random pictures to share

check out our big man! he's been wanting to stand since, oh, he was less than 24 hours old. a friend of mine came to see me in the hospital when he was born--and caught him in the act of trying to stand up on my lap. she quickly told him "you are ONE DAY OLD--act like it!" :) he absolutely loves to stand. (psst! those are the closet mirror doors which ryan put up in our room--i LOVE them!).
he doesn't seem too enthused, but i was trying my hand at taking pictures with my arm stretched out. i had a roommate in college who perfected this technique.
here i am at it again. this was at the soccer games this past weekend. evelyn got upset cause i wasn't taking any of her--so here she is!

snuggle time with daddy on the bed. this always brings a smile to my face cause i remember doing this exact thing with my own dad in his room in st. louis. we don't eat peanuts in bed (an old canlas family tradition), but snuggle and wrestle time is what we do.

ok, for some reason, seeing this picture reminds me a lot of my own mother. maybe cause at first glance it looks like her (when i was just a toddler). a smile while being with her children...that's all you see in my pictures while growing up. :) love you mom.

mahi mahi!

earlier this week we had a fun night with miss molly (aka mahi mahi). little kyle was in the hospital all week long battling ecoli. it turns out that it was atypical and the doctors couldn't figure out why it was affecting about 11 different infant baby boys. no one has been able figure out the common demonator (half were circumcised, half were on formula, ect). anyway, so molly came and spent a couple of days with us, much to the enjoyment of all the children.





she's a keeper. molly had a great time playing with marcus (she loves babies). and i found out that she likes having her picture taken.



























well, i don't think that we can have a get together of any sort without taking pictures. molly and evelyn love playing together. they don't always get along...but i think it's because they're both still young and very headstrong. evelyn turns into a bossy mom around her (i think it's cause she can't do that to julia or jacob) and molly doesn't go for it (rightly so!). but everyone still had fun. as you can see, they were getting along this night.







i think i've taken so many pictures of julia over the past years that now whenever i whip out my camera, she just assumes "the pose". head tilted off to one side with a close lipped smile. that's my girl. she's an awesome help with marcus. today she started reading him her junie b. jones books. he laughed almost the whole time. :) so precious.







one last one of the crew.

My goalie

so i basically missed about all of julia's game. our schedule on saturday went as follows:
8:15am--jacob's team/individual pix
9am--julia's team/individual pix
9:15am--jacob's game
10am--julia's game

the pictures took an hour each and then the games are an hour each. i had evelyn and marcus with me (ryan is julia's coach so he was with her). the kids play at opposite sides of school fields. so really, i got to watch about 5 minutes. :( the next game they play--both games are at 8:30am so i'll miss julia's again. but i'll get the ones after that!







here's the part i caught. ryan and erik (that's erik laney for all those who are from springfield) decided to have her play goalie for a while. she did it a bit in practice and did a really good job. while i thoroughly expected her to duck and cover, instead she took it all head on and saved a couple.





say hi to the camera! evelyn and jacob were yelling her name and i think she was relieved to see us in the crowd. doesn't she look awesome?







um, well, no great saves this day but she sure did try! and she had a lot of fun trying. i think she prefers to be a blocker (um, i think that's the term). or defender? yeah, tells you how much i know about soccer. anyway, she and a couple of other girls defend the goalie. ryan wasn't so sure about the line up during practice (the boys were trying to score while the girls defended), but boy some huge girl power came through! the boys couldn't score at all and julia was right in the middle of it all. she even came home with a battle scar--her thigh took a huge scrape down the whole front from someones cleats (OUCH!!!!!). she's now looking for thigh guards to go with her shin guards. :)

Run Forest run!!!!

Soccer games were finally here on saturday...and boy was it fun! jacob was so scared at first, but when he got onto the field, he took off and i don't think he stopped! he definitely didn't stop smiling--check it out in every picture. finally we have a way to tap into all that energy he exhuberates. :)



















Wanna know which kid is mine? the one who insisted he have the brightest, most vibrant blue ever made on a shoe. ;P we'll never miss him! he absolutely loves them...and that's all that counts right? :)

















go for the goal!!!! the kid on the right made a ton of goals this day (i think he scored all but one). the game was 6-1 i believe--but no one really keeps score at this age. i just felt so sorry for the little guy playing goalie! jacob didn't score, but he had a ton of fun anyway.















swarm ball at it's best! one ball, four brown grizzlies, two blue whatever-their-team-name-is looking on. ha! ryan warned me about this and i thought it was the most hilarious thing ever to watch! no kids spread out, just a huge swarm of kids going after the ball all over the field.
















more swarm ball. :) can you find jacob? (hint: remember to look for the neon shoes!)



















89! 27! 34! HIKE! wait, no, wrong sport.






in case you're wondering who the chica in the sunglasses is on the field, it's coach cara. jacob adores her











my awesome soccer dude!















this is actually from his practice a couple of weeks ago when it was truly freezing outside. can you pick him out from the line? squint and look at the shoes (for those who live here, just cheat and look at the coats). for those with not so great eyesight, he's third from the left. :)

"Table, counter, stove!!!!"

Ahh, words heard after dinner nearly every single day while growing up. since there are four kids in my family, there were four jobs.
1. table, counter, stove
2. wash dishes
3. rinse dishes
4. dry and put away

ok, the table, counter, stove was the coveted chore because all you had to do was clear them all off and wipe them down. done in 5 minutes. if you couldn't get that, then you pipe up for dry and put away cause you could always say "i have to wait for so-and-so to wash and rinse and i'm just going to let them air dry. i'll put them away after they're done air drying". ooh, we thought we were so sly. :) tough luck on the poor souls who got stuck with washing and rinsing for half an hour (typically that was joycelyn and i). and you know what? now that i'm older and am thinking about it, i KNOW we had a dishwashing machine in our house while growing up...dude, why didn't we use it?! moving on....
so about 15 minutes ago, i asked julia to do her daily chore--put the dishes away in the dishwasher. jacob comes racing in "i want to do the plates! it's my job!". unlike my siblings and i, my kiddos actually think it's a privilege to put the dishes away. HAHAHAHAHA! oh, my wonderful naive ones. :) the jobs for putting away our dishes in the dishwasher are:
1. silverware (evelyn claims this one--mainly because i don't trust her with anything else)
2. plates (or everything on the bottom rack)
3. cups (or everything on the top rack)
jacob and julia constantly fight over who gets to do what. not who has to. i'm simply amazed at their attitudes about helping out. they don't complain about having to do it at all. i'm happy to say that i haven't emptied out the dishwasher for several months now...and don't plan on doing it again anytime soon. as for letting them put everything in...well, i'm not brave enough to let them do it yet. maybe that'll be a goal for later this year.
til then...."silverware, plates, cups!!!"

April showers bring may flowers--supposedly

april showers bring....snow? since when does it snow in april in missouri?! since yesterday. insane! just two weeks ago we were enjoying some 80 degree weather and i was contemplating turning on my a/c. everything in town began to blossom and we enjoyed some beautiful flowers. then it froze overnight and bam! my flowers are now wilted and tinged whitish/grey. :( this also meant that the kids's soccer games were canceled for today. :(:( next week is supposed to heat up into the 50s and 60s (yay!) and so hopefully the games will be back on. jacob is amazing on the field. he's been able to do a drop kick for over a year now. last year his speech therapist recommended i enroll him in the physical therapy kids program at msu (formally smsu) because it's said that physical therapy promotes speech. well, i had him tested at msu. the instructor's mouth just dropped when he saw everything that jacob could do at such a young age. at age 4, when he was asked to throw a baseball, he actually cranked his whole arm backwards and threw it across the entire room. needless to say, the head of the dept refused to let him in the program because he's so skilled (i'm bragging, i know). that kid has so much energy (a tigger himself)...i'm so glad that he's in a sport where he can just run and run and run....as soon as he's old enough, i'm putting him in track and field.
anyway, i was hoping to have some cool soccer pix to post today...all i have are some blurry ones from jacob's practice. it was cold and the wind was a wsw of 22. the adults had a hard time not being blown over, let alone those little 4-6 year olds. so we'll have to wait til next week. :)

p.s. for those fans out there viewing my changes, be sure to scroll down to the bottom of the page and see my interactive countdowns! for the movie, you can choose the pic you want to view. :) have fun!

A million apologies roya

so i had an awesome time this afternoon--roya lorge and her sister kerri (sorry kerri, i don't know your new last name) came over to hang out since they're in town. it was great til it was time for them to leave....turns out that roya's rear passanger window was busted into a million pieces! we've never had anything like that happen in our neighborhood (let alone at our own house--especially in the middle of the day!). we ended up helping her call her insurance company, the police, and a ton of other glass places in town to see what could be done and just how much it will cost. did you know that a measley rear passanger window on a minivan costs a stinkin $675?! thankgoodness for insurance, eh? since it's supposed to rain tomorrow, i helped her cover her window with the left over painting plastic that i have (they company can't refurbish the van with a new window til wed). it took all afternoon and into the evening to get things squared away...and the kids just thought it was a great play date! i don't know about roya's kiddos, but mine collapsed before dinner was ready and they were in bed by about 7pm. ok, i can't remember the last time they have EVER been asleep so early! roya, you're welcome to my place anytime!!!! ;) only we'll make sure that nothing happens to your van next time. :)

Alright already!!

so joycelyn has been hounding me for at least a couple of months to get my own blog. dude, i have four kids (the youngest only being 3 months old)...when on earth do i have time to blog?! well, she found the time when she was here for easter. the night before she left she sat me down and basically set it up (i think she was determined that i should do this). i email enough pix to all the family...it makes sense to just do this, right? ;P so here we are with the first of what i'm sure is going to be a ton of pictures. i'll be updating this bad boy every couple days...since that's about how often i'm taking pix. so til then....bring on the hp trivia.