Mya's turn to shine

We are amazed every day at all the new things Mya says that she's known all this time and not been vocalizing. I must hear a hundred times a day, "Mama, where are you?" even if I'm standing right in front of her. Another of her favorite activities lately is looking through her picture Bible where she likes for me to identify something on every single page and then, "Mama, find Noah." which she will repeat until the appropriate Noah page is found. We also catch her singing a lot although not when we ask her to - she has to think no one is listening. Here she is singing along with Nae and Gabriel our ritual devotion songs "My God is so Big" and "Zacchaeus"

Finally, a smile!!!

I know that I'm posting a lot lately but I finally got some pictures this evening of Alena smiling. She is becoming quite the happy little girl - smiling at whoever talks to her. She especially smiles at Gabe and Mya. Mya loves to come up to Alena and say, "Helllloooo Baaaaby" In a very drawn out southern way and it makes her (and the rest of us too) smile every time.

Random pictures

We took our sprinkler ball over to Pathu and Mathu's on Sunday. We thought Savannah would really like it since she's usually so adventurous but turns out she wasn't interested. Mya doesn't like it either so Gabe was left to play alone. He still had a good time, though. Here Nae caught him in a live action shot. The girls preferred cooling it on the porch with their juice. Check out Savannah's cheesy grin.
When it's time for us to go every week, Savannah almost always follow us out but this week she climbed on in the van and wedged herself between Gabe and Mya's car seats. She was ready to go, or so she thought.
Here's a good blackmail shot that just cracks me up. Both Gabe and Mya on the potty (notice Mya is fully clothed.) Mya will go get books and Gabe will read to her while they're both sitting there.

What our house looks like

First, sorry about the double posting of Gabe's video. We are trying to figure out why the video is not clear and were hoping that posting through U-Tube would help. It didn't so Nae's on the case to figure out what the problem is.

When we came back from our trip last week, this is what our front yard/drive way looked like. Can you believe people can come in and do this to your yard without your permission or anything - all to build a sidewalk on a cul-de-sak no less. Gabe has loved watching the workers out here each day but I have been much less excited about it especially since we can't get our van in the driveway and I have to haul everyone out and over to the other side of the street every time we go somewhere. They are supposed to pour the cement on Thursday and then after that the landscaping crew comes in so lets just hope they get this mess fixed!

I mentioned before about the bedding that Carrie found and she wanted to see a picture of it actually on the bed so here it is. The picture really doesn't do it justice, though - I think it's so pretty.
We painted Mya's room over Easter and are just now getting everything back in order - now that we have two girls in there. Mathu made the curtains and again the picture isn't very good but they look really nice.
I have been trying all week to get a good picture of Alena smiling but have not been successful. This is the best one I've gotten so far but I'll keep trying.

Another try

He can do it!!

When Carrie visited a few weeks ago she sang this books of the Bible song to Gabriel and he loved it. He continued to ask me to sing it to him until he finally could do it alone. I think this video is so cute (of course I am a little biased) and when he's twenty won't it be funny to watch this - after all aren't Pommicals and Jose books in the Bible?

Look who's sleeping in a big girl bed!!!

After a very rocky start, Mya is now entering her second night in the toddler bed which we borrowed from some friends. I tried a couple of weeks ago and the entire nap time was spent screaming and then falling asleep in the floor so I gave up for a while. However, while we were home last week Carrie let me borrow some gorgeous crib bedding that she'd found at a very reduced price - this along with the fact that Alena is sleeping for longer and longer periods of time and thus would be fine in the other room were my inspirations for winning this little battle. It actually was much easier to win than I thought because once I put the crib bedding in and moved the mattress up, Mya declared it "Alena's bed" and no longer wanted to be in there. We are having a little crying when I first put her down but so far so good. I'll keep you posted on the progress.

Here's the latest pictures of Alena being her very cute little self.

Our trip to VA

We enjoyed a relaxing (as relaxing as traveling with three children can be) trip to VA to visit my family over the fourth. We had a great time visiting their local museum, shooting fireworks, and even swimming. Unfortunately, I didn't get a lot of pictures of our activities but here's a few of what we did get.

My silly kiddos modeling their hats we made to pass the time before leaving on Tuesday!
Alena enjoying life and so happy it's Independence Day!
Here's our whole crew at the museum except Gabriel is covering his face and most of Nae's as well. We really tortured our kids on the fourth - Mya screamed for the entire re-enactment they did at the museum due to the very loud noise of the guns and Gabe cried the whole time we shot off fireworks since he, for some unknown reason, decided to be afraid of them this year. Gabriel, Nae, Robbie, and Grandaddy - all the guysMya, Me, Emma, Chrisa, Grandmama, RuthAnne, Carrie, and Alena - all the girls. We definitely outnumber those boys!