Joshua is FIVE years old!

Here are the pictures I promised from the splash pad we went to with our friends the Hamstras! The kids had a blast ~ and the adults too! :) I'm too lazy/busy to do a link right now, but you can check out more pictures of these adorable children at the "Michelle H." link to the right. ;-)



























Dominique and Adeline are five months apart and played so nice together! (Dominique is older.)


























Israel and John Michael are also five months apart and don't really "play together" yet, but they were interested in each other! (John Michael is older.)


















One hot day a few days later, we played in the hose after being inspired by the splash pad above! It was almost just as much fun....


































I took this pic of Israel while I was holding him so that I could make a debut in the photo album! I am usually behind the camera, but I do want my children to remember that they did have a mother all those years!













Another morning at the forest preserve at 8:30 am. We are trying to take in as much nature as we can. We didnt see a whole lot, but we heard a bullfrog and a woodpecker, and also spotted some turtles floating on a log on the lake. And lots of mosquitos, of course!








The children and I have befriended this sweet lady at a local nursing home. We are enjoying spending time getting to know her and I think she enjoys seeing the children and hearing them sing for her when we come! She is 95 years old and sharp as a tack! She was born in Yugoslavia and came to the States in 1925 when she was 14 years old. We have much to learn from her....






I just thought this was funny. I went out one night to get groceries and when I came home this was on the garage wall in front of where I park the car. Joshua had drawn it and put it there to scare me! What a scary face!














Remember those cicada wings from my last post? Well, one of them got eaten! I suppose now I will have to put that in Israel's baby book as his first food! Mmmmm... protein! Here is the rest of it stuck to his face. He is all over the place these days and giving me a time trying to keep up with him and keep the other kids' mess picked up before it gets eaten!













JOSHUA'S BIRTHDAY


Joshua's birthday was last Thursday and since that is the night we have Bible study at our house in Spanish, we decided to have a shorter than usual study and then do a pinata and cake for Joshua.

Here is Fabio with the kids, stuffing the pinata.










Finished stuffed product.











Whacking the pinata.
















Collecting the booty.


















Pin the tail on the donkey.









Blowing out candles.

















Those present.









Then on Saturday, we had a family party for all of the July birthdays: Joshua, Suzy and Dillon.













We grilled chicken and corn-on-the-cob and when Aaron later requested a toothpick, I told him that I was out, but offered him dental floss instead! Here he and Mom are, putting it to good use.










Amanda and baby Moriah.






















The birthday people.












After blowing out candles.













As you may remember from a few posts back, Joshua was pretty sick for a good week. He never had been sick like that before, but he did finally get over it.
However, a couple days later he got a fever again which was really bizarre, so I took him back to the doctor again, and they said he looked perfectly healthy! (The fever was gone by the time I got him to the doc the next morning.) But... he kept getting fevers at night for the next couple nights, but would be fine by the next morning and all day. Friday I called the doc again to see if he wanted to do bloodwork, and he ordered extensive testing. I am presently sitting on pins and needles waiting for them to call me anytime now with the results. Anyway, he didnt enjoy either of his parties as much as he might have, because both times he got a fever and petered out, even though he tried hard to act like he was doing fine. This picture was toward the end of the party. He had just been asking if we could play pin-the-tail-on-the donkey, but then when I went in to see if he was ready, he said, "No, I just want Grandpa Howard to read me a book." So, Grandpa Howard did!





And one last pic for today. This morning I heard a LOUD chirping outside my window and saw this baby robin on the ground. I though it was hurt or something, so I grabbed the kids and took them out to see. When we got within about a foot of it, however, it flew a little ways with great effort. I saw the mama and daddy robin nearby and figured out that this must have been the day the babies got pushed out of the nest to learn to fly! It was fun for the kids to see, since we could get pretty close to it before it would fly a short distance away. We talked about how little the egg was that we found in the last post, and how much this little guy had grown up now to be able to fly away on his own! It was a neat science class!