Another Comparing Game

I still constantly hear that all of my children are identical - like twins that were born 2 years apart! People tell me things like: You better write names on your pictures, or you won't be able to tell who is who! While I do see the family resemblance, I don't think they look that identical! So... what do you think? Here is a smattering of "older" baby pics of all four of them. I think you should be able to do better with this one than the newborn baby game!


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Johann is now 10 months old!

Before I begin this post, we are still looking for visitors to Joshua's Rock Museum! (See post below!)

Soooo..... Johann is 10 months old now! I can't believe how fast he is growing up! Where did that time go??

I weighed and measured him this morning, and he is 30" long/tall, and weighs right at 20 lbs .... a 1/2 pound less than last month! Probably because he is so active these days - crawling quickly wherever he pleases, pulling up to furniture and walking around it, etc.

It's not because he is not eating! He is loving to eat whenever I will feed him, and he is still nursing constantly as well.

He is usually stuck to me like super glue and has a fit if I leave the room, but as long as Mama is close by, he is a very happy baby with a sweet disposition. It is fun for me to see the older children enjoying him so much, laughing with me at his antics, and playing with him and entertaining him for me. Joshua's job is to get him out of his crib after naps and bring him to me, which is such a big help! And all of the children are enjoying this phase he is in now of imitating their faces and the noises they make. Johann has truly added so much joy to our family!

Here are some pictures I took of him the other week:

Joshua's Rock, Mineral & Fossil Museum

Joshua has a newly-opened

Rock, Mineral and Fossil Museum!

We would like to invite you all to visit us soon!

According to Joshua, the museum's real perks are:

*Lower admission than your average museum, at only $0.25 per person, and children four and under are FREE!

*At this museum, you may handle the objects; touching, feeling, and picking them up is encouraged, as opposed to most museums in which handling is forbidden.

PLEASE CALL OR EMAIL FOR YOUR APPOINTMENT TODAY!!!
(Or leave a comment on this post.)


Mom's Note:

Joshua is hoping for enough revenue from this museum to employ Dominique for $1 a day! She is pretty excited about this prospect, and is planning to buy *dresses* with all the money she hopes to make! In fact, she told me the other day that she hopes to make SO much money that she will be able to buy enough dresses to open a dress museum soon!!! Stay tuned!!!



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Last Stop on the Home Stretch - Indiana

On our way back to IL, we stopped in IN to visit my friend Tina and her family.
Tina and I go WAY back, as witnessed by these photos. ;-)
















And as witnessed by the following photo, we have both been busy over the past few years - we now have TEN children between the two of us, all ages six and under - and eight of them are boys! So, as you can imagine, it was a wild and exciting time for us to get our families together. We all enjoyed it *thoroughly*!








The big highlight for the boys was playing in the mud! They all especially enjoyed this amazing game of getting the bike's training wheels stuck in the puddle and spinning out to splash mud on all those around! Other boys would contribute mud piles to the back tire for further distribution. It just doesn't get any better than this!

Of course, the girls were in the house in the meantime, playing dress-up. :)

We can't wait to get together again!

Afternoon in Philadelphia - part 5

On the way headed back west, we stopped at Philadelphia for the afternoon. It was so neat to see Independence Hall, the old capitol building, and the Liberty Bell, mainly. We walked around a bit and saw a few other things from the outside, like these statues. :)

Afterwards, we drove most of the way across Pennsylvania and got a hotel with a pool. This was one of the kids' favorite parts of the trip, I'm sure! The "funny" thing is that we arrived at about 10pm at the hotel ... and found out that while the pool was open until midnight, it only opened at noon the following morning, long after we would have been on the road. So, it was now or never! I felt crazy swimming until midnight with four small children, but they had a blast - even Johann! It was his first time in a pool, but he was not at all hesitant about the experience as Israel was (until about 3-4 months ago!!). Fun to see their personalities emerge.

On to New York City - trip part four

We spent one day in NYC and I'm glad we did, although we honestly didn't see too much.

We parked on the New Jersey side and then caught a ferry to Ellis Island. They have a nice Immigration Museum there now which was quite interesting. We looked around for about a half an hour and then waited in line for the ferry. Again.

We then rode over to Liberty Island and walked around the Statue of Liberty, taking picture and recording the moment on internal memory as well. We opted not to wait in line to go in, however. Instead, we went back to wait in line for a ferry. Again.

This ferry took FOREVER to arrive and actually get us anywhere - and we had to stop back at Ellis Island before going to Manhattan. When we arrived in Manhattan, it was about 5:30 pm, and we discovered upon arrival that the last ferry back to New Jersey had departed about 4:30! Oops! They did tell us, however, that there was a privately owned ferry further up that ran until about 8pm. Whew! At least we had time to walk around a bit and see Ground Zero.

So, we did. We first went to Ground Zero. Im glad we went, but there is nothing to see. Looks like a construction site with a few cranes in it, all blocked off by construction fencing. Scroll down to see the pictures.

After that, we walked around a bit more, found some nice buildings and parks which I didn't learn the names of yet, and then decided that we ought to head towards our ferry, since missing the boat to New Jersey that day would have been a nightmare we didn't feel adventurous enough for...

We asked several cops and other pedesterians about the exact location of the ferry called "The Little Lady", but NO ONE had ever heard of it! So, we kept hoofin' it in the direction I had been pointed to when we first got off our ferry, hoping we had gotten good information the first time. We were dragging crabby kids unhappily along by this point and didn't want to take the time to stop and rest or eat because we were afraid the ferry might not actually run until 8pm, if it even existed!

Well, we did finally find it, and it did take us to New Jersey. We did not have to experience a homeless night in Manhattan with four small children, thankfully! We got to the ferry a little after 7pm, and it did truly run until 8:45pm, so we would have had a bit more time to walk around and see stuff, but by then we were pooped, so we just went back to the car.

That night we drove down the New Jersey coast and got a hotel - first one that trip - and the next day we went to the beach. Unfortunately, it was the only *freezing* day of our trip, so we barely stayed long enough to take pictures and then hurried back into the shelter of the car before getting blown away!!! At least we saw the ocean, though. Even that was therapeutic for my beach boy husband. ;-)

Sorry all the pics are out of order. If I tried to rearrange them all nicely, I would never blog this trip!