Susie and Ron

I'll write about our New England vacation as soon as I can get the pictures off my camera. The USB cord we have is not working!

Andrew, I can hardly believe you're eight. It doesn't seem like very long ago, I was oogling my first newborn baby. Right now, you LOVE Snoopy, Legos and Bionicles. You play video games almost as well as your dad. On your birthday, we took you to Cape Cod as part of our vacation. You got 2 bionicles, a Peanuts comic book and a Nick Magazine subscription. It was raining that day and we decided to walk on the beach but within a few minutes, you were soaking wet from playing in the waves. You like to stand out close to where the waves break and punch them. We laughed and told you that your idea of walking on the beach and our idea of walking on the beach are different. Sometimes, they knock you down but you come up smiling. You're a good brother and you like to play with your sisters but you're careful not to play rough enough to make them cry, even if Megan is playing rougher than she should. Your favorite friends are Nathaniel and Reece. You'll start Mites Hockey this year (your idea) and piano lessons (mommy's idea). As always, we love you soo much!!

Daddy Bucks: the form of currency used at our house. The kids earn Daddy Bucks by doing chores and good deeds. They can spend them on candy I have in the pantry, TV or computer time, etc. They're simple enough to make and since we have a copy machine at home they would be just as simple to conterfeit if a kid got desperate.

A couple of days ago, Andrew was in need of some daddy bucks. He wanted to play a video game. He came to me and asked, "Mom, how did you get the idea for Daddy Bucks?" and I said, "a magazine." Andrew went outside and thought about my answer. Unsatisfied, he came back for more info. I told him more specifically, "family fun." I wasn't sure what he was getting at but my brother, Bill, was watching and chuckling because Andrew was really thinking about it. Andrew was trying to figure out where Daddy Bucks come from. If he understood that, maybe he could get his hands on more without having to clean his room. Today, his mystery was solved when he saw the image of our Daddy Buck on the computer and said, "oh I see, you print them from the computer!"

September 18th, 2009 is the official blog start date. I suppose we'll see if I can keep up with this. Hopefully, it will be better than my attempts at keeping baby journals and scrapbooks!  Eventually, I'd like to print all of these entries out into a book so the kids can flip through it.  Ron and I become nostalgic whenever we see or hear something precious that we know we'll forget with time (like the pitter-patter of little feet).  I feel like we need to do something with all of the digital pictures we take so I have high hopes for saving some memories with this blog.

Megan decided to take a couple of friends (Ariana and Estelliana) to Build a Bear for her birthday.  They had a great time chosing their new friends and dressing them up.  Her bunny has become one of her favorite toys and it goes just about everywhere with her.  After the Build a Bear excursion, we came back home and decorated cupcakes for the birthday cake.  It was a pretty interesting looking cake, held together by chopsticks, but it served it's purpose as we all sang Happy Birthday to Megan!

About Megan at 6 years old:  Megan has such a gentle soul.  She loves her family and especially loves playing with her baby sister.  They play outside in the doll house, ride bikes and swing together.  She's extremely generous and likes to give gifts and make things for mom.  She can spend hours playing Polly Pocket or dressing up her dolls but can still rough it up with Andrew.  She just learned how to swim but she still needs a little more confidence.  She's proud that she likes vegatables.  She surprised her teacher by how social she is because her teacher thought Andrew's little sister was a quiet one.  She likes "kids cook" (helping with dinner) and washing dishes by hand.  She still loves to wear dresses and skirts although she wears long pants about half the time now.  She has almost perfected her cartwheel.  Her favorite colors are purple and blue.  She is not an early riser.  She learned from someone (hopefully not me) how to roll her eyes at people.    She can climb the rope in the gymnasium and swing on the monkey bars till the cows come home.  We love you, Megan!

Dear Andrew,

In case you ever wonder why there are so many more pictures of your sisters than there are of you...You make a grump face when you see the camera.  I try to sneak pictures of you but that doesn't always work.  However, you do occasionally enjoy having your picture taken with things like lizards, statues of giant elephants, big clumps of seaweed, etc.

Love,
Mom