Tyler's tooth

Yes, we had a busy week. Tyler finally lost his first tooth! He thought he was eating a rock, and luckily he didn't swallow it. So he got his first visit from the tooth fairy, who gave him 40 cents (which is funny, because I thought she told me she was going to give him 50 cents...).

Happy bday Claire!

Claire is so happy to finally be 4! She got a new bed for her birthday, along with a bunch of new toys. She had a fun treasure hunt to find her little pet shop present, and then for her party we had a treasure hunt to find the pinata. Here's the link for all her bday pics:

Claire's 4th bday

Free advertisement for our Eureka

I LOVE our new quick-up cordless Eureka! Let me tell you, it was well worth the $36. All the kids can use it--even our little handicapped Scotto can vacuum up the crumbs. Yay for free kid labor and crumb-free floors!

Snakes!

It was the long-awaited snake show at the library! Yes, it was long-awaited--we got there at 9:45 for the 10:00 show, only to find it was already "sold-out", so we had to wait for the 11:15. But it was worth it! The kids loved holding the snakes. The last snake they pulled out was a 6-ft-long yellow one, called Hurricane Joe--they found him after Hurricane Katrina.

Claire's bday's coming!

Thanks for teaching us this song in Chinese, Mindy! Claire's so excited for her upcoming bday.

Tough Scotto

On Friday the boys were being energetic, as usual, playing in the study. Scott was sitting on the office chair and Tyler spun the chair really hard to make him dizzy. Unfortunately, Scott wasn't holding on and the chair was right next to our elliptical. Scott apparantly flew right off the chair and landed on the elliptical. After a couple hours he was still unable to move around much, so I called the nurse and she told me to take him immediately to the ER. Our neighbor friends were already over playing, so I asked their mom to babysit Tyler and Claire and then I rushed him to the hospital. I felt really bad for Claire because she was dealing with a fever and stomach bug (she ended up throwing up at our neighbor's and then later at home--yeah, it was a crazy day!). We got an x-ray done, and I could see a definite break in his collarbone. So he's on motrin every 6 hours and will be wearing a sling for the next few weeks. I'm so grateful that we figured out what was wrong and that he's okay now. He's a tough guy, and he doesn't even mind having the sling on. It's hard for him to not be able to climb around very well, and I have to be very careful when I pick him up, but he is taking it all very well. We love our cute tough Scotto.

Colorado!

We went to Colorado for Grandma Junne's 80th birthday surprise! All of her kids were there, along with most of her grandkids and great-grandkids (about 80 people total). It was held at the church on Saturday, June 21st. There was lots of yummy food, a talent show (Tim and I performed our Hallelujah Chorus duet), a photo scavenger hunt through town, and water games. Staying at Tim's parents' house was like being at a bed-and-breakfast--I think there were almost 40 people staying there, most of whom I met for the first time. And Kathy had beds & separate rooms/sectioned off areas for every family! Yes, they have a huge house. It's on a little mountain in a little town south of Colorado Springs, with the most amazing view. We had fun four-wheeling, feeding the chickens, picking eggs, going on hikes, and playing with relatives.

On Monday the guys took the older kids (Tim took Tyler and Claire) on a camping trip in the mountains. Us girls and little ones went to visit them that afternoon, and we actually got stuck on the road as we were leaving (there were ditches in the road a couple feet deep, plus it was starting to rain so the dirt was slick!). I had to run back to the campsite and get the boys to come "rescue" us. It was quite an adventure! The next day they took a 3 1/2 hour-long hike (they weren't following a trail and got lost), with Tim carrying Claire most of the time. They didn't bring enough water or food so they had to carefully ration it, not knowing when they would make it back to camp. That whole experience made me realize that the family I came from is SO different from Tim's family! If it had been my family, we would've turned around the minute we saw the broken up dirt road. Or we would've just stayed home! :)

And the weather was so crazy when we were there. As soon as we got there, it started pouring rain. Then all of a sudden it started hailing, big marble-sized balls. As this was happening, a huge rainbow appeared in the valley, the biggest I have ever seen in my life. The end of the rainbow seemed to actually touch the road. I guess even though we didn't go during the winter this time, the kids still got to play with snow/ice!


Sorry the pictures aren't better-we relied on Tim's camera phone because the resolution is actually better than our camera, plus it's more convenient. But we didn't realize it was on the wrong setting the whole time! I'm hoping his sister Keri had better luck with her pictures.

Some old video clips

I came across this old video from March that I just couldn't exclude from my blog, of Claire learning to count by 10's (with Scott helping in the background).

Here's one taken in April. You can't hear her very well, but at the very end she says, "My hands are too...crunchy!" Sorry these videos aren't the best--they're taken from my cell phone.

Okay, one more clip--this one is from May. I've been trying to teach Scott a little Chinese, ever since he started learning how to talk. Here he's helping me count to 10 in Chinese. I wish I could've just done an audio clip on this one, the resolution and lighting are really bad. Anyway, he says a few things in Chinese and understands the few Chinese words or phrases I say to him. He loved talking to Nana the other day and saying, "Wo ai ni" (I love you) and "Zai jian!" (Bye). He still talks and laughs about it. By the way, Mindy--I need you to help me with my Chinese! I'm starting to lose the little that I've learned...