The Muench Bunch

Once school was out for summer, the girls were ready to make some money and go rock picking for Po Po. They can work in the early summer and save up money for something special. Jayden is a hard little worker. Cousins Jaynie, Maggie, and Jayden are quite a crew.

Questions of Uncle Donald come up quite frequent. The questions lead into things about heaven. Jake said he will get a rocket so that he can fly it up to heaven and see Uncle Donald. On Memorial Day, we took the kids to the cemetary where we had a cross put in memorial of Uncle Donald.

When I am working with my camera, I often have Jayden model for me. She is so natural in front of the camera and loves to come up with her own poses. This time she had her straw hat and cool sunglasses.

Jayden is an awesome reader. She loves to read and can read a whole book in no time at all. She has been reading well beyond her age level and has the highest number of accelerated reading points in the K-3rd class in her school. She received a big plaque for her accomplishments.

Finally Mark is back in the field for some serious planting. They have been rained out for so long. With the hired man Mike, they had both the corn planter going and the bean drill. Jake likes to ride whenever he can too. While I was gone running errands, I hired Carina to come down and do some house cleaning. It was so awesome to come home to a clean house. I wish I could have her come once a week!

Jayden is such a good sister, she enjoys picking Luke up and carrying him. She also likes talking to him and getting him to smile. Jacob has gotten much better with Luke and enjoys being by him and showing him his toys. He gets such a kick out of making him laugh.

Daddy, Jayden, and Jacob brought me breakfast in bed with eggs, toast, bacon, and juice. Jayden was beaming with smiles as this was all her doing. She is such a thoughtful kind hearted kid. She also gave me a cookbook she has been working on at school. It is all cowboy recipes and decorated. She is so innocent, one recipe she thought was son of spinach stew and is titled sonofabitch stew. I had to chuckle as that is in the recipe book. We went to church, where I had nursery duty, not too fun for Mother's day. Next it was Paige Mullen's graduation party at Hidden Acres. The kids went swimming for awhile at it. That evening Mark went out and rode his horse Jake. I guess going to the kids rodeo got him motivated. I hope he rides more. I have always thought he needs a hobby. Everyone needs to play sometimes.

Luke is really smiling and it is so adorable! He is also a very ticklish little guy. When we get him undressed for a bath, we tickle his sides and he just squeals. He is super ticklish under his arms. Jacob laughs and laughs when he tickles Luke too. Luke enjoys his bath and could sit there all day. He also likes having his diaper off, he kicks and kicks. Sometimes when we don’t know what else to do to get him to stop crying, we take him to the changing table and take off his diaper. He turns into smiles right away. He also has started really sucking on his fingers a lot. He really doesn’t care for the pacifier much. The weather is so crazy, one day it’s 75 the next 45. It has been raining so much and lots of windy days. Luke has only gotten to be outside just a handful of times. He does like it outside. We have had to make several trips out to the field to take supper out and those little trips are what Luke doesn’t like. Some of those trips, he cried the whole time. It is so hard hea

Dayton had a youth rodeo. I was excited to see a youth rodeo started in our area. Jake being 4, got to be in the stick horse race, roping a steer dummy, and goat tail untie contest. It was a muddy drizzly day and chilly. Jake was decked out in cowboy duds from his cowboy boots, wranglers, name on the back of his belt, cowboy carhart coat, and cowboy hat. He looked adorable. The funniest was the goat tail race. He ran up to the goat, which was tied, he stopped in his tracks then went for the tie. He played on the hill by the bleachers the rest of the day with Grandpa W, Daddy, and Aunt Alice. Jayden ran barrels and poles. There were so many little girls riding around on there big horses. Her new friend Makenna was there too. I wished Jayden’s pony was calm enough she could do that too. It was fun to see the kids compete. I helped Jayden as I always lead her pony into the arena. She can be a handful at the gate. Jayden did well, she was holding her pony back, most of the time at a trot.

Jayden finished her year as a tumbler with a recital. It was a fun season, however challenging getting to all the practices and meets with a brand new baby brother. I think Jayden had fun and continued to improve as the year went on. We are encouraging her to go back to dance for next year and I think that is what she wants also. Jayden ended up with some nice trophies and medals for her year of tumbling. She also got to have a fun recital with good friends Hannah and Claire.

Mark was getting ready to get in the field again soon. Things were starting to dry out and in came a heavy rain and just poured. When will this rain end!

My parents came down to help with the kids during the Dayton fun show. Jayden and I went early to ride a little. Jayden did so good at the show. She can really handle her pony and she did a great barrel pattern. We are preparing for the youth rodeo next weekend. Jacob did a little riding on Joe. He wanted to know if this thing (The saddle) was strapped on. He remembers last spring when the kids fell off the pony with only a bareback pad on. I guess he didn't forget. I ran poles on Joe in the end. What a rush! I love that horse. He is 23 and still breezes through the poles with such ease.

Luke had his 4 month Doc appt early as our family pediatrician of 8 years is moving. His appointment was 10 days early and he weighed 15lbs. 14 oz. So as of 4 months, I know he is well over 16 lbs. He is a big baby and my back is feeling it everyday! He also had another round of 5 shots in the thighs. Oh I hate that so. I didn’t watch and I didn’t look into his face. After he was done I just held him as he cried. He only cried for a couple minutes, but I know it had to hurt so bad. That night he had a fever and was fussy. Poor little guy.

Mom babysat so I could attend a photography seminar called "Bellies and Babies". It was so good! I am so motivated and Can't wait to photograph more babies. More rain again, we have so much planting left to do!

I got to attend Jacob’s pre-school class field trip. The kids rode the bus to Pickett’s Dairy farm. I was disaapointed, as the kids never got to see any dairy cows other than baby claves and never got to see anything that had to do with milking. Oh well, the baby calves were cute and the kids all got to enjoy some real dairy made ice cream and chocolate milk, some of the best! It was fun to see Jake interact with his buddies.