Catching Up

The past couple of week's Go-Go's:





City Museum for Grant's birthday. What a unique and fun place! The whole family went and it was a blast. Only three injuries! Two of them were on Grant. Happy Birthday! http://www.citymuseum.org/home.asp





Raging Rivers to use up free passes the kids earned for reading last school year. And then we had to pay for Diane's speeding ticket. Guess it all evens out. Raging Rivers was great and perfect for all the kids to enjoy. And mom. http://www.ragingrivers.com/





We also went places like to Bethalto IL to order Diane's contacts, to see the Transformers movie, out to Buffet City (froglegs!), and Jack to Clay County.





By Jack:


Two weeks ago I spent a week in Clay County. I choose the worst week to come. In the day it was too hot do anything and it was otherwise raining. So we only got to squeze a couple of things in like shooting turtles and swimming at Aunt Karen's pool.








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Who thinks he overlooked one of the main events of that special week??





BEFORE































AFTER

Gary on the Go

by Diane

This is Gary.

This is Gary mowing the yard with the reel mower.

This is Gary mowing with the reel mower on a 100 degree day with sky-high humidity.

See the haze in the sky? That's when you know it is hot.

It was a day last week when there was a heat advisory in effect.

{Warning: Leaving the G-rated family-friendly realm for just a second}

Our neighbors tease us that this is our means of birth control.

Too worn out to do anything more?

A Scooter Story

By Caroline Gill

Tonight my dad put a leash collar on his neck and barked. And then he put a pen on it and then he letted me put my hands on it and it was supposed to sting. Jack did it and my mom, and my mom jumped away. When my dad put the leash collar on Scooter and he barked, then he squealed! And everybody laughed, but me and my mom were upstairs. But I didn't hear it but my mom did. The end.

[where leash collar = shock collar]

We went to a Wedding! from two perspectives

By Caroline Grace Gill

Before the wedding, we had a pool party, my pool party!!

And my cousin Mimi came to my Aunt Karen's. And we had a cook out and we had so much fun! And at the cookout, we saw an inch worm. It loved my swimming suit.

I didn't have any floaties at the pool! Ross weared a tuxedo! He was a helper for the wedding. He putted down the rug when the husband came and the wife.

I danced a lot!

It was so fun!

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The Wedding by Grant

It was really hot!! Really long!! That's all I have to say!!

(not really--Blog Mama made him say more)

Grant:

At the reception, I drank part of a Mountain Dew that tasted like 7 Up so then I changed to Coca-Cola and drank two of them.

Then my cousin, Tyler, told me that his record for drinking cans of Coca-Cola was 11, and he puked twice. (not at this wedding)

This is Jack not dancing. He didn't want to dance so he didn't. But then Neoma, one of my relatives, wanted to dance with him. But right whenever he was going to start dancing with her, I asked him where the water fountain was because he knew where it was, and he walked off to show me. I didn't know I was saving him. I didn't mean to.

--Grant

Mitch and Misty's Wedding--A Picture Story

Mitch and Misty Gill

Married June 20, 2009

Today's Entry is by Guess Who

SAM ALLEN GILL

SAM ALLEN GILL

SAMMY

SAMUEL

Caroline on Caroline's Actual Birthday

by Caroline Grace Gill

We went to Target and got popcorn and today is my real birthday!! Popcorn was my breakfast 'cause we were going to go to Denny's, but we were late. Then we went to Kohl's and bought me some new clothes! At Kohl's we went to the makeup part and we put on all kinds of makeup and I couldn't see my eyeshadow. And my mom dropped a container and it probably broke. (Yes, it did break, no biggie, just a plastic cotton ball container that I suspect was already in two pieces but set together to look fine, so sue me, Kohl's.)

This is me at Applebee's. The lady thought I was only eating soup but I had chicken fingers and french fries. I ate my mommy's soup.

(And can I challenge anyone to actually be able to eat a salad on a tiny kidney bean shaped dish without leaving half the salad on the table?! The table top was neatened up for the purposes of this picture, but guess there went the point!)

Sorry, spewing bitterness towards Kohl's and Applebee's is not very happy birthday-like. It really was a great day! Back to Miss C:

Then we had to stop at the store to get a yellow cake mix since I wanted a yellow cake. My special supper that I picked was Mexican rice, sausage sandwich, and yellow cake with white icing and a 6 candle.

We picked up the boys and then we went to the outdoor pool for swimming at the YMCA. Sam loved the frog slide! I did the big twisty slide!

We got tired and this is me asleep in the van. And Sam was asleep, too, when we drove home.

(And if we are ever gonna get to hit P for publish this week, we really did start this on Wednesday and now it's Friday, Mama's just gonna have to take over since Girlfriend's attention span for this one is done gone.)

So now, the Diane version:

Caroline's girl-only birthday plan was for us to have Denny's for breakfast, go shopping, and have Chinese for lunch, and Mexican for supper. I thought that sounded great! I woke up that morning seriously excited since those are all my favorite things! Well, morning reality hit and we didn't get out of the house until 9:30 and if we actually did breakfast then, that would throw off the whole schedule since we had to pick up the boys from their friends' house at 1:00. So I convinced her to get a snack while we shopped at Target. That explains how she came up with the crazy idea for popcorn breakfast--her mom made her do it.

She was not the shopping mad-girl that I expected! In an ocean of girlie clothes at Target and Kohl's, she would casually pick up something and put it right back, not really interested. Maybe all those years of "No, you can look but we are not buying anything" that I have chanted since the dawning of our children has actually brainwashed her.

By the end, she asked to try on a pair of capris and 2 t-shirts and that's what she got for her new birthday outfit. And good thing she finally came through 'cause if there's anything we (don't) have a shortage of in this house, it's toys, flipflops, and girl clothes. Just ask Gary.

Lunch plans then shifted to Applebee's at my suggestion since I had a free kids's meal coupon and that worked well except we were running so tight on time that I didn't get to tell the waitress it was Caroline's birthday! Of all places to miss out on that. We just had to eat and get the check and go, or we were going to be seriously late for picking up the boys at 1. I hope I can get over that guilt. My poor time management probably cost her a deluxe-o free dessert and staff singing and the full restaurant's attention for 3 minutes. And a balloon! Bummer.

The afternoon event was swimming at the Y with Sam. The big boys stayed home since they "don't like the outdoor pool." ?? We had fun hopping in and hopping out over and over and where was Mom's time to enjoy the last open lounge chair that we were super lucky to score on a totally crowded pool day? Good thing we had it to hold our towels.

After a snooze/recharge for Sam and Caroline, and after Gary finished mowing for already the 233rd time this season, we had our gourmet supper of just-what-she-asked-for and then it was cake and presents time. By now it was 8:30-9:00 at night, and can I just say, Caroline was so good about patiently waiting for the finale.

Her gifts: smelly markers from smelly brothers, Jack and Grant, slippers from Sam, a Baby Alive and the hard-to-come-by outfit from me,

and girl-Lego's from Gary.



I will tell you that the girl Lego's elicited the highest pitch shriek on the present-o-meter.

Happy 6th Birthday Caroline!

Jack's Flag Burning

By Jack

Sunday, I went to a flag retirement ceremony at St. Cecilia's church. My troop(216) was chosen to do the ceremony. When dad and I arrived, they were deciding who would be doing what. Matthew M., Matthew J., and I would be folding the retired flag.




The ceremony started. The Knights of Columbus were there,too. Some guy(I think that owns the church) started speaking. Than Fr. Joe Kerber offered a prayer. Then we started to lower the flag. Riley lowered it, Joe detached it, Matthew M., Matthew J., and I started to fold the flag.




Matthew J. held the old flag while Jacob, Riley, and Joe raised the new one. Then we(the color guard) walked over to the fire to burn the old flag. Jacob and Matthew J. set the flag in the fire while everyone else sang"God Bless America". The other guy talked more and then the ceremony was over.

My Birthday Party was Yesterday!

by Caroline Grace Gill

That was not my real birthday. My real birthday is June 17 and today is June 15. Tomorrow is June 16. Then the next day after tomorrow is my real birthday. I think we are going to go to Grandma and Grandpa's (Diane adds: not until June 19).

I got the most candy from the pinata, and one person named Maria, she only got one piece. Then she got a lot. And I got the most candy!

My friends' names that came to my birthday party was Kitti, Caroline B, Maria, she's the one that had one piece, Stella, Katie, and Lydia. And my brothers went to the movie three-ate-er so they wouldn't mess up the party. We chained Scooter up on a leash.

We could decorate our cupcakes. We had coconut, gummy bears, sour octupus, worms, oreos, sprinkles, marshmallows. That's all. We took pictures of our kebobs.

My brothers, when they came home from the movie threeater, they just played with all of my presents that I got. They just played and played and played. They couldn't stop playing. I think they stayed up all night and played with my new toys all night!

Today I am blowing up balloon, I mean a sword! It's a balloon from my party that we didn't use.

My friends got to have goody bags. A ring pop,a hula skirt, bubbles, lotion, and gum. That's all. Bye!