June was full all sorts of cuteness…and sickness.  Malachi caught croup from colds being passed around.  We spent a not so fun night praying and steaming before we could get him in to see the doctor.  She knew he was sick so she was on call should it have gotten worse.  Praise God it didn’t.  I have never been so worried about one of our little ones.  Still no breathing treatments (we are so thankful we’ve never had to use them for any of the kids…I’ve heard the stories).  Bryant also caught the croup and a simple dose of steroids and he was good to go.

Now on to the cuteness (if you are my fb friend you’ve seen most of this but mainly this is for those who “don’t do facebook” and for my own records):

***
Me:  Bryant, you are one smart cookie.

Bryant:  No!, I eat ‘mart cookie!

***

Megan, Kristina’s three year old, says, “I carry you!”  when she wants to be held.  Except it sounds more like, “I KILL YOU!”  She has since corrected this but for the longest time…I could promise you that’s what that girl said.

***
I gave warm McDonald’s chocolate chip cookies to Tracy‘s kids.

***

Me: Where would you be without Father’s Day?
Liam: Texas!

***

Josiah: Mommy I put my pants on and they were tight and I saw it was because they had snaps.
I turned around and saw that he was actually wearing them unsnapped.
Me: Um, Josiah, they’re too tight because they’re Malachi’s pants.
Josiah: oh.
Yes.  He. Did.

***

To encourage Ceili Rain to stay dry at night she has princess undies
with the days of the week printed on them. She had some on a Sunday (and they were the Wednesday ones) and Josiah asked her what they said. She was
encouraged to ask Zoe for help in reading them.

She replied in all seriousness, “No, no. I don’t need help. I know what it says. It says ‘Princess panties. Do not pee.”
 ***

We have a pallet that is on our bedroom floor in case a child should
wander in during the night and need some comfort in knowing mom and dad
are there. Ceili Rain slept there during our Transue Invasion. Tonight she was cuddling with me and said, “Mama, if I sleep on the pallet tonight the lions will come and eat me.”
“Oh no!” I replied.
“They’re small lions.” Pause for effect “Then I have to climb in bed with daddy.”
Then a burst of giggles erupted from her (okay, and me too).
***

This is typical when Mark is off for a long weekend:
Gets tearful when Bryant wakes up and walks around crying for daddy. I
told him daddy was at work and as he cried he said, “No daddy at work!
Want daddy here.” Breaks my heart and totally broke daddy’s too.

***

Malachi likes his doorway jumper, so much that nine out of ten times when I put him in it, he poops…everywhere.  That kid!

Now, this pictures is actually one of my favorites because it captures a bit of our personalities!  I’ve mixed in a few of my favs with a few of the goofy ones.

Tracy tried so hard with this shot…just didn’t work out and Mark just wanted to take a nap.  Malachi wasn’t too thrilled either.

Tracy has done it again.  It’s a bit because she knows us so well and a bunch that she is a great photographer…but she’s been able to capture our pics.  We had to schedule them a bit late this year thanks to her first trimester blahs with #3.  But we got them done!

And with no more typing, here’s what she got:

It’s amazing what a little ice cream bribery can get…don’t worry the weren’t all good…I’m posting outtakes tomorrow!

I’m two posts away from being done with June.

Here are the outtakes from the month.

This is how we chill when we get a sink bath…Malachi has since graduated to the bath seat…at four months, he’s the youngest in the bath seat.

It is totally tough being a cute baby…especially when you haven’t gotten you sleep routine down.

Can you detect the sheer terror on that boy’s face?  Nothing but love from Ceili Rain though!

We celebrated Josiah at the end of June!  This past year, Mark and I have noticed Josiah’s goofy personality emerge.  He loves to walk up and say something witty and then flash his bright smile.  I think his cowlick grins too!

Five years ago, we held our big boy and wondered what in the world God was thinking giving us three boys in a row!  We know now that each one is such a blessing and we wouldn’t trade our ‘Siah for anything.  While everyone is rushing through life going here and there, Josiah reminds us to sloooow down.  I regret the times I’ve been impatient with his slow speed.  However, now, I can see how his moving slow and steady helps him to observe and take in so much of this world God has put us in.  He’s a thinker and I can’t wait to see what he is going to come up with next!  He’ll officially start kindergarten this year and by using his thinking observant brain he’s already picked up on some of his kindergarten skills by watching Liam.

He chose the Duggar Ice Cream Cake for his dessert.  He didn’t want butterfingers for the toppings so we went with mini m&ms.  It was a chocolate sacrifice we just had to make.  And we suffered too…with every single bite.

**Black eye courtesy of a sibling conflict the day before the big birthday**

We love our community!  It seems there is always something to do around here…like hold frogs.

Okay, not really just hold frogs.  Our local library puts together an event each year called Books Alive.  It’s an opportunity for authors to come in and share and sign and smile and all that.  It’s also an opportunity for families to all be encouraged to actually, dare I say, read! 

It’s a small festival but this year the kids learned a lot.

Like all about reptiles and amphibians from our local nature center.

Yep, Liam actually held a frog.  It also jumped out of his hands.  He thought that was cool.  There is hope. That my boys will be boys who like to grab slimy things and show them off to me and see if I freak.

And my girls too.

Zoe’s favorite thing.  Talking to the gardener with a locally growing group.  She spoke about all sorts of things that I grew up with but my kids had never experienced…eating mint straight off the bush, cracking pecans with just two pecans…fun stuff!  We planted some seeds but forgot to pick them up when we left…wonder where they are now.

And there were water slides.  Two…the kids really tired themselves out here!