A Day in the Life

Sledding(finally!)and Swimming

2012-02-27T11:57:00.017-08:00

This past weekend we made an impromptu trip to Algona. My parents had gone up for a few days to help my grandma with a project in her basement and on a whim that day I had asked if there was enough snow up there to go sledding. Mom thought there was and they were staying at a hotel that night with a pool so it was a bonus, sledding and swimming all in one weekend! We met my parents and Grandma at Pizza Ranch and had supper and then surprised the kids with the swimming at the hotel. The pool area was pretty dark so I didn't take a ton of pictures but here are a few. My very excited red head.
Goofy first born who does not necessarily like his picture taken.
and the all of the sudden camera shy little girl.thats more like it.
We spent the night at Grandpa Matt's and Grandma Nancys house. The next day we made our way into town to Daylight Donuts and visited the Chocolate Season as well. The kids loved their donuts and treats and then we headed out to the farm. The kids said hi to Great Grandpa and Great Grandma and then were ready to try sledding. We found a somewhat small hill in the yard and decided to give it a try. It wasn't the steepest hill but it seemed to work pretty well for small legs to be able to walk back up.Callie played the part of the princess very well and would get to the bottom of the hill and say "Bone come get me" hold up her arms and of course Uncle Bone would go get his favorite great niece. Stinker.
Callie quite enjoyed her first time our sledding.Ty had lots of fun too.I think Gabe was getting tired of carrying the sled back up the hill by the end of our sledding time but he was a trooper.
We went out for lunch with the Great Grandparents, Bone and Grandma and Grandpa and then after lunch headed back out to Carl's parents. Callie needed a nap, Carl needed to watch the ISU basketball game and I needed to rest for awhile. After the ISU win Carl took the boys outside and gave them a pull on the sled behind the tractor.
While they were out for their ride they found another hill to try sledding on. This one was a little steeper and they had to be careful not to sled into the creek but they had a blast.
We all had a great weekend and Gabe proclaimed it to be the best weekend ever when he went to bed Sunday night. Guess he had a good time!

Titus and the 3 Bears

2012-02-19T12:45:00.000-08:00

Ty's preschool class put on a few plays last week. They did 3 Billy Goats Gruff, Goldilocks and the 3 Bears and The 3 Little Pigs. Ty played the part of the baby bear in Goldilocks and the 3 bears. We had heard him practicing his part for a few weeks and were so excited to go see his acting debut. Here he is helping set out the 3 chairs.Soon it was Ty's turn to say his part, as you can see he is a little animated.In the above picture he was exclaiming that someone's been eating his porridge and they ate it all gone...wahhhhh(we're pretty sure he ad libed the wahh part but the preschoolers thought it was hilarious and he received quite the crown reaction for his performance) Next someone had been sitting in their chairs(Ty is patiently waiting to say his line)
and at the end of course someone had been sleeping in his bed and she ran away:) I didn't get a very good picture of that part but here they are taking a bow at the end of the play.After the plays were over we even got to see his class do the infamous crazy dance, he sings that song at home all the time, so much so Callie knows how to do it too.

After this they went back to their classroom to celebrate a birthday and we joined them for a few minutes before it was time to go. At the end of class Callie even got to join them at the carpet, she thought she was pretty big stuff.It was so much fun to see them perform and they did a great job. Maybe we have an aspiring actor on our hands:)

Baby #4 at 19 weeks

2012-02-18T06:40:00.000-08:00

We had our 19 week ultrasound on Thursday of this past week. Because it had to be rescheduled because of a death in the techs family we had to go for the ultrasound Thursday and the results with my doctor Friday. We took Gabe with us this time as we felt he was old enough to sit still and actually appreciate what he was seeing:). Gabe thought the baby looked like a dinosaur especially when looking at the spine and bones. It was fun to have him with us especially when the baby kicked up its legs and moved its arms up by its head and even opened its mouth wide. Gabe begged to let him find out if the baby was a boy or girl but we stayed strong and are waiting for the surprise. He had said earlier he would know if it was a boy or girl because a boy would have short hair and a girl would have long hair, he was somewhat disappointed to discover this method definitely would not work when he got there.

The next day at my doctors appointment she told us everything looked good, baby we smeasuring a little bigger then my due date but not enough to change it. The anatomy and organs looked good, umbilical cord and placenta were good. The only thing they discovered was the baby has a very small white calcification on it's heart. My doctor assured me it does not effect the way the heart functions or have any negative effects on the baby. It usually goes away as the baby grows so at our next ultrasound around 30 weeks they will check again and most likely it will have gone away. She assured me though that even if it hasn't it will not hurt the babies heart at all. She said that many more of these spots have been discovered lately because of the ultrasound technology improving so much. In the past they probably wouldn't have even seen the spot.

I'm not sure what to think about it as far as it being a good or bad thing kind of seems like some of these things are best left unknown so we don't worry about them unnecessarily. I say worry because of course stupidly in the afternoon I googled the spot and it came up as a very soft marker for Down Sydrome. That of course freaked me out so I began searching the likelihood that this spot could actually mean there is something chromosonally wrong with our baby. I was actually pretty reassured reading the research. Most of the time one very soft marker for Down Sydrome does not raise your risks of having a baby that actually has it. Plus my doctor did not mention the risk of Down Syndrome at all, which tells me she is not concerned about it since their is no other evidence pointing her in that direction.

Mostly I've learned from all this research that many perfectly healthy babies show this little spot on the heart and even statistically there is no reason to worry myself to tears like I did yesterday. Ultimately our baby could show no signs of anything wrong and be born with a chromosonal abnormality or health problem and the fact that we would love it and trust God with its life would not change. We are just trusting God in whatever plan he has for this baby, whether that means like the vast majority of babies this spot is gone by our 30 week ultrasound or that it is still showing up, whether our baby is completely healthy or has some challenges to face it is part of a master plan that we don't always understand and I think it's better that way. So in the mean time we of course will pray that our babies spot would be cleared up by our 30 week ultrasound and that it be a happy, healthy baby but we would pray these things whether a spot was found or not. So without further adieu here is sweet baby #4.

This is

2012-02-14T11:48:00.000-08:00

Danielle.Danielle watches our kids almost every Sunday while we go to connection group(and is as we like to call her our much older, adopted Korean daughter:). But beyond that I never have to worry when Danielle is with them. She knows their tendencies and their likes, she knows their schedules and when they are trying to pull one over on her(not that our children would ever do that...) but most importantly she loves them despite all of that stuff and they love her...A LOT! This was the night they had a sleepover party(she even brought balloons and footy pajamas), they play all sorts of games including but certainly not limited to spy kids, connect 4 and many different versions of Angry Birds. Since we love Danielle so much we decided to make her a special valentine. We unwrapped a bunch of Valentine colored crayons.
It was a bit of trial and error to figure out how to do this right but next we shredded the crayons into wax paper(well Daddy did we handed him the crayons:)
After the crayons were shredded we took an iron to the wax paper, now this is where we weren't quite sure if we were doing it correctly. The crayons ran A LOT and actually leaked through the wax paper onto the table and the iron. This was our result.It looked like a very large, very red bunch of mess. Upon further examination of the webiste though we discovered that this was actually what was supposed to happen for the most part so the idea of mixing the colors together was not the greatest since red dominated. Once we figured that out though we created a few other colors of paper as well. When we were done melting crayons the kiddos got to work practicing their heart cutting skills.We also traced each kids handprint and cut those out as part of our project. Here is the finished product. I think it turned out kind of cute despite our wondering what the heck we were doing at first.
Danielle was pretty happy with her Valentine and the kids had fun making it for her. I decided I don't do crafty things like this very often because I don't like to clean up the mess but it was worth it. We wish everyone a very Happy Valentines Day!
PS(no ultrasound today, our doctors office called and their ultrasound tech had a death in the family so we rescheduled for Thursday, still very excited to see our little peanut again!)

We're Alive:)

2012-02-09T09:00:00.000-08:00

Sorry I know it's been awhile but honestly we just haven't had anything super blog worthy around here lately, which is good and bad I guess. I don't think I've even taken a picture since Christmas, crazy! The lack of snow hasn't helped either, the boys got a sled for Christmas and have been dying to try it out, alas no snow to use it on. I thought for sure I'd at least have some fun sledding pictures to share but no such luck. The nice weather has been great, although cleaning up mud and muddy shoes and boots seems so odd to me in January and February. Next week I should have some blog worthy material as we have an ultrasound and Ty's preschool class is putting on a few plays on Thursday. I am guessing my camera will come out of hibernation for that:). Hope this mild winter has been treating everyone well!

The Big Day

2012-01-17T14:19:00.000-08:00

I had my 2nd official doctors appointment today. I say official because I have actually had to go several times for random other things, some simple, some a little scary but all has been well each time so we are thanking God for watching over this baby, although my fear from all of these issues is that we will be having a red headed little girl(if you know our red head and our girl you would know what I mean by that statement, but I love them to death!). Anyway everything looked good at our appointment. My doctor(who is wonderful and I love and is one of the reasons I am sad this is our last baby because I won't get to go see her regularly anymore) found a strong heartbeat right away. I love the sound of the babies heartbeat on the Doppler, so reassuring that everything is well. Everything else looked good as well and she looked at the calendar and we went ahead and penciled in our c section date. She gave me a choice between July 6th or July 10th. July 6th was out as it is the day before my brothers wedding and if I have my way I won't be in the hospital on my brothers wedding day so we decided on July 10th, it should be easy to remember since it is exactly one month before our anniversary. Now I have known since our less then perfect, completely opposite of plan birth of Gabe that baby will come when it wants but we are hoping that he/she cooperates and arrives on the 10th. Callie waited until her scheduled day so we do have hope:). My next appointment is an ultrasound on Valentines Day, we are excited to see our little baby again and no we will NOT be finding out if the baby is a boy or a girl, I need something to look forward to after the IV insert(usually not an easy thing for me) and the spinal:). Sorry no pictures today I really haven't taken any since Christmas.

All He Wanted

2012-01-06T11:12:00.001-08:00

for Christmas were his two front teeth:) Since this will hopefully be the only Christmas Gabe is front toothless I just had to snap this picture of him before we took down the tree. His first front tooth was knocked out last spring in an unfortunate mouth to truck accident and he just recently lost the other. Here's hoping both are in by next Christmas!

Christmas Time Was Here

2012-01-04T09:48:00.001-08:00

Hard to believe Christmas has come and gone already. Especially this year since we are experiencing unusually high temperatures for this time of year as well as no snow so it almost feels like we are still waiting on Christmas. I won't complain but I am certain we are in for it once the snow does start falling. We spent Christmas day at home in the morning. The kids didn't get up too early(especially Callie who the boys had to wait for to get up before going downstairs to do presents:) Looking through the stockings(love that girls bed head)
After stockings we passed out the presents. We were smart this year and wrapped each kids presents in their own type of paper that way we didn't have to put on tags. Callie got this shirt and slippers and insisted on putting them on right away. Guess we should have gotten her some pants too so her legs didn't get cold during her fashion show.Here is Ty with one of his gifts. Francesco Bernouli from Cars 2.I took a video of Gabe opening the present that we thought he would be most excited about, which he was excited but the video option on blogger has been taking longer then I am patient enough to deal with right now so here is a picture of Gabe and Ty opening their together gift.They actually got a 2 person blow up sled that goes really fast down hills, hopefully(or not?) they will have some snow to use it on soon:) The rest of the morning we ate cinnamon rolls and hot cocoa and watched the kids play with their gifts. Later in the afternoon we went over to my parents house to do gifts and dinner. Here is Callie with one of her big boxes(she really was excited to open presents but for some reason the only pictures I got of here there were with the serious face)
Here's Gabe with his Lego launch pad with rocket, I think he likes it:)Callie also got a present too big to wrap. This kitchen set. I tried to get her to look at me so I get her picture with it but she was too busy playing and checking it out she never would cooperate with me.After gifts we ate supper and had fun playing the quarter game. Even Gabe got in on the quarter game fun this year. We had a great Christmas day just spending time with family and relaxing a little. On the 26th we headed down to Andrea and Alan's place in Red Oak for the Carl's family Christmas. I didn't get a ton of pictures but I did get this one of Callie holding her baby cousin Addie, so cute!
The kids loved getting to play together and us adults enjoyed good food and opening up our new favorite toys(iPads!) We decided instead of heading all the way back home that night we drove over to Omaha and got a good deal on a motel room. The kids love staying in hotels and of course getting to swim! After swimming and breakfast the next morning we were able to meet up with Carl's family again for lunch and little shopping. I took these pictures of the kiddos at the outdoor mall area in Omaha.
There was even a ferris wheel inside the Scheels store.
After a little shopping we headed to the Old Market area for lunch at a great restaurant. We walked around the Old Market area for just a little bit until our kids were starting to get tired out(and mom was getting worn out chasing them) We decided with the lack of naps the day before we would head for home after that. We did end up taking a brief detour on our way out of town though. My uncle had mentioned how to get to the train park the last time we were in town but since is was 110 degrees we decided to skip it but this time we thought we'd check it out(and see if we remembered how to get there) We did find it and the kids had fun running off a little energy around the trains.After the trains we headed home. We spent New Years Eve at home this year watching a movie and just spending time together as family(with an unwanted guest early in the morning but that is a different post) and New Years day we spent with my Dad's family in Des Moines. I got worse and worse at getting pictures the more Christmas's we had so I don't have any to show from our time there(Aunts and Uncles if you are reading this maybe you could email me a few:) We had a great time just visiting and eating lots of good food. We hope you and your family had a very blessed holiday season as well. Thanks so much to all our family for the great food, fellowship and gifts. We are so blessed to have you all!

Christmas Eve Photo Flops

2011-12-25T12:22:00.001-08:00

Since I didn't get around to taking an official picture for Christmas cards this year I didn't do my annual Christmas card Photo Flops. However the kids in their Christmas outfits in front of the tree on Christmas Eve did provide the opportunity to post some photo flops anyway. Enjoy(disclaimer...my camera stinks, takes terrible flash and dark pictures, sorry)Merry Christmas! Love, Gabe, Ty, and Callie

Our Christmas Card

2011-12-22T09:13:00.001-08:00

I am being very cheap this year. I did not do a paper Christmas Card. We are on a tight budget and the Christmas Cards were one place I could trim a little around holiday time so I decided to do our annual Christmas update on here instead(after all what good is a blog if you can't make good use of it:) A quick little update on us...

Carl-Still working at Jcorp in Huxley and enjoying his job. He will begin taking his exams to become licensed the first part of this coming year. He can still be found cheering on the Cyclones most Saturdays as well as keeping our house and yard in good shape. He is leading our connection group from church again this year and we are loving it. It is so nice to have a great group to share life with!

Hollie-Stopped working at the local coffee shop this past spring when it was beginning to get difficult to get time off and was going to miss kids activities. While she enjoyed the people and the job it was just time to be done. She loves getting to stay home with the kiddos and with Gabe and Ty gone at school at least 4 mornings a week has been enjoying getting some 1 on 1 time with Callie.

Gabe-Started Kindergarten this year. He goes full days and he LOVES school. He is reading more and more and amazes us with his stories he likes to write and have Carl help illustrate. He is still our space nut and enjoys looking through space books and in general leaning new things to share with us about space. He played T-ball this past summer and enjoyed it.

Ty-Started preschool this past fall. He goes 4 morning per week and also loves his time at school! He is getting so much better with writing his name and drawing pictures. We love his people pictures. He loves cars and racing and making up games to play with his brother. They can often be found playing real life angry birds and Mario Brothers around the house. He played Bam Bam baseball this past summer and still talks about it!

Callie-Turned 2 this past October. She is energetic, talkative, opinionated and cuddly. She loves Cinderella(every Princess is Cinderella to her), pushing her baby in the stroller, causing trouble for her brothers and "helping" Mommy with everything. She is talking more and more all the time and most of the time we can figure out what she is saying now:)

Baby #4-yep you read that right. Baby #4 is due to make his/her appearance in the middle of July. July will be a busy month for our family as Hollie's brother is getting married at the beginning of the month in Iowa City. We are praying baby #4 is cooperative and stays safely put until after his wedding! We are very excited to complete our family and welcome one last little bundle into our lives! We had our 1st Doctors visit this past week and got a sneak peak at the little peanut. Doing well and wiggling all over with a strong little heartbeat.

We pray that Jesus remains the focus for your family this Christmas season. May you have a Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year!

Christmas #1 and Basketball

2011-12-20T08:12:00.000-08:00

We celebrated Christmas this past weekend with the Mawdsleys up in Burt. My Grandma is still healing from her broken leg so we took Christmas up there this year. The weather was so nice and the kids had a blast actually getting to play outside. They had lots of fun exploring and racing around the farm. Callie was content to sit in this little chair and say cheese.We got one with her and Great Grandma and Grandpa too!
Callie also enjoyed spending some time with Great Grandma in the big chair.We did manage to get a picture of all 3 with Uncle Bone. Although it was hard to get all 3 to look and smile at once(but what else is new...) Callie was sporting her new princess stocking hat and mittens from Great Grandma and Grandpa.
We all had so much fun spending time with family and then kids were worn out and slept a lot of the drive home. The next day we had tickets to the basketball game.
The kids had lots of fun cheering and yelling during the game(and dancing to the music) Ty wanted his picture taken with me so he could see it on the camera. I thought it turned out pretty cute.Callie got a little restless between songs she could dance to so she switched between sitting on our laps and sharing a seat with Gabe.All the kids enjoyed their popcorn throughout the game.
We had a good time at the game and are glad they don't last any longer for Callie's sake. She was starting to get rather restless by the end. This last picture is not from Christmas or the game but Gabe got ahold of my camera the other day and I found a lot of random pictures he had taken around the house. I thought this one was too cute not to share.
What a couple of cheeseballs!

Around the Tree Farm

2011-12-07T06:46:00.001-08:00

Besides picking out our Christmas tree the kids also had lots of fun playing around the tree farm.

Like playing on the ramp with cars and in general just running and jumping off it. (Until I made them pose for a picture:)

and using the tool box as a stage.

The netter always makes for great entertainment

The tractor is always a fun entertainment option as well.

Fortunately while it was cold and somewhat windy we had pretty nice weather overall and it was great the kids could be outside to play quite a bit of the time. That helped everyone keep their sanity I think:)

The Christmas Tree

2011-12-02T07:38:00.000-08:00

The weekend after Thanksgiving is traditionally spent at Carl's parents house and helping out at the tree farm. This year was no exception and after being around all those Christmas trees all weekend the kids were very excited to go out into the plot to pick out their own tree! It actually didn't take us long to find it this year(I think the really cold temperatures had something to do with that) We actually didn't walk too far when Carl and Gabe spotted this one.

With a little help from Dad, Gabe finished sawing down the tree.

Callie did a great job supervising the tree cutting.

After the tree was cut down Ty discovered a tree he wanted instead because it was "pretty orange"

Ty was overruled even though we did agree it definately looked orange:) The kids helped Daddy drag the tree up to the shop.

Gabe actually only helped a little and then decided to run ahead to claim his spot on the tractor to shake the trees. Callie helped the whole way.(I don't think Ty helped at all actually pretty sure he ran to Aunt Em)

Here's Gabe from his perch on the tractor.

Before we could shake it we had to get our families picture with our tree.

amazing how the kids look so much bigger then this picture from last year and especially this picture from 2009! After the picture Gabe started the shaker and we shook all the loose needles and stuff we didn't want out of the tree.

and then the boys helped pull it through the netter.

After the tree was all netted Carl got the tree tied down on top of the van.

We also pick out a frasier fir from the shop to take home as well. That tree goes downstairs and is my tree the tree from the plot goes upstairs in the hallway and is the kids tree that they get to help decorate and put on the fun ornaments. I think it's a good compromise I just have to keep biting my tongue when they decorate the upstairs tree when they tend to clump all the ornaments together in the same place:) Here are some pictures of the tree decorating.

And Ty was happy to learn that since Gabe turned 6 it was his turn to get to put the star on top of the downstairs tree. We implemented the once you turn 6 rule the job passes onto the kid below you:)(Mostly because Gabe is pretty heavy to try to lift up there anymore)

Ty got it up there just fine but it did need a little straightening afterwards.

and just because she's cute.

So both trees are now decorated and the stockings are hung by the chimney with care and we have 3 very excited children anticipating this Christmas season! Just this morning I was serenaded by We Wish you a Merry Christmas as I was getting out of the shower. It is so fun to see their excitement.

November Update

2011-11-30T08:14:00.000-08:00

Wow long time no blog. It hasn't been a boring November exactly I guess I just haven't taken very many pictures. We celebrated Carl's birthday on the 19th. The kids were pretty excited to help him blow out the candles on his birthday cinnamon rolls.

Those yellow towel things in the picture were part of maybe the best part of Carl's birthday weekend. They came from the ISU vs. Oklahoma State game the night before. We had tickets from Carl's work and a babysitter(Thanks Danielle!) and were able to go watch our very own Cyclones take down the #2 Cowboys in 2 overtimes! The day of his birthday my parents watched the kiddos so we could enjoy both of our birthday presents with great seats to the musical Wicked in Des Moines. We were going to celebrate afterwards by meeting everyone at Hickory Park for supper since we went to a matinee performance but we forgot the All State Music festival was in town that day and wow talk about a busy place. We went somewhere else to eat and all had a great day celebrating Carl's birthday. The rest of our month was relatively uneventful of course uneventful with 3 adventurous little ones can sometimes be rather messy.

If you guessed that is powdered sugar all over you'd be right. Callie decided to make it snow in the kitchen I guess. Look at that face. Guilty but loving that sweetness.

We spent the end of this month celebrating Thanksgiving with my family and then heading up to Algona to help out at the tree farm Friday morning through Sunday evening. I have lots of pictures from our time in the trees but I'll save that for the next post. Just so I have a good start to December:)

Belated Happy Halloween

2011-11-02T07:24:00.001-07:00

RapunzelCaptain America
and Iron Manwish you a belated Happy Halloween!

They had so much fun trick of treating this year. As you can see Callie was ready to go!Callie was Rapunzel but she thought she was Cinderella, every princess to her is Cinderella but since she got this cute outfit and a doll to match for her birthday from my parents we just had her be Rapunzel she didn't know the difference and she was very happy to get to be a princess for the evening. Before we left for trick or treating I made the kids pose for a few pictures. Gabe liked the fact that he didn't have to smile since no one knew if he was or not anyway:)
After the picture torture was over we started off down our street. Our neighborhood is great for trick or treating, there are lots of kids and almost every house had its light on. I was amazed at some of the stuff the kids got, juice boxes, a bag full of candy with a full sized candy bar, a toothbrush and a full sized candy bar, etc. Ty kept saying "I love trick or treating"
Callie had slight obsession with the dogs at a few of the houses we stopped at, if there was a dog near the door she didn't want to leave.
When we were done in our neighborhood we stopped by Danielle's house so the kids could trick or treat. She had a special treat for them and they loved getting to see her house.
after that we ended at Grandma and Grandpa's house and had some pizza and watched the Great Pumpkin. It was a fun night!

Fall Helpers

2011-10-31T08:40:00.000-07:00

We finally got around to raking and mowing up our leaves the other day. The three kiddos were pretty excited to help out with the fall chores.I think their favorite part of helping out though was being being weights to hold all the leaves down while Daddy hauled them to the back mulch pile.
and of course jumping in the big piles of leaves is always a favorite too.
To go along with fall we finally carved our pumpkins the other night. Gabe had been begging to do it for quite awhile and he finally convinced Daddy to do it Saturday night. The other two kiddos kind of ditched Gabe to do the yucky pulling out of the pumpkin guts all by himself. They just stood there and watched him and said "Oh yuck"Gabe with is goopy, pumpkin hands
Ty wanted a silly faced jack o lanternCallie of course wanted a puppyGabe wanted a scary jack o lantern but by the time Carl got his carved it was getting too dark for a good picture of him with it. Here is his scary jack o lantern all lit up though.
and all three jack o lanterns.
Today I have 3 very excited kiddos to go trick or treating and to watch The Great Pumpkin one more time. I'm sure I will have some pictures of my little trick or treaters soon!

Quick Trip and Football

2011-10-24T14:40:00.000-07:00

This past Friday my mom, the kids and I headed up to Algona for a quick trip. My Grandma Marj is still in the nursing home while her broken leg heals and if you know my Grandma Marj you know that she is VERY restless to get home. We thought a visit from 3 of her favorite little people might make her day and weekend a little brighter so we headed up Friday morning to see her. When we arrived she was resting in her chair but quickly was wide eyed when she saw who was there to visit her. We also surprised her with a few new pictures of the kids and a picture book full of pictures from this past summer and fall. Here are the kiddos showing her their pictures.Gabe was over there showing her the book too but suddenly when the camera came out he was camera shy...go figure. After a visit with Great Grandma we headed out to the farm so Mom could deliver a few things. While she was getting her things done I took the boys on a gator ride down to the bridge to throw rocks. There is a large pile of rocks off to the side of the bridge and the boys think it is great fun to throw them in and hear them splash. The funny thing is that was one of my favorite things to do when I was younger too. We used to go over to the bridge by my great aunt and uncles and throw in big rocks. There was a wire that ran across the creek too that we got bonus points for hitting as well:) Here are the boys with some of their rocks.and of course no quick to the farm would be complete without a quick trip to Dave's to jump on the trampoline. Look at those ups.
It was a long day but Grandma was so excited to see the kids and was so pleased with her pictures that it definately made the trip worth it. The next day we were given tickets for the whole family to the ISU football game. I won't go on about how we lost the game AGAIN to a team that we COULD have beaten had we been able to not shoot ourselves in the foot for the 4th game in a row but instead I will just show you the pictures I took. View of the jumbo tron from our endzone seats.and our friend Mike and Brady were able to come too!
and Callie enjoyed her 1st ever Cyclone Football game(well she slept through some of it and she didn't miss much when she did but enjoyed it none the less)

Hiking in Flip Flops

2011-10-11T07:27:00.000-07:00

This past Friday Carl was able to get off work a little early so we could go for a family outing to Ledges State Park. We hadn't been there in a few years and wanted to go while there were still some leaves left on the trees. We had forgotton that Ledges was flooded last year and maybe even before that and didn't realize that the road was closed pretty quickly once you entered the park. That being the case I didn't have the kids or us wear the best shoes for our outing. I was thinking we would just park down in the bottom of the park somewhere and let the kids run around and splash through the little streams that run across the road so I had them wear their sandals. We wore our sandals too which when we discovered we would need to walk quite a distance to get to where we wanted to go ended up not being the best choice of footwear but the kids did GREAT and we made it just fine. We ended up hiking our way through the trails down to the bottom. I made the kids stop for several pictures on the way. This one was while we were on the road before we started off on the trail. I love the way the light is showing through the trees.We also took a picnic supper for the kiddos to eat while we were there so that is the plastic bag Carl is carrying, again didn't think we'd be hiking:)Nevermind the pink wand, Callie found it in the dollar section at Target earlier in the day and it became her best friend for the day. She carried that thing all over! Even though we didn't plan the hike, it was gorgeous! The trees were beautiful and the weather was perfect(maybe even a little warm!)We had the kids pictures taken at school and in a studio for Callie but that didn't stop me from trying to get a few of each of them individually at Ledges as well. I succeeded to varying degrees as you can see from the pictures below:)The most treacherous part of our hike in our sandals probably came from these stone stairs. Great for good pictures but not so great for walking down in flip flops.I think the best part of the trip came when we got down from the trail and the kids discovered the water! That was definately one advantage to the weather being nice and warm.
After we played in the water a little bit we found a picnic table and ate our supper. I found the kids were pretty hungry and ate pretty much everything without complaint after our hike to get to the table, guess we should hike every night before supper. After we ate I tortured them into a few more pictures in front of the bridge. It is crazy to think how much the road is broken up and the place overgrown after all the flooding but at the same time it was nice as we didn't have to worry about cars and traffic at all with our little explorers.By the time we hiked back up the road to our van it was starting to get dark. The kids did great on the way back up and thought it was pretty fun to walk through all the fallen leaves on the road. Gabe took our picture in front of the Inspiration Point sign on our way back to the van.
We had such a great time and it was just awesome to be out in God's beautiful creation. We may have to go hiking again this weekend except this time not in flip flops.

Ty's School and Little Pumpkins

2011-10-08T05:35:00.000-07:00

The other night we had open house at Ty's preschool. He was VERY excited to show us and Grandpa Tim and Grandma Mel his classroom and his school. I tried to get a few pictures of him in his room but my model was less then willing to have his photo taken. I did manage to get this one of him working on a puzzle at his seat.He also had a good time trying out the magnet letters with Gabe.and here he is with his nametag he gets to use to answer the question of the day.After we visited his classroom we got to go to the gym and have some ice cream, I'm pretty sure that was his favorite part! Friday my mom and the two little ones made a trip over to Boone for some cheap pumpkins. My mom had seen an ad in the paper so we went over for lunch and then found the pumpkins. Ty had just had a pumpkin party at school that morning where he was supposed to wear orange or something with a pumpkin on it so he was dressed for the occasion. Ty and Callie loved the pumpkins.Both kiddos also really liked the little table full of gourds. Callie needed a little help to see over the edge.
I put Callie on the table to take her picture and she decided she wanted to eat a gourd...can't imagine it tasted very good:)
After Ty saw Callie on the table he wanted his turn too.
and one with Ty and Grandma
The kids had lots of fun picking out the right pumpkins and made sure to get a good one for Gabe who missed out on the fun since he was at school. Ty kept saying "Oh Gabe is going to Loooove these" Gabe was quite happy with their choices when he got home from school.

All About a Girl

2011-10-03T14:33:00.000-07:00

This post is all about a girl who stole our hearts 2 years ago when she was born to a very surprised and overjoyed Mommy and Daddy! It's hard to believe it's already been two years but like the old saying goes the days are long and the years are short and it is so true! We started birthday celebrations Friday night with the traditional Hickory Park birthday sundae. While we were waiting for our food Callie and Grandpa practiced holding up 2 fingers, she kind of gets it.
The boys even took a break from their coloring every once in awhile to smile for the camera.Soon they brought out the birthday girls ice cream and she was shaking with excitement(literally!)She actually did a really good job blowing out the candle.
She very much enjoyed her ice cream as well!
On Saturday Carl and I worked on Callie's birthday cupcakes. If you've been around Callie very much you know she LOVES puppies! So of course we made puppy cupcakes for her big day. I think they turned out pretty cute.
The puppy in the center is one of my favorites.
Sunday morning our birthday girl woke up to a birthday donut and candles. She loves the sprinkles!We had church in the morning and I snapped this picture in her cute little 2 outfit before we left, just to make sure we had one picture of her wearing it while it was still clean!
She likes to create unique poses sometimes:)After church we headed to Grandma and Grandpas house for a small party. Callie loved her puppy cupcakes!
Before we sang Happy Birthday and ate cupcakes though we let the birthday girl open her presents. This big pink one was very intriguing.

She got many cute little clothes and a doll and matching dress up outfit, she loved everything! After presents we lit candles and sang to her. She had a little trouble blowing out the candles this time(although Ty tried to help her out by blowing them out for her before she had a chance, we had to relight them and tell him not to help this time:)
She did enjoy eating her puppy as well(she is wearing a headband from one of the cute little tutu's she received from Uncle Pete and (almost) Aunt Kim

Soon after the cupcakes the birthday girl was ready for a nap! She slept great. When we got home we took the traditional chair picture. We do it each month birthday from 0 to 12 months and then yearly after that. Here is her two year picture. She insisted on wearing her new dress up clothes and sit with her doll.

She had a great birthday. I can't wait to see what the next year holds for our sweet, smiley, messy, loud, wiggly, crazy, joyful, silly girl! We love you Callaghan Grayce, we are so blessed to have you in our family!

Same Old Story

2011-09-27T07:12:00.000-07:00

Things around the Clark household have been rather uneventful for the most part lately. Hence the lack of blog posts. We've made a few trips up to Algona to visit my Grandma, who fell down the basement stairs and broke her leg in two places a few weeks ago. She was in the hospital awhile and is now in the nursing home until she is a little more healed and harvest is over since there is no one to help her at home when harvest is in full swing. She looked so much better the 2nd time we went to see her. She was very excited to get to see the kids and was more alert and more herself. The kids did pretty well at the hospital and nursing home when we went both times but of course the highlight for them were the tractor rides, gator ride and getting to see the ostriches. I didn't take any pictures but they were definately all smiles. This weekend our baby girl turns 2! I'm sure we will have more pictures and things to post after the big birthday weekend but for now I will leave you with our 3 crazies wrestling their daddy!

He's a little outnumbered by these 3 silly kiddos!

Random News and Notes

2011-09-13T08:10:00.000-07:00

Had a few pictures on the camera that I needed to get off so thought I'd post a random smattering of happenings from the past week or so. This past Wednesday we were able to take advantage of the gorgeous weather and meet our friends at Reiman Gardens. I didn't take too many pictures but we did get one of everyone(minus Gabe since he was at school).

Callie is just a cheese and is (usually) willing to get her picture taken. She was especially proud of this "hat" the other day.

Those of you who live around these parts know that this past weekend there was a big game going on. We were all dressed up in our teams colors and headed down to a pancake breakfast for the morning.

Uncle Pete and Kim were at the pancake tailgate too and since Kim was the one who bought the kids their ISU gear we decided we could manage a picture with a Hawkeye:)

After the pancakes Carl had a ticket to the game and the kids and I went home to listen on the radio(we don't have cable and unfortunately it was on a station we don't get) After the first TWO turnovers in the red zone I was sick of it so I turned it off. Guess I should have stuck with it as I discovered later when we were in the first of 3 overtimes. Once we figured that out Gabe and I were cheering loud through each play and we were very excited when the Cyclones got the W!
That night one of our favorite people in the world came over for dessert. Danielle watches the kiddos quite frequently and is a HUGE blessing to our family. We love her bunches so we celebrated her 21st birthday with a banner and some birthday cake and homemade ice cream. It is always a bonus when she brings her boyfriend Grant along too! Here we are singing a very LOUD version of Happy Birthday.

and around here there is always help in blowing out the birthday candles:)

I think that gets me caught up on pictures for awhile. We are looking forward to the fall weather that is supposed to be arriving this week!

What a Difference...

2011-09-08T13:03:00.000-07:00

a few short years make! With Callie's 2nd birthday fast approaching I have been reminiscent of her babyhood and where the heck it disappeared to! I took this picture of Callie and her buddy Lauren in December of 2009.

and I took this picture a month or so ago when they came over to play.

Seriously when did they turn into little girls instead of babies! Callie isn't too into sharing quite yet but she does like giving hugs and kisses.

Lauren looks a little concerned there, can't say I blame her:) Brenna likes to be included in pictures as well.

It is so much fun(and a little sad) watching all the kiddos and their friends getting bigger. Crazy to think we will be celebrating the big #2 soon!

1st Day of Preschool

2011-08-30T13:56:00.001-07:00

Well just when I was getting used to the idea of having a Kindergartner, preschool starts for Ty! We visited his classroom yesterday and he was not wanting me to come with, he wanted to go by himself. He was very excited that today he was going to school and Mommy was only dropping him off. Here is my preschooler.

and does anyone have any doubt about what is on Ty's backpack....if you were thinking Lightning McQueen of course you were right.

and of course if one gets their picture taken then everyone wants to join in! Callie insisted on bringing her ackack(backpack...well bag) too.

We got to school and the drop off area is very busy so we didn't get a chance to get any pictures at school but my red head was grinning from ear to ear. He was so excited to start school. Callie and I spent a quiet morning running a few errands(wow so much easier with 1 child) and then coming home and getting some stuff done. When we picked up Ty he was so excited to tell us all about what he got to do at school today. 1st thing being that he got to ride a blue scooter. I had a few tears after I dropped him off this morning and I just can't help but think of him as my cute little red headed baby still. Seriously he shouldn't be big enough to be going to preschool yet. I prayed for him often this morning and was so glad when he said he had a great day. Our red headed monster is growing up:)

Homemade Ice Cream

2011-08-24T13:29:00.000-07:00

I do this thing called swagbucks. Basically you do different things, search the internet, take surveys, etc and earn swagbucks. When you get so many you can trade them in for prizes. I had been saving up my swagbucks for awhile to get Amazon giftcards. I had my eye on the kitchen aid ice cream maker attachment for some summer treats around here. I finally got so close to earning enough and I just caved and used my gift cards along with a little of my money to get the ice cream maker:) We've used it several times so far and it is super easy and a big hit with the kiddos. This was from our chocolate ice cream with smores trail mix mixed in.

We decided to live dangerously and let Callie have a cone all by herself. We stripped her clothes and sent her outside with her very first solo ice cream cone. She LOVED it!

to no ones surprise she was extremely messy when she was done.

Gabe enjoyed ice cream too but was not enjoying pictures this night so no pics of Gabe and his ice cream but he is a big fan. We are excited to try out some more flavors soon!

1st Day of Kindergarten

2011-08-22T07:21:00.001-07:00

I should have been prepared. After all he went to Early Kindergarten last year and I was used to him being gone half days. I found I wasn't really prepared though. I found myself feeling moments of sadness that my baby was going to Kindergarten(he hates being called my baby, he is a boy not a baby, I keep explaining that he will be my baby as long as he lives, even when he's as big as daddy but he doesn't seem to think that is the case:) I just kept thinking that this is the start of it all. Busier evenings with activities, homework, etc. etc. Crazy to think that my chubby cheeked little sweetheart will be gone all day all week long. Gabe however had no sadness, no moments of reflection on his short 6 year life. He was ready to go! Here is my Kindergartner all ready for his first day of school.

and I tried to get him to look back at me so we could see his back pack but it didn't work out super well.

and of course little brother and sister couldn't be left out of the picture fun so here they all are together.

We are car pooling with some friends this year. I am taking the kids to school and she is picking them up. It worked out well since starting next week I will have to take Ty to preschool anyway. Here is Gabe and his friend Colin outside their school.

I was just thinking this morning that I feel like I'm going to blink and I will be teary leaving my 1st born at college. Time really does move quickly. I pray that God will watch over Gabe today and look forward to hearing all about his first day when he gets home!

Happy Birthday Ty!

2011-08-18T06:55:00.000-07:00

Our little red headed bundle of energy turned 4 on Sunday! How did that happen? We had celebrated a little bit already with the trip to Adventureland and the annual trip to Hickory Park for the birthday sundae but today was the big day. When Ty got up in the morning he was greeted with a Lightning McQueen balloon and his breakfast request of waffles.

After blowing out his candles we began preparations for his big birthday party at lunch time. We got all of our stuff around and headed over to Grandma and Grandpas to get ready. Since we had just gotten back from Minneapolis and had a big day at Adventureland Friday we decided to go less complicated on the cake this time. We did cupcakes.

After we had lunch we went ahead and did cake. Ty loved to blow out the candles again.

After cookies we had a very anxious birthday boy who was ready to open presents so we did that next.

He received so many cool toys and clothes, he was very excited with all of his presents. After presents we decided to burn some energy and walk down the park. Ty got a Captain America shield from Uncle Pete and Kim that he really enjoyed shooting at them!

Kim got him back though.

We had lots of fun at his party and were blessed to have our family join us to celebrate Ty's big day! After everyone had left we gathered all of our things and took stuff home. We decided it was such a nice night that we would get a 5$ pizza and do a pizza picnic in the park. Gabe just learned how to ride a bike with no training wheels while we were in Minneapolis and has been wanting to take it on a bike trail since he learned. Ty inherited Gabe's old bike and after fixing the seat and the training wheels he was anxious to try out his "new" bike too. Here are some pictures from along our route.

and of course I had to take the opportunity to take an impormptu photo shoot of the cheesy little girl. Oh well her shirt had cheeto stains on it from the party and her hair was a mess...it still turned out kinda cute.

and we decided on a whim to try out a family picture on the bridge with our timer. It actually turned out pretty well!

and of course we ended the day with the traditional picture in the big chair. We do it monthly until they kids turn 1 and then yearly until they turn 5. Here is Ty's 4 year chair picture.

Oh my red headed monster, you are funny, determined, fiesty and sweet all at the same time. We love you for your unique personality and your sweet(when you want to be) demeanor. You have grown so much over the past year and we love that you love people and your brother and sister. We love that you get a super high pitched squeaky voice when you get excited and we love to hear you pray and have a love of going to church and learning about Jesus. We were blessed to have been given the honor of being your parents 4 years ago. We love you so much!

The Straw Poll

2011-08-17T08:46:00.001-07:00

As some of you may know there was a little thing here in town this past Saturday known as a straw poll. Since we only live a block and half away from where it was being held we decided to walk down there and check out all the craziness. These are many of the candidates busses and tents they had set up around the Iowa State Center.

One of the highlights was the the free food. Bomb pops were a family favorite.

While the Bomb pops were good I still think the kids liked the inflatables the best.

There were lots of special interest groups there as well the candidates not to mention the local and national press.

Amongst all these people we did manage to find Kim(my brothers fiance) to say hi and meet her dad quick.

and after all the excitement we had to head back home so we could meet my parents for a late lunch at Hickory Park for Ty's birthday sundae!

He liked to blow out the candle!

and the ice cream tasted pretty good too!

I'll finish of this post with a few random cute pics we snapped while at the restaurant.

and just to prove he was there but not cooperating for any pictures...

Adventureland

2011-08-16T08:25:00.001-07:00

When we got back from our little Minneapolis trip the next day we decided to take Ty to Adventureland as part of his birthday celebration. Mom again agreed to keep Callie since she is a little bit too small to ride very much and still needs a nap in the afternoon so we figured it would be more enjoyable for everyone if she stayed with Grandma. Our friends, the Krugers also had tickets to go and since Mike had the week off from work they were able to go with us for the day. That worked out great since Ty loves Brady and Bree he felt like he got to take friends with him for his birthday. When we arrived we headed right to the ferris wheel. We found most rides only let you go with 6 people at the most so we split up with the two older kiddos with us and two younger with Mike and Heather. It did make for some cute pictures.

After the ferris wheel Ty was just sure he wanted to ride the pirate ship, aka the galleon. I can't ride the galleon I did when I was younger and almost lost my breakfast so I was positive age would not improve my experience so Daddy took him on. Mike took Bree as well.

Since you could only take one kid per adult the bigger boys had to wait their turn and the Daddies had to go again:)

They even help up their hands for most of the ride but pretty soon I saw Carl talking to a increasingly more funny faced Gabe and had him put his hands down. Once he got off though he was fine, of course he says he still thought the galleon was fun. For those wondering Bree and Ty loved it! No problems at all! After a few more rides the dads were ready for a break of all the spinning so we found the ladybugs. Gabe and Brady decided that this was a baby ride and they were not going to ride it but once Bree and Ty got in line they decided to give it a try as well. What is funny is I remember riding the lady bugs when I was about Gabe's age, guess they've been around a while.

Soon after the ladybugs we found some lunch and then braved a few more rides. All of us rode the log ride where Gabe and I got pretty wet since we were in the front of the log. After the log ride we checked to see if Gabe was tall enough to ride the roller coasters this year. He was and he said that if he was tall enough he was going to ride them. We started with the tornado where cool and confident Gabe turned a little panicky and by a little I mean a lot. The whole time in line he kept saying he didn't want to do it and he didn't want to go. The line was not long so it didn't take us long to get to the platform. Once in the cart and out of the building he wanted out but we were past the point of not return and he wanted me to hold on to him the whole time. They take your picture at the bottom of the 1st hill and his face was priceless. A look of sheer terror gripping onto the lap bar and my arm for dear life. It was pretty funny but I didn't want to pay the 10$ to buy it so you'll just have to trust me on the face. Once we pulled back in and we got off he was exclaiming how fun that was and wanted to go again...stinker. He went on to ride the Dragon(the upside down coaster) twice and they all rode several other rides. We ended up over by the frog hopper towards the end of the day which is one of Ty's favorites.

After a couple of rides on the frog hopper the kids were ready to go try out the bi-planes. The park was not busy this day at all so there was no wait and no one waiting when they were done so I think they ended up riding them planes about 5 times in a row. It was great.

While the kids were riding the bi-planes the daddies decided they were going to go try out the space shot. Mike had never been on one before so wanted to give it a try. He had tucked his sunglasses on the inside of his shirt but they went flying out. While we were watching them from the ground you could see Mike fumbling around for something and then these glasses flying out into the crowd, it was pretty funny. You can see a video of it here. I'm sure it was more funny in person but just watching him flail around trying to catch them was a pretty good laugh. After that craziness we headed over the carousel and train but not before I made the kids pose for a picture together. In Ty's defense the sun was pretty bright.

On the train ride.

I think Gabe and Brady were a little confused after going on all the roller coasters and decided that they should put their hands up on the train ride as well.

While on the train ride we saw the raging river and the kids wanted to know why we hadn't gone on that yet. We were going to leave and get some supper but our kids pleading eyes won out and we headed back to the raging river where the adults mostly, all got soaked for our ride home. Since we were pretty wet we decided a drive-thru was our best option an ate some Burger King on the way home. It was a fun day and I think Ty thought it was a pretty good place to start a birthday celebration weekend.
*Just wanted to add that Ty's favorite ride was the silly silo(you know the one that spins round and round and drops the floor out from under your feet, the one that makes me sick just watching it spin) yeah that one and my wonderful hubby went on it twice, once with Gabe once with Ty what a guy:)

Busy August

2011-08-15T06:48:00.001-07:00

August is turning into a busy month! I have so many pictures from the last week or so that need to be blogged about and I'm sure with school starting soon I will have even more coming up. Guess I will start with the beginning of the many pictures. This past week Carl and I celebrated our 9th anniversary. My parents were gracious to take the kiddos for a few days so we could get away. We drove up to Minneapolis and stayed right downtown at the W in the Foshay tower. It was a super nice hotel and it was great walking distance from everything that we wanted to see and do downtown. We got it on priceline for cheap which made it even better! Tuesday on our way up to Minneapolis we stopped at the Medford Outlet Center for a little shopping. Carl found some much needed new dress shirts and some new jeans and I found a nice new pair of capris on sale too! We finally made our way up to the cities where we got there about rush hour time. It took a while to get downtown with all the traffic but once we got there we were able to pull right up to the hotel where the lovely valet attendants took our car and we didn't have to worry about it for the rest of our stay. We walked into the hotel and immediately felt underdressed. This place was nice! We got checked in and made our way up to our room where we discovered when grabbing stuff out of the van we had forgotten to grab our dress clothes from the backseat for dinner that night. We went back down to the lobby where they had someone go get our stuff and bring it to our room. When we finally had our clothes for dinner we got ready and were able to take advantage of the hotels free Acura Experience. They basically have you fill out a questionnaire for the Acura you are riding in and take you to your destination for free. Since our hotel was a little ways away from the restaurant where we were having dinner this was a nice option to have. We ate dinner at Bar La Grassa in the warehouse district. It was wonderful! They offer half portion sizes of their main dishes so we were able to try several different things. Each thing was great and somehow each new dish was better then the one before it. We also had a great dessert of Caramel Crepes. After dinner I had brought my comfortable shoes with so I switched out my dress shoes for my comfy shoes and we enjoyed the beautiful weather and walked back to our hotel from the restaurant. The next day we went and ate a light breakfast and explored downtown a little bit. They had a 2 story Target where we saw many groups from their corporate headquarters walking around and looking at things, it was an interesting mix of people. At lunch we had reservations to try Fogo De Chao. It was good but Carl and I both agree it was a one time stop. Just too much food to enjoy any of it and the price even at lunch was pretty steep. We are glad we tried it once though and they even gave us this for free!

Carl liked the flower.

After lunch we explored the Nicollet Mall area a little more and went to Macy's and looked around for quite awhile. They had lots of fun dresses that I tried on, which you may be thinking Carl must have really had fun with that...it was actually his idea he had kind of over eaten at lunch so he was very excited to lay on the dressing room floor and let his food digest for a little while so I could try on dresses that I had no intention of buying:) After finding this Panera Bread with a great courtyard and having a frozen lemonade, we made our way back to our hotel to get ready to go to the Twins game.

We walked down to Target Field and the gates weren't open quite yet so we captured some pictures of the statues outside. Carl and Harmon Killebrew.

and with Kirby Puckett.

Once the gate opened we made our way to the Twins Shop and got ourselves some shirts since we didn't have any and then explored a little and found our seats.

The next day we actually were able to sleep in a little bit, we checked out of our hotel and headed to Ikea to look around a little bit and eat a cheap lunch. I did find a cute duvet cover for Callie's bed and we found several ideas we'd like to try in the kitchen. We also went to Mall of America for a little bit before we made our way back to Ames for a school meeting for Gabe that night. It was a great time and we were so glad we could get away for a few days even though we missed the 3 little munchkins. Don't worry the next few posts will have pictures of the people you really want to see:)

A Rare Occasion

2011-08-03T14:10:00.001-07:00

I was organizing a few things on the desk this morning and was putting the camera back down when Callie came running over and screeching "teese, teese, teese" it took me a minute to figure out she was screeching cheese at the camera. She wanted her picture taken, this part is not the rare occasion though, she wants her picture taken quite frequently. The rare occasion occurred when the boys came out to join her and actually WANTED their picture taken as well. They still didn't really look at the camera when I told them I was taking the picture but at least they didn't hide their faces...I'll take it.

Blast Off

2011-07-28T06:37:00.000-07:00

This past Saturday we went to visit Uncle Pete and Kim. Kim teaches a class in engineering in the summers and had mentioned to Gabe awhile ago that one of the things they do is build rockets and launch them. Of course this was very exciting news to Gabe and ever since he had been wanting to get over there so he could build a rocket with her. Finally this past Saturday we made the trip. We weren't sure if the weather was going to cooperate with us but the rain let up for just enough time to launch the rockets. First they had to put the body of the rocket together.

and then they had to cut out the parts to put on the body. Gabe did pretty well at cutting where he was supposed to:)

In the meantime Ty had fun decorating a rocket that had already been built with markers.

Once all the pieces were cut out they duct taped them onto the body of the rocket.

After the rockets were all put together we headed to the back yard to launch them. The boys were so excited it was hard for them to wait for it to be set up right.

Once the rockets were filled with water they were hooked up to the air pump which Brad(my brothers roomate) pumped up to put air into the rocket.

and when there was just enough air pumped in whoever was holding the string pulled and blast off!

Here's a very proud Gabe with his rocket, the parachute had deployed to soften the landing.

Both the boys had so much fun building and then getting to launch their rockets. Thanks Kim for taking the time to help them(nevermind her shirt, she's an Iowa grad but we love her anyway:)

Here is a video of our last blast off. The wind caught it a little, hopefully the backdoor neighbors don't still have a rocket stuck on their roof!

Gabe's Big Game

2011-07-27T06:44:00.000-07:00

Gabe has been playing t-ball now since the middle of June. I was unsure whether to do Parks and Rec t-ball or club t-ball this year but since he had not officially played t-ball before we decided to go with the cheaper, less time Parks and Rec option this year. We have found Gabe loves to play, well Gabe loves to hit, fielding and catching are improving but the hitting is the highlight. He had t-ball Tuesday and Thursday evenings. They would work on their skills with catching, throwing, fielding and hitting and then towards the end do scrimmages. This past Friday though was the end of the year wrap up and the "big game under the lights" Gabe was very excited to play in his big game and talked about it for weeks before hand. Here he is before his big game ready to play(seriously when did this kid get so big!)

The big game started and Gabe's team was in the field first, he was playing 1st base to start(a big job as they are taught to always throw to 1st every play)

He did pretty well although we find that Gabe can be a bit.....spacey at times:) After everyone had a chance to hit on the other side it was Gabe's teams turn at bat. We have been practicing with him at home on his hitting and he has done really well but we have found when he gets to T-ball all the sudden he is timid at bat, after pep talks we were waiting to see how he would hit it. Our leftie did pretty well!(although still not as well as he hits at home but it's a start:)

Running to first base, sometimes he is a little too laid back and skips but today he ran pretty well.

The 2nd inning Gabe played short stop.

and he had one more chance to bat. He hit it pretty well again and here is rounding the bases to 2nd.

and of course we practice good sportsmanship and give everyone low fives after the game.

and one last huddle of the season.

The season wouldn't be complete without treats afterwards of course.

and since it was pretty hot and humid and the rest of us wanted a treat we headed to Wendy's to get frosty's to celebrate the end of the season.

Some of us were a little cleaner eaters then others.

We were glad Gabe enjoyed t-ball and look forward to continuing to practice with him and Ty. Callie even likes to hit off the tee every now and again:) Seems like summer is coming to a close all too quickly.

Mini Vacation

2011-07-18T14:42:00.000-07:00

Since we did a big vacation this past fall we decided to do a few little mini vacations this summer. The first one the whole family got to go. We went to Omaha on Friday and then stayed overnight and came home Saturday night. Friday morning we tried to leave bright and early to get to the zoo. We never quite as bright and early as we are planning but we did make it to the zoo by shortly before 10. It was a hot day but we had so much fun. We started off walking down to the cat complex. I have never seen too many big cats out anytime I have visited the zoo and today was no exception. I'm pretty sure they were hot, like this guy.

After visiting the big cats we went to see the bears. We arrived just in time to see this big guy finishing up his lunch.

After checking out the other bears from the top of the cages we made our way down to farm area. Since we have access to a farm around here we didn't really look at anything in there too much but the boys did like to climb on this spider web.

While the boys were playing in the spider web, Callie checked out the big hippos mouth.

Soon after all of this they discovered the carousel near by and wanted to take a ride. Ty was extremely happy with this tiger.

until he was told it didn't go up and down like most of the other animals. He then decided to grab a horse by Callie. Gabe was pretty excited about his elephant.

and Callie enjoyed her first ever carousel ride on the goat.

I snapped this picture in the mirror while the ride was going and you can see that Ty(and the others as well) enjoyed himself very much!

After our carousel ride they immediatelyl wanted to jump on the train but since it had just left and we didn't feel like standing in a line in the heat we went up the hill to see the birds while we waited. I have been to the zoo many times and don't remember seeing all the budgies before but it was really cool. They gave the boys each a stick with peanut butter and bird seed on it and they were able to hold them out and feed the birds.

The boys got better at getting the birds to eat from them eventually. This yellow was especially feisty, he was eating and bit Ty's finger in the process. Ty thought it was great fun, how appropriate the feisty bird found Ty!

Gabe even was still enough to have a bird actually land on his stick(Ty did by the end of the time too!)

Callie enjoyed the birds as well but she tried to catch them, she made me a little nervous as she got close a few times.

After the excitement of the bird feeding we went over to see a few owls and had a snack and water break. We then caught the train, the breeze felt so good! After the train we went to see the bears on the bottom parts of their cages and then headed through the aviary. The flamingos are always one of my favorites.

We even got to cool off a little under one of the many misters around the zoo when we were done.

After we were a little cooler we headed to one of the newer buildings that we hadn't been through. Expedition Madagascar. IT was pretty dark in there so I really didn't get any pictures but the lemurs were fun to watch and there were others sorts of lizards and creepy crawlies too...always glad they are behind glass! After that we headed to the bridge to feed the koi and see a few other types of monkeys. The kiddos had fun watching the fish swarm the food they threw in. We also saw these birds in the garden of the senses. Crazy how big they are!

After that we decided it was time to head to the van for lunch since we had packed a picnic but didn't want to haul all the stuff in with us. We made our way around to some of the animals we had not seen yet and then headed out to have picnic in the shade. It was a good pick me up as we all had more energy after that. We did the jungle when we came back in. You know it is hot when the jungle actually feels cool! The boys loved doing this bridge.

After seeing lots of cool animals in the jungle we headed over to the butterfly house. I actually was more impressed with the butterfly wing at Reiman Gardens, this one was bigger but it didn't seem to have as many butterflies in it as the one at Reiman and oh my was it hot. After that we finally got to go to the aquarium where Gabe had been dying to go all day! When we came in they enjoyed seeing the puffins and penguins. They especially liked this bubble where you could climb in and see the penguins a little closer.

Here you can see the boys from the other side of the glass.

Of course there were lots of really cool fish but nothing beat the walk through tunnel and the sharks!

The boys thought the jellyfish were pretty cool though tool

Personally I liked all the pretty colored little fish.

Gabe also loved to get to see the small hammerhead sharks in one of the other tanks. I tried to get a picture of them but they swam way to fast for me to get one that wasn't blurry. After the aquarium we went to the Desert Dome. The boys really wanted to climb on this but the sign said stay off:)

I wasn't super impressed with the desert dome the last time we went and I wasn't all the impressed this time either. It's kind of cool but just not one of my favorites. Last time we went though we didn't do the downstairs portion which is kingdoms of the night. That was kind of cool. Way to dark for pictures but it was neat to see all the different areas and nocturnal animals. After the desert dome we decided to call it a day and go find our hotel. It was actually a really easy drive to get there. Once we checked in we ventured back out into the heat to meet my uncle and cousin at Spaghetti Works(my aunt was sick and my other cousin working) It was down in the Old Market area which is really neat. I wish it wouldn't have been quite so hot so we could have checked out a few things but we had all had enough heat for the day and just headed back to the hotel for the night after dinner. The boys had balloon spider men to entertain them for the night(they had a balloon lady come around to tables and make things for kids at the restaurant, they loved their spider men) We held them off with swimming until the morning which turned out to be a great idea. The kids were up early of course so we headed down to swim and had the pool to ourselves the whole time we were there. After working up an appetite we ate some breakfast in our room and then went over the west side and went to The Amazing Pizza Machine for lunch. This place is like Chuck E. Cheese on steroids. We met Carl's Aunt Sara there and the kids of course were in heaven. It was hard to get them to eat anything and finally when we adults finished we headed to the games.

Besides all the normal games that give tickets and arcade games they also had a frog hopper that the boys loved.

and they also had mini bowling you could play. That bowling was just the right size for the kiddos and even Callie tried to take a turn.

They also had go karts, which Gabe and Ty were both too short to drive but they could ride with Daddy. Ty and Daddy even won first place!(had to take it through glass, it's a little blurry)

The bumper cars were probably Gabe's favorite part. He loved to run into people, I think need to be concerned.

After all the fun and games we headed back to Aunt Sara's house so Callie could take much needed nap and to visit with her for awhile. After Callie woke up we headed out to eat some supper at Five Guys Burgers and Fries(we discovered Omaha has 3 of them!) and then made the trip home. It was a hot but super fun weekend. So glad we were able to go do something fun for a few days!

4th of July

2011-07-07T07:17:00.000-07:00

This 4th of July weekend we didn't do a lot of the traditional 4th things, we didn't have anyone over for a BBQ, we didn't relax by the pool or go to the lake. Instead we took a long weekend and worked on some home improvement projects. The first project we did was to make and install garden beds for our kitchen garden. My hard working hubby got the boards all cut and we put them together. The next day we turned the soil in the beds and hauled up some soil from the backyard to fill them up. Holubs had all their plants at half off this weekend so we went and found some tomatoes, peppers and various herbs to fill our beds. We are hoping they still produce well since we planted them so late in the season but I think the beds look nice.

We've since put down cedar chips in the paths between the bed as well but I forgot to take a picture of that. Makes it much less muddy after rain or watering.
We also started redoing our back porch. I am not going to post pictures of that yet because I will do one big post about it when it is all done. It has been a good change, the old porch windows were original to the house in 1930 and they had definately seen their better day. When we get it all painted and set up I will show the pictures. I unfortunately didn't think to take pictures of it before we did anything so you'll have to trust me that what we've been doing is an improvement.
The kids have loved to help out with all our projects. Gabe especially loves to help plant the stuff in the garden and of course they all like to water them:) Callie sometimes gets a little too aggressive in her trying to help and actually falls into the garden bed. I should have gotten a picture of her in her cute 4th of July outfit before she took a tumble into the garden bed.

You can't see them super well in the picture but she also had cute little American flag bows in her hair, which Gabe decided he would model here.

Since we had lots of time outside this weekend the kids got lots of trike and bike time in. Callie loves riding on the back of the trike.

It is even better when she can get one of her brothers to actually chauffeur her around.

They like to have races down the sidewalk as well.

We've also been doing a lay out to put our firepit ring in. The stumps we are using for benches were from the tree that fell on our house last year during the floods. They also make for great stepping stones.

Ty wanted to model for me in front of our big pot of flowers. They have grown so much since we planted them and look so nice!

he also wanted to model with Dad's wrench...silly boy:)

and after so much hard work you have to have a snack to keep you going.

That evening Grandma and Grandpa came over for some ice cream and to do sparklers. I love Ty's face when his sparklers are lit.

Gabe liked to try out his ninja moves with the sparklers.

When it got pretty dark and closer to 10 we headed down to the Iowa State Center parking lot to get an unobstructed view of the fireworks. Carl stayed home with Callie who we put to bed...she was not going to last till 10.

Someone had just had way too big of a weekend and completely missed the grand finale. He fell asleep on grandpas lap.

all that hard work wears you out!

Fun with an Airplane

2011-06-29T15:04:00.000-07:00

It is kind of nice living so close to campus. Especially in the summer when it's incredibly nice and we need a big space to fly one of Gabe's new birthday presents! Gabe got this airplane from his friend Colin for his birthday last week.

We decided that after flying it in our yard we would take it to central campus to have more space to really let her fly. The boys loved watching the plane do loops and had to duck and cover a few times:)

At first Callie was more interested in pushing the stroller around in the grass.

and climbing through the fence.

but after awhile she got in on the fun of chasing the plane once it landed too.

The airplane was somewhat unpredictable in its flight pattern however and every once and awhile you would have to watch out or it could hit you in the nose and cause it to bleed profusely...like this.

Thankfully Daddy had an extra shirt to use as kleenex since I didn't think to bring any! Here is the airplane in action. (nevermind blogger will not upload my videos lately for some reason...)

After awhile it was time to take 3 tired but excited kiddos home for bed. Ty decided to help Callie out and lead her to the sidewalk. So cute

The kids are already asking when we can go back to Central Campus and fly the plane again(this time I'm taking kleenex)

Super 6 Year Old

2011-06-27T14:02:00.001-07:00

Gabe turned 6 on the 23rd! How is that possible? To me 6 sounds so much older then 5, I don't know why. Maybe it's because he can no longer show us his age on one hand. Maybe because it's beyond that 1-5 age group. Maybe it's because he's my oldest baby and it will always seem as if he shouldn't be aging as fast as he is but at any rate he turned 6 and he was very excited about it! On his birthday he awoke to Iron Man balloons and donuts(his requested birthday breakfast)

We also had a gift for him to open after breakfast.

it was the Action Bible, our old Jesus Storybook Bible has seen it's better day and we had seen this one in the store before and really liked it and knew he would too. It is done like a comic book, the illustrations are very comic booky and even the stories follow comic book style in that the characters have speech bubbles and so forth. He was very excited to read some of his favorites in his new bible.

That morning was spent at our last swimming lesson session, which he passed with flying colors and then a short wait until we could finally go pick his friends up for a small party. We were planning to go to aquatic center but for the first time in 6 years at least it was too cold to go to the pool. We did have a back up plan and went to Perfect Games instead. He and his friends had a good time bowling.

and they each got a game card with a little money on it to play some games in the arcade and after their cards were spent down to nothing they had a great time bouncing in the bounce house. After Perfect Games we went and picked up some pizza and headed to the park.

I had made some cupcakes as well but the wind was not cooperating very well to get the candles lit so we sang happy birthday and Gabe attempted to blow out the one candle we could get to light.

after food he was finally able to open his presents.

and after that there was no more containing these kids to the picnic table they were off like a shot to the playground for a rousing game of Tag. Gabe had so much fun and was sad when it was time to take his friends home for the evening. His birthday celebration continued into the weekend though. Saturday we had his party for our family. Ty had his last Bam Bam game at 12 that day so we invited anyone who wanted to to come down to watch him play. After his game we headed back to my mom and dads new place for his party. Carl grilled some mean burgers and we had lunch. After lunch we sang Happy Birthday and did cake. Being inside he was able to actually blow out his candles this time. Gabe requested a command module splashing down in the ocean for his cake this year(can you say Space Geek, big time!) He is lucky Daddy is a good decorater. I baked the cakes and then we assembled the cake and command module the night before. I think it turned out pretty well(the picture in front is the actual Apollo 11 command module after splash down).

after cake and ice cream he had yet more presents to open up. He got so many neat things. Lots of I can Read books which he really loves right now and some cool clothes and this Lego Space Shuttle.

He also got this bike from my parents. He is not so sure about the whole no training wheels thing and doesn't want you to let go at all when you help him ride. Although when he was riding at the park Carl let go and he went quite a ways before he realized no one was holding on.

After presents were opened we all walked down to the park that is just down the street from Mom and Dads. Even Uncle Bone had fun on the swings.

Sunday we finally finished off the birthday celebration weekend with a trip to Hickory Park for the annual birthday sundae.

and the very last treat a trip to the theater to see Cars 2 with us and Grandpa Tim and Grandma Mel. He loved it(so did the rest of us) Thanks to Danielle for keeping Callie for us so we could all go! Gabe had a great birthday! Thanks so much to all our friends and family who sent cards and were able to come to celebrate with us. We are very blessed!

Start of Summer

2011-06-20T06:11:00.000-07:00

With the start of summer comes lots of random happenings. A few weeks ago we used our family membership to go have a picnic in the garden after church. It was a nice day and even though it started to sprinkle while we were there the kids loved having a picnic in the garden. Even though I had taken pictures of them the last time we were there I tortured them again anyway and made them pose for a few pictures for me, like these...maybe someday it won't take many many shots to actually get one half was decent one:)The roses were more in bloom this time.They also changed the display in the conservatory instead of the big picnic basket they had these things.We also were able to go to the butterfly wing this time, Callie's first time through. She loved the butterflys. This one loved Carl:)On our way out the boys also liked to look at the butterflys who had just emerged from the chrysalis. The start of summer also brought the start of swimming lessons and t-ball for Gabe. I wasn't able to get very many good ones at the pool.and I haven't snapped any at t-ball yet that will have to be a post another time. This week we are gearing up for someones 6th birthday! More to come I'm sure...

Big Bugs

2011-06-04T13:55:00.000-07:00

Groupon had a spectacular deal a few weeks ago, a year long Reiman Gardens Membership for 27$! We have been members in the past but I didn't renew our membership last year but when I saw this deal I knew we had to do it. This year their theme is Big Bugs. This past week since Grandma had some time off(since they were moving) we headed to the garden to check them out. Right out the doors we found this praying mantis.

he was small in comparison to this big guy though.

Next we went to check out the childrens garden area. Much to the kiddos displeasure the frog water pumps were not working yet but they did discover some fun things in the alphabet garden. Callie discovered water, she LOVES water.

The kiddos also love the bridge over the little stream and the board walk mazes. They had the prettiest purple flowers out right now!

The boys love to climb the hill that goes way up to the fence area. Here they are showing off just a little:)

Next we went to see the big ants. Ty wasn't so sure he liked them but Gabe thought they were pretty cool.

after the ant we saw the big spider. I would not want to come across a spider quite that big for sure!

and to go along with the spider theme next we saw a giant spider web. Ty wasn't so sure he liked it either although he did seem to think it would make a good climbing toy once he did warm up to it.

Next we came across a giant ladybug. Ty decided that the ladybug was not scary so he didn't cover his face and hide from this one:) Gabe and Callie liked it too.

Next up was the giant mosquito which Ty did find scary so he would not get in the picture with his brother and sister:)

Next we made our way back down and around the lake where Gabe became photographer and took some pictures of the giant dragonfly.

We made our way to the back of the garden where we saw this. It looks like a dragonfly but it has another name and my memory is failing me. We learned that it can actually sting you which Gabe thought was cool and terrified him all at the same time.

and finally our last big bug outside in the garden, the grasshopper. They had seen the grasshopper driving by from the street many times so the boys were very excited to actually get up close to it.

On our way out of the garden we stopped in the conservatory area and saw the giant picnic basket. This was probably my favorite part.

It was a hot day at the garden but the kids has lots of fun discovering all the bugs. I'm sure we will take advantage of our membership and go visit our favorites quite regularly.

A Birthday Train

2011-06-02T12:21:00.000-07:00

Wow what a busy weekend and week this has been! We started out this past weekend with a birthday party for our nephews 2nd and 4th birthdays. We had lunch at their house and then we all went to Boone to take a ride on Scenic Valley Railroad. Since the train ride started about the same time as Callie's normal nap she met Grandpa Tim and Grandma Mel in Boone and went back to their house to sleep instead. When we arrived the boys couldn't wait to see the train.

after a short wait we were able to get on and find some seats all together. It was nice the train wasn't full so we had plenty of room to spread out and kids were able to move around some. Here they are with one of the birthday boys!

Aunt Andrea and Uncle Alan even had engineer hats for everyone to wear on the train.

and of course no birthday party is complete without cupcakes, which Ty liked very much, especially the frosting!

The window seats were especially popular on the ride and much maneuvering and shifting was being done to have the best view out the window.

The views were really pretty especially going over the bridges and near the river.

Aunt Em even came home for the weekend!(and bought Gabe the smashed railroad penny which Gabe later dropped when he was out checking out the open air area of the train, she was nice and got him another one:)

It was a fun ride and we all enjoyed ourselves! Thanks for the fun party and train ride Andrea and Alan.

The rest of the weekend wasn't as exciting or relaxing as the train ride but it was busy. Sunday we worked in Gabe's room at church and then met Carl's family for lunch at Hickory Park. Sunday afternoon we went to my parents house and started to help them load trailers. They are moving into a townhouse on the other side of town and started to get their things out of the their current house. We loaded as much as we could Sunday and then Monday morning unloaded into the new house garage(they can't get into the house until Friday but could put their stuff in the garage) It was a busy few days and we still have more stuff to move and then actually put into the house this coming weekend. I didn't take any pictures of the moving activities. The kids are excited to finally see Grandma and Grandpas new house as they(especially Ty) were getting a little stressed out as to why we were taking everything out of their old house and putting it into trailers. I think once he sees it all in an actual house and not a garage he will feel better about the whole thing. It was definately a productive weekend!

First to Last...Another Comparison

2011-05-27T10:37:00.000-07:00

Today is Gabe's last day as an Early Kindergartner. We are very happy with our decision to send him to EK instead of regular Kindergarten. His teacher was fabulous, he loved his classmates and learned soooo much this year. We have seen his writing improve a TON, he is reading short stories with help and recognizing more and more words all the time. He loves math and will often time want to show us his counting by 2's, 5's, etc. and want to dazzle us with his addition and subtraction skills. He is still a space nut and will fill your brain with information on rockets, space shuttles, the solar system you name it! We are so much more confident sending him to regular full day Kindergarten next year and we know he will adjust well to the change(of course on his end of the year progress report he still needs to improve slightly on not interrupting when others are talking...) It has been so much fun to watch him grow both academically, socially and emotionally. He has lost 4 teeth(3 that were ready, one that was an oops), grown in clothes and shoe size and has in general just become such a boy, not even a little boy anymore:( I am getting rather emotional just thinking of all the changes that have occurred with him over this past school year. I will be glad to have him home for summer! We are planning many trips to the pool, Reiman Gardens, play dates with friends and the park. In the fall he will go to regular all day Kindergarten and Ty will go to preschool 4 mornings per week. Callie and I will not know what to do with ourselves with just us home! But here is the reason for the post.

Gabe on his 1st Day of EK

Gabe on his last day of EK

Red Headed, Red Teamer, Bam Bammer and a Big Girl Bed

2011-05-18T07:46:00.000-07:00

Ty is playing Bam Bam Baseball this year. Basically like t-ball except they hit a bigger rubber ball off of stacked coffee cans with a big plastic bat, everyone gets a turn to hit and everyone gets a turn to field the ball. He LOVES it. He had practice a few weeks ago and did a great job and couldn't wait until his game on Saturday. Here is my little short stuff up to bat.

He also took a turn fielding the ball.

He is somewhat of a distracted player as when he noticed Grandma and Grandpa were there he had to run over the fence and wave and say "Oh hi guys!" As much as he loves playing bam bam though I think the snack is his favorite part:)

In other news Callie is now in a big girl bed! Actually I'm not all that excited about it, I wasn't quite ready for my baby to be out of her crib but with my parents moving soon and her getting the bed from their spare room at some point in the future the timing just seemed right to set the bed up where it was going to go. Here she is showing off her big girl bed.

For now I am just using the bedding my mom had on it at their house but I am not in the hunt for cute, purple girly bedding. I think I have one in mind but am watching it on ebay right now:)(I have to have something fun and positive to think about with my baby becoming a big girl and all) She looks so little in such a big bed!

Mothers Day at the Farm

2011-05-09T15:32:00.000-07:00

Wow what a weekend! It started off with getting ready for a garage sale at my parents house on Saturday. It was great to get some stuff out of our house and get some of the kids clothes reorganized and I sold some of the excess. It was so nice to be free of more stuff from the house:) (I did forget how much work garage sales are though from sorting and organizing and pricing my stuff to hauling it over and getting everything set up, man I was tired) After the pretty successful sale on Saturday we came home and I made a few desserts and Carl smoked a whole pork shoulder to take up to the farm for lunch on Sunday. Sunday we left bright and early for Burt. We met my family at church and besides our little wiggle worm names Callie they did great. After church my grandma really wanted a picture of the whole family so we attempted. I think Pete and Kim are seriously wondering if they want a family picture at the wedding next summer or not:) Despite Gabe doing this in most of the pictures.

We did get one good one.

After church we went out to the farm for lunch where the boys just couldn't wait to get outside to play baseball and ride the tractors! They loved their tractor rides and they also got to go see the goats at Daves and got to ride on the gator and mule. Even Callie got in on the action.

She loved it! We had a great day at the farm!

We also stopped by Carl's parents to say hi for Mothers Day while we were up there, I think we surprised them!

Pool Party

2011-05-04T06:37:00.001-07:00

Last year when Gabe attended Ames Christian Preschool one of their fundraisers was to sell raffle tickets for a golf outing where they would give away prizes. My parents of course purchased a few tickets and actually ended up winning something. They won a 1 night free stay in a whirlpool suite at the Hilton Garden Inn here in town. So the voucher expired on April 30th and on April 30th they finally cashed in their voucher:) Since they knew the kids would love to go swimming we headed over there Saturday evening. Fortunately the pool was not very busy. This is our little fish, she LOVES the water!

This is our bigger fish, he also LOVES the water!

This is our more land loving lets call him a turtle. He was NOT crazy about the water.

He preferred to stay by the steps and hang on the handrail.

or the chair near Mom and Grandma worked well for him too.

Although eventually he did get brave and stick his head in the water.

Gabe found that it was lots of fun to jump in with the floaties on. This one may have been a bit small for him but he didn't seem to mind.

This was his splash after he jumped in, I was too slow to catch him actually jumping.

Then there is Callie who at first loved her baby float but then when we took her out to let Ty try it she only wanted to be OUT of the float. She loved jumping in to Grandpa.

the action shot turned out a little blurry, sorry.

After we finally got the reluctant swimmers out of the pool we changed and went to eat supper at the hotel restaurant. When we got back the kids really wanted to take a bath in the whirlpool, they settled for getting in with it empty instead.

After explaining that they couldn't sleep at the hotel too we took 3 very tired kiddos home to bed. Thanks for the pool party Grandma and Grandpa!

Our Pretty Princess

2011-04-29T09:00:00.000-07:00

In honor of the royal wedding today I am posting pictures of our pretty little princess:) The other day I was putting some things away in Callies closet when she started pointing at the pink and purple tutu that was hanging up in there. She kept pointing and grunting and finally I asked her if she wanted to wear it. She enthusiastically nodded her head yes so we put it on. She was very proud of herself. She posed for multiple pictures and walked around like she was big stuff.

It was pretty funny. However, even pretty little princesses play with trucks, especially with two big brothers!

Easter Weekend

2011-04-25T06:58:00.000-07:00

We started off our Easter weekend with a somewhat lazy Saturday. We woke up and got donuts for breakfast and then headed to run a few errands. We thought it felt somewhat nice out so we took a pizza to the park to eat a picnic and let the kids play a little but it was a little more windy and cold then we we thought. After we got home Grandma and Grandpa stopped by with Uncle Bone and Uncle Pete! The kids were super excited and Gabe got to show off some of his baseball skills(I really should get a picture of that) Ty even showed off his batting stance(again really need to get a picture) Pete brought the boys each a cute t-shirt(actually future Aunt Kim got them, thanks Kim!) We attempted to get a picture of them together, in case you can't quite make out the words on the shirts they say "I'm a Cyclone, Just like my Uncle" Ty had fallen down the slide and skinned up his elbow which is why he's got the red Lightning McQueen icepack.

After they left it was nap time for Callie and the kids watched baseball with Daddy. That evening we went over to my parents house for dinner. Grandpa and Grandma had Easter basket for each of the kids and they were able to find them shortly after we got there. The boys each had a veggietales watch in their basket and they each had a pair of sunglasses.

After we found the baskets we headed outside to find some eggs while our burgers were on the grill.

Can you guess whose basket is whose?

The next morning we got up and ready for church. I attempted a few picture of them in their Easter outfits, we got a few cute ones:)

After church we headed out to Andrea and Alans for dinner with their family and Grandpa Matt and Grandma Nancy. After lunch the kids got to have an easter egg hunt and they each had 5 color coded eggs to find.

Callie doesn't quite get the whole find Easter eggs concept quite yet, she would just wander around a little and if she came across one she may or may not pick it up. She was more interested in the animals, like the cat, she would screech with delight when she saw it but then the minute she got close to it she would screech in fear. Crazy girl.

After they found their eggs we went to see the goats and chickens.

They also had a few baby ducks that the kids were able to pet.

Before heading back in the house for dessert we attempted to get a picture with all the kiddos together, I think it's impossible to get them to all look at the camera at the same time but these aren't too bad.

We had a great Easter weekend with family but most of all praising God for his Son who is no longer dead but risen.
" Jesus Paid it all. All to Him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow!"

Oh What a Day!

2011-04-21T05:33:00.000-07:00

With small children anytime you do kitchen activities they have the potential to be messy. I understand that. Our day yesterday however was messy, crazy and bloody, yes I said bloody. The day started off pretty well we ran to the store to pick up the few things we needed to make our treats. We got through the store pretty quickly with kids doing a great job helping get the few things we needed. We got home and started our rainbow jello treats right away. Gabe laid out the cups.

Then dumped the jello into a bowl,

after I added the boiling water he stirred it and then added the cold water.

He then supervised as I filled each cup with red our first color. Ty even helped out a little.

Then we moved onto the cookies. As we were doing this Ty decided it would be a good idea to get the computer chair(on wheels) and bring it to the counter so he could get a little bit higher(it's tough being vertically challenged) as he climbed up I told his to get down as it wasn't a very good idea to have a chair with wheels to stand on, he did and then Callie climbed up, my hands were covered in dough and flour and as I was going to wipe them off to get her down Ty came runing by the chair knocking it out from under her and her falling flat on her face from the chair to the floor. 1st blood incident. Her poor little chin got scraped up and her lip bled pretty good for awhile. Gabe freaked out because there was blood, Ty freaked out because he knew he had caused her to fall and of course Callie freaked out because she was hurt. After getting her cleaned up and the floor cleaned up we got back to cookie business. Gabe helped me cut out the shapes

and then once we had a pan full we took them out to the table where the boys got to use egg yolk paints to paint them.

They both enjoyed making each cookie look just right.

After they were painted we baked them

and then after they were all done we piped frosting on them(well I did)

Now during cleanup in the kitchen I heard Ty tell Callie something, I didn't think much of it as this happens quite frequently at our house. Then as I went in to check on them after I heard Ty tell Callie no again I saw what he was talking about. Somehow Ty had grabbed the box of food coloring we had used to paint cookies off the counter(I swear it was moved clear back so it was out of reach of children but who knows) and had taken it into the living room. He got out the green and managed to get it all over the floor by the loveseat and his hands. Callie had then gotten into the box and continued the rampage of food coloring all over our white chair and on herself. It was a mess. I have never seen such multi-colored children ever. I kind of wish I would have taken a picture just to document the mess but at the time I was too shocked, angry, in disbelief that I just had to clean it up. Both of the culprits then had to be bathed and me too since I now had it all over my arms and hands as well. Ugh what an afternoon. Wednesday night things had seemed to calm down somewhat and we headed to D6(our church's family ministry) I delivered our Easter/thank you treats to the kids teachers

and then went to help out in the Kindergarten classroom as always. I was doing a game with my small group when I saw Gabe walking back down the hallway. When he saw me he ran into our room and said "Mom, I lost a tooth!" I said I didn't know you had a loose tooth buddy, Our pastor who is also Gabe's teacher for D6 said he didn't, he fell. Oh my, looking closer at his face he had a skinned up nose and chin and his lips were fat and puffy. Apparently he was pushing a truck on the floor and tripped and his face planted into the truck. Knocking out his tooth(thankfully the top front tooth that is still a baby tooth and not a bottom middle that is an adult tooth) I was told the amount of blood was crazy. In a way I'm kinda glad I didn't have to clean up that bloody mess as well. I tried to get a picture of his gappy mouth but his poor lips were so swollen it was hard for me to get a picture of it. I did get this one and you get the idea.

His tooth came out clean, root and all, I have never seen a tooth like that and it is rather nasty. Troy told us he did great and hardly cried at all. We are thankful he was in there and able to calm him down and take care of him, what a crazy night and day! I hope our Thursday proves to be more clean and less bloody!(and in case you're wondering I moved the food coloring to the highest shelf in the cabinet, just in case)

Signs of Spring

2011-04-15T06:21:00.001-07:00

Our grass is green, our daffodils, hyacinth, magnolia and crocus are in bloom and our children are loving the outdoors(well minus the bees for Gabe, he is terrified of bees) With the nicer weather means playing in the tree house and little slide in the backyard. I finally took the camera out with me to snap a few pictures the other day. Ty is a huge slide fan. He likes this little one.

but he's a big fan of the big green one too.

and of course no trip to the back yard would be complete without a wrestling match or two on the slide.

Gabe enjoys the slide too.

although I think he enjoys the tree more.

Callie likes the flowers, but mostly she likes to pull them apart and try to eat them.

The big brothers love to help her go down the slide.

She is just happy to be outside with everyone!

We are looking forward to many more nice days to play outside!

Because I Want to Remember

2011-04-13T07:57:00.000-07:00

I was looking back through some old pictures and videos we have on our computer yesterday(I am attempting to get them archived and somewhat organized) and I came across several old videos of the boys talking and doing various things. Their voices were soooo different, they sounded so little. So in an effort to capture them at various stages in life I interviewed them yesterday. I want to remember their little voices. It took a few takes of each to get one without them jumping on each other or picking their nose but I think I got a few that will work.

Gabe age 5(almost 6)

Ty age 3 1/2

Callie age 18 months

Photography by Gabe

2011-04-11T06:20:00.001-07:00

We have been enjoying the beautiful weather lately with lots of playing outside, trips to the park and riding our bikes but I haven't taken many pictures of it. Gabe however loves to be a photographer and grabbed the camera the other day for one of his impromptu photo shoots, Callie seems to be his favorite subject but he did get one of Ty. Here are a few of his pictures for your viewing enjoyment.

Question

2011-03-28T10:36:00.001-07:00

How can such a cute, little, cheeseball of a girl like this.

Make such a big mess like this?

Yes that is most of a box of Captain Crunch with crunchberries and part of a box of rice krispies all over our living room floor.
She is a quiet little mess maker too, stinker!

While these two had no part of making the mess itself they also did not bother to stop her....

I say they are an accessory to the crime.
I thought girls were supposed to be less messy!

Spring, St. Patricks Day and Scooters

2011-03-22T08:47:00.000-07:00

We actually had a few nice days during Spring Break this year! Since it was nice out we were able to enjoy riding scooters down the sidewalk.

We discovered Gabe's old bike helmet was getting a bit too small for his rather good sized noggin so I found this one at Target.

He loves it and much to his little brothers delight, Ty is able to wear Gabe's old helmet complete with his beloved "Queen" on the side! It matches his scooter and his boots!

Even Callie likes to ride the scooter!

While scootering you always need a snack to keep the energy up so we ate the St. Patricks Day chocolate cupcakes we had made(really just chocolate cupcakes with green sprinkles) Everyone was a fan and it kept the chocolate mess out of the house!

Speaking of St. Patrick's Day, this was our attempt at an Irish dinner for the night.

Boxty's (potato pancakes) with Guinness Beef stuffed in them topped with Gorgonzola cream sauce, they turned out pretty well, we attempted them last year too and the finished product was better this year.
Back to scootering for a minute, Ty loves scootering so much that even when it was time to be inside he tried to sneak back out again, he had gone to the bathroom and was having a hard time getting his pants back up, we told him to just take them off since it was almost time to get jammies on for the night, not thinking much of it he took them off, soon after Carl looked out the front door and saw Ty like this.

Yep outside with his helmet, boots and shirt minus the pants, I should have snapped the picture while still outside but the shock of him going outside sans pants threw me off. Here's hoping for many more scootering days this month!

Dear Commander Lindsey

2011-03-09T12:54:00.000-08:00

Today we watched Space Shuttle Discovery land for a final time at Kennedy Space Center. Gabe was very excited to watch the wheels come out and the shuttle touchdown. Right after it had stopped he turned to me and asked if he could write the astronauts a letter. I told him he could so he immediately began work on a picture and letter for shuttle commander Steve Lindsey. Here is his work.

I also enclosed the following letter with a few of the things Gabe wanted to say but couldn't fit in his writing.
Commander Lindsey,
My 5 year old son Gabe wanted to write you a letter and draw you a picture. We arrived in Florida from Iowa in November to try and watch Discovery's launch, as you know that didn't occur but Gabe was very glad they found the problems so you and your crew stayed safe. We watched lift off and landing on NASA TV instead and his enthusiasm did not dwindle, even though we were unable to see it live. He loves the space program and was in heaven when we visited the space center. He wanted to tell you that he thinks you did a good job and he's very glad you made it back to Earth safely. He also wanted to let you know he wants to be an astronaut when he grows up and he hopes he gets to go to space. Enclosed is a picture and letter from him(with a translation of the 5 year old writing) Seeing Discovery on the launch pad when we visited was an awesome experience for our family. Congratulations on a successful mission.
Sincerely,
Hollie Clark and Gabe

Tomorrow we are going to drop it in the mailbox:) I don't know if Gabe will continue to want to be an astronaut or if he will ever have the chance to become one but I do know that his knowledge and love for all things space brings a smile to my face. Gabe we love you from Earth to the Moon and all the way back again:)

Airplanes, Waterparks, Nice Weather and Other Random Silliness

2011-03-07T07:16:00.000-08:00

But not necessarily in that order:) The other day I heard the boys doing countdowns in the dining room and I assumed they were playing with their toy rockets or space shuttles, instead this is what I found.

They were using the chairs to blast off from the dining room and were disarming bombs and getting rid of the bad aliens after they launched. The hats and coats were there space suits and helmets and the backpacks were their space packs. What a busy day for them.

We had a few days of nice weather this past week and one of the days since everyone was up from nap by the time I picked Gabe up from the bus we decided to scooter and stroller down to get him and visit the swings. I could tell it had been awhile since they had been able to swing because they all loved it,

I was getting worn out trying to move between the 3 of them for extra pushes. We decided to take the long way home and walked around the block so the boy could get some more scooter time in. Ty doesn't quite get the concept of being able to put both feet up on the platform every once in awhile and was a little slow but he had fun anyway.

A few days after that a friend of ours posted that a P-3 Orion Navy Plane would be landing at the airport that day. Knowing my boys would love to see it we headed to the airport that afternoon and waited for it to arrive. It took awhile to get there but once it did it had their attention.

They thought it was pretty cool to watch it land and then come up to the area where we were waiting.

Since it was running late Callie was extremely tired and we had to leave for a nap but our friend, whose dad flew one of these planes in the Navy was able to go inside the plane and look around, you can see her cool pictures here.

And finally to top off our week we got out of town for a few days. We stayed at the waterpark near the Amanas with my mom and dad. We had been their once before for a friends birthday and the kids had really enjoyed themselves then so we thought it would be something fun for the weekend. They loved having Grandma and Grandpa there and once they all warmed up to the water(with the exception of Gabe who is a fish and dives right in) they all had a great time.

In the morning we went to McDonalds in Coralville for some breakfast. The kids loved these motorcycle seat benches.

We also were able to do some shopping and we got to spend some time with Uncle Pete and Kim. It was a great little weekend getaway!

The Next Best Thing

2011-02-25T09:20:00.001-08:00

We have dubbed our vacation to Florida this past October/November as the scrubbed vacation because of all the issues with the space shuttle launch. We were crushed when we had to leave for home not having gotten to see the launch, but we knew all along it could happen(and we still had a wonderful, fabulous time, Gabe can't wait to go back!). We have decided however that it would have been worse to have missed the launch by a few days or even weeks then what actually happened. Yesterday, February 24th, 2011 Space Shuttle Discovery launched for a final time at 4:53 pm eastern time 16 weeks and 3 days after it's originally scheduled launch date. While it would have been awesome and spectacular to have had this view,

alright it would have been more like this view.

We settled for the next best thing and watched it live on NASA TV, the boys were still ecstatic, I may have cried a little:)

Seeing it live or not it is simply awesome! Godspeed Discovery!

Lets Go State

2011-02-21T08:59:00.000-08:00

We were able to get mens basketball tickets from Carl's work for the ISU basketball game on Saturday. Gabe and Carl were supposed to go with Gabe's friend Brady and his Daddy but Brady was sick all week and feeling really rotten on Saturday so he wasn't able to come. Gabe was bummed that Brady didn't get to come and he had to go to the game with his mom and little brother instead but oh-well. My mom and dad kept Callie at their house during the game since it fell during her nap time and she slept the whole game for them, it was nice not to have her wiggling all over the place:) Carl's work also gets wristbands to Johnny's(they designed it as well!) so we took the boys there for some pregame snacks. When we got to our seats I tried to get the boys to stand for a picture in front of the court for me but little fingers had smeared up my lens so it didn't look very good.

Once the game started Ty was very intent of knowing where Cy was at all times. However when Cy actually walked right up the stairs by our row of seats, he jumped out of my lap and into Carl's lap who was farther away, Cy was great from a distance but not such a fan up close. Gabe on the other hand was practically jumping into the aisle so he could give him a five. I snapped a picture too(I cleaned my lens, much better!)

During the game both boys would cheer and clap some and they liked the music.

This is what Ty was interested in.

Popcorn and more popcorn and even more popcorn.

He ate three small bags during the game.

At halftime we went to Johnnys again and got some treats, they had cookies, scotcharoos, and brownies which the boys thought was great(they have free appetizers, cookies, popcorn, lemonade, hot chocolate, coffee for those who are at a certain donor level to the athletic department)

Cy came in as well and this time Ty while shy at first actually gave him a five, he was very proud of myself, unfortunately I didn't get a picture.
During the 2nd half I tried to snap a few self portraits of Gabe and I but he wasn't cooperating.

Daddy helped us out and clicked a picture of the boys and I.

It was a good game and it looked promising there for awhile.

Of course it is tough when you have many freshman and no bench so we came up short yet again but next year we will have all of these guys(in the gray warm-ups)

plus our freshman who will have Big 12 experience so it should look a little better in the wins category:) After the game we went back to Johnny's to pick up our coats(they have coat check) and the boys got another cookie. We then got our picture taken with Johnny in front of Johnny's.

We had lots of fun and didn't spend a dime, the best kind of day!

Monkey Bread and Balloons

2011-02-17T08:29:00.000-08:00

We've been battling colds with slights fevers and I'm pretty sure ear infections this week. Gabe has stayed home from school Tuesday and Wednesday to make sure his fever was gone and even with the nice weather the days get loooooong. Yesterday morning we decided to make monkey bread for snack. The boys both helped shake the sugar and cinnamon mixture in the bag and then helped tear up the biscuits and coat them.

Gabe did a great job of putting the pieces in the pan. Ty got a little bored by our third or fourth tube of biscuits but for the most part had fun helping. Poor Callie just a little too small to help out quite yet but she did enjoy eating the bread(notice the impromptu step stool in the 2nd picture).

Gabe was proud of the way he got the biscuit pieces evenly in the pan. He is displaying his masterpiece before we put it in the oven.

It turned out great and was a big hit at snack time.

Later in the day I remembered we had some balloons left over from a party so I blew up a few.

They loved playing with them and then Callie got up from nap and tried to get the boy's balloons.

Gabe told me I needed to get her her own pink balloon so that is what we did. She was happy as a lark.

Of course the problem with balloons is that they pop. Any ideas of whose popped first?

If you guessed the red head you would be right....and his reaction. Priceless.

I think we are pretty much over the crud now and thankfully have even been able to play outside a few times, even with the mud:) Although this weather is kind of a tease in February because most likely we will get at least a little more snow and it will probably be pretty cold again as well. Oh well take what you can get I suppose.

Homemade Bagels

2011-02-11T12:01:00.001-08:00

I got a wild hair the other day and decided to try to make homemade bagels. I don't normally post recipes and food stuff on the blog since it is more of a scrapbook for me but I had several people ask for the recipe so I thought this would be an easy way to get it to multiple people. I actually used two separate recipes. The first is this one. I followed the recipe as written except I did add about 2 tsp. cinnamon to the dough(I was going to add raisins too but my raisins were old and crusty so I left them out) After I added the yeast I also added the butter to the warm milk and just stirred it around until is melted. Also after reading a few reviews it seemed that to make 12 bagels out of this batch would be to have really small bagels so I did 8 instead and they were perfect.

Here are the cinnamon bagels.

The 2nd recipe I tried was this one. This one had slightly different ingredients and with this one I made 6 of the bagels plain and 6 everything bagels. I tried the shaping method in the recipe on this one and found that really either way, shaping into a ball and poking your thumb through for the hole(like the 1st recipe said to do) or rolling into a "snake" and then twisting the ends together either way worked and one didn't really look better then the others. For the everything bagels I mixed minced onion, kosher salt and poppy seeds(I thought I had sesame seeds but I didn't) together on a plate and then right after the bagel came out of the boiling water I place the bagel upside down to coat it then put it on the baking sheet to bake. Also my oven seems to heat a little hotter then some so I only had to bake my bagels for about 16 minutes and they were perfect. I also didn't flip them over at all during baking and they turned out just fine. Each kind tastes really good and they have the perfect crusty outer layer and then soft inside.

The bagels before boiling and baking

The Everything Bagels

The plain bagels

I was really pleased with how they turned out,especially for my 1st attempt, I am excited to try different flavors and keep improving my shaping technique. They have been a hit at our house.

A Message for Uncle Pete

2011-02-07T06:20:00.000-08:00

Upon hearing it was Uncle Pete's birthday this morning the kids wanted to make him a Happy Birthday Video. Ty got a little confused towards the end of the first video and wished Uncle Bone a happy birthday instead but he corrected himself in the 2nd video:) Happy Birthday Pete, hope it's a great day.

Waffles

2011-02-07T06:17:00.000-08:00

Carl made waffles for breakfast on Saturday. Callie was a big fan!

Sometimes the Best Canvas...

2011-02-02T10:55:00.000-08:00

is your face.

At least the green really compliments his eyes and outfit for the day.

These Boots are Made for Walkin

2011-01-26T13:02:00.000-08:00

and that's just what they do. Although they were a little hard to find.

For some reason stores around here get rid of all their winter stuff the end of December very beginning of January(even though there is at least 2 1/2 months of Winter left...ugh) and I had the hardest time finding Callie any boots at all. I wanted to get her some to hopefully help keep her cute little leggings down when we go out in the cold and just to keep her little footsies warm. I finally had to break down and buy a little more expensive pair from zappos.com which were super cute and free shipping, can't beat that.

I am hoping she gets to wear them at least through the middle of March and doesn't hit a big growth spurt or something.

and just because I've had a serious lack of blog material lately. Here is a random cute picture of the troublesome trio helping out in the kitchen:)

Just Because it's Cold

2011-01-21T06:35:00.000-08:00

We have not been up to much lately. The cold weather tends to limit our activities, or at least ones I care to take pictures of so because I felt I should at least write a small update I will share with you one of our forms of winter entertainment. Lately the boys have been putting on concerts for us. Here are a few of Ty's contributions.
Jesus Loves Me

My God is So Big

Callie is also a pretty good source of entertainment these days. Here she is showcasing her animal sounds(with a little help from the brothers:)

and finally train rides(aka laundry baskets) are a great way to pass the time. I haven't gotten a video of it but here is a picture, there are train stations and Gabe will put Callie and Ty in the train and drop them off at different stations. Callie is sometimes an unwilling participant but this day she was alright. This was going through the tunnel.

Giant Gummy Bears

2011-01-10T07:20:00.001-08:00

One of the purchases I made in New York were these sugary over the top monsters.

The boys loved them.

Callie even got a bite.

Toothless

2011-01-06T08:14:00.000-08:00

Gabe has had a loose tooth for awhile now. He was actually very disturbed by the whole thing and was very worried that his tooth was loose because he had a cavity. After reassuring him many times that his tooth was not loose because of a cavity but because that is how God designed us he felt a little better. The prospect of actually having to pull the tooth out though was still a major source of concern. He lamented these thoughts a few weeks ago.

The past few days the tooth continued to get more and more wiggly and Gabe more and more concerned at the thought of it actually falling out. Carl tried to talk him into letting him pull it the other night before bed but a major meltdown ensued and we left it along. The next day Gabe could push it down all the way flat in his mouth. As I was out working in the kitchen and very excited Gabe came running in tooth in hand. He was beyond excited. He had gotten it out himself and "it didn't even hurt, I can't believe it!" Here is our newly one tooth down boy.

He wanted to share his thoughts on the process.

His adult tooth is already quite a ways through it looks so big!

Christmas x5

2011-01-04T07:34:00.001-08:00

We are now done celebrating 5 Christmas's and are back to the routine of school and work. We had a great time visiting with family and I was a little sad to see December come to an end. It was so busy it just flew by and Mommies of young children understand when I say the rest of the winter can be very looooong.

Our first Christmas was with my immediate family, Mom, Dad, my brother Pete and his girlfriend Kim. We celebrated on the 23rd with a soup dinner and opening presents of course. The boys were very excited to see what was in their packages.

Callie didn't care about it too much although once she saw what was in the packages she wanted what ever was in it out and quickly, she was not at all amused by all the ties that tend to hold down kids toys.

We also took a family picture with the help of our camera timer while we were there that night.

Christmas Eve I had to work during the day and Carl took the boys out sledding in the snow with their new sleds from the night before.

Mom and Dad took Callie to their house as we figured she wouldn't be amused with sledding quite yet. When I got off work we went to church and then to Mom and Dads to have supper and play a few games. Callie got a very cute Christmas dress for her birthday so she was all decked out for the night.

After supper and changing into jammies I tortured the kiddos with a 3 in front of the tree picture. Since I never posted Christmas Card Photo Flops this year here are Christmas Eve Photo flops.

This one is pretty cute though.

Christmas morning we got up and let the kids see what was in their stockings and opened presents here.

We then had our traditional Christmas breakfast of cinnamon rolls and hot cocoa and then got ready to head over to my parents again for the Mawdsley Christmas. Grandma, Grandpa, Bone and Dave and the boys all came down for the day and we had lunch and did another round of presents. The boys had lots of fun playing with Bone and Derek.

Tuesday the 28th we got up bright and early for our 4th Christmas adventure. A trip to Minneapolis to the Water Park of America, Mall of America and Ikea. We had to get up there pretty early as we were picking Em up from the airport shortly after 10. She flew in to surprise everyone else for a few days. When we got there the boys were bouncing off the walls wanting to get to the waterpark. We couldn't go in until 4 so the few hours wait was torturous. We killed a little time exchanging just a few gifts between the cousins and Grandma and Grandpa and then we headed down to the water park. Callie stayed napping with Grandma but the boys were off like a shot. They loved the fountains and slides and pretty much everything about the park.

The next morning we again when to the water park and this time took Callie along. She was not so sure at first but once she got used to it she loved going down the slides and walking in the water.

We took both boys down the family tube slide. They were both a little hesitant at first but both ended up liking it a lot. Later that morning we headed to a model railroad museum where Grandpa Matt wanted to show the kiddos the model trains.

The building was a cool old train depot and Carl had to get lots of pictures of the brick detailing.

In the afternoon we headed over to Mall of America where the kiddos each got to pick out a toy from Em for Christmas. Ty got a Cars toy at the Disney store and Gabe held out for the Lego store. What a mob that was but he got some pretty cool Star Wars Legos and we saw some pretty cool Lego creations.

After that we went and got a snack and let the kids ride a few rides in the theme park. Gabe really wanted to go on a roller coaster so he and Carl went on that

and then Gabe and Ty both went on this ride.

I don't think they stopped grinning the whole time. After the rides we had a very very cranky little girl who basically had no nap that day so we went back to the hotel for supper. The next morning the boys all went for a ride on the light rail

and the girls(and Grant) headed to Ikea. Carl redesigned a room in Matt and Nancy's house and helped her to find all the things she needed for it when they got back from their train ride. After a long day in the store for the kiddos we headed for home in the fog. Fortunately we drove out of it eventually. We all had lots of fun!

New Years Day we headed to Council Bluffs to my Aunt and Uncle's house to celebrate Christmas with my Dad's side of the family. The boys had lots of fun playing games we used to play when we were little, Pizza Party and Hungry Hungry Hippos.

It was good to see everyone and visit for awhile.

After all of our traveling it was good to stay home for a day, although we decided to re-do our downstairs coat closet and bathroom(we didn't want to be bored:) Pictures to come when I get them taken. Both are a huge improvement.

We hope everyone had a very blessed Christmas and a wonderful start to the new year!

New York, New York

2010-12-27T07:44:00.000-08:00

I was able to take a long weekend girls trip to New York city the weekend of December 17th. Carl's sister Emily, is getting married and decided to do some wedding dress shopping in New York City. So Andrea(Carl's older sister), Nancy(Carl's mom), Betsy(Em's friend) and I all drove to Kansas City to fly to DC(where Em lives) to meet her. When we arrived Em picked us up and we headed to the mall where there was a store I wanted to visit(turns out I didn't buy anything, didn't like what I thought I wanted:) After the mall we made our way to Georgetown to visit Georgetown cupcakes, featured on TLC's DC Cupcakes.

There was no line so we parked and made the trek to the store. They were filming while we were there waiting, so my friends with cable will have to DVR them for awhile and see if we can figure out which episode we saw.

After we picked up our cupcakes we went ack to Em"s place where her fiance, Marzi, treated us to an Afghani supper. It was delicious. I am not a fan of lamb at all but there was dish with lamb and rice with raisins and carrots that was so delicious, probably one of my favorite things to date, so good! Here is a picture of our spread, the flatbread was wonderful as well!

Saturday morning we got up bright and early and headed to New York. We met Em's other firend, Mandy there and we headed into the city. We walked a lot! We walked down Broadway, Al Pacino is starring in a show right now!
We walked through Times Square, Radio City Music Hall and Rockefeller Center.

Along the way we say some super cool decorations. I love the huge Christmas lights and the very large Christmas Ornaments in the fountain.

Along the way we also saw lots of people dressed up as Elmo, Cookie Monster, Minnie Mouse, Spongebob, etc. All wanting tips for taking pictures with people.

At Rockefeller Center it was beyond busy but we saw the big tree and got a few pictures. This was the best I managed to get with the famous skating rink in front as it was wall to wall people everywhere. After that we made our way up 5th avenue. Wow is all I can say, every store was beautiful. Here are a few of my favorites,

Cartier

Fendi and Tommy Hilfiger

Trump Tower

Tiffany & Co.

Bergdorf Goodman.

We went to Central Park after walking 5th Ave and saw the skating rink. The lines were outrageously long but it was neat to see it.

We decided to go to Grand Central Station as well and made our way there after a much needed bathroom and coffee break. It was very crowded but such a beautiful place, I loved it all decked out for Christmas.

I have been to NYC before but it is definately a different experience going at Christmas time! The Chrysler building was near Grand Central and looked very pretty at night.

After we grabbed some supper we rode the subway to Ground Zero where it looks pretty much the same as when Carl and I were there in 06. Across from the site is a very large discount designer store called Century 21 where we looked around for awhile and I found Callie a cute little outfit. We decided to call it a night after a very busy day and headed back to your hotel. Our hotel was right across the river with beautiful views of the city's skyline, especially at night.

Sunday we again woke up bright and early and headed into the city. We found a little diner for breakfast and then made our way to Kleinfeld where Em's first appt. was. Unfortunately no pictures are allowed in the store but it was beautiful. Em's consultant is featured on the show and we also met Randy(he even complimented Nancy on the color of her jacket:) She tried on several beautiful dresses but we had yet to see the one that had been her favorite from the pictures she looked at(it was at a different store)

Since Em hadn't seen the dress she really loved from pictures yet we left and headed to Starbucks for a break before her next appt. at a smaller designer store. When we arrived for that appt. it was a different experience then at Kleinfeld. It was only Em and us in the store and she was able to meet with the dress's designer. She looked beautiful in many of the dresses she tried on and it was a hard decision but she decided on the one she fell in love with at Kleinfeld. So we walked back to the store and she was able to get her measurements taken, the dress ordered, etc. In the meantime she had bought us tickets to go see the Nutcracker Ballet at Lincoln Center and with the extra stop to order her dress she wasn't sure we would make it on time if we all stayed there with her so Andrea, Betsy, Nancy and I left her and Mandy to finish the dress details and we made our way to the subway and Lincoln Center.

We found it easily and then decided to get a snack since we were all pretty hungry. After our tummys felt a little more full we went into the beautiful theater and found our seats. The ballet was very good and I loved seeing all the different costumes. After the ballet we went back to New Jersey and found some dinner at a restaurant with very nice views of the city.

Monday morning we woke up and said goodbye to Em's friend Mandy who had to head to the airport and the rest of us took the ferry into the city again after checking out of our hotel. We found a great bakery/diner place for breakfast(one of the best bagels I've had) and then went to the fabric store Mood(featured in Project Runway) Wow I'm not a seamstress but all the fabric was impressive, there was some beautiful stuff! After that we made our way to Macy's to see the Christmas windows and their decorations outside.

We also walked in just to get a feel for the inside, it was so beautiful!

After a quick stop at payless to get some different shoes for a few of us we split up and Andrea and I ventured to FAO Schwarz to find out boys some souvenirs. When we had gone by Saturday there was line just to get in so we thought Monday may be a better bet, there was no line but wow what a crazy, busy place. We did find the kiddos some cute NYC vehicles and then made our way back down 5th Ave. to meet up with everyone else. On our way by Tiffany's we glanced in the door and wow is all I can say(I wish we would have had time to go in)

Of course during our trip being a bunch of tree farmers we paid close attention to how the tree business was done in the city.

A little different then in Algona. I did take a few pictures of wreaths for Carl as well, they had some gorgeous ones!

After our busy few days and getting the things we all wanted to finished we decided we should probably head back to the car and DC. Good bye New York(one last picture by the skyline).

It felt like a long ride back but we made it safely to Em's house where Marzi again treated us to a great Afghani dinner! The next morning we were up bright and early and Em took us to the airport where we had some time to kill so had breakfast and did a little shopping in the Smithsonian store before heading to our terminal. It was another long flight back to Kansas City and drive back home but it was so nice to be back and see my family! They did splendidly well while I was away but I was treated with lots of hugs and kisses when I got home!

Just a Little Cold Weather Entertainment

2010-12-13T10:16:00.000-08:00

Callie loves the song Itsy Bitsy Spider, every time she hears it she starts to "dance" this consists of her standing on her knees and turning round and round in circles. It is pretty funny. Here is a good example, in fact when I was looking at the videos she heard the song and started "dancing" while I was watching them. Silly girl.

On another note I made a few treats for the cast and crew of our church's Christmas production this past week. Carl insisted I make cake pops but because of transporting issues I really didn't want to, so instead I did cake balls and trees, with my wonderful husbands decorating help I think they turned out pretty cute. I did white balls with Christmas sprinkles as well but didn't get a picture of those, I used red velvet cake for the center which looked really nice in contrast to the white. This week I need to finish up our Christmas baking but I think I am cake popped out for awhile:)

Moving Right Along

2010-12-07T08:03:00.001-08:00

Slowly but surely. Maybe we will have this walking thing mastered by Christmas....
(For doing everything else so quickly she has been our slowest walker, go figure)

Making the Season Bright

2010-12-02T08:29:00.000-08:00

We've been decking our halls and trees the past few days. Our trees were delivered Monday afternoon and my wonderful husband strung 12oo lights on our 8 foot Frasier that night while I was at work. I had gotten the other Christmas decorations up during the day(the garland on the stair railing and fireplace mantle, as well as the decorations on the tops of the shelves and piano.) Tuesday was decorating the tree day. I decided to use all unbreakable ornaments this year due to a very curious 14 month old who loves to touch things she's not supposed to. She is just young enough she needs reminders quite frequently and I didn't want to risk finding glass in her mouth after one of the times she "forgets" not to touch and eat, so this sounded like an okay solution. I had lots of unbreakables already but filled in with a few new ornaments from Target(plus who doesn't like getting a few new ornaments every once in awhile) I think it turned out pretty well. Gabe is putting on the final touch. The downstairs tree is my tree while the upstairs tree is the kiddos. Tuesday night when Carl got home he put lights on the kids tree while they looked through all the ornaments they were going to put on. Before we got started I was trying to get a picture of the tree with the 3 of them, I didn't have very cooperative subjects. Many boxes were pulled out in excitement and they couldn't wait for Daddy to finish with the lights. We changed into Christmas jammies while we were waiting too, just seemed more festive. They even willingly modeled some of the ornaments for the camera. Then it was time to decorate. Ty got a little distracted with the noise making ornaments and really didn't help put too many on the tree but Gabe did a great job putting them on and making sure they were in a place where they wouldn't fall off. Callie had to go to bed before the decorating started because she was CRABBY, that girl needs her sleep. They were pretty proud when it was finished. Last night the decorating continued with the outside lights. Carl braved the cold and hung our lights and lit our wreath that he also made. I love Christmas Lights!

Oh Christmas Tree Farm

2010-11-30T06:29:00.000-08:00

We made our annual trek to the Carl's mom and dads and the tree farm this past week and weekend. We made lots of wreaths(well I clipped boughs, Carl, Andrea and Alan actually made the wreaths) before hand and they had already been delivered. We arrived Wednesday afternoon amongst the freezing rain but fortunately the roads weren't terrible until we hit the gravel near Carl's house. After almost sliding through the yard when we went to make the turn up to the house we arrived safely with no incidents:) Thursday we decorated wreaths for the display wall and got everything ready for the weekend. Andrea and I finished making the food for our Thanksgiving meal which we ate around 3. We were missing all of the children since they were down for naps(ah peace:) and Nancy who was in with her mom at the hospital, she had broken her hip the week before and also Em's finance who couldn't join us for the weekend since he owns a business and was short a little help. Friday the craziness began. We were so busy we hardly had time to think. Saturday was a repeat of Friday and even a little busier, we did attempt to set this beauty on Saturday between customers however. That is a 14 foot tree, it takes a little man power to get a 14 foot tree shook, carried and set. This attempt actually failed but later we cut a little off and it looks great sitting in the shop, hopefully someone with really high ceilings and lots of room would like to take this home. By Saturday evening we hardly had any trees left in the shop, Andrea and I were scrounging to find our trees we had so few. We decided Matt would go up and get some more the following morning so we weren't sold out for what is usually a very busy Sunday( sidenote we sell Frasier firs brought in from Minnesota in the shop, we also have cut your own which are mostly balsam, some spruce, scotch and white pine, we have just few Frasiers and they are not quite big enough yet) Sunday morning we got up and went out to cut our own trees with the kids(our upstairs kids tree with the fun decorations). Carl got out the tractor with the shaker and Callie had her first ever tractor ride. That tractor looks good with some pink. We loaded the kids up in the wagon and made our way to the plot. The search was on. We finally agreed on one and Gabe was determined to be the one to cut it down. With Dad's help they got it done and got it taken back up to the shop. Gabe ran the tractor to shake it and after the obligatory family picture with the tree they got it put through the netter. Gabe actually learned to run the tractor with the shaker by himself and helped shake the trees for customers as well. He is growing up way to fast in my opinion. Matt arrived with some more trees early Sunday afternoon and it turned out to be a good thing he did as we sold quite a few that day. Andrea and I got to pick out new one's as well. I think it is a pretty nice one, even with no decorations quite yet. On another side note my daughter slept in a pack and play in the laundry/bathroom and apparently got into the drawer somehow and pulled out a tube of great grandmas lipstick. I think she needs a few lessons on how to apply it though:)

Happy Birthday to

2010-11-19T07:51:00.000-08:00

the best pancake maker there is
the best shoulder ride giver
the best wave catcher
the best tractor ride giver
the best support person
the best tent putter upper
the best dad
the best friend
the best man whom I have the privilege to call my husband.
I was blessed when God gave me you!
Happy 30th birthday!

Kennedy Space Center Day 2 and Driving Home

2010-11-17T07:04:00.000-08:00

We woke up to a beautiful, although somewhat windy and chilly morning on Friday. The weather had actually been upgraded for the day and the chance of launch was at 70% go. We were excited it seemed today was finally the day. What else could go wrong? Well a leak in the GUCP(ground umbilical carrier plate) quickly gave us an answer to that question. While tanking(fueling of the large tank) the leak was discovered and just on a whim on our drive to the space center I checked my phone and discovered the leak. At that point they had not scrubbed it yet they were evaluating their options. We had a pit in our stomach as we pulled into the parking lot and the pit got a little bigger when I saw word that the launch was scrubbed for the day. Our last chance, we had to head home, we couldn't stay. I honestly felt like crying, I think I had tears in my eyes on several occasions throughout the morning. The boys took it great, they were just excited to be at the space center again and get to play. As Carl said sometimes ignorance really is bliss, they really didn't understand what a cool thing it is to see a launch, especially since there are not many left and how some people have tried for a lifetime to see it and never have. We were crushed. We decided to go into the space center anyway just to let the kids play and look around one last time. They had everything set up for launch. The screens were out with images of the shuttle on the pad, vendors were there selling food, signs were posted in the areas where viewing would be the best. In a way it was kind of cool to see all that stuff and know what it will look like on launch day but bittersweet as we knew we would not be there to see it. The kids had fun playing on the slides and play equipment again. We also, at Gabe's request went back to the rocket garden and looked around. Today they had this astronaut walking around taking pictures with people. Gabe almost knocked him over running up to him and grabbing his leg...whoops. Gabe also wanted to ride the shuttle launch experience again so this time Carl stayed with Ty and Callie and I took Gabe on the simulator. He loved it again and grinned from ear to ear the whole time. We took one last opportunity to try and get a picture of the kids in front of the space shuttle at the visitor complex. We then decided we better start for home it was going to be a long drive. We got situated in the car and started heading north. We did have to make one quick stop before leaving the area to snap this picture though. We had been meaning to do it while we were there the whole week but finally decided this was it. After the sign picture we were on the road again. We had packed lunches to take with us to the launch so just ate them in the car instead. The kids did great again and rode really well. We got into Georgia and decided that we wanted to stop at a pecan and peach place we had seen signs for on the way down. We stopped and had peach cobbler with butter pecan ice cream and Carl and I each got a pecan bar to save for later in our drive. We also picked up a few whole pecans to brig back with us. The orchard was so pretty and it was a good place to stop and stretch for a little while. We continued on and stopped for supper awhile after that. We stopped at a Chick-fil-a with a play place and let the kids get rid of some energy and changed them into jammies for our long night drive ahead. They went to sleep shortly after we left and we just kept driving. Carl and I switched at the Tennessee border and I drove the midnight to around 6 am portion of the trip. I had to stop once at a rest stop for some liquid energy but all it really managed to do was make me have to go to the bathroom really quickly but I found that was a good thing to keep me awake as well. We stopped for breakfast at a Hardees in Illinois and just kept going. As we were getting into Iowa I noticed Carl's eyes starting to look very sleepy so we switched drivers again and I drove from outside Iowa City to Newton where we needed gas. We switched again as I was feeling mighty tired and finally around 11:30 am we pulled into our driveway. We were home sweet home! We unloaded the car, ate lunch and then I fell into a DEEP sleep on the couch while the kids were down for nap. We had a great trip and even though it wasn't exactly what we hoped would happen I know we made lasting memories(at least for us and hopefully Gabe:) of a great family vacation.