Summer Time, Family Time

Just a quick post of mostly pics since I dont have much time! I wanted to get them up though, because we've been having so much fun! I don't have pics of all of the fun we've been having, but here is a sample~!















We found out a nearby place has family swim on Fri nites and kids under 5 are free! The kids had a blast! It was Israel's first time to really get in the water and he took it all in stride.










The children are participating this year in the reading program at our local library and it is neat! I didn't even know it existed until this year, but I'm glad we are doing it. They turn in a list each week of the books we've read and get a prize. Last week they got free tickets to DuPage Children's Museum, which I also did not know existed! But since Saturday was rainy and we couldn't do much else, we went up there and had a wonderful time! It is fun for adults too! Here are some quick flashes of our time there:


(sorry I dont have time to explain or caption each one! :)































































































































































































































































On the way home, we stopped by the house of some friends who live near the museum. We are never out that way, so we decided to try and see if they were free, and it was great to see them! I think it had been about a year and a half! But, as is the case with good friends, we picked up right where we had left off last time. :)

Bye-bye fingers!

Here is a very characteristic picture of Dominique. Anyone who has seen her from about two months of age on has surely seen her like this, with her two middle fingers of her right hand in her mouth!

(December 2006)

I went into the archives a bit and found a few other finger-sucking pictures.

Here she is sucking her fingers in April of 2006.

Sucking her fingers with Daddy. And Uncle Scott and Gabriel. (April 2006)

Sucking her fingers with Mommy.

(Oct 2006)

Sucking her fingers in

Mexico with Grandpa.

(Oct 2006)

Sucking her fingers at the zoo with Joshua.

(Oct 2006)

Sucking her fingers in Brazil with Henrique and Israel.

(April 2007)

Sucking her fingers in the ergo.

(April 2007)

Well, I had begun to think about how to break her of this habit, but hadn't really tackled it yet. I actually thought it was kind of cute. But I also have a friend who sucked the very same two fingers.... until she was 11, and I thought that at age 11 it might not be so cute! ;)

Well, the problem worked itself out without any help from me! Poor Dominique got one of her "sucking fingers" smashed about a week and a half ago, and hasn't sucked on them since! Now, while I wouldn't recommend this approach for any of you out there struggling with thumb or finger suckers, it will be nice if this breaks the addiction for Dominique once and for all. As long as she had to smash a finger, I'm glad it happened to be this one! The nail got half yanked off in the smashing process, so now at 1.5 wks later, it is still sore and dangling, so it will be a while before it is back to normal. I will keep you posted, but I have a strong feeling that by the time her finger heals up, she will have successfully kicked the habit and won't go back to it. Here's hoping!

New Family Members

Meet Rabby Cenora Tsukayama! Yes, we are now a family of six, since last week when someone gifted us with this adorable little rabbit~ our very first family pet! The kids love him, and I kinda like him too. He is the perfect house animal: he doesn't stink, he doesn't make noise and is very low maintenence. He does fine out of his cage and looks so cute when he hops, as long as I can keep him in the kitchen. Otherwise, he likes to hide under beds and in the shoe closet and so the only thing I dont enjoy about having him so far is having to chase him out of places like that.... But again, as long as I keep him contained in the kitchen, we are fine. :)


And a few weeks ago, my mother got married to Jack VanDyke. They got married at the courthouse, and then the following day had a dinner with their children. They seem to be doing well and enjoying life together.
Congratulations!














And finally, my cousin Brian got married on June 2nd to Shasta!
The wedding was beautiful and they seem very happy to be together.
We wish you the best!

















At the wedding, there were fourteen great-grandchildren present! Here they are, with a great-grandparent on each end. I only made it into the picture because Dominique had just been rudely awakened from a nap of fifteen minutes and was not up to sitting on the steps by herself to take the picture!

Great Grandma Nita and Dominique. She really is a GREAT grandma! We love you!

















My kids being.... normal kids!












Trading fingers. :) Those of you who have been around Dominique at all since she was born will know that she has always sucked the same two middle fingers of her right hand. Here she is lending them to Joshua. ;-)
More about those fingers in my next post!







And lastly, a couple of Iraqui's my brother adopted and brought home. :)

I know I havent posted in a while, and Im not going to promise anything, but I still have much to post if I can get around to it! Until then.......

Time Outside and Kids Growing Up!

Well, so much for the posting binge I was planning on doing! I guess we are just so busy living life that I don't have much time to post about it!

Now that the weather has been so nice lately, we have been spending a lot of time outside! We have been doing some major overhaul work in the gardens, getting rid of ground cover and such in order to put some veggies in. Here is Fabio working in the back garden, getting it ready to plant. And then Joshua planting the beans. And Dominique getting in on the action too.










































We also got two bird feeders up so far and one bird house. We are gearing up for a unit study on birds that I am planning for this fall! So far, we have had a lot of woodpeckers on the suet feeder and we have some birds building a nest in the nesting box. :) The kids have been enjoying watching them from the sliding glass door.













And I *finally* got a clothesline hung up! Now one of Joshua's favorite "chores" is to help me hang up the clothes. I love hanging clothes out! They smell so nice and fresh! Dominique enjoys helping too. Her job is usually to hand Joshua and I one item of clothing and one clothespin.









And on the front of the house Fabio has been busy too! I forgot to take a "before" pic of the jungle we had here previously, but it looks SO much better! The other side of the walk gives you some idea of the overgrowth. That bed is done now too, though! Yay! Now we plan to mulch and put down a *couple* of little plants/flowers here. No more ground cover!







And speaking of my kiddos growing up, we moved the bunk beds into their room a couple weeks ago! Joshua was still in a toddler bed, and Dominique was still in a crib, but no more! Now they are BIG kids in bunk beds! They LOVE the new arrangement and I like it too. I have to admit that I got a little teary-eyed the first night we put them to bed here! They are growing up! And do you believe that they were ASKING to go to bed the first few nights??? Now, getting them to go to SLEEP was another matter, but at least they wanted to go to bed!



Here they are, all excited about their new piggy bank! Joshua has been wanting one for a long time, and I told him we would look for one at a garage sale. Well, he started praying that we would find one, and we did! You should have seen Joshua's excitement ~ he kept saying, "Gloria Deus!" (Glory to God!) It is neat to see a child's excitement when God answers prayer. We should all get that excited and give the credit to God when He answers our prayers, even the simple ones!

Another night before bed. They are getting to be such good friends! The other day we were talking about the story of David and Jonathon and I asked Joshua who his best friend was and he said without a moment's hesitation: Dominique!
Then a few days ago, Dominique woke up from her nap before Joshua. She ran down to the basement calling for him, so I informed her that he was still sleeping. She got a little pouty face and said, "Eu quero Joshua!" (I want Joshua!) They love to play together and some recent favorites are hind-and-seek, peek-a-boo with Israel and dolls. Yes, Joshua likes to play dolls with her, but she also likes to play cars and army guys with him. Yes, they still bicker (daily), but I am enjoying seeing them grow as friends and pray that their friendship will continue for life!

And as Israel grows I hope he too will become good friends with his siblings! They both love him to death, and it is obvious that it is mutual. He thinks there is nothing in the world more amusing than watching them play and run, and Im sure he will be playing and running with them in no time! Here Joshua is carrying Israel on his back in the ergo carrier. I definitely wouldn't let him carry him this way for longer than five minutes, but it was cute for the pic and they both thought it was great fun!

Well, I think I am going to give up on back-posting, and at least try to stay some-what current anyway. So, more when I have time!