Jumping for Joy in Cairo

Ok, some of you know who my friend, Rebecca Hanson, is and some of you don't, but I just have to share this photo she emailed me today. She is traveling onboard the Norwegian Jade cruise ship overseas performing for Second City (from Chicago). . . . long story, short, she's been sending out emails to family and friends updating everyone on her adventures and travels and this is a picture of her in Cairo - I just love the picture and had to share!

The other picture is of Beck and her fiance, Tim, (also performing onboard for Second City) in Venice.

Bagpipe Player

Saturday afternoon we headed over to the park for awhile so the girls could play and we all had the chance to meet a guy who was there to play the bagpipe for an eldercare unit across the street. He was busy warming up so my absolutely-not-shy girls bombarded him with questions and comments. He was a gracious man who enjoyed explaining how the bagpipe worked to them and quizzing them on the names of the different pieces and it was just a great time. Then he gave them a little show while he was warming up. It was a lot of fun and the girls thought it was the highlight of the park by far!

They learned which piece is the bag, the chanter, the blowpipe and the drones. . .

Lumber Mart Pumpkin Patch

Today we all headed over to the Lumber Mart in town to let the girls pick out pumpkins. It's a fun place for them to go run around and explore and bring home a fun pumpkin. And I'm a sucker for pumpkins! I love everything about this time of year - all the colors, the temperature, the changes and the way everything looks. So we will probably have quite a collection of pumpkins by the time we reach the end of October.

This is Franken-Emmy and Franken-Bria. We'll leave the carving for closer to Halloween. For now the girls decorated their pumpkins with fun foam stickers I ordered from http://www.orientaltrading.com/ .

Puppy Posing

Emmy and Wrigley were in the mood to pose yesterday for the camera, so I couldn't resist taking some a picture of these two little girls.

Fireproof

This movie looks like it would be pretty cool, so I thought I'd share this preview.

Nuttin' But Stringz

You just gotta love these guys!

4 Years Ago

I thought I'd put up some fun pictures from 4 years ago. . . . how in the world did time go so fast!

Bria and Munch

Jon and his girls ready to trick-or-treat

Emmy and the pumpkins

Girls vs. Boys: God's Design

By the end of October I will have officially been doing daycare for 8 years. That's just crazy to think about! But in that time I've worked with quite a few kids. And I have come to a very solid conclusion. . . . Boys and Girls are DIFFERENT! Ok - not such a big revelation, but they are SO very different in the way God designed them. All of these observations are generalizations - obviously each child varies from each other child. From very early on the girls seem to be more emotional and tempermental than boys and boys are so much more physical and rough and tumble than girls. If they are upset, boys get over it quickly, girls tend to hold on to it longer. If they are in trouble, boys are usually in trouble for some physical action and girls more likely to be for verbal or attitude.

I started thinking about differences this morning when a friend walked by with her male pug puppy. I brought Wrigley out so they could interact. Wrigley is bigger than the pug and she has no problem wrestling and attacking Bailey, but this little pug scared her! She climbed up in my lap a quivering mass of furball . . . and shook the entire time he was here. She is more quiet and laid back. . . he was a wiggling, run around, ball of cute crazy! It just was such a picture of how different God made us all. That's a good thing.

It's just the way God created us . . . . we are different. And that's great! The world would be a really scary place if everyone were as emotional as me! Or if we all were great at numbers, logistics, maps, calculations. . . . who would be good at reading, interpreting, catching nuances of situations. . . . It's good to be different - everyone is - and it's good to delight in your own unique quirks. Take me for example, I have a knack for spitting milk out my nose in the presence of my family. . . it's quite a talent! Why not celebrate it! :)

I thought I'd add a picture of my favorite 2 girls and favorite 2 boys!

Leaf Collection

Inspired by my friend, Noni's, craft activity using contact paper last week. . . the kiddos and I made fun leaf collections this morning. We went out on a nature walk around the neighborhood and everyone had a bag or a bucket to collect as many cool leaves as they could find.

Back at the house everyone pressed their leaves down onto the sticky side of some clear contact paper. When the collections were complete, we put down another piece of clear contact paper over the top and, voila, leaf collections! It was a fun way to stay busy this morning and to make a walk more of an adventure. The kids were excited to see their finished collections. The littlest ones needed a little more help getting their leaves to stick, but everyone had a good time and their creations are pretty cool. They could be used as placemats, cut up for bookmarks, used to hang in a window. . or even saved for the Christmas tree!

More Fun at the Park

Supergirl emmy climbing the wall. . .
Bria playing on the boat.
Supergirl tearing the tree right out of the ground.
Supergirl saves Dad from the clutches of the fallen tree.
Dad and Mom. . . safe once again
The girls had so much fun at the park on Saturday, that I just have to share a few more pictures!

Fall is Here!

It is my favorite time of the year! The leaves are falling like crazy, the sun is shining, the wind is blowing, our apples are ready to eat. . . . we've enjoyed a really great weekend. There was some golf for Jon, window frame painting for me, playing at the park for all of us, church, a couple of trips to the library, playing with the dogs and relaxing.

Before dinner yesterday we headed over to East Grand Forks to play at the park for awhile and E decided to wear her new halloween costume - she, of course, is Supergirl! There was absolutely no other option for our little superhero! And she, of course, had to wear it to the park to show everyone . . . . oh to be 4! B decided not to wear her Ashley Tisdale costume to the park though - she'll save her new look for halloween! They really had fun investigating a tree that had fallen down. . . .oh, I mean, that Supergirl knocked down with her super strength!

Yummy. . . Cupcakes and Apples

Thanks to R's mom this week for sending cupcakes! I had to post a couple of pictures of the two littlest kiddos here . . . they REALLY got into eating the cupcakes!

We also tried our first batch of yummy apples from the tree. . . nice and tart! Just the way E and I like them. The other members of the family are waiting until we get a freeze so the apples are sweeter. At least this year we have enough to enjoy them both ways!

Awana Girls and the Tooth Fairy

Wednesdsay nights around here are officially Awana nights for the girls. We made it to week 3 and both girls were excited to go last night. It was crazy hair night as well, so they got to be extra goofy. Emmy got her Cubbies vest last night and both girls did a great job on their verses. That also means Jon and I are childless for 1 1/2 hours now on Wednesday nights! It's a win-win for everyone!

We've also had a toothless Emmy around here the past week. Last Friday night she lost tooth #3 and this morning out popped tooth #4. She's still only 4 years old too! But this is the kiddo who had 16 teeth in her mouth at age 14 months, and almost all of them came in two at a time. So, the tooth fairy may be broke after visiting our house for the 2nd time this week!

Settling In

Bria's birthday pound cake for snack.
Aaahhhh.... I feel like we can take a big breath around here and begin the settling in process. Now that the afterschool crew is set, the daytime crew is set, the dogs are all settled in and the routine of school, Awana, weekends, etc. is becoming normal. . . it's time to just say, "Aahhh".

We are also really liking our littlest family member: Wrigley. She's just a hoot and we all adore her - Bailey included. It's a lot of fun having 2 dogs to play with, chase around the house, feed, bathe, clean up after, keep off the new furniture. . . ok, maybe it's not ALL fun, but we were already doing all those things with 1 dog - why not 2? :) The hardest part has been trying to remind the daycare kids that she is not a toy - we are working hard on trying to teach Wrigley to not be jumping up on other people, chewing on them, etc., so I'm trying to teach both kids and the dog to interact and be in the same areas without having to be constantly interacting with eachother. We already have 1 big furball who loves to constantly "interact". And by interact, I should say, lick, lick, lick, jump, lick, lick, and lick some more.

The Daycare Sign Goes Down!

At last. . . my remaining full-day opening is filled! We have a new little guy who started today and fits in great with the rest of the crew. We had a busy morning, a REALLY LONG walk before picking up E at preschool, lunch, and straight down for a nice long nap. Have I mentioned how much we love naptime here?! As soon as the daycare interview was over last night Jon went out to the front yard and took down the sign. So during the day we have 5 kiddos around here including E and after school we have 4 extra kiddos plus B and her friend who usually hangs out for awhile! So always 10 kid over the course of the day and sometimes 11. It's working out amazingly well though! I do have to say though that I look forward to relaxing in our new couch tonight once everyone goes home for the day!

Golf Adventure

Last Sunday afternoon we all joined Jon in his favorite acitvities. . . GOLF! It was fun to be out on a quiet golf course, zipping around in the golf cart, hitting a few balls and watching the girls give it a try. I'd have to say that the golf cart was the most fun for the girls and acorn hunting and lost ball hunting were another fun part. They had fun golfing too, don't get me wrong. By about hole #7 everyone was done, our smallest putter was lost, and the windy day had worn everyone out.

Go Hawkeyes!

What else is there to say?!?!? Go Hawks!

Thanks Aunt Serena!

Lots of fun Hannah Montana stuff came in the mail today for the girls' birthdays from their Aunt Serena. Here is E modeling her new costume!

We also found fun new toys for outside at a garage sale this morning, so the littlest kids have a new fish to ride on and we have new soccer balls and footballs to play with! Then we stopped at Petco to make dog tags for Wrigley and Bailey. . . here is Wrigley modeling hers.

TNT and BNE...... Cousins!

Ok. . .. . . you asked for it sis, here it is!