A full weekend!!!

On Friday, we enjoyed a picnic at Cascade Park with our good friends the Perrys. The guys grilled hot dogs for dinner, and the kids played their hearts out on the playground. Afterward, we went to McDonald's for ice cream. (YUM!) It was a full, busy night with six sweet and energetic kids, and we loved it! (Although, maybe someday we can get a babysitter and actually spend more time talking and playing cards or something adult-ish!) I'm always encouraged when we spend time with Craig and Kathy, because they are absolutely wonderful parents to their girls. They are so patient and consistent, and are always seeking to point their girls toward living their lives in a way that glorifies God. It's very challenging to me, and I'm incredibly thankful to have such wonderful examples to look up to and glean from! So, on to the pictures...


Here's a picture of Caleb crossing a scary "bridge" - which, of course, he insisted on doing by himself.


Grace and Karisa - sweet friends! This picture was taken right after they got off the tire swing, and right before they ran off to play some more! :-)


All six of the kids - and although Megan looks a little scared, none of them are crying! Yay! (It's hard to get six kids to sit still, let alone all smile at the same time!)


Ava is just about one month younger than Megan, and they're both laid back babies. Soon they'll be crawling/walking/running with each other in the nursery!


I just had to include this sweet picture of Ava at the park. She's going to be nine months old soon! Wow!


On Saturday, we drove up to Krupp Farms in Comstock Park to pick strawberries with the Stauchs and Websters! Highlights of the morning were Emily losing (and eventually finding) her cell phone in the strawberry patch, Dan accidentally tripping over my almost-full tray of berries and dumping them all on the ground (and picking them all up again), Caleb picking berries for two hours and eating ALL of them (except the green ones we made him put down)...That's all I can think of right now. In the end, Melissa and Karl picked 21 pounds of berries, we picked 23 pounds, and Dan and Emily got a whopping 34 pounds! At $0.90/lb, that's not bad! (And please pardon the awful picture of me. I didn't gussy up to go strawberry picking.)


The farm also had a small petting zoo that the kids enjoyed. Karl picked up a little chick (a small chicken, not a girl) so the kids could touch it.


And Karl found a new friend, too! :-)


It took us the rest of the day to wash, hull, and prepare the strawberries. I ended up with 23 jars of freezer jam, a gallon freezer bag full of individually frozen whole berries, two strawberry shortcakes (one to eat Sunday and one to give away), some berries to give to the Perrys, and two quart freezer bags of sliced berries to use for shortcake or pie later on. Wow! Sadly, I forgot to save out some fresh berries for us to enjoy this week - whoops!


Here's sweet Emma "helping" with the berries!


On Sunday evening, we had our second training session for the Base Camp counselors/teachers. It was fun! We enjoyed some music, and then did a practice run of a game the kids will do on the last day of camp. This picture is of Craig Perry (a co-director of Base Camp and the friend mentioned above) sort of catching a water balloon during the relay.


Last - my CVS for the week! I started with $10 ECBs (Extra Care Bucks - like a CVS gift card/coupon), and got all of this stuff (a gallon of 2% milk, 4 Colgate toothpastes, 2 boxes of CVS bandages, 2 boxes of 500ct CVS cotton swabs, and 2 Listerine Smart Rinses) for FREE (or maybe $0.17 out of pocket - I'm not sure)! Either way, that's my best so far! I even ended up with $13.99 in ECBs, but I'm 99% sure there was a mistake in a transaction and I got $3 extra - so I need to rectify that next time I go. I love CVS!

Play, play, play....

This week has been busy with playdates and fun activities! On Tuesday, our friends "Miss" Courtney, Mason, and Victoria ("Tori") came over to play. We all played outside for a while - the boys enjoyed the quad, and the girls enjoyed sidewalk chalk and bubbles.


We also broke out the pudding for finger painting. They loved it...a little too much this time. Grace got SO messy! But it was worth it to see these adorable smiles! I can't get enough of Tori's personality - she was literally skipping around the house with her happy little grin. What a girl!


Tuesday evening we went up to Lowell to see some animals from the John Ball Zoo at the library with Rusty, Kisha, and the kids. They had an owl, a ferret, and a snake, and the girl doing the presentation did a GREAT job! Caleb touched both the ferret and the snake, and Grace only touched the snake (because the ferret smelled bad).


After the presentation, we took some pictures out on the nice, plush lawn outside the library. Here are (clockwise from top) Tayler, Logan, Grace, and Ava.


And here are our three big kids. I can't believe how much Grace has grown up recently. And I just noticed that Caleb looks like a pretty big boy in this picture, too! Wow!


We can put our new camera in smile mode, and it'll take pictures whenever it sees someone smiling (without us having to push the button). I don't know if I'll ever use the feature (besides for joking around with). Here we were testing it to see if it could recognize toothless smiles. Apparently it does! :-)


On Wednesday, we had prayer meeting at the Sturmans' house (Terry, Sommer, and Maddie Sturman - Sommer and Maddie came over last Friday for a playdate). We didn't take pictures of prayer meeting. But then, yesterday, Sommer's sister Stephanie and her daughter Macie came over to play. We had fun playing outside, and we even played pudding-finger-paint again. This time it was much less messy. In fact, as you can see here, Macie didn't want to get her fingers dirty. So, she just ended up eating her "paint" with a spoon! :-)


Last night was BEAUTIFUL! So, we took a nice family walk after dinner and ended up at the neighbors' house. Yes, we still let the kids jump on the trampoline. We just don't get up there and bounce with them anymore (and we make sure they're not being too crazy).

Whew, this is a long post! Tonight we're looking forward to a picnic with our friends the Perrys. Their girls, Karisa and Hannah, are great friends of Grace and Caleb, and their youngest, Megan, is just shy of a month older than Ava. So, hopefully they'll be great friends as they grow up, too.

Oh, and then tomorrow is strawberry picking with Emily and the Websters (Melissa, Karl, and kids)! What a full week! We're very blessed to have such wonderful family and friends to spend our time with. Hope you're all having a great week, too!

P.S. Mom and Dad Rumley, Zach, and Elyse - DRIVE SAFELY! Have a great time in Georgia! Dad - we all know you're going to wow them with your brilliance! (No kidding - I mean that.) Have fun! :-)

P.P.S. For those of you with little kids (especially boys) - here is a coupon for a FREE Thomas Train (up to $12.99 value) at Toys R Us. Thanks to MoneySavingMom!

Father's Day

For Father's Day this year, Luke's gifts were two-fold. First, the kids and I made him a "Daddy's Smartphone Fund" jar and put some money in it. (Our adorable children gave Daddy their own money from their piggybanks to go toward his smartphone. Grace gave up a dollar bill and some change, and Caleb gave all of his coins. What sweet kids!) Then, yesterday, we had lunch out at On the Border (yum!) and spent some time at Sears picking out some new dress/work clothes for him. He was able to get these three pairs of pants and a dress shirt. Sears was running a great promotion - buy $100 worth of Docker's clothing, get a $75 Shell gas card. Yep! So, once we receive the gas card in the mail, it'll be like we spent $25 on all those clothes! YAY!

Luke does not like getting his picture taken, but I did it anyway. Doesn't he look handsome in his new clothes? I sure think so! (Sorry, honey, but it's true.)

Free cereal!

Just a quick post, though I plan to update later (tomorrow?), possibly with more pictures.

If you have a Meijer near you, Post Honey Bunches of Oats with Real Chocolate Clusters are on sale for $1.75 each. Print $2/1 coupons from here, here, here, and here to make them FREE! (Plus a possible $.25 overage per box - but my Meijer wouldn't give me the overage.) All of those links may or may not work. If they do, also try to backspace and refresh the page, and some of them might print a second time. YAY for free food!

Painted "callapillars" and another tooth!

On Friday, our friends "Miss" Amber, "Miss" Sommer, and Maddie came over to visit. Sommer is adventurous; she brought egg cartons so the kids could do a craft. The kids painted caterpillars (or "callapillars," as Grace was calling them), and then we made antennae out of pipe cleaners. They had a good time with the paints, which were generously given to us by one of Luke's coworkers. (Kim, if you ever happen to read this, thank you!) We had a fun visit with our friends!

Just thought I'd throw this one in to show how flexible our little girl is. While the kids were at the table, she sat quite happily in her high chair with her foot up by her ear! How many of you can put your feet up by your ears? Not me! Oh, and speaking of Ava, her second tooth popped out today!

The weather was beautiful today! We spent a good portion of the day outside. In the morning, the kids took turns riding the lawn mower with Daddy and riding around on the little quad that "Grandma and Papa" Rumley gave them. Caleb can't steer worth beans, but he had fun. (Sorry, I was too busy making sure he didn't run into the house or the pond to get a picture of him!) But Grace did great. She loves that thing! Luke says she must take after "Papa" Liabenow, because she was such a daredevil!

Tomorrow is Father's Day, and the cards I bought for our dads are currently sitting on our counter. So, we're going to celebrate "Father's Week" and send them out on Monday! :-) Sorry, Dads! We do love you, and we'll be celebrating you tomorrow. Thanks for your godly leadership in our families and your godly examples in our lives!

Did you know?

I've been tagged by Andrea, a friend from Cornerstone whose blog I regularly read. She has a two-year-old boy named Noah and recently had her little girl, Ellie. Anyway, now I'm supposed to share five random things about myself...Here goes...

1. I'm not athletic. I have a personal rule not to run unless someone is chasing me. But I was a cheerleader in junior high and high school and loved it. I couldn't do the best jumps ever, but I loved the stunting and the dancing. Go ahead, you can make fun now.

2. My birthday is September 11 (a date which didn't mean a whole lot to anyone before 2001). I have two sisters, and their birthdays are March 11 and November 11. Can you guess my parents' lucky number? (Just kidding.)

3. I'm cosmetologically impaired. I want to be able to do my hair and makeup well, but I wasn't born with that gene. That's why I'm thankful for an understanding husband and a sister-in-law who tries to help me sometimes (Emily!).

4. I don't notice facial hair. Don't ask me if my dad has a mustache. I don't know if he does or not. A beard? Hmm...Maybe? I know that Luke always has something on his face, but I couldn't always tell you what it is at the moment if he's not with me. (I'm looking at him now, so I can tell you it's a jazz patch and a 5 o'clock shadow.) A close friend of ours from church, Rusty, grew a goatee, and it took me days, if not weeks, to notice it (and that's because someone finally mentioned it to me!).

5. I love to cook / bake. For some reason, I have a knack for desserts. (Probably because I like to eat them!) God has a sense of humor, because he married me to a diabetic boy. But don't worry, 'cause Luke likes my desserts, too! (Oh, wait...)

Okay, now I'm going to tag Chaeli, Kathy, Shannon, Alonna, and Emily. (I won't be offended if you don't do it, but goodness - Emily, Shannon, and Alonna - you haven't blogged in ages! Update!)

Slip 'n' slides, and TEETH!

We bought Caleb a slip 'n' slide with some of his birthday money, and we had the chance to use it last night (Thursday). I read the warning label right before opening it, which basically says that no one under five years old and no one over 12 years old or 110 pounds can use the slide. No one in our family qualifies! So, we ignored it...and fun was had by all!

Grace LOVED it. She's such a water bug; she must take after her mommy. Caleb had fun, too, but he wasn't as enthusiastic about actually sliding down the slide. He seemed to have more fun just watching everyone else do it.

Luke and I had fun sliding, too. :-) We made funny faces (unintentionally) when we slid, probably because it's actually somewhat painful! But it was still fun.

And then, when we got done, dinner came out of the oven. We had Aimee's Quick Chicken, loaded baked potatoes, and mixed veggies. Yum!

And a milestone for Ava: SHE GOT HER FIRST TOOTH! She's been working on getting that sucker in for a while, and now it's poking through! And her second one is not far behind. I can see it near the surface, but not yet through the gums yet. Our baby is growing up!

That's all for now. It's the weekend - YAY!

Surprise!

My wonderful husband picked up the camera from FedEx before coming home from work. YAY! It's a Nikon S550. It's such a small camera, but it takes 10 megapixel pictures! So, here's one picture to get us started. I'm planning to take many more tomorrow (of all the kids), so check back later! Good night, all!

No camera yet!

Well, I had to go to an eye doctor appointment this morning, and I missed the FedEx guy. In fact, I think I passed him on the road. Too bad I didn't have time to turn around and come back. I'm excited to get the camera! My kids' faces haven't seen a camera flash in so long! :-) He'll be coming back tomorrow, though, and I will be happily snapping away soon enough.

My CVS trip today didn't go as planned, and I experienced my first bout of frustration with them...I actually visited three CVS stores before coming up with some of what I wanted. And I spent a little more than I wanted, too...The first store didn't have a good selection of cereals. So, I went to the second store up the road. I decided just to get what they had, and when I got to the register, the lady behind the counter wouldn't take both my $4/$20 and $3/$15 coupons. She was nice, but firm. So, I politely told her I would just go to the store that I knew would accept both. So, I did. I ended up at the store I went to last week, and they had a better selection of cereals anyway. (And they took all my coupons.) Sadly, they didn't have all the right cereals to match my coupons, so I ended up spending more than I wanted. Here's what I got: 1 Lucky Charms, 1 Cheerios, 2 Cinnamon Toast Crunch, 2 Fiber One (don't tell Luke - he hates that stuff), 1 package of Kotex pads, 1 Dove shampoo, and 1 Dove conditioner. After coupons and my $10 EBC, I spent $2.39. I got back another $10 EBC. So, it pretty much cost $2.39 to get all that stuff. Not bad! ($.05 would have been better, though.) And now I know to go to the store I know I like, and to go as soon after they unload their shipments as possible. (All the "free" toothbrushes were out of stock again, etc.)

After our CVS trip(s), the kids and I visited our friends the Sheridans. Today was the last day of school for Shannon and Shane, and the family will leave for Hawaii on Thursday. (Not fair, right?) So, we wanted to see them before they left. They are such sweet kids, and I'm beginning to feel like their older sister. Shannon is Alonna's age, so I guess that works!

Now, the kids are down, and I desperately need to work on our meal menu for the month. I've really been slacking, because I feel like I've been making all the same things over and over again the past few months. Does anyone have any yummy new recipes to share? (Emily? You're always cooking new things!) Please give me some inspiration!

Side note: Base Camp curriculum is done! YAY!!! Now, I'm absolutely feeling a burden to pray for this ministry. For some reason it's become increasingly clear to me lately that no matter how cool our program is, or how great the curriculum is, or whatever - none of that matters if God doesn't bless it. So, if you think of it, please be in prayer that God will prepare the hearts of the kids that will come, and that he'll move powerfully through Base Camp this summer. Oh, and if you were curious, it is going to be pretty daRn cool! :-)

That's all for now. Have a great evening enjoying the SUNSHINE!

CVS this week

I haven't gone yet, but these are the transactions I'm planning to do at CVS this week. (I'm hoping they have all the items in stock!)

Transaction #1:
OralB CrossAction toothbrush (2pk) - $6.99
CVS sheer or plastic bandages - $1.99
Huggies lotion or wash - $3.49
Dove shampoo/conditioner (BOGO) - $4.29
------------
Total - $16.76 + tax
use $3/$15 CVS coupon
use $1/1 Huggies coupon
use 2 $1.50/1 Dove coupons
------------
New total - $10.53
Spend $10 EBCs that I already have and $0.53 out-of-pocket (OOP)
Earn $10.98 in EBCs

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Transaction #2:
OralB CrossAction toothbrush (2pk) - $6.99
------------
Total - $6.99 + tax
------------
Spend $6.99 EBCs and $0.42 OOP
Earn $6.99 EBCs

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Transaction #3:
6 General Mills cereals or granola bars - $20
------------
Total - $20
use $4/$20 CVS coupon
use $3/$15 CVS coupon
use up to $6 in cereal coupons (have yet to gather all of them)
------------
New total - $7
Spend $6.99 ECBs and $0.01 OOP
Earn $10 ECBs

All in all, I will start with $10 ECBs, spend $0.96 OOP, and earn $13.99 ECBs (for later). And I get to take home lots of cereal, toothbrushes, shampoo, and more! I think I love CVS!

For those of you who would like to learn to do this (Andrea!), read this blog post by Crystal at MoneySavingMom.com. I'm new at it, but would love to help others learn to how to save money like I'm beginning to! :-)

Funny kids...

We slept in until 8:00am on Saturday...Never in all my years as a person with no children would I call 8:00am "sleeping in." But having kids changes things! So, anyway, the kids ALWAYS come into our room when they wake up before us. And this Saturday, Grace came in to wake us up. After a few minutes, she told me, "Caleb and I were picking out our breakfasts. I picked oatmeal. Caleb picked chocolate chips." I said, "WHAT?! Where's Caleb?" She replied, "I think he's eating chocolate chips." So I ran to the kitchen to discover the pantry doors wide open and Caleb sitting on the floor in the middle of the laundry room (next to the kitchen) with an open bag of chocolate chips in his lap and chocolate smudged around his guilty little mouth. What a kid!

P.S. Watch for pictures soon! Our camera should be here today!

My first CVS trip!

I can't say enough about this blog! Seriously, if you'd like to save tons of money on toiletries (and other stuff), check it out.

Last night after church, I made my first trip to CVS. They seem to have a better program than Walgreens. I think the trip went pretty well. Here's what I got...

1 bag M&M's :-)
2 Glade sprays
2 Listerine Smart Rinses
2 Huggies baby washes
3 bottles of Pantene (2 shampoo, 1 conditioner)
2 bottles of Dawn dish detergent
1 Brut deoderant

After coupons and extra care bucks, this all cost $3.41. Woo-hoo! Not bad for my first try!

Unfortunately, the CVS I went to had a bunch of things out of stock that I wanted/needed, so I might try to visit a different one tomorrow or Saturday to stock up on paper towels, toilet paper, and toothbrushes.

That's all for now!

(P.S. Sorry about the lack of kid posts and pictures lately. Our camera died a couple of weeks ago, and our new one is in the mail. I'll definitely post pictures when we're up and running again!)

Good deals tonight

Our wonderful friend Sommer offered to watch our kids tonight so Luke and I could have some time to ourselves. What a blessing!!! Even though we mostly ran errands, it was nice just to be together without our little sweethearts to distract us.

So, here are the good deals I snagged today...

Four tubes of Colgate Total Advanced toothpaste for $.34. (Free plus tax.)
Two bags of Chex Mix for free.
Six jumbo packs of Huggies for $30, but it'll be $20 after I send in for two $5 rebates. That makes the diapers about $3.33 for each package. Not bad!

I'm a beginner, but it's still exhilarating in a way to walk out of stores with free stuff that we'll actually use. Fun! Did you know that when you shop at Rite Aid, Walgreens, etc. (which I never would have shopped at before, but can see the merit in it now), you can stack coupons?...Meaning, you can use a Walgreens coupon AND a manufacturer's coupon for the same item. Not only that, but you can use one manufacturer's coupon per item, so for instance, the toothpaste I bought was on sale Buy One Get One Free and I had a $1.50 off coupon for EACH tube. Without the BOGO sale, I would have paid 1/2 price for all the toothpastes (since they were originally $2.99). But using the coupons during the BOGO sale made the toothpaste free. Who doesn't love free?!

Alright, I know that it's been a long time, and I should write more about our lives, but there's so much more I need to be doing now. So, maybe later! For now, goodbye!

Toddler Hide-and-Seek

Today I experienced the game of hide-and-seek from a 2- and 3-year-old perspective. Apparently, toddlers don't actually hide themselves for this game, which is probably good because I know for a fact that neither of mine could be quiet enough to actually stay hidden for more than 0.0000000001 seconds. So this is how it worked...Grace told Caleb to stand facing the corner, and she helped him count to three while she hid the object to seek - her pink and white purse. After he counted to three and said, "GO!" (with her help), then he'd turn around to look for the purse, and she'd show him where it was. Then it was Caleb's turn to hide it and Grace's turn to seek. I helped him hide it (because when he did it himself, it was "hidden" in his hands!), and she turned around, and he pointed to where it was...What a crazy game - but they loved it!!!

And now they're laying under a "tent" I made for them out of chairs and blankets, singing "Jesus Loves Me" together and clapping. I love it when they get along. These are the days it's easier to remember that my job is such an amazing privilege.

Busy saving money...

What a waste of time!!! I've been online (dial-up!) for an hour and a half, trying to print some stupid coupons. Apparently, it's not going to happen. I really want to print these coupons for Colgate so that I can go to Walgreens tonight and get myself a free tube of toothpaste...

I've been reading this blog lately, and it is so useful and practical. There are many tips and tricks for serious "couponing." The people that actually do this stuff get most (all? some?) of their toiletries for free! They shop a lot at CVS / Walgreens / Rite Aid...My friend Larissa does this. I actually found out about it from reading her blog. She got 8 packages of diapers for $3 out of pocket at CVS. I want to learn to shop like that!!!

So, here is my plea. Family, friends, strangers...If you get the paper and don't use the coupon inserts, can I please, please, pretty please have yours? We just started getting the Press, and I am going to start gathering my coupons and ease my way into the super-savings. I would love your help! I'm excited about it, but also not too confident in myself yet. So don't make fun of me if it doesn't work for us.

And, I should say, an hour and a half is completely unacceptable for me! I just used up the kids' whole naptime (almost) and didn't even get one coupon to print! Not to mention that we've been so BUSY lately! Last week was insane, and this one's not too much better...Here's a synopsis of our days...

Last Monday, Bob (our cement guy) was here all day prepping for our flatwork. I had to wrangle the kids all day - but they LOVED watching him work.

Tuesday, Bob and a couple of other guys poured and finished the cement. Caleb LOVED the cement truck! And we all LOVE the sidewalk and two cement patios we now have! We also had a last-minute showing that night.

Wednesday was an afternoon doctor appointment, WalMart trip (thanks, Shannon, for coming with us!), and church.

Thursday was another last-minute showing, and my mom came down to stay with Grace during Caleb's surgery.

Friday was Caleb's surgery.

Saturday the entire Rumley clan was here. (We had a great time!)

Sunday was church, out to eat for Mother's Day, home, and back to church for a congregational meeting.

Yesterday was another last-minute showing.

And tonight we have a showing at 7:00pm.

WOW! I'm tired just typing all that.

So, I'd better go, now that I've been online for SO long!!! Pray for our house to sell if you think of it!

He's Waking Up...

Surgery went well, and Lacey is with Caleb in the wake-up room. After he snaps out of it, we will have another 1-2 hours in the hospital before we can take him home. Thanks for praying!

Caleb's Surgery Day

We're at the hospital now, in the holding area before going into the waiting room for surgery. Caleb is doing very well so far, and he looks incredibly cute in his little scrubs. The nurses are all doing a wonderful job with him, and the hospital is well-equipped with toys. He's currently playing basketball with Luke while I type. So...surgery should begin at 7:30am. Please pray that all goes well!

Our camera batteries are almost dead, but I got a couple of not-that-great pictures of Caleb in his little hospital outfit. Here they are...

Caleb in his tiger scrubs, sitting on his hospital bed.


Caleb driving a little truck around the unit before coming down to this holding area.

We'll try to update later! Thanks for your prayers!

Family weekend

This past weekend was a flurry of activity, but also a lot of fun! Luke, my bro-in-law Karl, and some other men from our church (and churches all over Michigan) went to a men's retreat at Lake Ann Camp. So, while they were gone, my whole family came down here to visit.

My parents and Alonna were so kind to stay with the four kids while Melissa, Ava, and I went garage saling on Friday. And M even took me out to Olive Garden for lunch - a WONDERFUL treat! (I love that restaurant and rarely get to go.) It was a great day with my sister! You know, when we were growing up, we fought like crazy. She's 3-1/2 years older than me, so we were just far enough apart in age for us to not "get" each other at all. My mom used to tell us what great friends we'd be when we grew up, and I never really believed her. But she was right! (Good call, Mom!) I'm so thankful for the friendship I can have with Melissa now!

And we spent the rest of the weekend eating, hanging out, and doing a little more garage saling with Alonna and my dad.

Lest I leave Alonna out of the discussion...I left home for college when she was six years old, so we didn't really grow up together. But it's been fun to see her mature and grow into a godly young woman. She's fourteen now, and it's crazy to think that she'll be out of high school and in college in no time at all! (That makes me feel OLD!)

And here are just a couple of pictures that we took this weekend. (I must be in the mood for black and white. Sorry if you were hoping for some color!)

The kids - from left: Karl(3), Emma(19mths), Caleb(2), Ava(6mths), Grace(3).


Sisters! Left to right - Melissa (the oldest), Alonna (the youngest), and me (the middle!).

Fun with Photoshop!

I took these pictures of sweet Ava today. She's nearing seven months old, and sitting up like a pro!

Sitting, eating, pooping...

Ava has been growing up so much this weekend! We started propping her up on the floor with cushions behind her a few days ago, and now she's completely capable of sitting up on her own. Granted, she doesn't always WANT to sit up on her own. But if she has a toy in front of her and isn't thinking about how she doesn't want to sit up, then she does really well. I brought the toy in this picture upstairs (from a box in the basement) yesterday, and she seems to really like it. It distracts her enough to keep her upright!


Today we fed her baby food for the first time - green beans! She's been a good eater for us lately. She gobbles her cereal right down, and today she ate half a jar of baby food (quite happily, I might add). I love her happy spirit - even when she's eating pureed vegetables! What a sweetheart!


And last, but not even close to least, Ava peed and pooped on the potty today! YES! Our 6-month-old pooped on the potty! Yay! True, she didn't tell us she had to go, but she started grunting a little, so Luke sat her on the potty...and she went! Good job, Ava! Maybe we can potty train Caleb and Ava simultaneously!