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Zach was at scout camp all last week. We missed him sorely! He goes to Many Point scout camp, and you can write to him, which we did. Unfortunately, the mail takes so long that you have to write to him just after he leaves to get it to him before he leaves. So it’s hard to write “I miss you! I hope you are having fun! Come home soon!” when you just dropped him off. Gabby actually wrote hers while he was still home, so she wrote “I miss you even though you are in the next room.” Always a joker, that one! He had a fun time, earning his Astronomy and Rifle shooting merit badges. For Rifle shooting he had to shoot 5 shots withing the diameter of a quarter. He spend a LOT of time on that one. He even skipped his basketry MB in lieu of ‘practicing’. Later he said it was easy though. Hmm! His Court of Honor is on Wednesday and he will be receiving 5 Mbs. In August he will be working on his Horsemanship and Cycling MBs. He is in the middle of his Communications and Personal Fitness MB, leaving him with 2 more Eagle required. He is eligible for Life Scout at the end of September (6 months after he should have been, but we won’t go there again!) and Eagle at the end of March. Many Point didn’t have a lot of MBs that he hasn’t done available, so he had a hard time choosing. Next year he is considering being a counselor-in-training. You are supposed to be 15, but we have a scout executive in charge of camping in our church congregation, and apparently he has an ‘in’. Scout camp costs $200. For $100 Zach can work with other scouts for 6 weeks and earn up to 18 merit badges. That’s a year away though, so time enough to ponder. I can’t imagine how happy that homecoming would be though. We were so excited after just 1 week!

The other homecoming is my brother Brendan, who is finally home from Iraq! Whoops and hollers were heard around the Foede household when we got the news that he landed on US soil, and when he was back in MN a month later, after some additional training. He is having a welcome home party in August, but unfortunately we can’t make it, as Mark and I have a mini-vacation planned since January.

Alisa and Gabby had their hair cut. Pictures can be found HERE.

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Reese had her one year appointment, and is doing great. She was 22 pounds, 12 ounces. But she was weighed fully dressed, with shoes and a wet diaper, so I don’t know if this appointment is a good indicator of how much weight she has gained since her last appointment when she was weighed naked. She is in the 90% for height, 60th for weight, and right on the 50th for height&weight. Her nose is fine, probably not broken during the fall, and if it was they wouldn’t have done anything since it’s straight and cute as a button anyway. No vision or hearing problems detected. Good pulse, good sleeping and eating habits. Way ahead in her milestones. She says: Mama, Dada, Ding-dong (when pushing her belly button) Hi, Bye, Num, Thank you, Gabby, Dylan, Beep, Zjoot, Baby, Yay, and probably more that I just don’t understand or remember. She got two shots, MMR and HepA. I declined the chicken pox vaccine hoping she’ll just get it naturally. Of course Zach never did, so I should start him on the boosters. CP can be hard on adolescents.

And today a wasp got in the house. I didn’t panic. We were eating lunch, and Zach and Ethan are at their friends so I had no one to rescue me. I send all the kids into their rooms and got out the wasp spray. That stuff is for the outdoors or attics and goes 20 feet. Perfect for me to spray the little stinker from across the room and then run screaming! I’m afraid my pact with the bees might be over. We always agreed that if I didn’t hurt them they wouldn’t hurt me and now I’ve done it! This will probably be the year I finally get stung by something!

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Gabby, Alisabeth, Reese, and I went to the Mall of America today to meet up with some women who also post on our July 07 baby (I didn’t change to June when I had Reese early) message board. There were 4 of us meeting, though next month is a bigger gathering when there will be around 15 of us there and at the Minnesota Zoo. We had a lot of fun. Alisa wanted candy from the candy store, and she raided her piggy bank. I warned her it was expensive, but even as an adult it adds up faster than you think! $2.99 for 1/4 pound is outrageous. I’m glad I only go there every few years! (Next month I’ll abstain!)

Then that night we went to our church picnic. It was a fun time. Lots of fellowshipping. The kids got to play at a splash park, where the water was freezing! Alisa, who has been hesitant and fearful all her life has been getting brave (since the purchase of glasses, so I wonder…) anyway, she was running and took a nice face plant. Her glasses were twisted and scratched. One member of the congregation is an eyeglass adjuster for a living and she fixed that right off. But she said you can’t buff out the scratches and to check for a warranty. She also has an big scab on her knee. We hope this all heals before family pictures in a week! Zach, Gabby, Alisa, Dylan, and I all took part in the hair decorating. Mark got 3rd place in a chili contest (even with all of our kids picking a different recipe!) And Mark and I came in second place in the ‘not-so-newlywed’ game. We lost to the question ‘who is the better catch?’ We each said the other person. Aww!

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Thank you so much for the many birthday wishes I received! I’ve had sort of a hard year. ‘35′ is a number I just have been dreading. I’m not sure why. Turning 30 was not this hard. Even 36-45 sounds fine to me. But 35 was psychologically getting to me. But as Mark says, it’s over and done with and I can move on. He and the kids cooked my favorite foods, terriyaki chicken, potatoes, watermelon, and a blueberry cheesecake for dessert. Mark got me one of my favorite movies ‘Grease’ and a PedEgg (which I asked for) and the kids all made me cards. I then got the typical, but wonderful, pedicure, hair brushing, massage, that my children love to shower me with. Oh, and Dylan and Alisa helped Mark run a wonderful bubble bath with candles and a book waiting for me. Heavenly!

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Due to Hand-Food-Mouth disease, we didn’t have big hopes for our 4th of July. On the 3rd we went to see Princeton’s fireworks display. It was nice. A short 15 minutes, but in the heat, and with the mosquitoes, and with children used to being in bed an hour earlier than the display time, 15 minutes was plenty! For the 4th we had two options. One was joining my sister at Como Park, but we just didn’t know who was contagious and didn’t want to spread it to other children that the kids would be playing with. We decided to head over to Mark’s parents house where the kids would play on their own most of the time anyway. Luckily we woke up and all the rashes and blisters were gone. Most of my pictures are on Bonnie’s camera at her house, as I forgot mine, so I have one from the 3rd and a few from the 6th when we finished up fireworks at our house (I’m anal enough that I wanted video, but forgot the camcorder, so I insisted on repeated the ‘fun’.) Thank goodness Mark loves me enough to patiently deal with these quirks! Anyway, the first picture is of Reese on July 3rd at Princeton’s fireworks. I couldn’t get a great shot of her and a great shot of a firework, so I used photoshop to do both! The other is of Dylan holding a sparkler.

As a side note, Reese got her 7th and 8th teeth on July 3rd and 4th. Now we get to look forward to the fun of molars and eyeteeth! Dylan recently borrowed Alice in Wonderland from the library, and when he saw our crescent moon he yelled out “Mom, look, it’s a Cheshire Cat moon!” He’s so funny and fun! Recently all of his bed time story requests have been for ones with ‘lots and lots of Dylans’. A bit of a narcissist too, perhaps?

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Uh oh! But it’s now what you’re thinking (or what I’m guessing about 86% of you are thinking anyway!) Tonight Reese was walking along the couch and fell off (despite my being right there and holding her arm.) It wasn’t a bad fall, or far or awkward. But she must have hit her nose pretty good. I put her on my lap only to see red blood flowing out of the nose and mouth. I’m usually a strong Mom when it comes to these things, so I wiped her up, comforted her, etc. The blood stopped flowing right away. But I did a great disservice to myself, wondering if it was broken. I studied all the right websites, Google-imaged pictures of broken noses, saddle noses (a condition that happens because of broken noses) and felt myself growing weak, heart beating too fast, seeing black spots. One website said to touch the nose and see if you hear a crinkly sound. It was at that point that I had to put my head in between my knees. I second guessed the broken nose every other minute, and finally found a website especially for toddlers that gave symptoms and when to call the doctor. It said that most doctors want you to wait 5-7 days for the swelling to go down before seeing them. But wait, there wasn’t any swelling, not misaligned nose, no black eyes. Just a nice blow that caused bleeding and an overly panicky mom!

Dylan, who called me Jennifer for a week after the ‘worker dudes’ left after finishing various basement duties, has finally stopped calling me Jenny 2 weeks after Reese’s party! It’s funny how I am either Jen, Jenny, or Jennifer, depending on what age you were introduced to me.

My brother Kirk has discovered Facebook, and I checked his site out. It’s fun to see some family on their as his ‘friends’. I am thinking of getting an account too, but am a little leery of keeping up with that AND with this. We’ll see what the future holds!

Oh, and here is Reese’s First Swim, and here are Reese’s First Birthday Portraits.

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