WOW!!

Wow, it has been a long time since I posted! I was expecting Joe to give me some guff for not posting. I do have a reason why I haven't posted. Some of you may notice I changed the name of the blog to "Our Simple Life". I also took our last name off the profile along with where we live. I am going to go through the old posts and delete anything that might give up where we live. All this is because of a disturbing discovery I made Tuesday night. I was looking at the videos I have linked to on this site. Most of them have 22 views or so. The one of Reagan in the bath has had over 150 views. I was sickened and troubled by this. Gerrick was very upset. He was mad at me for making it so easy for a predator to find our family. I tried to explain that we have several living in the neighborhood and there is no way to completely shield our children. He wasn't hearing it. He made me make these changes, and I have to do something on the "YouTube" site so that only my friends and family can view the videos. I think Gerrick is over reacting a little, but it is a scary world and there was a lot of info out there to be misused. Just the fact that somewhere some old creep was looking at my beautiful daughter is enough to turn my stomach and make me take a minute to protect my family.
With that being said, we have had a busy week. Gerrick thinks with the girls home I should get more done because they can help. While this is true, they also need to have fun. It is hard to work in fun around the little kids schedule, but we are trying. On Wednesday we went to the Res in Iowa City with a girlfriend of mine from work. I thought we were going to have a picnic first, but she wanted to go straight to the beach. I got the kids fed, avoiding the sand as much as possible. Then we got all covered in sun block and off to the water. Melanie, my friend, grew up in California and is very used to the water. I, however, nearly drowned at 8 and am scared to death. The kids wanted to go far out and I just tried to keep them in ankle deep water. They did go out a ways and had a lot of fun. Dax figured out how to go under water without plugging his nose, and spent a lot of time underwater. This made it difficult to count heads, but was very cute.
Yesterday we laid low because I am burnt to a crisp. I put sun block on, but only after we ate, I sun blocked the 5 kids, gave them lunch, picked up lunch, set up Reagan's play area, and took the kids to the water. I guess that is too long for a red-head to be without sun block at noon on a beach!!! I feel better today, but boy was I sore yesterday. It wasn't fun at work when it is 100 degrees in the kitchen! You would think after 27 years of being a fair-skinned red-head I would get it, use sun block!! The girlfriend that I was with is a beautiful 24 year-old that runs and swims daily and keeps a year-round deep tan. I love sitting next to that on the beach. At least I have the kids to justify the big belly and the sun deprived hue!
Today I am off to PetCo. We have no pets, obviously, but Keghan has a birthday party to go to and instead of gifts they are asking for donations to the Humane Society. I really love that idea. Kids today really have too much stuff. I realize I sound like an old person, but it is true! I think I will copy that idea for the girls' parties, but I have a charity here in town we try to support whenever we can. It is Aid to Women. They help abused and poor women. They supply diapers, formula, clothes and other things women need to raise children on their own. This year at Thanksgiving the kids picked out an extra turkey to take in. They really like to help others, and I think it is one of the most important things for kids to do! Anyway, we are going to get dog food and leashes for that. The kids also like to look at all the animals. They will be bugging their dad for a dog for the next week. Some days I want a dog, others I am glad we don't have any pets. I thought we needed one for a while when I saw the kids teaching Dax how to fetch. It was really bad when Gerrick was doing it too. But, we really have no time for animals. Plus, I am not ready for that kind of responsibility =)
So, that is a lot of rambling. Maybe it is because I just had my one coffee for the day! Everyone have a great day. I know I will!

P.S. Dax is really expanding his vocabulary. This morning

he was in bed with me and said, "Mommy mell

allfull." And we wanted him to talk?