We got our pictures taken for the new church directory. Rarely do we get a picture where EVERYONE is smiling, so of course I got suckered into buying a couple.

Thankful Thursday, except for one thing

Today I am not so thankful for our garbage/recycling company at the moment. UGH.....
I came driving down the rode to see these all over our yard.

I do not like these things, and I know they're bad for the environment, but a package we got came in them. I know it is not an easy and fun job, but come on....is it that hard to keep these little Styrofoam peanuts in the box that they were in? They made no effort to pick any of it up. The thing I don't get is that they were in a box, and the box was fastened shut. Of course it would be windy today and they are all over the neighborhood now.

I am thankful for all of this rain we're getting. It's OK if it stops soon, but because of it I'm seeing all of this finally.

So thankful for this little "sleeping in his flip flops" kiddo.

I am thankful for a fun filled weekend coming up. Tomorrow is Friday- YIPPEEE!

Bedtime coloring

This was Jacob at about 9:34pm last night (yes, his bed time is 8:00). He kept coming out of bed....and one time he decided to just sit down at the table and start coloring. Matt and I didn't say anything to him because we wanted to see what he would actually do. I was getting upset and Matt just kept smiling and laughing asking me if I remember when Connor used to do this. Yes I do.......

Warming up

It was COOOOOLD tonight at soccer, but my feeling proud and laughter kept me warm. It was only a scrimmage, but I wasn't going to miss it since I missed his goal on Saturday. Two of Connor's biggest fans.

Sundays consist of ....

...church, sometimes breakfast with the family, playing and being lazy.
Why not ride our bikes down the steps?
Practicing for that second goal someday.

What a nice day....until around 6:00 pm when it sinks in that we have to go back to work tomorrow morning and do it all over again.

You'd think atleast one of us would have seen it

Well,
Connor made his first goal in soccer today and.....BOTH Matt and I missed it. Matt missed it because he was chasing, keeping occupied, and keeping warm two little rug rats at 8:00 in the morning and I was at a church retreat. I almost skipped the first part of the retreat to go to the game too.....UGH! I just told him he now has to score another one.
"I'll try!" he said.

Uncle Natey came over to play for awhile before we headed to a couples shower for our cousin.

Connor and Natey made up a Pokemon war game.

Who needs coloring books, white boards, or paper..........

when you can just color on this?

You can obviously see that Jacob is not happy in this picture - and he's not happy because mommy and daddy were not happy when they saw this. He was out riding his bike in the garage and it got a little too quiet out there, so Matt went to check on him. He got bored of coloring on the big white board hanging up on the wall and decided it would be much more fun to color on his bike and his LEG. Wonder how much more he would have done if we wouldn't have stopped him...... it was hard for both Matt and I to keep our laughter in. Are you serious kid?!!!

Happy Birthday daddy!

Happy Birthday daddy! We love you.
The boys gave daddy another remote and steering wheel so that he can play Mario Cart with them.

Daddy's favorite present was Connor giving in and wearing a Packer shirt for a little while. He changed before he went to bed though. Pretty funny.

Happy Birthday daddy and Thankful Thursday and *Updated Kindergarten Roundup*

Happy birthday to the best daddy in the universe (as Connor would say) and to the love of my life! You left too early this morning for the cities for us to celebrate yet, but tonight when you get home it's all about you! We love you!

I am thankful for good friends (and good conversation, food, and wine).

Like always, thankful for my incredible family.

I am thankful for the gorgeous weather lately.

I am thankful for the smiles, snuggles, hugs, and kisses in the mornings from the boys.

I am thankful that today was pajama day at Connor's school because it saved us a couple minutes of craziness! ;)

I am thankful for modern medicine now days.

I am thankful for Connor getting ready for Kindergarten....he has Kindergarten round up tonight. He's very pumped.
Connor and Hillary. Little do these two know that her mom and I secretly want them to get married and already talk about it! (jokingly of course, but they are too cute, and two peas in a pod. Seriously). Isn't she adorable?

Most importantly I am so very thankful for Matt. He is an incredible father and wonderful husband. Thanks for all that you do for us Matt.

Wordless Wednesday

Conformity

Well, we did it.
We conformed.
We gave in.
From the start I was thinking that this was Connor's first year of soccer, and he's only 5, or 5-1/2 like he reminds us often. I knew he needed shin guards and Matt got those from work. However, we figured his "sketchers" that he thinks make him so fast would be good enough for this first year.
Well, we got to the scrimmage on Saturday and EVERY kid except Connor (OK, and one other) had soccer cleats. He actually didn't say anything about it until we did, and he added his little, "Yeah, everyone else has them." He wasn't complaining though, just making a simple observation. Well, tonight we gave in and bought him a pair of cleats and the really cool socks with shin guards in them (at least they weren't too expensive, but come on). Way to stay strong mom and dad!

I was getting the boys ready for bed and Nolan was naked lying on the floor. The phone rang, so I got up to get it and while I was talking to Matt the boys were chasing each other around the house naked and spanking butts. All of a sudden Nolan stops and runs into the bathroom........and pees on the floor. Ha. I wasn't even upset about the mess because of the fact that he knew he had to pee in the bathroom......is this the start of potty training for him? He'll probably be potty trained before Jacob will. ;)

Question of the day

On Easter Sunday on our way home from church Connor asked Matt and I if there were people that didn't believe in God? In Jesus? In Mary? In Joseph? And why?

This morning he came up to me while I was getting ready and asked me again, "Seriously, mom, there are people who don't believe in God?".
"Yeah, there are."
"How do they not believe in God?"
"I guess they just don't believe in him.................."
"Hmph!" (as in, weird. how is that possible).
(I was not sure where to go with this, but the conversation stopped because we got interrupted by Nolan).

Brothers

Today after church we went for breakfast and then Matt showed us, and my parents his new work building. They finally moved in on Friday and WOW, what a nice facility. While we were in the warehouse, Nolan and Connor sat on a big cart and Jacob pushed them around on it. We asked them to get off so we could get going and Connor jumped up all excited and said," YEEEESSS!...I've been waiting for him to be able to push or pull me on something." (Normally big brother is the one that ALWAYS has to push or pull).

Matt put Jacob down for his nap before he left to go back to work and two minutes after he left Jacob came out for some water. Back to bed. Two minutes later he came out wearing his medal and looking through his binoculars. OK Jacob, back to bed. Two minutes later he came out wearing these wacky glasses. Back to bed and Jacob and if you come out again mommy gets your backpack. Well, that didn't work. Two minutes later he comes out with his binoculars around his neck, his visor and sandals on. Seriously, I'm bursting with laughter yet sternly went to take his backpack. I shut the door behind me and could hear some rustling from his bed. I went to go do a couple of things and came back to check on him. I found him sleeping in bed this time with his Lightning McQueen hat and slippers on.

The boys had fun with this gold mirrored platter that the "will" was displayed on from the auction last night.

These are a few of my favorite things.

We had fun today just hanging out together. It was too wet to go outside (so glad we got some rain), so we enjoyed ourselves inside.

What a great day!

What a beautiful day! You couldn't have asked for a better morning for the first soccer practice/scrimmage - go figure I brought my camera but the battery was dead. Man, even when I try to be prepared, I'm still not. Connor was so excited about the game and had a blast. He went to a friend's house after the game. From Connor's game my mom and I went for a walk and met back up with Matt, the boys, and my dad at the Huskies baseball game. We headed home after the game and while the little two took a nap Matt and I got some stuff done around the house. Matt put the boys' wheelbarrow together that we bought them for Easter.


Funny side note. I originally bought the wheelbarrow to be from the Easter bunny. Well, I hid it in the garage and completely forgot about it. Lucky for me while Connor was helping me clean out the garage last week he found it and said, "Oh, cool, mom is that for us?". Well, it obviously couldn't be from the Easter bunny anymore.

When Connor got home from his play date he was so pumped to have the wheelbarrow. He was begging us for jobs. I told him he could move some leaves, branches, and corn husks that we had against the house to a pile in the back. As he was taking his third, or maybe fourth trip he said to Matt, "This is my first wheelbarrow job". Seriously - is it normal to be excited about working? Keep up the good work Connor! ;)

Matt and I went to the St. Mary's Auction last night. Megan came over to watch the boys. Again, she is so incredible and we are going to miss her next year when she goes off to college. The auction was a lot of fun. We got a couple of things. I beat out, actually maybe "pushed out of the way" a man for a very cool puzzle board for Connor, well all of the boys. We always run into issues with his hard puzzles taking up table space, or being left out and the younger two wrecking them. I was so excited about it. We also got a killer deal on a will with a lawyer. Not sure what to call it. We've never actually sat down with a lawyer and wrote out a will. When we both went to Germany I did one of those online ones just so that we had something in writing, you know, just in case. We've been wanting to do a will forever, and this was a perfect opportunity. The package includes a few things for the boys also. Might sound boring to some, but I was excited about our buys.

All about Jacob tonight.....

I picked the boys up from daycare today and Mary and I talked about how great Jacob was doing with the whole potty training thing....he is SOOO close to being completely there. Well, we get home and the boys are playing outside and Jacob comes and tells me he went poop. Great. So I ask him to go lay in the bathroom - I HATE changing dirty pull ups. We go with the off brand and whoever created them completely forgot about the velcro on the side so you can take it off and on like a diaper. UGH! Anyway....first, I find a trail of poop on the carpet as I was walking to the bathroom and second, I get in there and Jacob's crying about his shirt being all wet. I asked him how it got wet and he tells me, "I just went potty." What? Seriously?

Bathed, with a clean pull up and all, he was talking to Grandma on the phone tonight telling her that we were reading a book. I heard her ask him what the book was, and he puts the book to the phone to show her and says, "This one", as if she can see the book. (of course I had him pose for this picture)

He's obsessed with wearing his flip flops around the house lately and had them on tonight. I asked him to stop and stand still so I could take a picture of his sandals. As I'm pointing the camera down at his feet, he says to me, "CHEESE!". Good thing his toes gave me their best smiles. It's hard to take life seriously and get mad when you have things like this going on at your house! It makes it all better.

Kelsey Girl

Look how adorable this girl is getting? I still can't decide who I think she looks more like, mommy or daddy? I see some of both of them in her. She is 8 months already -where does the time go?

Giving credit where credit is due

This is a very random post, but I've been asked a few times lately where I get some of my ideas from for my posts and blog. Yes, some of them are my own ideas, however many of the ideas I have gotten from other people. I wanted to have a post and give credit to those people that I have used ideas from. I think it's so important to do that. One of my pet peeves is people not giving credit where credit is due - why wouldn't you want to thank some one and make them feel good?

Ok, so to start. The reason I even blog would be because of my friend Wendy. Her blog is the first one that I started reading. From the beginning I was doomed with this addiction. I was so entertained by her blog, and was in awe of her. I remember going to a jewelry party with Wendy and telling her how awesome it was that she blogged, I didn't know how she could do all that, and how I would never be able to do it. HA!

I got the idea of switching my blog layout and design from Dawn. She had the cutest design awhile back when she first started and I loved the fact that is was different and that she would keep changing it. Her blog is one of the next couple that I started following.

I have gotten quite a few blogging ideas from Tonja who now has a private blog. I love reading her blog and came across it randomly last year while searching for meal plans (the want to be organizer in me wanted to plan my monthly meals). For some reason it sent me to her fun muffin tin meals and I was hooked from then on. She helped me with the photo collages that I sometimes post and I got the idea of Thankful Thursday from her also (and a ton of the other blogs from her favorites).

I actually cannot tell you who I got the music, Lilypile for the boys' birthdays, and collage ideas from. I would go to a blog, and then click on one of their favorite blogs, that lead me to another blog, etc...I guess that's sort of stalkerish isn't it? ;) I just know that I found them on other blogs. It's amazing what you can all find out there.

I'm sure I will be using Lee Anne's tributes idea soon. You have to go back in her archives to read them. I LOVE how she wrote entries about people in her life, like her boys, mom, and mom-in-law. I wanted to do it for the boys' birthdays, but decided that it's already a special day ( and I just didn't get to it). I'll pick another special day to do it on. I also follow Pioneer Woman because of her. LeeAnne and I have a photography connect....sort of.

I also like Kristin's Smilebox idea. She has made some cute ones. I'm sure I'll come around to using them sometime also.

Thanks to all of the ladies out there, many who I have not mentioned, who have such wonderful ideas. I love this blogging world.
I found a really cool site that you can use to turn your blogs into a book....I will share more details soon. It's very cool and I'm already addicted. ;)
There's nothing better than sharing the wealth and learning from each other.

Blog on ladies, blog on...

Love.This.Weather

GRATITUDE

I am loving this weather right now. Normally I take advantage of the boys being able to stay at daycare and play while I get things done at school because I hardly ever get anything done at home. I many times think I'm going to correct papers after the boys are in bed. Yeah right. However, today....I ran out of school as fast as I could to go pick them up. We headed out to the Nature Center that is right across the street from our house. We had a blast on our adventure looking for animals, balancing over tree trunks so we wouldn't fall in the "water", listening to the sounds, spying on our house...... We also blew bubbles some more, played on the swing set, and ate outside on the deck. I am itching for summer vacation.

Looking at our house from the watch tower.Playing Follow the Leader. Everyone got a turn to lead.

I so wish I would have had the camera ready, but I didn't want to get Jacob more wound up then he already was. How many posts have I written about Jacob's weird night time routines? He came out of bed tonight looking for his Easter basket. I let him take it to bed, thinking it was a thing like with his backpack, he just wanted it in his bed with him. Well, a couple of minutes later he comes out with his hat and sandals on telling me he has to go potty. I couldn't help but burst out laughing. Needless to say, I took the Easter basket with me after tucking him back into bed.

And so it begins......

There are quite a few updates below...so if you have time check them out. I also added a video clip from Nolan's birthday party on Saturday night. It makes me laugh every time.

Connor had his first ever soccer practice tonight. He was SO excited, it was so cute. Again, I have visions of the years to come, with not only one boy in soccer or whatever sport, but THREE!!!! ;) We're going to need our own taxi service just to get the boys to and from places. Connor is the youngest on his team and the smallest, most of the other kids are in Kindergarten, but he knows them from preschool last year. That makes it fun for him. Some of his really good friends are on the team. I'm not so sure how I feel about practice for 5 -6 year olds from 7:15 - 8:15 though. No, it's fine....and the only time we have it that late.
Happy Monday everyone.