The Littlest Feet Have Joined The Ranks

That's right...  We now have 4 little pairs of feet hitting our floors!  Lucy has begun her adventures in stand-up land.  She has found the best spot in the house for mastering her skills...  The train table where all of the other kiddos love to play!

She was so excited to see what everyone else got to see up there, but after a few minutes...

She was already wondering what other fun adventures awaited her...

So she still prefers to crawl!  Hahahaha!  Go figure.

Confessions Of A Serious Foody (or foodie)...

I love me some food...  I like to bake food, and fry food, and "crock-pot" food, and mix food, and season food.  I like to try new recipes and use my neighbors as my guinea pigs.  I like to score smiles and "yums" from my family with rad food skills.  Food is good.  I like red meat, and fish, and vegetables, and fruit, and pastries, and chocolate...  I love food.
After having had 4 children I have really struggled with all of the body issues that come along with the little blessings.  The stretch marks, and the lovely extra jiggly puff around my waist line...  Yeah, those take some getting used to.  I have come to the realization that I am not going to be able to "starve" myself back into pre-baby shape like a lot of women do, I have a very close relationship with food.  I have just accepted that I cannot live off of vegetables alone, or one meal and two shakes a day.  Some people can do that and more power to them.  Does that mean I am going to eat whatever I want, when I want it?  Heck no.  But...  When I make a fabulous pie for my family to enjoy once in a while, I full well intend to enjoy it too.  Food is a gift from God.  And, ironically, my little bit of extra from having 4 awesome little people is starting to become a reminder to me of how fleeting outward beauty is, and how precious it is to have a beautiful spirit - another awesome gift from God.  My family needs me to be beautiful on the inside, a true beauty of the heart, way more than they need me to be able to prance around in my single-digit-sized-jeans.  Do I believe we should take care of our bodies and be healthy?  Absolutely.  Do I believe we should be so obsessed with our bodies that it robs us of the peace and enjoyment having a happy life can bring?  Absolutely not.  So, I just want to encourage any curvy-licious ladies out there...  Love yourself.  Love your imperfections, and all of the "extras" that are really just reminders of all of the wonderful things you have accomplished.  Love food, love playing, love laughing, and love life!

Many Adventures Sans Camera :(

The past week or so we have had many great adventures...  Gone to skate parks, hiked all over, roasted hot dogs over a bonfire in the back yard, gone to the science center, and celebrated my birthday (yea me! lol).  And, me being me, I have completely left the camera behind for every single one of these lovely experiences!  However, even though I will not be able to provide you with colorful pictures for your viewing pleasure, I will indeed tell you all about our fabulous experiences!
Joel has been improving more every day on his skate board, and has really been developing some sweet skating skills.  Ryan has frequently taken Joel to some skate parks in the area and on one occasion the rest of us tagged along.  Joel was flying around the skate park like a pro and trying really hard to learn from the other skaters there (who were so great about being patient with him and sharing their space).  Jude and Rory took their tricycles with them and were so cute tricycling around the park, up and down the "hills" of concrete and so forth! 
Recently my parents (Mema Pam and Pepa Mike) had all 4 of the kiddos over to spend the night (HALLELUJAH) so Ryan and I were able to get a full 24 hours of time to catch our breath and take a break from parenting.  We went to Valley View Glades here in Hillsboro and hiked the 3 miles of rough terrain through the woods and fields.  It was absolutely beautiful and the weather was perfect.  We were able to soak in the peace of nature and revel in the serenity if just hearing the occasional bird or squirrel instead of the normal chaos of the 4 munchkins!  It was lovely.
We have had a couple of bonfires in our back yard, which the kids love.  The boys have been watching lots of survival shows with us on the Discovery channel so they were stoked (no pun intended!) to help Daddy get the fires started and collect wood to keep them going.  We roasted hot dogs and found interesting bugs and fought off mosquitoes.  I love it when summer starts coming to an end!
Today it was rainy and overcast so we knew we wouldn't be able to have any outdoor adventures.  So, we decided it was the perfect day for a trip to the science center!  It was such a wonderful time.  Joel and Jude were selected to assist a scientist with some of his experiments/demonstrations with carbon dioxide and light bulbs and other things...  They were so proud of themselves and so were we!  We learned about volcanoes, saw huge life sized robot dinosaurs, watched coins get sucked into a funnel, and Joel and I got to put on lab coats and pretend to be forensic scientists!  We had such a blast.
Life is so good...  And we are learning how to enjoy it all, ups and downs, more every day.