Dominic Douglas

Dominic had a great summer. He loves to be outside and has become much more confident with activities like swimming. He is also overcoming a lot of his shyness. He will now go up to kids and introduce himself which is something he hadn't done before. Dominic wants to be just like his dad and love helping out with mowing the lawn and watching football games.

This is Dominic pretending to mow the grass with his tractor and lawn sweeper, aka beach bag.

Way back in June Dominic turned 4!!

This picture cracks me up every time I see it. I asked Dominic and Natalie to scoot in by Cara for a picture on Dominic's birthday and this is what I got :)

Dominic calls this "dressing up" like a sheep.

Whenever we go to the zoo Dominic insists I take his picture on this bear.

He made this tie picture as a Father's Day present, but wanted to wear it to church.

Dominic says his favorite animal is a cow, but whenever we are at the zoo, his favorite are the penguins. If you run your finger along the outside of the tank, the penguins will chase it. Dominic loves that!

Natalie Elizabeth

Natalie is brave and determined

She makes the funniest faces

Natalie loves to dance

and she LOVES horses. A friend of Kirk's boards horses and we were able to take the kids over to ride Dakota (or Dakotie as Natalie calls her) for an early birthday present. She was in heaven on that horse!

Natalie Turned 3!

Natalie loves all things princess. She wants frilly dresses that are long enough to touch the ground, and she always wants to reenact the dancing scenes in the Disney princess movies. Her current favorite is Beauty and the Beast.

Birthday pancakes. The kids loved them, but as an FYI the sprinkle pancakes weren't all that tasty.

Natalie is growing up quickly. She wants to do everything with her brother. They are both very imaginative in the games they play. Natalie is also caring and loves to help. She has a bit of a stubborn streak that I am going to learn to direct towards beneficial activities ;) We love our sweet girl!

Caroline Marie

You may notice a theme in the majority of the pictures below. Cara is restrained either by a high chair, stroller,float or horse. That is not to say I keep my child tied up all the time. But, it is the only way that I would be able to take a picture of her. Cara is now just about 19 months old. She is into everything. Cara is extremely curious and keeps us all on the go. She doesn't say much other than "hi" "dada" and "this" which is her go-to word for everything. It sounds more like "issssss", like a snake. So she runs around pointing to things and hissing at them, ha! Cara is a happy girl. She loves her family, to eat off of other people's plates, to figure things out by herself, and her blanket. She especially loves to torment her brother and sister by stealing their toys and seeing how fast she can run away with them. She loves to be chased. We are certainly blessed to have her as part of our family!

Where Has Summer Gone?

Is it really possible that I didn't update the blog all summer? Now that we are a week into October I figured I'd better try and get caught up on all of our exciting happenings over the past three months before things get really overwhelming. So in the next few days I will try and include some more info about each of the kids, but here's a quick recap of our summer.

Anna took a new job teaching Reading to 5-8th graders at St. Bernard-St. Mary's School.
Kirk just started a new job managing a call center called Incept
Dominic turned 4
Natalie turned 3
Cara turned into the cutest "destroyer"
Our family took a vacation to the Smoky Mountains
We spent a lot of time enjoying the sun, swimming, and hanging out at the zoo
Lots of family came to visit: Cousins Carston and Faith (they brought Aunt Shannon and Uncle Brandt with them ;), Sarah, Bethany and Graham, aka "Uncle".

Misc. Summer Fun:

"mooing" like cows at lunch time

we had some HOT weather this summer, for Ohio...

My sister came to visit and we crammed all the kids into the car to take them to the zoo. We had a blast!

 Tennessee:

Papa keeping the kids from leaping off the mountain.

Random:

Dominic still loves to dress-up. I walked into the living room to find this guy sitting on my couch.

For almost a month Dominic insisted Daddy wear is "gorilla costume" on a daily basis.