Life is busy!

I can't believe it's been almost six months since I wrote an entry for this blog. Time flies when you're having fun.

Well, Grandchild #6 is due to be born by C-section on October 8. We will be watching big brother on the 7th and through the 8th, then his aunt will take over for the weekend until either Mommy comes home or we come back from our trip on the 9th to Miami. It takes a village ...

Granddaughter #1 and Grandson #1 began first grade and kindergarten respectively. Granddaughter #1 had to overcome an incompetent kindergarten teacher who faked her students' mastery scores. She had some tutoring over the summer in reading and is now reading some priImary books. Grandson #1, her brother, probably won't be far behind. He's having to take some speech therapy but is coming around to becoming a bit more understandable. He gets so frustrated when people don't understand him.

He came up with a funny saying this summer. His mother asked him if something was dirty. He ran his finger across it, then said, "No, it's clean as a rhino!" That's my favorite saying now!

We had a family reunion this summer of my dad's family. The photo above is taken of my husband and me with all the grandkids. I was so happy to have everyone there. My mom and dad had a photo taken of them with all their grandchildren and great grandchildren. I think it was 14.

Grandson #3 had a pretty bad experience with a treadmill this summer. He was standing on one (which was turned off, but plugged in) when another 3 year old came by and turned it on. Grandson fell against a wall, and got scraped up pretty badly by the treadmill along his arms and legs and especially his left foot. It took a long time to heal. He had to be off his feet for a week, but was so good about it! He's still a little wary about putting his foot in water -- wears beach shoes in the bath. A few weeks after it happened, he happened to enter a room where the 3 year old "perpetrator" was. Grandson marched up to him and said, "We don't turn on things and hurt our friends!" I think that was a pretty reasoned response!

Both Grandsons #2 and 3 had birthdays this summer. # 2 turned 4 and #3 turned 3. Both opted for small, family parties and fewer gifts. Then their parents took them to Disney World as their big gifts. Grandson #3 had a great time, but Grandson #2 was a bit intimidated by a lot of stuff. I'm sure he'll be fine when he gets older. The funny thing is he loved the roller coaster, but was deathly afraid of Peter Pan's Flight and Snow White's Ride.

Granddaughter #2 is a trip! She is big and strong and talking like a 2 year old. She loves to play with the magnets on my refrigerator ... her favorite thing is just to throw them around. But her dad got her to do something really funny. He says, "Washy (her nickname), are you stinky?" She'll bend down and try to smell her diaper. Usually she comes up and says, "No." She's finally gotten to the point that she cries when we don't take her with us when we pick up her big brother and sister. But we've also had her by herself several times this summer. She's a busy little girl.

Grandson #2 had his big brother move down from Tennessee, so that was greeted with cheers. He's living with his dad and my daughter for school purposes, but he stays with his mom when he can.

The two older grandsons (and one of the stepgrands) are signed up for baseball / t-ball this fall. That should be fun. We also signed up the older two (granddaughter and grandson) for gymnastics and I've offered to pay for the younger grandsons if they want to take it, and granddaughter #1 to take dance lessons. We'll see if that happens.

So things are going along swimmingly. Once granddaughter #3 gets here, our family will be complete.