A Family Reunion

On Saturday, Chris, the boys, and I headed to the Winward for a family reunion.  It was the first time in three years that all of Mom's and Dad's children, children's spouses, and grandchildren were together.  We celebrated a belated 70th for Dad and Mom's 65th birthday!  What an inspiration they are!

I'm tired...so I think I'll just leave you with the pictures!



Philip and Daniel with Russell and Morgan



The Happy Couple!



  



All the grandchildren...with Daniel trying to escape!





Daniel and Uncle Rob





PopPop with the Gill boys



Philip with Henry and Austin

GranGran with her only two granddaughters...Merrill and Meredith

A John-John Update and other random thoughts

 A blog reader (yes...one of the three of you!!) reminded me the other day that I haven't posted many pictures of John recently.  As a fellow fourth child, I was immediately filled with guilt!  So here are some taken today after church.

John is now three months.  He's been sleeping through the night for about a month...anywhere from 11 to 12 hours a night!  Wonderful!!  Daytime sleep is all over the place, but given the chance he will generally catch two or three catnaps and one three hour nap.  Sleep has been a little more difficult for him now that we live in the car...more on that later.

What more can I report on the little guy??  First, he isn't so little.  He is by far the largest Gill baby we've had.  He frequently gets mistaken for a six month old.  I would wonder about the potential that he got swapped in the hospital, but boy do I see some of all of us in him!  He's pretty laid back...loves to look at anyone in the eye...loves to giggle.  Recently, I've caught him with his thumb in his mouth.  He loves to suck on his hands, but he seems to chew on his thumb...not really suck it.  Not sure how that will turn out.

An extreme close-up of him chewing on his thumb!

In other news,  we are chugging along.  Life is busy now.  As I told Chris the other day, in a short year, I've gone from driving a sporty SUV with three kids to a minivan full of carpool signs on the windshield.  Seriously, if you forget my boys' names, just checkout the windshield!  I feel as if John and I live in the car.  Twice a week, there are six carpool lines to sit in...not fun for the little guy, but he's managing pretty well.

Philip has so far enjoyed Kindergarten.  He likes his teacher but remembers no one's name in his class (he gets that from his Dad!).  He has befriended a little boy who has a Lego Star Wars backpack!  Tomorrow starts his first full day.  I imagine he'll be pretty tired, but he's really looking forward to PE!  Daniel and William are also doing well with school.  No tears from anyone...a blessing!



I'm excited about them getting back into a routine, but boy do I miss our simple days of summer.  I actually enjoy their company (and although I long for alone time ALL the time), I do miss them when they are at school. 

I have gone a little crazy recently.  I think that I think about cooking all the time!  I'm on a whole foods kick...trying hard to cut out processed food.  I have been getting up early to have a good breakfast on the table before the boys wake up.  Then there's the lunchbox...I'm constantly thinking about different things to give them.  Today we made homemade energy bars.  The boys helped and despite Philip telling me that they looked like Roxy's you-know-what, we all liked them!!

Well that's about it...it's time for this girl to hit the sheets.  Gotta get ready for the week ahead!

A Week of First Days

Oh what a week it's been!  Three first days...in three days!

We started with Monday.  William's first day of Mom's Day Out.  He chose waffles for breakfast!

His brothers stayed home with GranGran so I could attend a SPS parents meeting after dropping him off.  He had no problems being the only one going to school.  I dropped him off, gave him a hug, and big boy was gone!  His report from his teachers was good.  Ms. Jane loves him...feeds him cookies all day!  Now that he's two, he gets to go to the classroom for some light instruction time.  Mrs. Alice reported that he was very hesitant to leave Ms. Jane, but once there he had a great time.

Monday night after reading stories, he told me all about it.  He said "Ms. Jane gave me cookie.  I cry.  Ms. Alice go to classroom.  I play blocks...color pictures!"  Pretty good report for a two year old!

Tuesday brought Daniel's first day of PK4 at Westminister.  I was really nervous about this...given our Bible School experience.  We started out with his breakfast of choice...banana nut muffins and smoothies!

After some before school pictures....

We were off!  Daniel has Ms. Tara...Philip's teacher last year.  Daniel definitely seemed a little nervous, but he put his bag up, gave everyone a hug and a kiss, and sat down to play with Legos.  No problems at all!

Tuesday night brought our Back to School Feast!  The boys planned the menu...ribs, macaroni and cheese, and broccoli.  We finished it off with homemade peach ice cream!

Today was hard.  I woke up early to get things ready.  After getting myself dressed and pancakes made, I had to wake the boys at 6:15.  Daniel said, "Mom, please don't wake me up again."  Sorry, buddy, but it's our new routine!

Philip chose pancakes for breakfast...can you tell he just woke up??

After breakfast, it was a rush.  Get everyone dressed...feed John...out the door!

Philip did great.  We arrived at SPS in plenty of time for us all to walk him to his room.  He was a little nervous about a cut he had on his hand and how it would affect his ability to write!  I told him he'd be fine, took some pictures, and we were off!  

Philip with Ms. Cotton

I didn't really have time to get sad...John was screaming and I was trying to keep William out of the traffic!  I know Philip will do great.  

So proud of all my boys.  A great start to the school year.  I just hope that John and I survive all the comings and goings!! 



A Photo Shoot

Everytime we go the beach, I take "nice" clothes for the boys.  Chris laughs at my repeated attempts to get the sunset pictures on the beach. 

Truth is...we aren't sunset people.  At sunset, we are bathed, fed, and finishing up bedtime stories.  I get so frustrated each time!  This time we got smart...we aren't sunset people, but we are sunrise folks!  The lighting isn't as good early in the morning, but it is decent enough to snap a few shots.

Lighting aside, my models weren't much in the mood for pictures.  William protested the family shot and there's not much you can do with sweet John in the sand.  Oh well, here's what I got.  I hope they'll forever serve as memories of some good times at the beach!



Knee Deep in the Water Somewhere

We had a great vacation at the beach!!  As always, it was so wonderful to have Chris around for a full week.  I love how the boys get so attached to him. 

Daddy was the biggest hit with sweet William. 

He only wanted Daddy to read to him, fix his juice, change his diaper, etc.  And Mommy's feelings were not hurt one bit!

We swam a lot!  In the pool, gulf, and Old River.  Philip and Daniel were little fish swimming all over the place!  William did great too...lots of "cowabunga" jumps into the pool!

We fished a lot!  Philip particularly loved going fishing.  He said it was his favorite thing to do down there.  Most of the fishing was done across the street on the pier, but Philip and Chris did get away one morning for  a fishing trip on the boat.

We went for boat rides!  Chris and the older three went several times.  John and I only went once.  It wasn't too easy on the little guy, so we didn't take him out again.

We played in the sand!  Across the street and on the beach.  The boys loved building castles.

We read!  Funny as it may sound, we read a lot down there.  Philip, Daniel, and I read The Trumpet of the Swan...along with many other shorter books.  We read our books so many times that we ventured down to the condo library for some new favorites!

We ate!! and ate and ate!  Oh how I love my boys appetites at the beach.  They burn so much energy and then eat so well.  Makes a Momma proud!  We did a lot of cooking...fish, shrimp, and other delicious meals.  We enjoyed eating lots of meals outside on the balcony.

We ventured out as a family of six twice.  Once for breakfast by boat at Tacky Jacks...

and once for dinner at Lulu's.

Both meals out were a nice change-up.  Everyone was well behaved, but each time the bill left Chris and me with a little indegestion! 

We also enjoyed a nice dinner with Dee and her sister and brother-in-law who were staying down the beach.  It was great to see Barbara and Jon and great to have Dee spend the night!

Other than that, we simply did a lot of relaxing!

That just about wraps it up.  So relaxing!  It's a good thing because we came home to an enormous tree limb in our yard, a spoiled freezer full of food, and yet another burned-up modem.  (I'm blogging from Chris' laptop, so this may be the last update for awhile!  Hoping AT&T will replace the modem again!)

This week is busy...cousins in town, two school Open Houses, and a Kindergarten swim party.  Why does summer have to end???