Friends and Fathers

What a great weekend we had full of friends and fathers. On Saturday the Frye's and Hahn's surprised the Davis' with a fondue dinner in their honor. The guys had never had the fondue experience before so we thought it'd be fun. We know next time that they should probably have 1st supper before having fondue for supper because it does take awhile, but it was a lot of fun. The kids were at their grandparents so we had plenty of time to talk, relax, play bocce ball, and have a great time.Then on Sunday we got to celebrate a wonderful father. We went to the Silverhawks game to sit in the skybox with the Moellers, Packards, and Coles. All together we had 9 kids under 6 walking between the seats outside and the play area inside, but they did great. Hardly any cries and only a few time-outs! :) I think everyone had a great time!
Matt has only been a father for about 20 months, but he is such a pro already. He is patient, kind, and loves to play and interact with the kids. The kids love "Dada" and Landon constantly asks for him when he's gone. Then if I ask Landon where Daddy is, he usually responds with "play disc." :) We had the kids make a craft for their "Paw-paws" this year. We went out and collected items in nature to make nature collages. Then the kids stuck them on contact paper and we framed them. Landon kept asking for "mor", but I told him he only had two grandpas! :)
Dad and Todd are such wonderful grandpas to our two little ones. They love to see paw-paw and always want to play!(notice their outfits in this picture that I took)

Then I had to throw this picture in (notice their lovely unmatching clothes in this picture that Matt took! :)). Emerson got a princess table for her birthday which the kids absolutely LOVE! Most days Landon takes his cars over there and sits in the princess seat pushing his cars and making car noises! Too cute!

Thank you Jesus for all of the Fathers in our lives. We love you dads!

Splash Pad

What a gorgeous day it was today! Partly cloudy, slight breeze, 80 some degrees. We decided to take the kids out to enjoy the weather and some water at the Splash Pad in Wakarusa. Emerson jumped right in and laughed and laughed at the water. Landon was a bit more hesitant, but eventually we got some smiles and laughs out of him as well!Landon practicing saying, "Cheese". Now if we can just get him to look at the camera! :)

Emerson enjoyed the water but would not walk by herself so Matt and I got a bit wet as well!

We also got the pleasure of meeting a new friend today. Silas Martin Fervida! Congrats to the new parents and big sister, Gretchen. What a cutie!!

A date with 40 8th graders

Probably not what you would consider a typical date, but a day without the kiddos counts as a date in my book! :)
We went to Cedar Point yesterday as chaperones on Matt's school field trip. And let me tell you, this was the BEST field trip I've ever been on. We had to listen to annoying middle school talk for the bus ride there and back (thank goodness for my IPod! :)), but other than that, we were on our own for the day. We just had to meet the kids at 6:30 that evening to count heads and get back on the bus. Talk about easy! We had free tickets, free Cardinal bus ride, and $40 in spending money.
The day started off really early (4:45 a.m.) and ended pretty late (we were home by 11:00), but thankfully the grandparents each volunteered to watch the kids overnight so we could wait and pick them up this morning. We had such a great day. It was kind of overcast and looked like it would rain any minute, which I think held people from coming to the park. But by 1:00, the sun came out and it was a beautiful day. We walked on to almost every ride. It was amazing. We rode 7 rides in 4 hours which had to be some sort of a record. We rode several rides more than once and only waited for the Dragster and Millenium for 30 minutes. We actually ran out of things to do before it was time to leave. I can't remember that ever happening before!
But I did realize that I'm not as young as I used to be. We were exhausted by about 2:00 and sat down in the shade to have a pretzel and ice cream for about an hour! :) Hey, we are twice as old as the 8th graders we came with! :) But it was a really nice day and we're still relatively tired today even after sleeping in past 9:00.
I'd definitely go again, but I'd pay big money for my own kids to skip 6th-8th grade....Does anybody have a pill or something for that! :)

We tried ravioli today...

One child thoroughly enjoyed it and the other wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. I bet you'll never guess which one is which! :)

Also, we had Emerson's 1 year check up this week. And Jess you'll be happy to know that she DOES weigh 20 pounds! 20.3 to be exact, which is in the 50th percentile. And she's 28 inches, which is also in the 50th. So she is perfectly average for her age at this point.
Good news for Emmi and hopefully Landon will change his mind about trying new foods...or at least maybe he'll let me bribe him to try something new (that didn't even work today!) :)

Memorial Day Weekend

What a beautiful weekend full of family and friends. We must've worn the kids out... We spent Saturday on the lake with the Frye's and Davis' (minus John who was fishing). It was a gorgeous day and the kids LOVED the lake. Emerson floated around on her back and just smiled. Landon went deeper with Daddy and liked walking around. The boat ride didn't go quite as well. Emerson seemed to enjoy it, but Landon kept turning around to get the wind out of his face! Here they are after getting off the boat in their lifejackets.

Then on Sunday after church and naps, we got the little pool out for the kids to use. They liked the water, but Landon had more fun getting in and out than actually sitting down to play. Emerson liked to sit on the edge of the pool and let all the water out.

Then on Monday it rained. So we spent most of the day inside. Matt got the garden planted just as the rains came pouring down. We planted cantelope, peas, tomato plants, zucchini, and onions. We're planning on getting some green pepper plants too. So hopefully we'll be successful in growing our own plants.

Hope your weekend was fun too!

Oh happy day!

What a beautiful day full of blessings!

First of all, we had workers at the house at 6:30 am this morning to work on the deck (which I wasn't too thrilled about) but it looks like it was well worth it because this is what they got done today:

which to us, looks like about everything. I'm sure there are still some details to finish up, but we walked around on it tonight and the work was done in 1 day instead of 3!

Also, another blessing is our last student day of school! We took the kids to the pool today for their last field trip on the last day and it was a gorgeous day. It's always nice to finish the year on a good note. Tomorrow is our teacher day, but we don't have to be there for any specified amount of time, so I feel pretty much done for the summer.

Looking forward to spending time outside with the family!! :)

She's 1!!!

Alright, so it is really hard to believe but my little baby is 1 already and walking up a storm. It is so funny to see her toddle around. She still prefers to crawl if she wants to get somewhere quickly, but otherwise she is a walking machine.

We celebrated her birthday on Saturday with many family and friends. She LOVED the cake and made a huge mess (see below). She also did a great job opening presents. She sat through all of the gifts. Thanks to all who took the time out to celebrate Emerson Elizabeth and for all of the beautiful clothes and toys!

We also got to celebrate on Sunday (her actual birthday) by going to church, eating leftover birthday cake, and going to the park in Wakarusa. By the way, that park is beautiful and wasn't crowded at all. There's a separate section for little ones, which gave them plenty of space to run around. They loved the sand, Emerson was a big fan of the swing, and Landon loved the slide.

Thank you Lord, for our beautiful little girl. She is the light of our lives and always has a smile or a squeal to share. What a sweetie!

It's all part of being a mother

First of all, I have to say that my first Mother's Day with two born children was great! I got lovely flowers and a necklace, went to a yummy lunch at La Fogata, and enjoyed having the grandmas (and grandpas too!) over for supper.

But, as a lot of you know, being a mother isn't always easy. Yesterday Landon had such a rough day. He is usually Mr. Independent and will play with his cars, books, and puzzles so well on his own. That was not the case on Saturday. He was so clingy and whiney and nothing seemed to satisfy him for long. I was getting quite frustrated with him until we went outside and he showed me just how thoughtful a 19 month old can be. He likes flowers and wanted to pick some. So luckily we have a lot of yellow flowers throughout our yard :) and he made a 5 dandelion boquet for his daddy. He was very excited to come in and put them in water!

Emerson was in a better mood than her brother thankfully, but sometimes she gets a little too ambitious. She loves baths and got a little too anxious about taking one yesterday. She fell in the bathtub head first while it was filling up, with her clothes on! I thought about taking her picture, but I think she was pretty traumatized! :)

With all of the ups and downs of motherhood, it's pretty exciting to see your children sooo excited about everyday events like picking weeds and taking baths! It definitely makes you appreciate all the little things in life.

Unfortunately, this is the best picture of the kids and me on Mother's Day (not sure how much Emmi loves Mommy in this photo! :) )
Thought this was a cute one of the girls!

On a side note, we got higher speed internet this weekend!!! So hopefully I'll update more with more pictures! :)

Easter weekend and Spring Break

What a huge blessing to be able to spend the last week with my beautiful family! We had a great, tiring week, enjoying the weather outside when we could and playing indoors when we couldn't.

We had a very busy Easter. Steven and Kristina were home for the weekend so we got to spend time with them at dad's retirement party and on Easter. Matt and I were exhausted after church without even going to our parents' houses yet! The kids were great and napped some, but it is hard to keep them entertained from 7:30-11:30 at church. They had 3 Easter egg hunts and luckily for their mom and dad, don't know anything about candy yet! :)

Then, without going over every detail of our week, I'll hit some highlights:

• visiting the park for the first time
• riding the 4-wheeler at the Davis'
• being grouchy kids at the Clarks' :)
• RUNNY NOSES (for both kids now) which equals fussiness
• dinner with the Smiths
• spring pictures with live ducks (Landon was NOT a fan!) :)
• and tonight is Greyson's 2nd birthday party!

It's so amazing to see how much the kids grow and change when you get to spend time with them. They are terrific little guys and their personalities are really coming out. Hope you had a great week as well!

Date Weekend and Egg Hunt

Matt and I had the pleasure of a date weekend this past weekend! We both took personal days on Friday and headed up to Chicago to spend Friday and Saturday. We spent most of the day Friday at the Field Museum (which teachers no longer get discounts at unless you teach in Illinois! ). It was nice taking our time and looking at the exhibits. We didn't have much of a schedule to keep. I will only mention one of the cool things we saw; I won't bore those of you that don't like sciency things! They have a mammoth exhibit on display and inside they had an actual baby woolly mammoth that was 42,000 years old! It was perserved in the ice and snow and still had the skin and some fur on it. It was pretty cool! :)

Then Friday night, we went out to a nice dinner at the Chicago Firehouse Restaurant. They had all kinds of different things on the menu, but I enjoyed it all. Then we went back to the hotel to watch the Purdue/Duke game.

The next day, we slept in, had a nice brunch at the hotel, and walked around the city a bit to "window shop." Afterwards, we left Chicago and stopped at Cabela's on the way home.

We had a really nice time together. We got to talk, hang out just the two of us, and spend $75 in parking! :)

Then when we got back on Sunday, the Frye's hosted an Easter egg hunt for Landon, Emerson, Greyson, Grace, and Tyler. I was a little worried that our kids would have NO IDEA what to do, but surprisingly they both caught on. Landon was looking for the eggs and Emerson would pick them up and drop them in the basket. It was so cute!