Wesly's Baptism

My nephew Wesly got baptized today!!! We are so proud of him and wish we could have been there.

This is my oldest brother Mike and his son, Wesly

Here is my brother Mike with his family. Lilian, Kayla, Mike, Khalani, Wesly

This is my mom with 3 of my 4 brothers

Matt, Mom, Monty, Mike

Here are the 3 brothers:

Matt, Monty, Mike (the two on the ends are older than my sister and I and the one in the middle is the baby of the family)

1st Grade Fall Fieldtrip

I just LOVE volunteering in the kids' classrooms. I would go in every week if I could and help out. I got the wonderful opportunity to accompany Ethan's class on their fall fieldtrip to the pumpkin patch. Luke's field trip was the very next week and he was very sad that I didn't go with him. But, I am helping with his Halloween party so maybe that will make up for it!!

Here are the five adorable kids that were in my group.

Kylee, Julie, Ethan, Michael, James

I can't believe this happens so early, but this is Ethan's "girlfriend." It is SO much more her than him. But, wow she just can't get enough of him (and I can't blame her, he is pretty cute.) I do have to admit she is a cutie, so at least Ethan has good taste. But, she just follows Ethan everywhere. Sat behind him on the bus, walks next to him whenever she can and is quite touchy feely with him. Giving him hugs and sitting close to him.

Ethan claims she is why he has grass stains on his pants everyday - she chases him at recess and he "falls" a lot.
Ethan's whole 1st Grade class - and no I can't name them all yet.


Here is me with my group after we picked out our pumpkins. They let the adults pick the large pumpkins, but I almost wish I had gotten a small one, I had enough weight to lug around.

Ethan visiting the petting zoo

This is what I want in my backyard instead of a sand box. The kids LOVED it and it wouldn't make near the mess that sand does.

I even got to take my sack lunch and eat it in the grass with the kids.

This is Michael, Ethan's best friend in his class. It was so the other day. He was talking about his best friends and he said, "Michael is my best friend, and Ethan Rasmussen used to be my best friend in Ohio." I guess that happens in childhood, best friends change over the years. It's hard for a 6 year to keep a best friend when they are 2 states away. We miss Ethan Rasmussen and his family (and Ohio!!!)

I do have to admit that I am very happy with Ethan's choice of friends. Michael is a good kid. We have had him over to our house to play once. I hope Ethan can always be this good with choosing his friends over the years.

However, Michael has somewhat dimished Ethan's love of High School Musical. I was just waiting for it to happen, but apparently Michael has informed Ethan that liking High School Musical isn't cool. Ethan still loves it, of course, but he just doesn't talk about it or obsess about it like he used to.

Snapshot of my Life TAG

This is the first tag post I have done. Pretty random, but kind of fun.

Kirsten tagged me with this a while ago though I am just now getting around to posting it. Honestly, I did take the pictures right away - I am just slow getting them up here.

"It's kind of a mean tag. You are supposed to take pictures of different things immediately--no straightening up or wiping the kids' noses or anything!!!"

1) Kitchen Sink: I promise this is what it really did look like. I am not the best at keeping my house up in many areas, but I usually do pretty good with the kitchen. I am inspired by my mother-in-law. She does an amazing job of keeping her kitchen clean and kept up after every meal. And, Nate has helped me get better in this area as well.

2)The Toilet: This is our half bath. We are very slow at getting our house painted and decorated the way we want it. So, nothing fancy in here yet, but hopefully soon this will be a blue bathroom!!!

3)Laundry Room: I do finally have a laundry room!!! It is more like a laundry hallway that is right inside from the garage, but it is it's own (semi) seperate spot and is mostly hidden from view. Again, I have big plans for adding some color to this room, but the front room is what is getting priority first.

4)The Fridge: Well, not the cleanest or best organized, but apparently I had just gone shopping. You'd think we feed an army here by the looks of the contents. Sometimes I wonder if the checker think that when I am buying the food too...

5) What are your spouse and kids doing right now? This makes my life seem easy. Honestly I thought it would be a lot easier this year with both of the boys in school full days. But I am learning to understand how parents of only children can think that their lives are busy. Sometimes I feel like I get less done and my day is crazier just having Linz home all day than when I had all three kids home?!?!?!?!

So, Nate is at work - Ethan and Luke are at school - and Linz is having nap time!!!!! So, now Nate knows why I don't get more done during the day, because I spend my "free" hour during the day blogging...

6) Favorite Shoes: My shoes are in definite need of an overhawl. I have been putting off buying new shoes for way too long. Actually since I've taken these pictures I have finally gotten 2 new pair of shoes, but this is the best I could come up with when I took the pictures.

7) Your Favorite Room: I have several rooms that I have a favorite feature for that room, but I don't have a super favorite room just yet.

I LOVE my kitchen because of this bar. The kitchen needs lots of work still and some new paint, but the bar makes up for that for now.

I LOVE my dining room because of my very first nice piece of furniture in our marriage (besides the cedar chest that Nate made me, thank you SO Much honey!!!!) Again, paint is still in the plans for here. We actually have bought this paint now, just haven't gotten the time to get it painted yet.

So, this is my next favorite room because it is really the only room that I have bought stuff to decorate it with.


8) Your Dream Vacation: My dream vacation is to go on a cruise with Nate. Unfortunately this isn't his dream vacation, so we are still working on getting our dreams aligned so at least a vacation can happen. I'd love to go to Hawaii someday and a Disney cruise would be wonderful with the kids!!!!

9) Your Closet: This was another fun picture to take. I literally, just this morning, got my NEW food storage shelf all organized and put together!!! I just LOVE having these shelves and what good timing to get to take a picture of them right after I organized them.

This is my "pantry" in the kitchen and my bedroom closet, not super organized, but not a HUGE mess either. Nate insisted on me having the laundry basket on my side, so it makes things look a little more cluttered.


10) Self Portrait: Not my favorite picture to post here, but here is it - rounding face and all.

There it is. Now that this is done, I can get back to posting about what has been going on in our lives since I am still a month behind!!!!

Ethan lost a TOOTH!!!

Ethan's bottom tooth was very loose and when he tried to open his water bottle, his tooth just popped right out. He started yelling mom, mom and then showed me his tooth in his hands.

This tooth had been loose for a few weeks and he kept wiggling and trying to get it out. Nate even flicked it a few times, but it was a tough little guy. Ethan wouldn't let us tie a string around his tooth and pull it out and finally it came out by itself.

My dad was here tonight watching the kids for us. He even put them to bed and had Ethan put his tooth under his pillow. My dad reminded me that Ethan was ready for the tooth fairy to come when we got home tonight and me, the inexperienced one that I am forgot to trade in his tooth.

Ethan came into our room at about 5:30 a.m. and was very concerned that the tooth fairy hadn't come to take his tooth yet. I couldn't believe I had forgotten!!!! I told him to go back to bed and that I'm sure the tooth fairy was just busy but that she'd come. I knew he wouldn't fall back asleep and I was right. I laid awake in my bed for about 20 minutes and then tried to sneak into his room to grab his tooth. As I had guessed, he was still awake. I snuck into his room and did my best to get his tooth without him knowing. I thought I had done a fairly good job until he told Nate the next morning that he saw me down by Luke's bed (Ethan sleeps on the top bunk.) He wanted to know what I was doing by Luke.

I guess we can't always do everything right; I will be better next time though. His other bottom tooth is loose so it will only be a matter of time until I get another shot at this new game for us.

Park Pics

Just some fun pictures of the kids at the park.

I thought these were cute ones of Linz.

These pictures were entirely Ethan's idea. I guess I am rubbing off on him some. There were some tree stumps right in front of the lake and Ethan said, "mom, how about we stand on these and you take a picture of all of us." They were SO cute up there together.
These are the moments and times that as I mother I wouldn't trade for anything!!!

* I love the fact that Ethan suggested getting a picture with his brother and sister.

* I love the fact that Linz loves her brothers SO much and wraps her arms around them.

* I love the fact that I didn't even have to bribe them to smile (now how do I accomplish this every time I get the camera out???)

* I LOVE the fact that these are MY three kids.

* And I LOVE my kids with ALL MY HEART!!!

Full set of teeth...

Ethan is about to lose his first tooth so I wanted to get a picture of him one last time with his full set of baby teeth.

You can see a larger gap on the left side of his front bottom teeth. His tooth is so loose that it isn't sitting quite right in his mouth.

Luke surprisingly wanted to get his chance in front of the camera and the boys were being crazy. Just some fun pics of them.

I just LOVE to see them play together. They have so much fun together and I wouldn't trade these memories for anything.

Luke just being goofy!!!

Circus Fun

My mom invited us to the circus by her and we had a BLAST!!! The kids all did SO well and just LOVED the whole thing. There were so many kids around us that were getting bored and ready to leave but our kids really enjoyed every second of it, including and especially Lindsey.

Linz did so well and loved watching all the funny clowns. She LOVED the animals the most, especially the elephants. She has been telling us about how the elephants sat on each other over and over again.
Lots of Fun
For those of you who don't know (or forgot) I was in a circus 2 times when I was around 15 years old. This by far was my favorite thing that I performed in the circus. If you can't tell from the picture, the girl is hanging from her arm from a rope that the man underneath her is spinning.
This was another of my favorite things I did in the circus. We didn't do quite this difficult of a stunt, but I had fun with what I did do on the tight rope.
Linz' favorite part of the circus.

Here we are, all 5 of us.

Luke did fall asleep for about the last 1/2 hour. He is just so tired from all week of all day kindergarten that he just couldn't last. We had a fun time and we are so blessed to be able to live near my parents to do fun things with them even just for a Friday night.