emma woke me me to tell me she was home and the movie was great
3:30 am, Egan woke again
4:00 am, Elisha woke to say he had an accident and could he sleep with me
4:30 am, Ellie woke me to say that she had thrown up
6:00 am, Egan woke, again

Erik and Everson win the award for not waking me!

I love my life and my kiddos.  But I also love my sleep ;-)

Since I hold on for dear life just about every day, I haven't had time to update the blog. 

Here's some pictures of my 6 lovelies, courtesy of family photographer Ellie and her new camera.

Egan is 6 months old!  

It's hard to remember life before Egan (but I DO remember the swollen feet).  He's a happy, content little guy who loves the life that happens around him.  In our household, there's a LOT of life being lived every moment of every day!  Each of the 5 older siblings have special things they do with and for Egan and it's fun to watch them dote on him.  He's started to eat solids and roll over (when he is down on the floor long enough).  We're working on sitting up.  The only problem with sitting alone is that Egan likes to rock when sitting and no one wants him to hit his little head on the floor by rocking back.  Here's some pictures of our sweet little guy.