9 Months Old!!

Well, three-fourths of a year have already flown by since the birth of this little blessing, Israel Lincoln Tsukayama.

He is pretty laid back and easy going ~ such a joy to have around!

He has been crawling for a few months now, but doesn't seem to be in a huge hurry to walk. He does walk around furniture and occasionally lets go, so it may not be too much longer. I'm not in a big hurry, but he has a whole world to explore and a big brother and sister to keep up with, so why wait?!

Here are some pics that really capture his personality:











































































He has just been introduced to the world of food! He was totally uninterested until just 2-3 weeks ago, but now he definitely likes to eat. His diet consists of spirulina by the spoonful, cod liver oil, kefir grains when I have extras, egg yoke, plain yogurt and occasionally some brown rice, veggies or meats, depending on what we are eating. ;)

This is him after a spirulina treat! He loves the stuff! I wish I could say the same for myself.... Guess you gotta start at this age!











My sweet angel baby face























Find a leaf, pick it up, lift to mouth.


















Insert.












Bleh.




















Try grass next.

Joshua on a 2-wheeler and more...

Our friend Jaime treated his wife and Fabio and I to a dinner here at this beautiful Brazilian restaurant! It was a celebration of both of us ladies' birthdays....

His boss and wife came with us too.

We had a lovely time!


































Last week we went to visit Daddy on the job site. What fun! That is him up there on the roof with the red shirt on.











We got there in time to have lunch together. :)












I just can't seem to stop taking pictures of these kids!






















Joshua really does love posing for pictures these days! LOL














And there he goes!

He can't ride his big bike yet without the training wheels because both of his feet dont touch the ground, but this was the perfect size to learn on. It was my neice Jessica's, which is why it is purple! ;) You should have seen Joshua explaining to the neighbors: "HEY guys! I learned to ride without training wheels! I know this bike looks kinda girlish, but it's okay...." LOL
































One of the girls from our hispanic home group just had her fourth baby last Friday ~ and it was her first boy! So, Monday night I brought her girls over for a few hours to have a backyard cookout with us.

Here are the 2 year olds having a car race and having a blast doing it!






Daisy and Jasmine pushing Dominique and Melany













They were so excited to roast their own hotdogs!



























What an amazing daddy!

First Official Day of School!

Well, on Tuesday September 4, the day after Labor day, we started school "officially". I say "officially", because we have been doing lots of "unofficial" stuff for the last five years, but now it was time to get more organized and consistent.


It was a big day for Joshua, and we celebrated by going to the park afterwards and taking some "first day of school" pictures. :)










My little boy is growing right on up! He started school, learned to tie his shoes, and ride a 2 wheeler bike, all in the same week! More of the bike riding later....











He really got into our little mini photo shoot too!

So, now we have just finished up our second week of school and we are all enjoying it.



















































I am always SO excited when I get a picture of all three of the children looking at the same time, and even ... smiling!!! This was even on the first try!









Joshua and Dominique got a lesson in thinking ahead here!
They thought it would be fun to go down this slide holding hands, since it is joined so nicely.... at the top, that is!










Oops, Joshua got a head start!















Woah! These slides divide at the bottom!! I hadn't noticed that from the top!!













All recovered from the wild slide ride!
Israel's expression here is so typical. I love it!














Dominique, of course, wanted in on the photo shoot fun, too!













She picked the spot and the pose for this pic...


















Linda!






















Israel's first real experience in the swing, and it went quite well.

There is a video of it at the bottom of this post...












Is this a sweet shot or what? I could just eat him up!


















All three of them in the "baby swings".... maybe the only time they will all fit! So time marches on and children grow up.....







Here is the video of Israel swinging. I'm sorry my laughing and baby jabber is so obnoxious! I sound like I was a little too close to the camera, lol. Oh well, he is cute anyway!

Rock Museum

A few weeks ago, I was going through some old papers and I ran across this:


It is from when I was an 8-year-old fossil lover and had arranged my collection into a "museum" in our basement. I then proceeded to charge my family and friends 15 cents a piece to view my treasures. hehe. Well, as Joshua seems to be following right in my footsteps spending hours outside looking for fossils and other cool rock specimens, I decided to show him this sign I made long, long ago and tell him about my museum. Between hearing my story and visiting the Field Museum about the same time, he had all the inspiration he needed!

His was a "Rock Museum" though, rather than "fossil", since not all of his rocks are fossils...

He turned out to be more generous than myself, however, as he decided admission would be free!












One of the first visitors to the museum: Daddy!












He set himself up as the king of the rock museum, right on the table!



















Closer look at his collection















He kindly provided magnifying glasses of several varieties for the visitors.













He also offered detailed explanations of all items of interest.



He invited quite a few friends from church, assuring them that admission was FREE! If you do decide to come, let us know in advance, as the museum is currently "closed", but can be "open" again if we have some notice. :)

More of Our Life from Summer in Pictures

Well, I have just about caught up on posting for the summer, but I had a bunch of misc pictures that I thought I would go ahead and post as well:

Cheyenne and her newest cousin Moriah











Joshua and Cheyenne being sweet!










Drinking the shakes they earned from the library's summer reading program from Steak and Shake











At a friend's pool













Jodi and Michelle - friends from church who are currently in Spain as missionaries with the Monterroso's. They were home for the summer and we got to get some good time together! :)











Mini pool













Celebrating my neice Jessica's birthday. I can't believe how big she is getting! 11 years old already!

















Israel and Moriah. It was incredible difficult to get a picture of them together! They were both looking in opposite ways and moving like crazy the whole time! This was about the best of the many I took. They're still cute though!















Grandpa Howard and Dominique


















My brother Aaron and I. Do you think we look alike?













My other brother Scott is rather well endowed!
















This was a fun sprinkler I found this year. It is inflatable and has an inflatable ring for each pole that you toss through the sprinkles. The kids had a blast with it!








Dominique and Cheyenne in their matching outfits from Grandma Carol. It is cute to see them getting to be friends and playing together now that they are a bit older. I hope they stay good friends as they grow.









They love to play dress up together too!













Joshua and a couple of cicadas






















Dominique's favorite face to make in pictures these days! What a ham!











"When the cat's away, the mice play!" :-)~















Joshua, Dillon and Gabriel in matching shirts from Grandma Carol. It happened by coincidence that we put these on them the same day!

















A Sunday afternoon snooze with the whole family except Israel........












One of Joshua's favorite pictures of himself!





And now I think I am almost caught up with what I was going to post from our fun-filled and hectic summer!