David's first day at work

David became employed outside of the home for the very first time today.
 He is 10 years old and it is not a babysitting job. 

Our friends tree farm was looking for some boys to help remove baby fur cones from the inside of their Christmas trees.  The cones grow this time of year and are easily removed with a simple twist of the hand.  A ladder and perseverance is needed.  Apparently after about 3 weeks the fur/pine cones become much harder to remove requiring a hand shears.  So time is of the essence.  I guess if you have a few trees is not a big deal but if you have an entire tree farm, it IS a big deal. I guess these cones aren't like normal pine cones that grow and fall off nice and neat.  These become spikes and no one wants those to poke you when you decorate the tree for Christmas.

They asked David if he was interested in working for $8 an hour.  I thought 8 bucks an hour? My first job was babysitting and I got $1.25! Holy Smokes!  He made $40 today.  After seeing his first paycheck he agreed that work was worth the reward and would come again to finish the job.

Then another first.  Our trip to the bank to cash his first paycheck.  He had to endorse it and ask for the denomination of bills he wanted.  He was all puffy as a peacock with pride.

I stood to the side and thought about how he used to ask me to "play trains?"  It is evident that he is closer to being a man than he is to having been a toddler. Is that even possible?

Even the dog reads before bed

Here's a picture of my boys preparing Maddie for the Paws to Read Program.

Go Brewers

We took the day off school to "take me out to the ball game"

Boys are loving it,  especially since we have seen Bernie the Brewer go down the home run slide twice already. 

I hope we win!

Caleb's 7th Birthday

Caleb had a big birthday party this year.  As he grows his sphere of influence grows.

It was evident to us that even though he doesn't attend public

school, he certainly isn't socially deprived. We limited his number of party

invitations to 8 kids. With our 3 kids added to the number that makes for a big boy

festival! 

He wanted to have an Angry Birds game activity, so we used our old

cardboard building blocks.  It has been awhile since those were played with.

We set up my exercise band as a slingshot.  David tied the band to the banister at the top

of the stairs and the top of the railing.  Believe it or not it worked really well.  Then we

set up the stuffed pigs and stuffed birds Caleb had from Christmas to make a real version

of Angry Birds.  What a hoot!

In addition we borrowed a couple more Bey Blade stadiums and had a Bey Blade

tournament upstairs.  Time passed quickly, but not quietly.  It was a lot of

activity having 11 boys party for 2 hours.

Caleb turning 7 makes my boys all at perfect ages.  I wish there was a stop time button.

I would push it right here with boys aged 10,7 and 4.  This right now is the "good 'ol days."

Tonight as I put the boys to bed I looked at the ceiling and almost started to cry.

I hadn't noticed the glue splotches in some time. But low and behold there they were.

A small painted over glue bumpy spot where the old baby mobile and wall appliques

once were over the crib.  sigh.... This morning as I was exercising I listened to a song named

"I want to do it all" by Terri Clark. I love this song, it makes me feel so blessed.  She sings

how she wants to do it all in life.  I marvel at just how many things she wants to do I have

already done! One thing she says is that she wants to do is "settle down with the love

of my life, rock little babies to sleep at night..."

I heard that line from her song tonight looking at that crib mobile splotched ceiling.

Landscaping with my helpers

We just finished the strawberry beds.  We also planted more raspberry bushes and 3 blueberry bushes.  This is our first of many shovel loads of mulch for the new fruit garden.  What a lot of work.  I hope it is worth it.

I think they liked scaling the mulch more than shoveling it into pails.

Caleb - the thinker

Caleb doesn't talk much. He thinks.

Often during one of his school lessons, he will come out and say something completely off topic.

Here are a two of his zingers:

We were discussing the multiplication tables of 1, 2 and 5 during his math class.
He says: "Do you think we have the ingredients to make solar panels?"

We are outside getting out of the van and he says: "There should be a song called "Dead on the Mountain"" (it was Easter)

I often wonder what is clambering on in those brains of his.

I try very hard to stop and listen to him when he does open his mouth.
Most times it is comic relief for my day.

Nathan finishes his last Awana Cubbies book

It's a historic day at the Baierl house. Nathan is our last one to go through the 2 year Cubbies club, and he finished his last section of his last book today. He's very proud to have filled in both the 'A' and 'C' letters with his earned patches on his Cubbies vest.

We're proud of him too.

We'll miss having a Cubbie in the house, but are looking forward to him graduating to the Sparks club next year.

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