Abby's back to "school" photos

Abby returned to PDO today. She was excited to go to her "school" since the big kids have been going to their school all week. She has a new teacher this year because her old teacher took a full-time job. We are sad to see Ms. Lori leave, but are looking forward to the fresh ideas and attitudes that come with a new teacher.
I took her to meet her new teacher on Monday. Abby had a new mosquito bite on her cheek that made her eye swell almost completely shut. Add to that a split lip and she was such a sight. I'm glad she looked a lot more normal today, although you can still see the bite on her cheek.

Abby received Calyn's old back-pack but was excited that I had her name put on it. We never personalized any of the twins' belongings in hopes that they would be passed down to future siblings. It was fun to have her name put on something for her.

I am loving that both of the girls agreed to wear dresses for their first day of school. If you look closely at Abby's ankle, you can see the stamp she received yesterday at gymnastics. I figured since Zach and Calyn always got to go to gymnastics that it was only fair to let Abby do the same. She did great in her class and paid attention and obeyed much better than 75% of the other kids. It helped that the instructors remembered us and treated her as a favorite. By the end of the class, she was already sitting in the instructor's lap.

I think Abby is by far my greatest challenge. She isn't big enough to be a big kid but also isn't little like Grant. I often expect her behavior to be reasonable like Zach and Calyn even though she is three years younger. Abby likes to push the boundaries with me and even her brothers and sister. She is often very funny and is quite intelligent. She loves to sing and hearing her sing to and about Jesus can bring tears to my eyes. She is such a joy and I am so thankful that I get to be her mom!

They want to go back!!

The title sums up Zach and Calyn's first day of Kindergarten. Both had a fantastic day and are excited to go back tomorrow.

Because I miss my friend...

I have a friend who has been out-of-town for forever (it has actually only been a month but it seems like forever). I took pictures so that she can see some of the changes around the Dallas house. And since most of my readers live far away, maybe everyone will enjoy this update.

I added Grant's nine month picture to the wall that has Abby's nine month picture:

I hung a 16 X 20 canvas print of my favorite picture on the wall close to the tan chair:

The great rain of July 2010 wrecked some havoc at our house. The biggest problem was that our living room flooded. Here is what the carpet looks like now. Servpro is coming Tuesday to replace the carpet pad, re-tuck the carpet, and clean the carpet throughout the house (thanks Tyson!).

Tim is preparing for his sabatical that starts this Fall. He purchased a new desk chair and a bigger monitor for his home office. I am preparing for his sabatical by remaining in denial that he will be underfoot this Fall.

Zach and Calyn picked out these spiffy backpacks to get ready for kindergarten which starts in 30 days (I can't seem to understand why some of my friends are upset or sad that their children are starting school).

In order to prepare the kids for school and to give them a way to earn money, we have been trying to introduce more structure to our days. If they complete every task, they get fifty cents each day. This was last weeks chart. As you can see, we struggled in the area of scripture memory. We failed to learn a new verse, but continued to work on the verse from the previous week. Even Abby knows it now.

Best day of 2010

May 9, 2010 was an exceptional day. Zach and Calyn were baptized. Grant was dedicated. Moms were appreciated. An uncle visited.


We headed to church bright and early. Grant hung out in the church library with Papou before the service. How handsome is he?

We took the twins upstairs to meet their sweet friends and to get instructions from Mr. Bruce. My friend Stephanie had the best caption for this photo. It was "These Belong to Him." Thank you Jesus that they do.

Mr. Bruce said a special prayer and the video can be seen here. We are thankful to Mr. Bruce and Mrs. Rita for this special service. It was the last 930 of the semester and Bruce agreed to spend a significant portion of his time baptizing our kids (6 total) and dedicating our babies (9 total).

All of the kids were baptized and video of the twins can be seen here.
This picture of Calyn shows her joy.

At the end of the service, we were able to dedicate Grant. At our church, babies are presented before the church. Both the families and the congregation are challenged to pray for and help raise the babies in a manner that honors God. As parents, we pledged to teach Grant to love and follow God.

The service was also very special because the band, Pearl Merchant, played several songs that are special to our family. They sang Blessed be the Name, How Can I Keep from Singing, and Shout to the Lord (our wedding song). As I was upstairs and heard Blessed be the Name, I thought to myself that Abby would enjoy it because it is her favorite song. By the time they got to Shout to the Lord, I realized that Tim had had a hand in the music selection. We love Pearl Merchant and were so very thankful and honored.
After the service, we headed to Dion's to celebrate with pizza. Our LifeGroup also came and we got to feed them one last time before the summer break.
The other Williams' family joined us.

Uncle Jeff came all the way from California.

After lunch we headed home to give Nana and Grandma their Mother's Day presents.
Nana with her masterpiece from Calyn.

Grandma with her masterpiece from Zach.

The twins also made me cement hand prints at school. The best part was their cards.

Calyn's card:

Zach's card:

I know that this post is very late. Thank you for allowing me to share about our special day.

Soccer

Zach and Calyn attended soccer camp at Texas Tech earlier this week. They had a good time and were excited to go each day. The new soccer complex is quite amazing. This was our first time to send them (without us close-by) somewhere that was not church-related. It was for 2.5 hours each day. Overall, it was a good experience.

They also had VBS at the church where they use to go to PDO. The VBS was from 6:30 to 8:45 Sunday-Thursday. This is their third year to attend and they love it every year. The church also serves dinner at 6, so it is nice for the mommas too.

Add in a couple of baseball practices and one Upward soccer evaluation, and we have two very tired children.

Last but not least

I have been lost under a pile of work. Since the middle of May, my part-time job has consumed almost all of my free time. I finished my latest and largest to this date, assignment last Friday. Since Saturday, I have been trying to catch up on all the time-consuming tasks that had been put off. I still have to finish a baby shower present, but otherwise I am pretty much caught up. Now I can get back to blogging. I am actually quite a bit behind on blogging. But to get started, I will tell you a funny story.

Last week, I was changing the sheets on my bed. Zach was taking a shower in the upstairs bathroom. All of the sudden he starts shrieking. I hurry to the shower and pull back the shower curtain. He is covered in blood. It is pouring from his mouth and is covering his body. He is so upset that he cannot tell me what happened. I get him cleaned up and Tim calms him down. All the blood was coming from a cut on his lip. We question him repeatedly, he won't tell us what happened. I am thinking that he is just traumatized from the accident. About an hour later Tim overhears him telling Calyn that he was trying to shave with my razor! He is the last of my kids that I would expect to do something like that. Hopefully he learned his lesson.

Have you checked the children lately?

Someone around here has become quite the little mommy. She shuffles her babies from play area to rest area and then back to play area. She even makes sure they have toys, blankets, and snuggle towels.
I would love to say that she is modeling me, but I think she is already a much kinder and patient mommy. Now if I can just teach her to do all the chores that come along with being mommy...

Gardening apparel

From almost nothing

to our Sunday best,

the Dallas girls know what to wear for maximum comfort during gardening.

An open apology

Dear Canon 50D,

I REALLY wanted you before I got you. I want to invest more time in you and allow you to thrive and flourish. I am sorry that you often sit at home and feel ignored for weeks at a time. I am infinitely more sorry that I did not zip up the Canon bag. Because of my inattention to detail (or the insane amount of children I am responsible for), I hoisted the unclosed camera bag onto my shoulder and you tumbled onto the cement driveway. I immediately picked you up even as I endured snide comments and nasty looks from your wanna-be owner. At first (maybe because you were still stunned), you performed fine. But later (at a most critical and important moment), you refused to behave properly and my oldest children's baptism pictures will forever be blurred. For this reason and to avoid future memory loss, I sincerely apologize for dropping you. Please accept my apology so that we can continue building our relationship. I promise to take better care of you and be ever vigilant in your presence.

Thanks,

Beth

Mooing on up!

Grant is nine months old today. He has grown and matured so much in the last few weeks.

He:

has four teeth (two on the top and two on the bottom)

weighs 19.3 pounds

is 28 inches long

can pull up to a standing position

refuses to crawl but scoots on his bottom to get where he wants to go

learned to clap last week

cruises along the sofa and the ledge of the fireplace

can say mama and dada

plays peek-a-boo by covering his eyes with his hands

loves to stand on his daddy's hands

has started sleeping through the night (thank you God)

likes to pull his sisters' hair

eats just about anything that is offered

wears size four diapers and 12 month clothing

and

likes to float in the pool.

We recently purchased a new (to us) mini-van. We bought two more car seats so that both of our cars could transport all four kids. Here is Grant in his new cow-covered car seat. Look closely and you can see one of his top teeth.

Grant also likes to eat his grandma's crepes with blueberries.

You decide

a super tired little boy

OR

a neglected fourth child

Baseball update

We finished the season with a 13-1 record! The improvement in most of the kids was nothing short of amazing. Zach can now hit the ball (hard) and steps up to the plate with confidence. Calyn has become quite the second base(wo)man. She can field the ball and throw it to first to get the runner out. She still needs a little work on covering the bag when the ball is in the field.

We had our last regular season game on Saturday and survived the 110 degree heat. Even the cookies I made survived.

We play in the play-off tournament on the 19th. I'll be sure to let you all know how it goes.

Days 4 and 5 - Country Living

After San Antonio, we headed to the Kerrville/Fredericksburg area. A friend of Tim's from his grad school days agreed to let us visit.

We arrived Saturday afternoon to this beautiful sight. Brian and his dad BUILT this house. It was amazing. Everything was so quite and even the country air smelled good.

Brian had a wedding to attend in Fredericksburg so we followed him into town. We walked and shopped a little before having dinner at a Mexican restaurant. The restaurant had cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory. I was excited.
Sunday morning we woke up and took a tour of Brian's ranch. We visited goats and sheep, jumped off the porch 1000 times, rode the 4 wheeler, rode in the golf cart, ate grilled hamburgers and homemade strawberry cake, went for a run, and swang on a tree swing.



After all that, we headed to Brian's other ranch and took a tour. It was 2000 acres, so the tour took quite a while. We saw cows, a working water windmill, and lots of cacti. We also walked or swam in a little stream. The twins thought it was great.

We fed the kids an early dinner and then let them watch a movie while the adults ate. I could have stayed much, much longer. I really enjoyed being in the country and all of the fun my kids got to have. We will have to go visit again and SO appreciate Brian's hospitality.

Monday morning we headed to Austin. We ate at The Cheesecake Factory. So good! Then we headed to Pflugerville to hang out with Aaron and Ashley. The kids played the Wii and jumped on the trampoline all afternoon. Once Dana and Caleb got home, we went to eat at Chuy's. It was a short visit but good to see the Whitmire family (most of them).

On Tuesday we travelled home.

We had such a good time.