Introducing...

Meet the newest member of the Wahl family.  It's Sam, the Jagd Terrier.

Guess who loves her the most...:)

She has already chewed a hole in my leather sofa and gone potty in my house more times than I want to count.

But...she is super cute and the kids all are smitten, even Sarah who a week ago wouldn't even THINK about getting near a dog!

Randomness

My toothless wonder...

if he loses any more teeth he will NOT be able to chew his food!  Christian told him the other day to "hurry up and gum up your sandwich!"

The other bottom tooth is loose now!

Jackson's spear that he created one day...looks perfectly safe, right?

Caleb is a reading fool these days!  It is so rewarding to teach my kids to read:)

Fish fry anyone?  My boys love to fish...and I love to eat them!

My girls...Sarah was not in the mood for a photo shoot:)

All of my kiddos on Mother's Day!

Rebekah Selfies

I was tidying up the pictures on my phone because I want to keep sweet ones like this....

A friend handed down the cutest little doll house to my girls and when Rebekah came down from her nap she went and plopped down in front of it for HOURS!

In the process of organizing and deleting pictures, I came across an unbelievable number of these...

Seriously, I had 1,079 pictures on my phone and 1, 025 of them were Rebekah taking pictures of herself:)

Well, at least she wasn't posting unflattering pictures of me on Instagram again...

Round Here

Rebekah has moved into her new bed!  She and Sarah have matching twin beds given to us by a sweet friend.  I painted them and they are thrilled.  Cute bedding is in the works.  The crib that has been up for more than 12 years was finally taken down.  It is in the garage awaiting a new home.  I thought at one time that I might be sad about that.  I'm not.  It's not that I haven't enjoyed having babies in the house, it's just that I am so excited about this next phase.  I know each stage has its struggles...I always hear, "They may step on your toes now, but they'll step on your heart later!"  I just love seeing my children grow into the people that God created them to be.

Caleb had quite a time playing in the rain.  I am soooo looking forward to summer laundry...not summer weather, but summer laundry:)  He has a loose tooth on the bottom.  He cannot afford to lose any more teeth!  

My big boys are growing!  Jackson is officially taller than me:)  They really are so much fun...

Speaking of growing...I LOVE Kim's Donut Shop!  The donuts are amazing...the apple fritters are the size of my face!

Sarah loves to draw, color, and write things.  How many letters and letter sounds have I taught her? Zero.  She has learned them from the boys.  She has better handwriting than the boys...all of them!  She is always asking me how to spell things..."Mama, how do you spell 'I love you Elena'?"  I think she will be quite easy to teach to read.  Maybe this summer?  She also has picked up the art of trash talking.  She'll say things like, "Oh, in your FACE Caleb!  I got the last apple!" or "You want a piece of me?"  Her little legs are a mix of bruises and scratches.  I love it!

Ecologists For A Day

We made the trek to the SRS Ecology lab this week.  It was a fun free field trip!  Ok, not fun free...we had fun.  It was free and fun:)

The kids tromped around and looked for critters in the woods and the pond.

Rebekah did well...she had her brothers tending to her.  I can't tell you how many times I looked around to see Aaron fixing her hair clip or holding her hand to help her along.  Levi was always wanting to show her everything he found (fish, lizards, frogs, skinks, wolf spiders).  

We went inside the classroom for lunch and we were able to see some of the animals they had in captivity (a snake, hawk, owl, opossum, and coyote to name a few).

Then the boys were able to have their picture made holding the alligator.

Some of the mamas posed with the alligator too...

It was a fun day, but it did kind of crack me up how my kids were pretty unimpressed by some things.  It was like, "Alligator?  Yeah, we had one in our retention pond for a while...that our dad put in there.  Coyote?  Yeah, my dad traps those all the time.  Snakes...dad brings them home for us to play with."  It's like our house is an ecology lab...why the heck did we make that drive?? :)

When we got home Aaron was goofing around with his sling shot and this happened......

Christian said it is a guaranteed $400.  *sigh*

I think one day I am going to do a whole post with just pictures of all of the broken things in my house:)

Bekah Boo Boo

Rebekah has become quite the chatter box.

She is full of personality.

In the morning, I get her up and then she goes with me to wake up the boys.  I put her on each of their beds and she pulls the covers off of them.  Some days she is all sweet and rubs their backs or even kisses them.

Other days, she just smacks them on the back...

Levi's Feet

"Dad, if Levi had been one of the disciples...would Jesus have washed his feet?"

"Nah, he probably would have healed him!"

"He would have said, 'Who brought their horse in here?'"

This little conversation was going on at the dinner table the other night.  Levi could have cared less...just slowly chewing his food and looking at the window.  He is a pretty good sport about most of the teasing.  He will not tolerate anyone teasing him about his football skills, though:)


This morning I walked into the kitchen to find this note on the back door...

What?  A pig in the garage?  I have seen the size of some of the pigs that Christian kills and I thought there must be a big angry pig in our garage.

I am thinking through my morning wondering how I'm going to get to my car for my hair appointment when Christian shows up and says, "Did you see the baby pig?"  Whew...baby pig:)

He caught it in a snare and thought the kids might want to play with it for a while before he let it go.

His is a feisty little thing!

Guess who was the most thrilled?

So the teasing from the brothers continued...

"That pig saw Levi's feet and thought, 'mama'?"