Stupid, Yet Blessed

Well, this is rather embarrassing to admit, but John and I were overdrawn this last paycheck, because we had gotten out of the habit of entering our expenses and checking our account. So we were broke until today. There were a few expenditures we had to make, however. The first blessing was when I had to take Rachel and Esther to the doctors for eye infections. This usually would cost $40 in copays. When I went to pay we had a $17 credit and so the visit only cost us $23. Second, we needed hand soap. John went to Wal-mart for the hand soap. The store announced half off on some deli chicken while he was there so he decided to get some since we were low on food too. The cashier and the assistant manager could not figure out how to ring the chicken up at half price, so they gave it to him for free in exchange for his wasted time. The third blessing, happened the next day. I have been promising Johnny that I would take him and his two best friends to Pump It Up (a indoor inflatable bounce place, with slide and obstacle course) since September. Well, I finally invited his friends on Sunday, before we realized how poor we were. I thought it would be best to just go ahead and and take them since I promised 6 months ago. The cost would be $6 a child plus 4 happy meals afterwards. Well, we went. When we got there the lady informed me that Pump It Up was free that day because their computer broke down and they had no way to charge anyone. Amazing!!!!!! So a $45 outing for Johnny cost only $15. I now this was the Hand of The Lord. He certainly takes care of us even when we do very stupid things.

Rachel Talking

Rachel is talking a lot more now. Here are two funny things that she has said.

1. She saw a picture of herself on the computer and very happily said, "I daw a baby!!"

1. She picked up an old peice of sandwich not wiped off the table after lunch and said, "Yuck, dat is poop."

One more really good thing about Rachel is that she is potty trained. Rachel, in four days basically potty trained herself. She now tells us every time she needs to go to the bathroom and sometimes when she doesn't just for attention. Potty training, to my surprise, actually did work for keeping her out of the toilet. Since she started, Rachel has not played in the toilet. Congratulations to our little Rachel making her our fifth little Robertson person to enter the civilized world.

More and More Pictures

Messing around with Photos

Here are a few more pictures from our walk in the woods. I got a lot of really good pictures and I have had a lot of fun messing around with them on picassa. It is fun what you can do with pictures these days.

Our Little Explore

The sun shone and it was warm and breezy. I knew we needed to go down to the park for a picnic and a little explore. We went to walmart and got a rotisserie chicken, fresh mozzarella, orange juice, rolls, and lolly pops and headed for the "prickly park" (really known as Swansons Park, but anything with thorns that grows in Kansas is there. Thus the "Prickly Park").

This park is not a play park. It is a walking park. There are lots of dogs and dog poo, a river and some bridges. Side walks take you around about a 2 1/2 mile walk, but people, dogs, and horses have formed their own paths through the woods. Ruth, Kate, and Johnny always want to go through the woods. I never want to because I never want to push the stroller through the woods. But today I thought maybe we could take one of these paths to find an open grassy spot for our picnic. We did find a nice solitary grassy spot. The kids complained that the grass was too prickly to be good for picnicking, but I vetoed their objections based on the fact that all the grass in Kansas on March first is prickly and we would not find a soft spot that was dry. Thus we took off our jackets, sat down in the dead grass and enjoyed a meal in the beautiful sunshine. After cleaning up all of our trash and all of our hands and faces we began our explore. Because the woodsy path we were at seemed open and wide and not too difficult to push a stroller through I gave in to the kids pleas and we began our journey through the woods. We were on the north side of the river with some smaller cliffs than the usual sidewalk (south side) of the river so the kids got to wander down and play by the water. Ruth, Kate, Johnny, Adam, and Rachel joyously climbed trees, ran through woods, and walked around the waters edge. They were having such a good time that I decided we should stay on the path. As a child, I loved the woods and was fortunate enough to always live next to woods. I explored in the woods daily until I was 11. I 'm sorry that my own children have not had that pleasure. So I decided to stay on the rough wooded path rather than turning around to find the paved path. At first our path was wide and well trodden. I felt certain that eventually it would lead us to the paved path. But the path got narrower, hillier, and harder to push the stroller through. The kids kept asking me if we were lost. Technically I knew we were definitely not lost and that it would be easy to retrace our steps, but when our path ended at a rusty barbed wire fence I declared that we were lost. (I really had no idea what our direction in the park was, and which way to turn to get us out. But I knew that the area was small enough that we weren't really lost.) Ruth, Kate, and Johnny exclaimed gleefully that it is scary to be lost and how they would never forget this explore. Ruth even thanked me for the memory. Well we ended up turning around and walking east. By the time we got to the barbed wire there was no clear path and it took us a while and some awkward pushing, pulling, and lifted of the stroller to get through the woods. We did find our original trail and made it back to pavement without much trouble. Kate and Johnny ran and shouted how wonderful it was not be lost when we approached the sidewalk. (I thought how wonderful it was to be pushing a large stroller on pavement rather than mud and sticks). We had a great explore. The kids were excited to come home and tell Dad about their adventure and they all talked about how we must do this again soon. It was really fun to be out in nature with my kids. We will definitely go exploring again. But next time-- No Stroller!!

Rachel Sets the Table

Rachel set the table one night while we were preparing dinner. Since silverware is all she has access too that is what she set. Rachel also neglected to clear the dirty plates and wash the table, but hey, Thanks for your help Rachel. We love you.

I Did It

Well, I finally did it. I bought a kid leash for Rachel. We went to the Temple on Friday and after the second time Rachel ran as fast as she could out into parking lots with moving cars I decided that it was better to have a healthy living dog girl than a maimed or dead daughter. In fact, I think Rachel truly would have been hit if it was not for Ruth's watchful eye. We have often called Ruth our Shepard because she has always watched over the younger children.
Now about the leash. I never really needed them with Ruth, Kate, and Johnny. Kate ran away like Rachel does, but with only three kids, it wasn't so hard to keep a watch over her. Adam never needed anything like that because he has always stayed very close to me, both at home and in public. But Rachel I have often called "Runaway Sal" because she has run away as soon as she could walk. Now that I have the baby plus four other children and Rachel it has just been too much. My hands are full. So I broke down and bought the kid leash. It is actually a cute little monkey and the tale is the leash. Rachel seems to like it okay. All the other kids like to walk Rachel. But we have had the problem of them just dragging Rachel and pulling her over. Anyway, it is done. I swore I would never use one. But actually, I really quite appreciate it. Rachel has been much safer since I bought this two days ago. Plus it works fine to leave it on her while she is in her car seat. That is really good since parking lots seem to be our biggest problem.