COUSINS!

Here are a few pixs of the James' getting together for Mother's Day! Most of you will be amazed at how much Heidi's kids have grown! Phillip will be in 6th grade and Kaylee will be in 3rd grade! Little Joshua turned 1 at the beginning of June!

Sorry!

OK, OK, OK, after many phone calls and hints - I get the point. I know I haven't been good about blogging, but with swim lessons, baseball, and doctor appointments - I seriously have not had the time! The girls finished swim lessons last week. Anna still refuses to put her head under water, but Emma has learned to swim under water. Maybe next year for Anna! I do have pictures of them going down the slide if Wal-Mart's one hour developing ever gets fixed! We've been waiting for the pictures since Monday! This week we had doctor's appointments. We started the week with only Anna getting her physical and Ella getting her x-rays for her surgery (tonsils coming out July 30). On Wednesday, we added two more appointments. The first one was to get shots for Anna and Ella. While Dr. Fisher was going over Anna's shot record, he found that we had no shots for her for 15 months. After doing some more research at home, I discovered that not only did Anna miss her 15 month shots, but so did Ella! Yes, folks, I am the worst mother in the world! I couldn't believe that we had missed that! I have to give Dr. Fisher a little bit of the blame, because I really don't think he reminded me to do it and I always do what he tells me to do so I don't think he told me to do it. I guess we're both to blame and I'm just glad that he caught it. Now, back to Wednesday, Emma woke up that morning and had broken out with more psoriasis. She had it all around her neck, her chest, her arms and her legs. So, before leaving to get the shots taken care of; I had to get her an appointment with Dr. Seehafer (not an easy task!). They wanted her to come in on Monday and I said no way it had to be sooner because she could be covered head to toe by then. So Emma and I headed to Bloomington after we got back from Pekin! What a day. It was a blessing when Chris called and said it was raining in Manito and their ballgame was cancelled! Now that I've given you all of my excuses for not blogging, I'll try to actually get some pictures on here. These are older pixs because I'm still waiting for my others.

Funny Ella!

Ella has developed quite the personality. She can always do something that will make Chris and I laugh so hard and then turn around and do something she knows she shouldn't, and make us so mad. Here is Ella at her finest. Can't wait for high school graduation to pull out the picture of her on the trike! If you didn't know, we are trying very hard to work on potty training and I'm hoping now that school is out, we can be more consistent and finally "git r done"! I think the Lord might be telling me there should be no more James babies because I just don't have the patience with training Ella that I had with Emma and Anna!

Take me out to the ballgame!

Defying the Rankin tradition of "not being involved", Chris and I decided that it would be a good idea to let the girls try t-ball this summer. We both felt that if they never had a chance to try it, and they wanted to do it in school, they would never get a chance to play because they had no experience! I think, though, that we may have gotten in over our heads! The girls are past the age for t-ball and are in the coach-pitch league. Our poor team! Good thing we have patient coaches (Anne & Craig Woodley and Jason & Erica Hunter) because they are really having to teach our girls how to play baseball. Emma has already taken a hit for the team. Last night, she stopped the ball with her glove and the ball bounced off her glove and hit her in the eye. Very dramatic for my little drama queen! With a little force from her mother, she went back out to the field to play again! The funniest thing about the baseball games is watching the girls and the rest of the team for that matter, run with their batting helmets on. You have to see it to appreciate it! If you have seen Disney's recent animation film of "Chicken Little", that's our Anna trying to run with her helmet. I don't think she can even see where she is going. We have now started calling her Chicken Little! More pictures to come of the games, here are some of practicing at home.