Our
Fourth
of
July



Well, as I mentioned, our 4th of July was festivity-free this year due to Joshua recovering from a lingering fever.
It was not all bad, though, and we got to enjoy some quiet family time here at home. Here's the synopsis:

Israel is getting used to crawling in the grass. He cried the first time or two and didn't like the feeling of it, but now he is fine and even seems to rather enjoy it! He especially likes getting handfuls of grass and then mouthfuls! ;-)











Family Dinner on the Grill. Yum!











You can tell how perky Joshua wasn't feeling, even though he no longer had a fever finally. He was just puny still....












He did cheer up later, though, when Fabio got the hammock out! He kept making goofy faces to make Dominique laugh, and it worked!






















































And remember those seeds we planted a few posts back? Here is the progress report! Unfortunately, the cucumbers and beans never did come up. I think maybe a bird got to the seeds? I was already pushing it with planting time, so I decided it was a little too late to re-plant. We will try for those again next year. ;) The other plants are doing well, though! Yay! It is so exciting to watch things grow! The kids are enjoying it too. What a great science project!






Yellow squash.











Peppers.














My first tomato!









We let the kids stay up late because we were hoping to catch some fireworks from the parking lot, but unfortunately the numerous trees were blocking our view from both of the closest towns' displays.... We still got to see some, though, and I think the kids were plenty satisfied with that! We also had fun collecting lightning bugs ~ for the first time, I think. Definitely the first time for Dominique. It is so fun to discover things like lightning bugs all over again through the eyes of a child. What wonder!


Well, between Joshua being sick and then a holiday in the middle of the week, I feel like Im just getting started on my week now, and it's already over! I did take a bunch of cute pics today too, though, but I decided to post them separately one day soon so as not to overwhelm you. :-)

Sickie, Owie, and Active

Those words could describe my three children in this post!
First, here is Joshua, the "sickie". He came down with a fever on Friday evening and is just NOW getting over it! He has never had a fever for more than 24 hours before, so by Monday I was worried and took him to our doctor. Thankfully, he seems to be fine, but was just having a hard time fighting off some kind of GI infection.
Today he is finally coming back to life a bit, although still a bit weak after being down for so long. So, our 4th of July will be a quiet one this year. :)




And then just an update on Dominique's owie!
The fingernail finally came off, and after three and a half weeks, it is *still* sensitive. The good news is that she is still not sucking on it, so I think at this point it is safe to think that that stage of her babyhood is happily behind us! :)







And here is "Active"! I probably took at least 15 shots to get this picture and it still isn't very clear! Unfortunately, our camera doesn't do very well with action shots, and he is in constant motion! He is 6.5 months old now and officially crawling and starting to get into everything. The fun begins... again! :)







This is one of the things he is always trying to get into... literally, the bunny's cage! LOL. He is SO intrigued by Rabby he can hardly contain himself when he sees the bunny and goes after him for a fistfull of that soft fur! Funny thing is, Rabby doesn't seem to mind a bit and actually comes close to Israel for some loving, whereas he sometimes avoids the other two who can be a bit overbearing with their well-intentioned affection.....


So, just a quick update from our corner of the world! Until next time!

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.......