the past five months-may

i've blogged a bit since may, but not nearly enough to keep updated with all that we did or happened. i will {attempt} to get caught up. no promises this time, but i already have two scheduled, so i'm already making progress. i'll start with May and work my way to the current happenings in our lives.

MAY

fletcher had his last speech session of the 2011-2012 school year. we also found out that ms. diane2 would be leaving us and that we would be getting a new SLP. i did not do well with this info, and actually shed a few tears over the news. 

happy mother's day from the hubby and the kids. adam made me this garden box that i've been wanting for the last three years. 

my sister and i decided to take an eight hour (one way) trip to minnesota for our cousins graduation party, with five kids, 5 years and younger. we got some strange looks, but we had fun and the kids were pretty good, most of the time. 

the kids did a lot of playing. 

and one final thing to note, daycare boy had his last day here on may 17th. it was nice having him, but it's nice to just have my kids to worry about and be able to go and do what i want, when i want. 

May catch-up

Finally getting around to posting about things that happened two whole months ago. I really need to get back into this blogging thing. It seems to be my outlet for things, and I'm finding myself needing that outlet from the things that are going on in my life right now. Anyway, here's what happened in May:
My sister and I took five kids, five and under, on an eight hour weekend trip to northern Minnesota. It was crazy, but fun. We handled it like champs and we celebrated with a few drinks. We even went to Pizza Ranch with them all during dinner rush. That was probably the stupidest thing we could have done.
We said good-bye to daycare boy. He's going to go to a new sitter next school year, as I decided to get out of doing daycare. I'll be honest, I don't miss him one bit.
Fletcher had his last speech session for the 2011-2012 school year. At the end of our session, Ms. Diane told us that she had a new territory so we would be getting a new speech teacher in the fall. I'll be honest again, I cried. I liked Ms. Diane and will miss her. She did great things for my boy.
We celebrated Chase and Codi's second birthday with them at the zoo.
It was a fun day full of cousins bonding.
I signed up to be an independent sales consultant with Thirty-One. I'm enjoying it so far. It's nice to get out of the house without the kids and hang out with the ladies.
We got two big ash trees cut down in our front yard. This may not seem exciting, but the mess those trees made was awful. I've never been so happy to see a tree cut down.
Adam made me a garden box for mother's day. It's awesome. He did a great job building it and doing all the work to prepare me to plant in it. I will say that my veggies are growing nicely, just waiting for everything to get bigger so we can pick it.
Pictures may not be in order of what I wrote about, due to the blogger app on iphone, but you're all smart and I'm
sure you can figure out which picture goes with what. The end.

more halloween happenings

since halloween is probably tied with christmas, i wanted to do a little more to 'celebrate' the day. i decided that i would make pumpkin cookies and have the boys frost them. we did a little halloween craft and i put the kids in their costumes to take pictures. the boys loved wearing them and pretended to 'chick cheat'.

 {showing me that he was going to be a gnome}

{pressing out his cookie}

{trevors turn}

 {waiting patiently for them to bake}

 {sad she didn't get her own cookie}

 {frosting time}

 {cheese!}

 {finally able to eat them}

{gnomie, skunk, spidey}

park trip

last week we had a few warm days again, so i walked the kids down to the park.  all day, i was wanting to get out of the house, but all the options were backfiring.  finally, after dealing with three crabbies for six hours, i was going to succeed somehow.  luckily little boy was willing to sit uncomfortably for five minutes to the park.  daycare boy and baby girl tolerated the trip as well. 

 daycare boy wasn't sure at first, but little boy showed him the way.  it wasn't long before they were running around like they owned the place.

 little boy knew exactly how to get to the big, twisty slide.  there was no hesitation once he left daycare boy on the 'baby' slide.

 he made it to the top, and was very proud of himself for doing so.

monkey see, monkey do.  daycare boy watches little boy very closely.  he wanted to try and make it to the twisty slide too...only he couldn't make it up to the second bar without whining. 

 baby girl was a happy camper the whole time the boys got to play.  she just sat and smiled, dreaming of all the fun she will be having next year when we visit the park.

 daycare boy opted for the 'baby' slide again.

 and i thought baby girl should get out and roam.  all the roaming was done by her hands, picking up the leaves in their way and finding her big, open watering hole mouth.  she ate a few...want to know how i know this?

 we ended our park visit at the swingset. they pretty much loved it. they screamed at me when i made them get back in the wagon. i'm glad i don't know what they were saying, because i'm pretty sure it wasn't nice.

after huffing and puffing up the little hill (remember that i was pulling a wagon with 3 kids in it), the boys were still not happy. i was out of breath and sweaty and way ready for an adult beverage.

pumpkin patch

two weeks ago, i was without daycare boy, so i had this brilliant idea to take my kids to the pumpkin patch/apple orchard for the first time (ever). i had mentioned it to the neighbor lady and she told me that she had a couple 4$ off coupons i could have. i love a bargain, but i also felt obligated to take her daughter with. i knew that miss kinzi would actually be a help with corralling little boy, so it really wasn't a problem. 

we got there early. we fed the animals, took pictures in the cut-out board things, played in the corn pool, jumped on the pillow, rode the hayride to the pumpkin patch, ate lunch and did some of it again. my plan was to wear the kids out and after three and a half hours, i succeeded. i left with three big pumpkins and three tired kids...and a ton of pictures. enjoy!

{loved the goats}

{not thrilled}

{courtesy of kinzi}

{moments before kinzi fell off and fletcher screamed because i made him get off}

{having fun}

{thank you paci for keeping the kernels out of her mouth}

{they had a blast jumping}

{i had a blast watching them get tossed all around}

{heading to the pumpkin patch}

{little boy thought this was going to be his pumpkin...right!}

{baby girl wanted to pick her own pumpkin}

{turns out that the little ones are easier to carry}

{uncooperative photo opportunity}

{they're as big as her}

{thank you stranger lady for taking a picture of me with my kids}

randomness, vol. 2

there's plenty to share, but i don't want to hit on one specific topic today. so, enjoy my randomness.

*i've been watching another baby the last two day. he's pretty good, better than my baby. i thought i'd pull my hair out, but i haven't. i actually think having him has calmed down the three that i have all the time.

*i went to the eye doctor last month for an exam. i was suppose to have an eye exam in january, but my eye doctor wouldn't do it since i was pregnant and he told me to wait until may to get them checked. obviously i waited longer than may, but i was out of contacts and the only way to get new ones was to get the exam. my eye doctor was in des moines and everytime i had an appointment, i had to work it into my schedule. plus, he had annoyed me about a few things and i didn't like his staff, so, i switched to something local. i made an appointment, and my eyes had actually gotten better. i was given a trial pair with my new prescription and they worked fine, so i went ahead and bough 6 months worth. the other day i needed to change them and it felt like i couldn't see out of my right eye very well. three days later and it still seems the same, not as bad, but still blurrier than it should be. i think i need to change it again and see if its different, if not, i think i'll be making an appointment to get it checked out.

*my husband comes home tonight. after three weeks with him away (home on the weekends) it will be nice to finally get a good nights sleep. when he's gone i don't sleep very sound and every noise i hear freaks me out.

*baby girls sleep schedule is really driving me crazy lately. she was so predictable and slept relatively well. the last week or so, she has needed to be held while sleeping or she would only take a 30-45 minute nap at a time. i don't mind holding her for 2+ hours if i don't have anything to do, but there's a house to clean, laundry to fold and little boys to clean up after. as i'm typing this, she just crawled/wiggled out of my arms to lay on the couch and she fell asleep. i'm going to cross my fingers that this is the start of her being able to fall asleep on her own again. *before i finished this blog entry, she was awake...ugh!!!

*we're heading to omaha this weekend to the children's museum and the henry doorly zoo. i've never been, but have heard that the zoo could take all day. not sure if we'll be there all day, but i hope the kids cooperate enough so we can see everything. it will be a nice little getaway.

*on facebook the other night, i came across a friend who had 'liked' a page called the crock pot girls so i checked it out. these ladies love their crocks and decided to post crockpot recipes on this page. since they started, their page has over a million 'likes' and others are putting more recipes on the page. they also have a website you can find here. there are tons of recipes from appetizers and sides, to main dishes of all types. i've skimmed through both pages checking out the recipes. i will definitely be using my crock pot a lot more than i have in the past.

*i need to go through toys and get rid of them. we have entirely too many. i've thought about rotating them on a weekly basis, but i'm not sure where i'm going to stash the toys not currently being played with. i am not usually the person to get rid of things (i wouldn't go the hoarder route though), but my thought process for that is for future kids. at this point, if there happens to be more, we'll start over and may have some of same toys in newer versions. i've really had it with stepping on toy cars and baby rattles and plastic farm animals the last week.

happy long weekend everyone. relax, be safe and enjoy!

meal planning monday-wk 18 and monday funday!

monday-out to eat at old chicago
tuesday-grilled pbj, apple slices, and carrot sticks in ranch
wednesday-baked chicken, broccoli, and fruit
thursday-quesadillas with rice and chips and salsa
friday-heading to grandma's kitchen

today is my last day of summer vacation before i get daycare kid back. all last week i did something fun with the kids and thought that today we i really needed to enjoy the last day of freedom. my friend angie and i have talked all summer about getting together and things never matched up for us to do that. today, however, we were able to meet and enjoy some time at the pool with the kids. they played in the fountains and kicked and splashed as we caught up on the latest gossip. after we left the pool, we headed to the purple cherry for some yummy frozen yogurt. this place is amazing...good thing it isn't within a five minute driving time or i would be there ALL.THE.TIME.  the kids and i are meeting adam in ames, to go to old chicago for supper. adam and i were discussing it last night in bed, and since we want to finish the mini tour we started last week, we need to go at least two more times. tonight is one of only three available nights adam can go, so we are headed for some pizza and beer shortly...rootbeer for little boy, although i'm sure he'll want to grab at our cans. enjoy your week everyone.

the new playroom

We have a new playroom...sort of. The sunroom, that houses the dog during the day, has new laminate flooring instead of pee stained carpet. Since the room isn't smelly and covered with dog hair (because laminate is easier to vacuum with my swiffer vac) I send the kids to the back and play. Easton enjoys the extra attention too, but not the extra tail pulls or cars crashing into her. 

 While the big kids play, sister and I hang out in the kids' bedroom and observe the happenings and make sure all play is not too rough for anyone involved.

 If Easton's dog food isn't gone, she gets it fed to her. I'm not sure she appreciates the help.

 The patio table is out there too. It's a great place for afternoon snack. Even when it's dark and storming outside.