A few pictures (some bad) taken on my phone...

Salt 'n Pepa

No, not the group from the 90's (or whenever it was that they were popular...)!

Just referring to the hair color of my littlest girls who had an impromptu photo shoot the other night with Dad while Mom and the big kids were out:

Hannah joined our family October 11th and while I need to do a post on the story of her birth, I thought this picture was worth sharing now while I work on getting the other more journaly write-up done. :)

And also this picture:

And one more:

Rebeccaisms

Rebecca and I have been enjoying lots of one-on-one time during Sarah's naps in the morning while Jacob is at school all day. I knew she was fun and imaginative but it really has been a great blessing to spend time with her.  We like to bake things, practice writing, read lots of books, play and color. This week she's said a few things that I thought were pretty cute that are all similar (but they were kind of said unexpectedly, without any prodding from me) and a couple weeks ago she made a point that was also pretty funny. She'll be 4.5 next week and is pretty wonderful.

1. Mom! There are two kinds of bats! (looking at a picture of a baseball bat and reading me the letters) The kind they use for baseball and the kind that flies around!

2. There are two kinds of trip!  The one where you fall down on your knees and the other one where you are gone for a really long time!

3. Yesterday Jacob had to practice printing P and p so naturally Rebecca was doing so as well. Today she was talking about that and said there are two kinds of P. (I braced myself for this one, by the way.)  "The kind of P that is a letter and the kind of pea that you eat!"  :)

4. Today in the car she was making up a song about sea turtles and then she stopped abruptly to tell me something. "Mommy, there are two kinds of sea!  The kind of seeing you do with your eyes, and the other kind that is like sea turtles."

5. Rebecca was lamenting about not being able to use something of Jacob's because he didn't want to share or something and then she stopped being upset and her face lit up as she said, "Jacob! Jacob! I can use it while you are at school, and you can use it on holidays and Saturdays when you are home!"

It is rough having your big brother gone all day, and she tells me often that she wishes Jacob could be home more, but that she is excited to go to school with him next year.

Before the haircut (her third one)

And...after the hair cut!  She was so excited when the stylist offered to braid her hair.

Practicing writing her name!  You can also see Jacob's "[Hey I hope that you are having fun]" on there also 

"Please take a picture of me with this rock!"

Sunday night Rebecca drew her first person with a body. She was so excited: "Mommy!  I drew the arms not coming out of the head! Come see, come see!"  

Goodbye to Ann Arbor and Hello to Our New Home

On June 30th we went to church in the morning and then did the last tiny bit of cleaning of our old house and then we left Ann Arbor to head to Columbus. There is a lot of stress that comes with moving and I think I fall into the category of person who gets the tired kind of stress and the emotional kind of stress to deal with most. The weeks leading up to the move I just kept wishing we could do everything I or the kids or Jeff wanted to do one more time (or even for the first time...never did try Blimpy Burger, sigh) and then when it was time to leave I just kept thinking about all of our wonderful friends, many of whom had left before us, and all of the great things I had personally learned during Jeff's graduate school years. I know that the Lord truly blessed us in our time in Ann Arbor and though it sounds like we've been gone for years or something to say it, I will always treasure the time we spent there.

Trying out the backyard after the closing!  

One week before Jeff and I celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary, we closed on our first home. As Jeff said a few months ago, "we're one step closer to the American Dream...of the bank owning a home in our names!"  There were a few ups and downs with things like the appraisal and such but we were glad to be able to close on July 1st. Our belongings were delivered the next morning after we had pancakes for breakfast.

Using the swingset table since ours was still on its way!

We turned the dining room into Paper Mountain for a few days. We all had a pretty good time playing in there but eventually it was time to visit the recycling bin. Jacob and Rebecca still refer to it as "the room that Paper Mountain was in." I guess we better put some furniture in there or something...

I had forgotten Jeff took this picture of me. I share it for your viewing pleasure/to give you a laugh. I think I damaged my knees when I came down. :)  

 One Sunday after church we tried taking timed pictures with everyone. Here is the first one, which actually turned out alright for the most part:

Jacob smiling, Rebecca trying on sunglasses...

I thought this was cute of Jacob looking up at me.

I laugh every time I see this picture. If those faces don't make you want to come visit, I don't know what to tell you :)   

12 months = 1 year!

I have several updates I should post here but first I thought I'd write a little about Sarah. She's a remarkably happy baby, sleeps a lot, eats just about anything (including hot banana peppers) and we just love her!  She had her first birthday on August 17th a few weeks ago and we had a little celebration in her honor.

In the morning we went to the Columbus Zoo for the first time since we moved here and had a nice time. Sarah's cake was a chocolate/white mix inside (zebra cake) so I enlisted the older two kids to help me decorate Sarah's Zoo with a carousel and a pathway to some animals in a cage. Rebecca was pretty concerned that Sarah would be allowed to have so much sugar since she'd not really had any before her birthday.

One of Sarah's favorite places to stand up is in front of the oven. She'll bang on her reflection and say, "Hi!" to the baby in there (: and then open and close the drawer of cookie sheets below the oven. 

Eating some cake!  

Getting a little bit messy now but still not too much destruction going on!  

All that frosting (and maybe a little bit of cake) makes a baby pretty thirsty.

MAH06629 from J Lamro on Vimeo.

Happy first birthday, Sarah!

10 months and 11 months!

Sarah turned 10 months on June 17th. The camera was on some funky setting and that paired with her super-dark room (great for naps, not so good for pictures!) meant I didn't get many good shots. But she is very cute nonetheless :)  

 She hit 11 months this past week and got her pictures taken in the same chair, different house!  The space given to her in the new house means that she is an excellent crawler and kneeler now and she's pretty happy about it.  She added headstands to her repertoire this week.

"where's that lever you pull to lift my feet up?" 

She is a pretty spectacular baby and the kids are excited to have a "really big birthday cake" come August 17th!  Jacob tried to convince me to make one for the 11 month mark but I told him we'd have to save it for her real birthday!  

Camping with the Neilsons

Last weekend we went camping with our friends the Neilsons at Picnkey State Recreation Area. It was also Free Fishing Day that Saturday so the kids had lots of fun trying to catch tiny fish. We split up the meals and really had fun, but it is easy to forget how tiring camping can be! 

Babies who should be sleeping like to roll around in the tent instead!  The older kids shared a backpacking tent and I think they fell asleep around 11 or so. That made for a short night :)  

Climbing up the slide at the part of the park where we had lunch. She went down so many times!  Sad they don't make slides like this anymore - it is the kind I remember from my childhood days!

And this is what happens after you get all unpacked and the laundry is started. Babies and dads fall asleep quickly!

As Rebecca said right before we left the house to pick up Jacob at school and Jeff at work:
me: Rebecca, do you remember what camping is?
Rebecca: When you have a really great time?

Yep!  That sums it up!

Last day of Young Fives!

Jacob finished his school year on Thursday. I brought to bring watermelon in for his class and play with them outside for a bit (which Rebecca loved!) and so I took a few pictures of the last day festivities. It's been a good year for Jacob and he has grown a lot and he's looking forward to Kindergarten in a few months.

Waiting for his carpool one last time!

I think Rebecca only missed a couple of times coming out to meet  our "carpool buddy" as we called him . She was a very faithful helper every day - even closing the automatic van doors after Jacob was safely buckled in.

These next few shots were taken very quickly but I thought they turned out so funny. The kids are standing by our flowers that opened up just that day! 

Rebecca looks up towards the street...

She spots the van, as does Jacob...

She flees towards the hill...love that hair! 

And they're off!  

Playing with "the really really white sand" outside the school. 

Jacob being silly with his carpool buddy.  Their class started out with 8 boys in September and then ended with 12 boys total. All the moms agreed that the teacher is a bit of a saint because those are some very, very busy boys!!  

I took about 6 pictures of Jacob with his teacher Mrs. Warner and could not for the life of me get him to cooperate very well. At least they were color coordinated :)