Saturday, September 27, 2008

Happy Fall ya'll!!



Things we love about fall time~
cool weather
going hiking in the mountains and not roasting
sweatshirts
caramel apples
pumpkin bread
raking and jumping in the leaves
decorating the house
oh yeah, football!!

I really think our Family starts to think about Fall time at the the start of Spring! Just something about it makes everyone in our house smile from ear to ear! The kids get so excited thinking about raking a big pile of leaves and jumping in them, and wondering what they are going to be for Halloween! Thinking about how much fun we have at Thanksgiving time, and this year we will have even more reason to be excited because Pete and Lisa are coming with the boys!
We began getting out our Halloween things this week and the pictures will show how much stuff we have! It takes a good couple days to get it all out and put in the right place, but everyone just loves doing it! Same as last year, I put on the spooky music cd to help get us in the mood, and same as last year, Emily LOVED it and wanted to listen to every bit of it, and Jacob was plugging his ears and screaming for me to turn it off! Katelyn has a preference as to what songs she will listen to and what ones she will not!
Happy Haunting!

Wow, time goes by so fast!



I cant believe it has been so long since I last blogged!! We have been keeping pretty busy lately and time just gets away from me! Plus I found this new thing (new to me) called facebook and I have been having way to much fun messing around with that at night after the kids go to bed, so I am sorry I haven't been keeping up!!

So since I last blogged we have celebrated Uncle Brads Birthday!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!
We had him over for Taco's and cake. The kids took it upon themselves to look for gifts for him and cut some paper and wrap them up! It was so cute to hear them upstairs running around trying to find something in their room that he would like!
Katelyn gave him some candy.
Emily gave him a little sponge bob notebook.
Jacob used his own money and bought him some starburst candy from the store.
We think he had a great time!!



School is going well, Emily really enjoys school and is having fun. She is a little mad about the fact that after she gets four circle happy faces for good behavior and gets to go the prize box, she has to start ALL over at zero!! Every week we go over this because not everyone gets prize box at the same time, so she is assuming that these children DON'T have to start over!! So hard to explain to her!!
Katelyn is holding her own in her AIG classes, although she is a little (LOT) mad when she gets less than an A on a paper. She truly amazes me everyday by how much she just loves school and learning! She just "gets it" ya know! I feel as though I went through school lost the whole time, but she just breezes in and does what she needs to do!
Jacob is doing great in school also, his grades are great and he is really starting the become excited about school and what he is learning! His teacher said he is like an old man in a group of children, because he doesn't get caught up in all the fooling around and what not. He does have some listening to directions issues, but we will work those kinks out in no time I am sure! I really believe he is staring to LOVE school!

John is loving his new Job at Hub group! He made the comment the other day that he has been able to take the kids to school and tell them to have a great day more since he has been at Hub than his whole entire career at RDWY!! It has been wonderful, he gets to take the kids to school generally every Monday and sometimes Tuesdays, He is home fore dinner usually two to three days a week and when he is not home he has been calling the kids and me in the morning and then again right before bedtime! Katelyn can email him for help on her homework and they can talk to him about anything.
I know it still sounds a little crazy, but for us, this is GREAT and our Family has become so much more close knit that when he was at RDWY!! He is not to tired on the weekends and having to still work, so we have been able to do some fun things on Saturday and Sunday also! SO happy for him!!

I hope this post finds all of you happy, healthy and enjoying FALL TIME!!

Monday, September 15, 2008

Great weekend!

We didn't really do much of anything, but still had a great weekend! I HOPE YOU ALL DID AS WELL!!
Friday night We shopped for some things to go outside around the Patio and it looks fabulous! Some pretty flowering bushes and stuff. Really nice. Then John watched a movie with the kids and I got to go and hang out with some friends for a wine night. I had a lot of fun just hanging with the girls!
Saturday was Jacobs second football game and he had a blast! He scored TWO touchdowns (actually one and the two point conversion, but we let him tell it as two touchdowns). He also snagged three flags! We came home and planted our purchased items around the patio, went to a friends house for dinner and then came home, put the kids to bed and watched a movie.
Sunday was Lions day again (this will be every Sunday for a while) . John watched the game and the kids played ALL over the house and yard! They really enjoy just being at home...doing what they want to do. They played a lot of "time travelers" this weekend!! We also went out to eat and had some really yummy pizza!

*Jacob told John he is really lucky to have a football player for a son, because he loves football so much and now he gets to watch him play every Saturday!

*Emily smelled something at the restaurant and was sure it was cotton candy. I told her it was fish and she said "maybe it's fish cotton candy, that smells like fish but tastes like yummy cotton candy"

*Katelyn wrote some really great poems during dinner, I will share them below! She said they are Diamonte poems!


Pumpkin
big, round
bring it home
cut off the top
take out the guts
draw face with marker
cut on line
light candle
jack-o-Lantern


Restaurant
Lazy, slow
drinking my juice
two Families we know
eating my pizza
lonely, Italian
Boring


I think she did a GREAT job, she had them all wrote out in a diamond shape!
...but what does that poem say about our time out to dinner? HA!HA! :)

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Whats up!!

Tonight after dinner I told Jacob that I was going to get them all in bed a bit earlier tonight, around 7:30pm just to see if they would wake up better in the morning. To this he responded "what, you mean you are using me as a science experiment??"



Sorry I haven't posted since last weekend, we haven't really been up to much just school and stuff like that. Everyone is doing fine other than Katelyn came home sick today with a stomach ache and a headache...stay tuned!!
Emily is really enjoying preschool, she is working on some sight words (A and I) and really enjoys going to prize box!! She is very good at keeping track of when she gets to go!! Last time she went she was thrilled to find that they had littlest pet shop animals, she got a turtle!
Jacob's Marks are wonderful in school and he is doing great and trying really hard to like school and give it 100%. He is such a smart boy, he just doesn't have "time" for school! :)
Katelyn is doing well, she can teach me a thing or two! Really, the math that girl is doing I was doing in the sixth grade! She is holding her own and seems to enjoy it! (I am holding my own also, thanks to the Internet and the web site called math is fun) HA!HA!

John's new job is going really well, he is really enjoying the people he works for, the new atmosphere, and the new challenges! He does not like the travel, but has done great with calling the kids every morning before school and every night before bed. He is truly wonderful, that man of mine!
We got his new business cards in the mail and the kids were very impressed!! Jacob opened the box and said "WOW, Dad is already the vice president of the company, he is gooood, he just started this job!!"
Katelyn said "well, he did work at RDWY for 12 years, so he knows what he is doing!"
It's great to have supporters!!

Everyone asks me what I do now that Emily is in preschool for three hours. I Clean, cook, walk the dog, work out at the gym and try to watch Ellen!

Emily has been asking a lot of questions about God and Jesus lately. As a matter of fact she was up last night at 12:30 asking me about how God made her in my belly and if god would make her a new baby because she really wants to have a "Gull" baby to call Chrystal.
She also asked me if God was real, made up, or just invisible.
I tried to explain to her that God was more "in her heart" and she seemed to get it though most likely not, she has been asking what happens when you die to your body, like if your body floats up to heaven, and is certain that when you get old you forget everything and even your Family.

Curious little minds our children have, if only we had ALL the answers!

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Spooky!!

Katelyn came in to our room tonight about 5 minutes after we put her to bed, saying that she was having "bad feelings" about a story that some kids told her about at school. I had already heard the story earlier today so I laughed almost instantly when she told me what the "bad feelings" were about! I know, I know, way to be sensitive to your child's feelings, but you have to hear the story!

I had her recite it to John so that he to could see how silly it was and help me out in making her see how silly it was and that kids just tell these silly stories to get this kind of reaction out of sweet little girls like Katelyn!!

Here is the story...
One day a little boy was outside playing in his yard and found something on the ground he took it to his mother and they found out it was a "BIG TOE". So they cut it up into three pieces and ate it for dinner. Later that night a man came into the house when the boy was sleeping and said "where is my big toe?" The boy told him he ate it...so the man ate him for dinner!

Silly right? So I get that the man coming into the house is scary, but com'on, to get his big toe?
And I don't know about your big toe, but neither mine nor John's is big enough to cut into THREE pieces and fill anyone up for dinner!!



SWEET DREAMS!!

Family fun for Saturday!






We took the kids to the Natural Science Center on Saturday and it was a blast!! They had a ton more than we anticipated and we could have spent the better part of the day there, but we only had about 3 hrs by the time we got there. Oh well, it was still super fun!
We went to the dinosaur exhibits, which I think was the biggest hit with all of the kids! We also went to the Omnisphere and saw a show about summer star gazing! That place was so cool! It brought back a lot of memories of being a child and going to the planetarium! It wasn't exactly the same, but still very cool! They had an outside little zoo and the tigers are really cool, although did you know that tigers SPRAY? They have the tigers in a cage (obviously) that is pretty close to the people. At one part of the fence there is a sign that says "spray zone". Apparently the tigers will spray to mark territory. What do they spray you ask? Well urine and anal secretions of course!! Nasty!! :)
There was one part in the center that was all these brain teaser puzzles that you had to like make a square using these four different shaped blocks, or fir six wood cubes into a small wood box with none of the edges left sticking out...you get the drift, well, I could not do ANY OF THEM!! Katelyn however mastered almost everyone that she tried!! That little smarty pants!! :)

It was a super fun day and we will for sure be making a trip back SOON!

chore list...almost complete!

Yesterday I got seven of the eight things done on the list! yippee!! And for "working in some fun", please see the above post!!

...the one thing I did NOT get done was the floors, but I can finish that this morning!!

Saturday, September 6, 2008

To do list...

*unpack from camping (last weekend)
*put camping things back into the attic
*put away beach and pool items and bring out fall jackets to wash and get in the closet
*mop the floor
*do laundry
*get a few groceries for SUNDAY!!! First Lions game of the season!!
*balance check book and order checks
*try to work in some fun time

Hope your having a FUN Saturday!

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

When your husband says...

"I need to check you for ticks" LET HIM!!!
Last night we did some much needed yard work while the kids played outside. I was in charge of cleaning up dog poo, pulling weeds, and cleaning up the mulch that Abigail likes to take out of the beds and chew on it various spots in the yard. While I was in the mulch beds, making sure it was all nice a neat (I have become a bit of a freak about it) I found a HUGE, I am talking HUGE spider!! I swear that thing had fangs and was the size of a half dollar!! My brother Brad was nice enough to come kill it for me and it only took him about 25 whacks to get the job done!!

Okay, back to the reason for this post...This morning I got up to take my shower and upon washing my "private area", I felt this huge lump, pulled at it and IT WAS A TICK!!!!! huge from sucking on my blood ALL night while I was in bed! I was about to pass out!! Seriously that is some crazy stuff!

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Are you sure you dont want to stay home with Mommy??!!




Emily had her first day of preschool today and she was running out the door to get there!! She has been asking to go ever since the other kids started school, she just didn't understand why she couldn't go until after Labor day!
She woke up and had doughnuts for breakfast ( we just got in from out of town people). I told her to pick one and she picked FOUR! She dressed up in "pink" and put on her new shoes that make her run "really, really fast"!!
She was I think, the most excited when she saw her best friend from school Abby! They hugged for such a long time and told each other "I missed you soooooo much"!! They sat together for the blessing of the tote bags and played together on the play ground! Emily said Abby was very upset when her class had to go in and she had to leave Emily again! I am so happy that they will be able to play together on the playground everyday, they just love each other and get along so well.
Emily said that she was "so tired but, not sleepy tired, just sweaty tired" after school today but that sure didn't stop her from playing the rest of the afternoon!

I hope that everyone else sending little ones off to preschool finds it comforting to know that they are making friends and are in the care of people who love them! As tough as it may be to see them growing up, its part of life, our job from day one is to love them with all our hearts, keep them safe, guide them down the right path to making the best choices they can and teach them by example what they need to know to make it in this big, big world!
Watching Emily (from behind a wall) today while she played on the playground swinging, going over monkey bars, and chasing her friends at school, made me smile big, well up with tears and think to myself that I am doing my best to help this beautiful little girl of mine have the best life ever, and she is doing it...in that moment I could see it!

NO BEARS!!!






We went on our annual "Cousins camp out" this past weekend as we always do on Labor day weekend and as always we had a BLAST!! We got to see everyone and do some really fun things like swimming at the lake, playing carnival games (that the kids made up using all the empty soda cans), we went to some really cool caves and took a tour, ate some fantastic food and just got to catch up with what everyone has been up to lately!!

This year we went to Southern Indiana to Potaka Park. It was a really nice camp ground and our site backed up to the woods and was a short walk to the lake that the kids had a ball exploring and playing at. They made the "magical path" ( I think I have that right) it was a secret path through some rocks that was filled with mud that was a little over ankle deep! They had a blast tricking everyone into walking through it and watching them get stuck!

Jason and Angie (cousin and husband) made them some fishing poles with sticks and lures that Jason had and they are sure that they got some "nibbles"! Jason was the only one to actually catch a fish though. Still lots of fun. The weather was great although a bit hot, good thing we had the lake!

Poor Joshua (Nephew) was sick for the first time, on his first campout! Poor thing! He was feeling better on Monday when we all headed home so that is good! We got to meet Brady (second cousin) for the first time and what a cutie he is! I could have put him in a big bag and brought him home with me!! The kids just loved spending time with him, helping him walk all around!

Emily said "this is the life" and "I love all my cousins" about 100 times over the weekend! Jacob said he loved the caves so much that "if he had discovered it, he would have never told anyone about it so that he could sneak down and see it whenever he wanted and keep it beautiful forever"!! Katelyn weaseled her way into the Burns tent again every day I think for breakfast! I am not sure how she does it, but gotta give her credit, she gets better breakfast that we do!!

Cant wait until next year!!