Long time no post!

Hi all! Wow, it's been a super long time since I've blogged...no real good excuses..just busy I guess. Let's see if I can catch up...

So, I think the date on my last entry was November 13. Since then, here are some things that have gone on, with pictures where possible. :)

* I attended a scrapbooking retreat the weekend before Thanksgiving. It was lots of fun. I'm not sure I got as much done as sometimes, but I did get quite a bit done, and had a great time doing it. The theme was Pajama Party, by the way, that's why we're all in our jammies. :)

* We went to western Iowa for a few days at Thanksgiving. We stayed with Tim's brother's family, and all had a fantastic time playing with in-laws and cousins. I even rode a horse!!! Craziness...I haven't probably ridden a horse for somewhere between 25 and 30 years I think! The boys rode too....Miss Windy (the horse) is a patient beast...

This is a picture of all the grandkids on the hubby's side of the family. What a great bunch of kids!!

*Okay, so I think it was the Sunday after Thanksgiving, we put up our tree. The boys had a great time...although, G. was pretty sure that the tree going up = PRESENT TIME!!! and was pretty much devastated to learn otherwise. It didn't help that he was super tired from all the fun with the cousins the previous few days. He recovered, but has continued to ask nearly every day if it's time for presents yet...one day he came downstairs from 'rest time' asking if it was another day now. Poor kid...

*I did a lot of baking/candymaking this year, which is REALLY odd for me. I normally make the cut-outs and decorate with the kids and call it good, but a friend invited me over to bake with her while our boys played one Sunday afternoon and, well, it lit some weird fire under me, and within a couple days I'd done the cut-outs AND 7 other kids of things!!! I'm not really sure what to say I'll do next year. It was kind of nice to have all those goodies to share with Sunday School teachers and such. We'll see...

The kids and I did decorate the cut-outs...I think most if not all of you that read this will have already received our Christmas card, which includes pictures of the cookie-making, so I won't post those here.

*Today, the kids sang up front at church. We were seated much closer to where G was standing, so you can't see E as well in the group pics, but I did zoom in on him. Our church put on a fantastic Christmas production on Friday and Saturday night called Imagine Christmas that our kids weren't involved in, so this was just a few songs that they sang at the beginning of our regular worship service.

*Well, let's see....I have the shopping done - waiting for a thing or two to come in the mail. The wrapping is done except for the horse barn and corral that I just finished painting last night and the thing or two I'm hoping for in the mail. Cards are out except for the few that have come back for an address update, etc. Only one more thing to assemble -- a mini trampoline we bought as a joint gift for the boys, and well, let's face it, for ourselves and our sanity. Oh, we just got a good deal on a used commercial grade recumbent exercise bike that we're hoping to use a lot and get back working on our physical health and fitness. E likes riding it too, so maybe between that and the tramp, we'll be able to keep the pent up energy from being too, well, pent up. :) We signed E up for basketball yesterday with the Upward organization which I have heard only good things about, so hopefully that will be a good experience this winter for him.

We've successfully completed our first semester of homeschool and still really liking it. E is reading at I'm thinking at an upper 2nd grade level, and we're working on place value notation and multiple digit addition in math, and last week talked about Adoniram and Ann Judson and George Muller in history. Know who those people are? Neither did I...LOL Honestly, I've NEVER enjoyed history, and I'm loving learning about 'heroes' of Christian history with my Kindergartner.

Guess I'll wrap up with a few pics from a little mini-photo shoot we did after church today since the boys were all dressed up for church...goofy boys...hard to get just a REAL nice smile right now, esp. from E...it's either fake, or totally cracking up due to our efforts to get a real one...

Anyway..there's the update!! Merry Christmas all!!

Tag! I'm It!!

Ok, I saw this on a friend's blog (Hi Katie!), and thought it was fun, so I'm playing...

The rules…

Find the 6th folder in your pictures directory and post the 6th photo in it.

So here are the instructions:

* Go to your sixth picture folder then pick your sixth picture.

* Pray that you remember the details.

* Post it on your blog.

* Tag 5 others, leave a comment to let them know they’ve been tagged.

I didn't do the last one -- just figure if someone sees my blog and wants to do it, then good...Oh...and I cheated. The real 6th photo of my 6th folder wasn't even of my family, so, ya know, I deleted some photos. LOL So, NOW, this is the 6th of the 6th!!

This photo was taken right around 3 years ago. E used to really like doing this. I'm not sure if he can still do it or not...or if Daddy can hold him up like that. E weighs quite a bit more now than he did then. :) Look how 'little boy' he looks. He's such a big boy now. *sigh*

Ok...I have every intention of doing another 'update' post soon, but in case I don't, here is a word of wisdom from G that he let me know the other day:

"You don't want to mess with a grizzly bear."

Duly noted, little man. :)

Oh, and the other day he told me something that his 'other mommy' told him. Excuse me??? Apparently her name is Andrea...the name of one of his Aunts, whom he loves. Alright...I'm all for him loving his aunt, but *I* am THE MOMMY, thank you very much. :)

Where does time go?

I can't believe it's really been 17 days since I posted. Man, life just keeps trucking by. I'll think of stuff I think I should post here, and then time goes on, and I forget whether I've posted it or not. So I guess I'll try to catch up a little...beware, it's likely to be random!!

First, here's a conversation E and I had a little over a week ago:

E: Mommy, is there any Big Ten football on today?

Me: No, honey, not today. (it was Sunday)

E: Only ONE day a week?

Me: I know, isn't it a bummer???

So, the brainwashing is coming along quite nicely. :) heehee

We've been trying to get lots of fall fun in the last couple weeks. Fall is my favorite!!! About 10 days ago T got off work a little early and we drove up to Ledges State Park. We went for a nice little hike and enjoyed God's creation. The leaves weren't quite as pretty as we'd hoped, but it was really nice. Then of course we drove down through the 'canyon' road and over the stream, gunning it as we drove over it so it splashed up high, much to the squealing delight of the boys. Here's a couple shots from that trip:

My attempt at nature photography:

Then that weekend we did quite a bit of work with the leaves in our yard. We have A LOT of them. We love that our lot has several big trees, but man....lots of leaves!!!

There might have been a little bit of a leaf fight! :)

Those leaves didn't exactly STAY in the same place we raked them. :) We did eventually get them into bags...most of them anyway.

This past weekend we had a nice get-away to Omaha. We took the boys to the "Momoha Zoo" (as G calls it). It was chilly, and soggy much of the time, but we still had a great time.

Mommy with the boys in the jungle:

The zoo has a really cool butterfly exhibit now. Very cool.

The goats were G's favorites. :)

After the zoo, we went to the hotel, where we had a nice swim. Then in the evening, T kept the boys in the hotel while I went to the Steven Curtis Chapman/Michael W. Smith United tour concert with some friends. It was amazing. Our tickets were 6 rows from the stage, and mine was RIGHT in front of SCC. Unbelievable. I'm a HUGE SCC fan, and just think he's an amazingly gifted artist and an inspiring, humbling witness of God. It was such an awesome night. Anyway, we went swimming again in the morning, then got on the road, as we needed to be back for E's last soccer game of the season. He did great. It was a fun season for him. He seems to really love soccer and he 'gets it' now and is a decent little player...well, ya know...for a 6 year old. :)Getting the medal from the coach:

One last "GO TIGERS!!!" :)

Okay, that's it. I need to get a move on this morning. Need to get some school done, then we're going on a co-op field trip to some horse stables. G's going to FLIP!!! It's going to be a cold one, I think, but hopefully we'll still have lots of fun. Look for pics in upcoming days!! :)

Right from the horses mouth...

G is obsessed with horses these days. Really truly obsessed. We pretty much ONLY check out horse books when we go to the library, when we're driving outside the city, we must all be on the lookout for horses, etc. I don't really know when and how this happened. It used to be dogs....a little while back it was cows...now?? horses....it cracks me up when he talks about appaloosas.

So, last night, we were riding in the car after a trip to Target. G had helped buy himself a little horse figure toy. As we were riding, G was making some annoying noise. E asked him very nicely to stop. G kept it up. We told G that his brother had asked him nice, and he needed to stop. Here's the interaction that followed:

G: It was the horse!!
Me: Well, you'd better tell the horse to stop.
G: He says 'NO!'
Me: Well, the horse had better stop, or he will get a time out or a spanking.
G: He will say YES!!!!

T just about bust out laughing. It really was funny. At least the horse was able to dodge disciplinary action. Oh, interesting about this horse toy. G asked me if it was a mommy horse. I said I think so...oh, let me see...so I look at the horse. WOW!!! Um...I've seen udders on cow toys and stuff, but this horse is, um, CLEARLY a stallion. Good grief. You rarely see 'male' toys be anatomically correct. This one sure is. I simply informed G that it was a daddy horse. I didn't show/tell him how I knew. Heaven knows my boys do NOT need another reason to discuss their, um, anatomy these days.

Anyway, things are good here. We had our regular play/mom's group this morning, then met a friend and her 2 boys at a park for 2 1/2 hours or a little better. Then home for G to have a nap, E and I did a very short and modified school session, as we were finished with our work for the week (actually quite ahead in some areas). Tonight we met some friends at a BIG wooden fort/play structure about 20 minutes away, and then since it gets dark SO early anymore, we went back to their house to play.

No huge plans for the weekend. Soccer game tomorrow afternoon. Church and SS on Sunday. we'll see what else we drum up for fun...and hopefully some relaxation. Have a great weekend everyone!

Wanna come for dinner??

I'm feeling like such a Suzy Homemaker today. It's only a little after 2, and I have dinner made!! YAY!! Southwest white (chicken) chili in the crockpot, and honey oatmeal bread in the breadmaker. Perfect cool fall day meal, don't you think? We're headed off to a park playdate in an hour or so, which will get us home between 5 and 5:30, so if it wasn't going to be a last minute scramble, I had to think way ahead. YAY for actually doing that. Now if only the dishes were cleaned up...

So, E, Mr. Firstborn, really was never very mischievious. Just didn't get into that much trouble. He has his own 'issues', with arguing, even over very silly things like what time it is, etc. But G....well....he's different...here's some proof...

He apparently was in search of a piece of gum and thought it'd be good to rifle through my purse while I was upstairs finishing up school with E for the day and ran across some lipstick. Nice, huh? He also wrote all over E's bedroom walls the other day with a ballpoint pen. I'm pretty sure that the Magic Eraser is going to take care of it, as it for a sample spot, but I just haven't gotten to it yet. Once before he 'expressed his artistic self' on the wall with a washable marker, which came off pretty easy. E also never really went down the "I don't like you!!" road when he didn't like a decision...this one? Heads right on down that road on a fairly regular basis. Ugh.

So, other happenings since I last posted...

E officially turned 6. It was a nice day. Presents before Daddy went to work (Boom Blox for the Wii, pj/lounge pants, and a Pokemon sticker book from us and G, and another Leapster game from my folks. We did a modified school day -- spelling and math drill online instead of our regular routine -- and we went to McD's for lunch. I was right about him choosing Carlos O'Kelly's for dinner. That was fun, and he looked adorable in the hat just like G did:

Monday of this week was a busy day. My folks came to Des Moines on the way back from Iowa City, where they went to the football game on Saturday. We had a family dinner with them and my brother and his family to celebrate 4 different birthdays. Anyway, my parents were still here on Monday morning and hung out playing with the boys. Then we had a field trip for co-op to an apple orchard. We had a great time, and it was spectacular weather (has been pretty much all week).



After the orchard we continued on up to Ames to visit my mother-in-law, who was in the hospital following extensive back surgery. Then back home for dinner (which, by the way, I'd thought ahead and put in the crock pot that day too!!!), and E had soccer practice that night. I stayed home and got started on laundry and did some cleaning. BUSY day.

OH!!! Friday night I got to hang out with a great friend having dinner at a BRAND NEW restaurant here called Graze, and scrapbooking til pretty late. It was a great time. Now I think I have to leave the scrapbooking put away for a while. I'm working on a project for the above-mentioned friend and I'm on a mission to get it done.

School is still going great. We started on subtraction yesterday, and we've got about 10 books left in the stack for him to read, and at his current rate, that'll be only 2-3 weeks. Fortunately, a friend has loaned us the 'advanced level 2) readers from the same curriculum that we're using, so we'll just keep trucking on. E did great at his soccer game Saturday. We'll have another one this Saturday.

So, that's life here. Loving the spectacular fall weather!!! Keep it coming God!!! :)

Back to it...

I know it's been a while...hopefully I can make up for it with a bunch of pics.

First of all, you know G is tired when he's too tired to play with his cars. I think it was Wednesday last week when I didn't make him even have a rest time because I was busy fighting the clutter battle in my house and the boys were playing so well. So when I was making dinner, E comes in and says "Mommy, G is asleep!!" I walked into the front room, and sure enough, crash city, right there in the middle of the floor. Why are they so blasted cute when they're sleeping?

We got away for a 24 hour + date on Friday to celebrate our 10 year anniversary. That's right.. TEN YEARS!!! I can hardly believe it. God is so good and our life is so wonderfully blessed. Anyway, we dropped the kids off at T's brother and sis-in-law's house and headed on to Omaha. The kids seemed to do fine -- it was the first night sleeping away from home without us, so, ya know, we wondered, but it was fine. They love it there with cousins and such -- they have horses, goats, cats, and cows there (all theirs except the cows, which belong to someone else), so it's pretty much a paradise for G. LOL He seriously loves animals.

Anyway, back to us...I'd reserved a room at a hotel that was supposed to be like a 'mountain retreat', which I thought would be fun because our honeymoon was in the mountains. I don't know how 'mountain' it was, but it was a nice enough place. We relaxed a lot, had a nice dinner, shopped some on Saturday. It was great...not long enough, but great. We headed back to where the kids were and stayed the night and headed back here yesterday morning. Below is a picture of us at dinner, at Brother Sebastians, which is a restaurant in an old monastery building. Good food, interesting atmosphere...and hey, the chant 'music' was only being piped outside, so we didn't have to listen to that the whole meal, which I would NOT have found nice at all...

Okay, so we got back around noon, and got everything carried in, and then I had to get busy making E's birthday cake, as his 'kid' birthday party was scheduled to be at 3. It was my first attempt at a birthday cake for a kid (always have called upon HyVee before). I realize it wasn't anything sophisticated, but still, I'm reasonably proud of my first attempt...I'm kind of thinking of finding a cake decorating class. It might be fun!

And yes, I realize the number 6 candle is backwards in the second picture...and I'm irritated with myself for it, but what do ya do?

Anyway, I hired a balloon twister for the party and he was FABULOUS. He's a college student (I think maybe even just a freshman), but he has quite a little small business around here. Nice kid, very talented. We chose his newest party 'package', the Ben 10 party. Ben 10 is a cartoon network character that is part alien and uses his watch, or omnitrix, to transform into 10 different alien forms that fight the bad guys. Below is my son, as Ghost Freak. LOL Gotta love it...And here's my other boy, XLR8!!! :)
After all seven costumes were made, they all suited back up and played a game. Quite a little crowd of aliens!!!
And finally, here's E with "Ben 10", his 'surprise' at the end of the party.

It was a great time. Can't say I'm not glad the parties are done for another year. Well, his actual bday is Thursday (do I really have a 6 year old? I'm not old enough for that am I?), and I suppose we'll go out for dinner or something...placing bets on Carlos O'Kelly's again...

So it was back to life today. We got school done this morning, had co-op this afternoon, and took our turn watching our friends' kids -- we do a childcare trade with some friends so that each of us couples get one date per month in which we don't pay a sitter. Our boys match up really close in age, and it works out great. It's been a busy day though. I didn't try to do laundry today. Just couldn't fit it in, but I'll need to try tomorrow. It's library day tomorrow, and soccer practice in the evening. Busy busy. G and I have some sort of cold thing going on. Nothing crazy bad, just there.

Okay, so that's a pretty good update I hope. :)

She's baaaack...

Two in one day? Really? YEP!!

I just was sitting here listening to the boys play 'office' upstairs. It's some pretend game they've come up with the last couple weeks, and I have really no idea what it entails. I hear something about 'bad guys coming in your office?' right now. Anyway...moments like this are further reinforcement that we've made the right choice in homeschooling, at least for this season. I know they'd have time after school and evenings, if E were going TO school, but I think it's a different dynamic. They are just really getting going on this pretend playing together, and I think they'll be closer brothers because of this time they have. I suppose one reason to write this now is so I can come back and read it tomorrow (or in 20 minutes) when they're at each other's throats. :)

We've had a good day. We got all but math and writing done this morning, then went to the library. We picked up Quiznos and ate lunch outside with T, who has a charity building project going on at work. It's SPECTACULAR weather today....did I mention I LOVE fall???

Alright...better go set G up on his bed with his stack of books from the library -- the kid LOVES books -- he's on a big horse book kick these days -- and finish up school.

Terrible Twos Schmerrible Twos

Alright, seriously, whoever came up with the term 'terrible twos' never had a 3 year old. In general, I find age two mostly hilarious. I think two year olds are a hoot. Our 3's with E were no picnic, and I was so hoping G might skip that phase, or at least be less of a challenge. Uh, yeah, notsomuch. T asked me the night before last "What happened to our little boy?", referring to his newfound defiance. Responses like "YOU pick it up!" when asked to pick up the puzzles, and "I'm gonna stomp on someone!!!" just do not go over well here. And honestly, I do not remember the maniacal laughing when he knows he's in trouble from the 3 year old days with E. *sigh* What happened to our little boy, indeed. He still has his sweet and adorable moments, and we love him madly, of course, but man....sometimes it's a good thing they're so cute and have won your heart over a million times...

Now for a few pictures....these first couple are from Labor Day weekend when we were out in the yard playing ball with the boys. E can steady whack the ball, and actually has a pretty good arm. I suppose I might have to let him try baseball again. He did t-ball last spring/summer, but not this summer, as we had him play spring soccer and they overlapped some, and frankly, I'd rather see him get the exercise that soccer involves more than the baseball, and watching baseball to me is about like watching the corn grow. But we may let him try it next spring, we'll see. I do want him to know HOW to play, so he can play with his friends and stuff as he grows up.

And G, well...is this a hoot or what? T had this coon skin hat, and he's let the boys have it to play with. I think this is the first time we showed baseball to G. T totally helped him hit, so he'd have success and think it was fun. He seemed to like it ok.

Here G is showing off his new set of farm animals. We took him to Toys R Us last Thursday to buy him his promised "I'm a big boy now and am all potty trained." present. We fully expected him to pick out a large-ish truck of some sort, as that's been the talk the whole time. Well, the animal lover in him won out, and he chose a bucket of farm animals -- the boy is nuts for cows and horses now. I bet he has 4 or 5 cows now that he likes to carry around. We're thinking we got off pretty cheap, as the animals were only 10 bucks. We were expecting to pony up more than that, but he doesn't know that. LOL

And this one...well, I think it was the first, or one of the first, days I put G in jeans this fall (and can I just say, LOVING the cooler weather!!!!), and a new shirt (which will be rare for him this fall, as I have plenty from E for handmedowns), and I just thought he looked so darn cute....and grownup!!! Where'd my baby go???

Speaking of handmedowns, we have a few that are MIA, and it's really kind of driving me crazy. There is a bag of underwear the next size up from what G is wearing, and 2 pairs of sweatpants I distinctly remember E having that are NO WHERE to be found. I've gone through all the rubbermaid tubs I think they could be in with no luck. A friend told me I'll find the underwear AFTER I buy new ones and open the package, and I'm sure she's right. :P

Well, as for a school update -- which, ya know, is sort of why I started out blogging I think...It's still going really great. We're on our 5th week already, and are moving right along. We started the year a little ahead on his reading and have kept up that pace -- we're something like 7 or 8 weeks ahead of the guide in terms of assignments for that area. We're going along at about 2 lessons of the math program per week which, at that pace, will mean we'll need the next level in about 10 weeks. We started going to co-op yesterday, which I think will be a really good thing. There are 73 children in the group, from nursery age through high school. Yesterday was kind of a 'dry run' of the schedule and such, and I was not in charge of anything, but I'll be assigned different jobs throughout the year, from nursery duty to teaching the various classes -- PE, Art, Performing Arts, and Unit Studies. We opened with some worship singing yesterday, which I don't think is a weekly thing but I'm not sure. I was thinking to myself though "How cool is this!! My kids and I are worshipping right in the middle of our school day!!!" Not that there aren't MANY forms of worship that we all can be doing throughout our day, but I meant the actual corporate worship through music. Way cool.

This morning, my 3 year old is being a sleepy head. It's a quarter til 9 and I've not heard a peep. I'm going to have to wake him I guess. I thought I'd let him sleep in, and then not push the nap thing. There are days, like co-op days, that he's just not going to get one, and honestly, when he does nap, he's awake till 11 or after, so it's probably time to cut it completely and just transition to a quiet time in the afternoon. But I was hoping to get some school in this morning before the library story time we're going to today, which is at 10:30, so we wouldn't have to do it all this afternoon, so I think it's time to rouse the beast from his slumber. LOL Actually, when he first gets up is often his sweetest time, and after somewhere around 12 hours of sleep, he ought to be good to go. We're watching a little friend of G's this afternoon for an hour or so, and then E has soccer practice tonight. Kind of a busy day head. Better get to it!!

Picture Bonanza!!! ...Also...Happy Days Are Here Again!!

Alright...so I was making the picture thing way too hard (thanks to the couple of you that helped me climb onto the clue bus...) So anyway, we'll be catching up on some pictures that I intended to post before but just couldn't figure it out.

The Happy Days... comment was regarding the return of Hawkeye football. YAHOOO!!! We had a minor panic (ok, maybe it wasn't really MINOR) when the main Big Ten network channel was not airing the game today, and I was panicked because that's one of the main reasons we got Dish Network. I used my logic and reasoning skills though, and logged on to the BTN website and found their nifty 'Gamefinder' and found my game in time to see the first touchdown...barely. Also, a friend of mine called and was wound up for the same reason, and I was able to help her. Good deed for the day completed. :) Iowa won big...of course, it's not like they were playing any powerhouse or anything -- my dad would call it a 'girls team'. But Hawkeye football is Hawkeye football, and I'll take the W any day.

So...here we go with some pictures...

First we have the boys on our first day of school...

And here we have the boys at the State Fair a few weeks ago doing the "Little Hands on the Farm" exhibit, which was very cute and lots of fun for them...

And, well, it's not my boys, but could this be any stinkin' cuter??? Two day old baby goats....AWWWW!

We kinda wore G out...

Here we have E and myself on Lady Luck at Adventureland. It was one of his favorite rides. :) And it didn't make me want to hurl. Even better!!

Now this is a picture of a picture, but it's a hoot...my friend and I went on the log ride together and A'land took our picture to try to sell us...it worked..

Here's me and my boys after the big party last weekend.

So there you go...

Not really a whole lot of other news I guess. Thursday night I was able to hang out with a friend and got some scrapbooking done. I've got the bug to get all caught up with the boys' books, which I'm really not that far off. Then I have a Hawkeye Marching Band scrapping project about half done...and then Tim told me recently he thinks we should have a FAMILY scrapbook. He won't be needing to ask me twice to have more scrapping to do....lol Today I watched the game (see above), ran some errands, including Hobby Lobby to get some scrapping stuff and craft supplies for school. Spent quite a while in the kitchen tonight making and cleaning up dinner, making potato salad and choc chip oatmeal cookies for a get-together tomorrow night (wonder whose potato salad recipe I used...hmmmmm????), and cleaning all that up. The kids are in bed...well, they were...G is up messing around again.

I was going to scrapbook tonight, but I think I'll just organize and sort pics and get ready to work on it tomorrow. Hope everyone is having a great weekend.