Welcome to our World

Once again we journeyed to the museum when Ethan had a day off of school due to parent-teacher conferences. I wish I could have taken videos in the traveling exhibit, but I think these give a pretty good idea. You'll also notice an astronaut -- obviously that is part of the permanent space exhibit, but I have a funny story to go with that one. At the end of the presentation, Ethan told the woman pretending to be on Mars he wanted to be an astronaut. Then Kaelah made me tell her she wanted to be a hair dresser. The woman got the funniest look on her face & finally managed to say that was a good thing too. I take it usually only space enthusiasts sit through the whole thing. lol. Before we left we tried to line all the children up in age order for a photo. I guess Kaelah didn't understand why I wanted her to stand in between Ethan & Joseph, so the ages are a little messed up, but they are ages 4, 5, 3, 2, 1 & zero right now. Yup, we're ultra excited Lisa ...

I had heard it was going to snow. It began to snow on Oct. 25 after the children were in bed & I didn't think much of it, other than how beautiful it was. In the morning, we all got quite the surprise when we looked out our windows. None of the trees around here were ready. We lost a couple branches, but they'll be okay. Our neighbor, Dave, was nice enough to know snow off our front tree at midnight & help me do that again first thing in the morning. My 3 all bundled up for fun! I got such a kick out of watching them, especially Michelle trying to figure out what snow was (below). I loved the comment my mom's cousin, Lee, left on Facebook about that picture: " There is somebody in that pink outfit correct?" Yeah, it's too big! I assumed Michelle would grow more since I bought this at a consignment sale in August. And the boots were way too big. After this snow I ended up going to 5 different stores to buy all 3 of them new snow boots. Danny...

October means many wonderful things, but it also means our last opportunity to play out in nice weather regularly for a long time. We take advantage, and this year, we got to spend some time at both our beloved park (I had to include how adept Michelle is getting on the swings) and somewhere new. My parents moved here in 2006 (2 years after we did) and bought a home this summer. There are several reasons they didn't do this 5 years ago, among the top being how much higher housing is here than in Kansas, & not wanting to have to sell 2 homes if Dan got a job elsewhere. Well, after Dan switched jobs to even closer to home, several years to get over sticker shock, and rising rental prices my parents found a ranch-style foreclosure in need of some major TLC. Dan & I agreed we would help with the play set in the back yard & you can see how cute the children were with the project. We weren't able to finish the job before cold weather set in, but at least we have a p...

We were blessed to have family come visit again in October... can't believe that was only a month ago. Mark & Kendra & Sloan are wonderful! I sincerely hope they move to Colorado after Mark graduates. I can dream, can't I? Since I'm a month behind on our blog I'm totally stealing Kendra's post about the trip. She's the one that took pictures anyway. (: Tuesday, October 18, 2011 Visiting our Colorado family We had the chance last week to go to Colorado to visit Mark's brother Dan, his wife Sarah and their cute kids Kaelah, Danny and Michelle. It was a quick trip but we did so many fun things. The first day we went to the zoo. Can you tell how excited I was to see the polar bear? We spent some time at the park and went to Dan's softball game. Mark even got to play with their team. We even went to the pumpkin patch! The kids got to paint pumpkins and Sloan was literally scooping the paint onto the pumpkin. It took all day to dry. They LOVED the...

We had a cold snap the first week of October that made it necessary for us to harvest what was left in the garden while Kaelah was at preschool one morning. Make me wonder once again why I even tried to have one this year with the church calling I received in January. But Danny & Michelle were so funny about it I had to take pictures. As you can tell, the raspberry plants Christine Myers gave us before she moved away were the biggest hit. I've decided having a north-facing garden surrounded on 3 sides by either fencing or the house wasn't the greatest idea. Don't really have a place for a garden anywhere else, though....

I'm so grateful for the many Thursday mornings we've spent with the Le Leche League the past couple of years. On this special Thursday, we met at Sunflower Farm -- a dream come true for little ones who love animals, simple fun, and tractors. We also invited Kaelah's favorite 4-year-old, Bernadette and her mom & little sister along. We had a wonderful time! I think the pictures can explain the rest. A big thank you to Kate L. for sending me some of her photos (the 1st ones of the post). The one of Bernadette posing for the camera melts my heart. Kaelah adores her so much.

A happy anniversary to celebrate, and celebrate we did. It's been 10 years since Dan's mission president got home from Poland and they had a really nice reunion we traveled to Utah for. We headed out on Thursday night directly from Dan's last softball game of the season & spent the night in Little America. I am so glad that place exists! Since we would be heading back & forth to downtown Salt Lake, we asked Dan's little sister, Stacie & her family to not only host us, but to take care of our children as well. You know how some women are just really put together? Stacie is one of those. We graduated from high school the same year but she is leaps & bounds ahead of me in things like a clean house & meal plans & hair & fashion. And she works too! Amazing. Anyway, this was our first time staying with them & it was wonderful. I was really proud of how our niece & nephew gave up their bedrooms for my 2 oldest while they had an ex...