Goodbye for now

For any faithful readers that might be out there...I will be taking a break from blogging indefinately. I am not sure when or if it will start up again.

God Bless,
Bridgett

Look mom, I'm all ready to go!

Cute moment

Rachel and Julia are play cooking and eating this morning. Their menu consists of "Buffaloaf", Rachel just came in and asked if I could make some "Buffaloaf" sometime. I thought it was too funny.

James' 1st soccer practice

So you can pick him out, James is wearing a red shirt and blue shorts.


woohoo we made a goal!!


Go James!

Goal kicking relay

Despite what it may look like, he is not trying to hit that girl

James listening intently

Some cute spectators

Mowing the lawn

James is not quite ready to do it by himself, but Jim is showing him the ropes.

Fall Chore Chart

The kids had a break from their chore charts this summer. They still had to do things around the house but we didn't use a chart. Anyway, this is their new fall chart. I made this template on Excel and every so often I change the colors and content of the chart. I really like it this way because I can customize it to their ages, abilities, and shortcomings. For example...one of Rachel's responsibilities is to "be polite", say hi, don't just put your head down and ignore people, etc... I am sure most of you know that Rachel is extremely shy and we are not sure how to change that. Well it seems to be working already, she has been talking to people for the last few days. James on the other hand has trouble concentrating at school and doing his work. When he brings homework home it always seems like a battle to get him to concentrate. Therefore, one of his responsibilities is to get all of his work done at school. I am really hoping that this will motivate him. The chart is broken up into chores, bible memory verses and responsibilities that go along with them, and commission (what they earn according to what they have done for the week). I have the chart laminated and put magnetic strips on the back to hang it on the fridge. A dry erase marker with a magnet on the back is hung next to it and the kids just mark off the chores when they are done.

Rachel's 1st day of school

She looks sooo happy to be at school.

At least Julia is excited to be there.

I am doing one day of kindergarten per week with Rachel. She is a little young at 4 1/2, but I wanted to get her used to the school system since she is so shy. She is academically ready for kindergarten because she can write her letters and is starting to read. We will be going through the year very casually without pushing.

First day of school and rambling...

Third Grade!!!

On a different note...this is a baby bunny that was sitting on our steps. The kids got to pet him because he was too scared to run.

Then on another entirely different note...Yesterday developed into a hard day. I was in a terrible mood because of it and eventually ended up writing about it on facebook. Sometimes I do that in order to "see myself" and hopefully correct whatever needs correcting. Most of the time it really helps. Anyway, my evening did get better. We had a nice fire in our backyard firepit and sat around roasting marshmallows, it was fun.

Six Flags

We had a fun, very hot day at six flags this weekend. Kaleb, Renee, and their two boys went with us.

James trying to make it spin faster

The other four adults went on a rollercoaster so I took the five kids on a train ride.

Oh so tired! Makes a nice nose rest.

Me in the Alice in Wonderland tree.

My manly man, he made it to the top of the wall!

Rachel loved the rides the faster the better.

Julia's self-haircut and more...

She took a whole clump in the front and cut it off. Yesterday I saw the scissors, planned to put them away, then totally forgot about them.


Rachel wrote this for me. She loves to write and is starting to read.

James and his goofy lips pop.

Baby Boy Cauley

Profile Pic

We have a couple of other pics, but they are not very clear. I also thought it would be a bit crude to show the one comfirming that he is a boy. During the ultrasound while going around his bottom area, I saw right away that he was a boy. We asked the technician before hand to let us guess before telling us the gender. It was really kind of cool.

So anyway, James is excited about having a brother. Rachel had said that she wanted it to be a girl. I wasn't really worried about disappointing her because I thought she was too young to really care. She was in a really bad mood all of yesterday. First thing in the morning she said that she did not want the baby to be a boy. After that she was walking around the house with a pencil. Then I noticed that she had written X's all around the house. On the wall, refridgerator, stove, counter, etc. When I asked her why she did that, she said, "because I don't like the baby." I guess she was disappointed after all.

Look mom I did my own hair

We were getting ready to go for a walk and Julia decided to do her own hair. She put water on it and combed it down.

My sweet guy!

I guess he felt bad that I have to travel back and forth to Burlington and only have FM radio to listen to. He surprised me with this gift today. It's a portable XM radio that I can use in the van or wherever. What a great surprise, I will surely enjoy it!

James' self portraits

I like this one because it shows his cute freckles. (he hates them)

Don't come in mommy!

When I came up from doing laundry, I discovered Julia in James' room with the door closed. When I started to open the door she said, "don't come in mommy." She had dumped all of the toys out of the bins.

A rare moment

A rare moment because they are all...

content
getting along
not making a mess
being quiet
not asking a million questions
not getting into trouble
etc...

Now don't get me wrong. I love my kids and they are not horrible or anything. It's just rare to find all three of them like this at the same time.




Ok so I found them like that again today. Wow, must be some kind of record. Love 'em!

My Julia

Silly kids

All three of the kids were being silly, but the video only shows Rachel.

Rescued turtle

This turtle was crawling across a busy road last saturday. Thankfully Jim was able to rescue him. He had some scrapes on his belly, but seemed to be ok. We took him home and put him on our deck so the kids could see him. He was a little shy and didn't want to come out of his shell so I went inside for a few minutes to get something. When I came back he was gone. He had chosen that time to come out of his shell, crawl to the edge of the deck and fall off. He hit the canoe and damaged part of his shell but still seemed to be ok. I didn't know that turtles can hiss, but this one hissed at me when I went to pick it up. I would probably be distressed too with the day he had.

Foot Surgery

Ok so this thursday I went in for a very minor procedure on my foot. I went in thinking that I would be springing back onto my feet the same day or possibly the next day. HA!! Here it is saturday and I am barely getting around. Thursday night my foot was in exruciating pain even with the Tylenol 3 that they gave me. You don't realize just how useful a foot is until you can't use it. James has been so good about helping me around the house when Jim was at work. Anyway, on friday I must have had a bad reaction to the codeine in the Tylenol because I started throwing up and felt like death warmed over. So now it is Saturday and I am feeling much better. WARNING: Don't click on the link below if you can't handle gross pictures. There are a couple of pictures of my foot wounds. But it's like Jordan said, if you say that it's gross everyone will probably click on it.


Picasa Web Albums - Gross foot wound picture - Gross foot wound picture:

Circus

This little girl was like 5 or 6 years old, she was very good.

Their idea of a kids g-rated circus and ours are quite different though so we will not be going back.

Alpine Slide

Dirt Pudding

Presented by....

Question from a 4 year old

Rachel: How did brother Matthew go to heaven after he died?

Me: Ummm

Rachel: Did he go when we buried him?

Me: "Thinking"

I guess I took too long thinking because she got distracted and started playing.

So Cute!!

Julia came upstairs looking tired so I asked her, "are you ready for a nap?" She didn't say anything and just walked out of the room. About 5 minutes later I realized that she was being very quiet so I went and checked on her. This is what I found and I though it was so cute.