It has been a hard week in our household. Last Tuesday, one of Jared's friends drowned in a tragic accident. His friend was 8 years old...and he and Jared were in Cub Scouts together, along with daycare and in the same 2nd grade class. If you are the praying type, please pray for Hunter's family as they continue to struggle with their loss.



On a less serious note, here are some recent pictures for you to enjoy....

Meghan wants to be a ballerina when she grows up:

(it might help if we enrolled her in some dance classes, huh?!?!)

Jared modeling some of his Pokemon figures:

(Why??? I don't know)

Who needs toys when you have cherry kool-aid?!?!

Isn't this sweet?

Caleb still loves the camera!

Searching for the Pot of Gold

Meghan's daycare had a "find the leprechaun" contest last week. Each day, the teacher hid a leprechaun, and the person who found it received a pot of gold. Meghan was fortunate enough to find the leprechaun one day. When she brought it home, Mariah (naturally) was very interested in all of the shiny coins. But, can you say CHOKING HAZARD?!?! We had Meghan put them in a drawer, out of Mariah's reach - or so we thought.

Here goes Mariah!

SUCCESS!

McDonalds Should Love This

It's a new kind of torture! Keith has taught the kids the commercial for McDonald's that has that fish hanging on the wall, saying, "Give me back that Filet-o-Fish". If you've seen the commercial, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

Note - Meghan isn't feeling well, so she's kinda hard to hear.

Oh, and make sure to PAUSE the music on the sidebar, so you can hear this.

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

">

This, That, and Bathtime

We recently took Mariah in for her 1-year pictures. I only scanned a couple of them, but I must say, I was very impressed with how they turned out. Isn't she cute?!?!?

Here is what I discovered on the couch when I woke up this morning...

Last night was bathnight. We find it's much easier to put the three youngest in the bath together...scrub them down, and then let Meghan and Caleb play while we get Mariah dried off and dressed. Keith took some great shots, didn't he?

CHEESE!

Meghan has started this annoying habit of making silly faces everytime we take her picture. Ugh...

Mariah likes to "drink" out of the rinsing cup.

(I promise, she doesn't actually drink the bathwater!)

Monday morning update

Things are definitely back to - um......uh......dare I say....NORMAL - in our house, or at least, back to the way they usually are. Knock on wood, but everyone is currently healthy for the first time in memory!

We have some more pictures of the latest pasttime in our house...couch-jumping. The kids line a bunch of toys on the couch, then jump until they all fly off. I don't quite understand it, but the kids think it's great!

This was coincidental, but look how they are all lined by age:

Mariah is feeling better and roaming about on her "bike." She doesn't quite have the knack of forwards vs. backwards yet!

The kids did some reading over the weekend. Caleb "reads" his favorite book (A Mother for Choco) all the time...he says "Mommy mommy mommy" on each page. It's cute!

I thought this was cool - look how their heads are at the exact same angle:

Okay, so Mariah is probably chewing more than reading, but it's a start!



Meghan still loves the camera:

"Okay, enough of the pictures!"

Newsvideo for you to watch

I um - borrowed this link from a person on Facebook, who lives in Sayaxche, where Caleb was born. Pretty amazing stuff:

http://www.wthr.com/global/video/flash/popupplayer.asp?ClipID1=3512757&h1=Croc+attack+survivor&vt1=v&at1=News&d1=145667&LaunchPageAdTag=News&activePane=info&rnd=48931867


Kris

PS Mariah is starting to get better. HOORAY!!!!!

Influenza B and 2 Lessons Learned

We have had a couple of rough days here, and it appears we have more to look forward to. Mariah has been very sick since Saturday. I took her to the doctor today (I called the Ask-a-Nurse twice as well...they said to wait it out...grrr) and it turns out that Mariah has influenza b. What does this mean? It means she is miserable! She can't stay awake more than an hour at a time...then she needs another nap. During the time she is awake, she is lying on the floor most of time. It is gut-wrenching, to say the least.

.

As our post title mentions, we have learned two things...please take note because we think they're important:

1. GET THE FLU SHOT! This got missed this year, and now Mariah is paying the price. The rest of us are now taking anti-viral medicine in hope that we don't catch it, as well.

2. CHECK THE EXPIRATION DATE ON YOUR PRESCRIPTIONS! Would you believe that some of the medicine we received from the pharmacy today was expired? And you know, I think this is the first time I've ever even thought to check the expiration date...

.

Even when she's sick, Mariah has a fan club:

.

What a goof!