while my camera was broken

Eli found his new love...mazes. We went to an apple orchard that had a corn maze. I think Eli could've spent the whole day in there. I bought him a book of Halloween mazes and he went through every one of them over and over just tracing with his finger.

pumpkin patch

Grandpa Jim even got in on some corn maze action. It was so hot this day. Noah's face in the corn says it all. We weren't even there for more than 45 minutes, and I carried him most of the time in the maze.

our little artitst

Nothing like a little naked drawing! He is getting quite good at taking his clothes off!

naptime

So, Noah is in that terrible stage where he's down to one nap, but he could still use two. Today, he woke up early plus he hasn't been feeling that well, so I put him down for a morning nap. He only slept an hour, but he WOULD NOT sleep in the afternoon. He played in his crib for 2 hours before I gave up. This is how I found him (notice the nuks, blanket, and shirt on the floor). Needless to say, he was sleeping by 6:45 tonight.

drawing

Joel kept Chase and Noah busy while Erica and I took Jake, Eli, and Grace to the Bee Movie on Friday night. I don't think it was the best kids' movie ever, but we had fun anyway. Grace stayed over, and she and Eli played "bee" the rest of the night.

Thanks Grandma Cathy!

Eli was so excited about the books he and Grandma got from the attic tonight. He had to read me TWO before bed!!!

...or he's climbing IN

This cupboard did keep Noah entertained for a little bit while I was trying to cook supper tonight. He was pretty proud of himself when he carried the fry daddy out of there. I just want to know what he has against baby einstein movies.

My view

I finally got my camera back. YEAH!!! This is pretty much how it looks from where I stand during the day. I guess it's mostly just when he's hungry or tired, but I think he's always hungry or tired. If he isn't on my hip or trying to get there, he is usually either standing on or climbing on something else like the table, the back of the couches, the big lego container ...

Halloween pictures

Thanks for sending these to me Cathy! Noah actually kept the hood of his costume on the whole time we were trick or treating.

October 31st

It doesn't feel much like Halloween. We go trick or treating the night before Halloween (beggar's night), so we did all of the fun stuff last night. Eli was a dragon and Noah was a tiger. Someday you might get to see pictures. We started with a Halloween party at Grandma Cathy's, and then we went trick or treating with Erica, Jake, and Chase. Eli LOVED going trick or treating! Noah just wanted to go in the houses. Tonight, Eli got a flu shot and ate Long John Silvers with Joel afterwards, followed by an hour or so of PS2. Noah went to bed at 6:50, and I went to a weight watchers meeting. HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Junkie???

It's official. Eli has discovered the Play Station 2, and he would be happy playing it ALL DAY! Do we invest in some kid friendly games or hope he forgets about it???

Austin's baptism

Yeah pictures!!! Even if I did have to steal them from Craig and Jen. Siriously, Austin may be the cutest baby ever, and he's so good. I don't think he cried once all weekend.

Our children

are the best car riders ever! Even our ornery little Noah sat in his car seat for 13 hours this weekend without fussing! We had a great time with my family. We pulled into Craig and Jen's around midnight on Friday. We didn't see Eli all of Saturday as he and Katelynn sat in the fort in Katelynn's closet and read books. It was Austin's baptism yesterday (I'll steal a picture from Jen's blog when she posts some). All of the cousins played great the rest of the afternoon. The kids liked Auntie Jen's idea of running in the rain the best!!! I think she was kidding when she suggested it, but everyone had a blast running around the house and finding hail. On the way back tonight, we were treated with a home-cooked meal at our friends John and Kelly's. Thanks Kel! We walked in the door at 9:00 and unpacked a few things. Luckily, Joel has tomorrow off. He will be busy ALL day! His honey-do list is getting pretty long.

Move over McDonalds

So, Mr. Eli doesn't eat much (He says he doesn't like lunch, and he doesn't like supper). I can usually get him to eat breakfast, and he likes any type of snack food. When it comes to meals, he'll eat the two bites we force him to take, and that's it. On his "will eat" list are: chicken nuggets, fries, some fruits, and peanut butter and jelly. If he's in the right mood, he might take a few bites of some other kid friendly foods here and there. Ironically, he LOVES Long John Silvers (gross!!). He eats chicken, fish, clams, shrimp, hush puppies, and hardly touches the french fries. GO FIGURE!

Dear Joel,

Are you still on board with getting a new camera? He was all ready to go buy one, and I was the one who decided not to do it. However, now that I finally got my charger back, I've realized that the charger is not the problem. It's the camera that doesn't work. One would think that the Olympus people could've figured out that the charger was fine during the two weeks they had it.

more shoes

Sure wish I could post a picture of Noah's newest pair of $50 shoes (they are a little cuter than the last pair)! I tried wide shoes at Payless, and they didn't even come close to fitting. We went back to Stride Rite and came home with 8xw. Size 8???? Eli just got out of eights. I understand that the shoes have to fit the biggest part of his foot, but they're so long. I'm just trusting that the nice man at the shoe store knows what he's doing!

sister visit

I loved having Krista, Zach, and Drew here for the weekend. They pulled in Friday afternoon and left today around 3:00. Yesterday we left Noah with Joel and took the other three boys to Adventureland (like Valleyfair). We had so much fun and had some VERY tired boys by the end of the afternoon. Eli's favorite things were the bumper cars, hot air ballooons, and the tea cups. Zach liked the ferris wheel the best, and I think Drew just liked everything. Sure wish I would've had a camera!! Thanks Sister for making the trip! Kris- maybe it was all that spinning that made Drew sick!

bummed!!!

So, I went to charge the dead battery on my less than 9 month old camera, and the charger is not working. I'll have to send it in to get fixed. I thought I had my husband convinced to get me a new camera last month, but he hasn't said anything lately. Maybe this will give him a little push. Anyway- no camera, no pictures. SAD!

Do girls do this???

All Chase and Noah want to do is play on the couch. Chase spent most of the morning yesterday perfecting his "walk off". He'd fall and just laugh. I don't know how many times Noah flipped off. He'd start to cry every time. Not because he was hurt; because he was mad that he wasn't on the couch any more.

Another first

Eli was probably 2 1/2 before he had his first juice box. Oh- it's good to be the second child!

Eli napping after his big day

Somebody was not ready to take his back pack off.

He took a big nap after preschool. As I am writing this, it is 9:30pm, and he is laying in his bed trying to read a Dick and Jane book with the light from his little Mater night light. It's so cute that I almost plugged in another night light. Almost.

First day of preschool

BEFORE
AFTER

Bed Head

We have our first curl!!

WHASSUP!

I hope everyone has a good day back at work tomorrow. My big boys start preschool this week. I can't believe it!

Labor Day Weekend

I think this was our first Labor Day Weekend that we didn't spend at the lake. We missed everyone, but we managed to keep ourselves busy. Here are the boys swimming in our friends' pool on Saturday.

Oh how they've grown

I guess now that they can't all fit on my lap, they can sit on eachother's! Eli, Luke, Jake and Noah were just sitting on the floor like this today.

Books, Books, Books

Where there is a pile of books, you can usually find Noah. He rarely sits through even the shortest story, but he is constantly bringing us books and backing his little booty onto our laps. Eli is starting to read, so he usually has a book in hand too! Yesteday Eli was even nice enough to read to his little brother.

Family Fun???

We have had the most gorgeous weather the past couple of days! I thought it would be fun to go to the park and feed the ducks. Eli was excited to go fishing. Noah liked seeing the ducks, but he was much more interested in eating the bread than actually giving it to the ducks. Eli just wanted to go play on the playground equipment, so Noah, Eli and I walked over to the climber leaving Joel at the pond with the cars fishing pole. Noah was throwing a fit because I kept pulling him off this big slide that he was trying to climb up, so I put him back in the stroller. We walked back over to get Joel (still fishing with his cars fishing pole), and we decided it was time to go. Noah cried for the whole 3 minute car ride back to our house. GREAT IDEA MAMA!

Joel and his 24 pound weight

Joel had a doctor appointment on Monday and was cleared to start lifting 20-25 pounds. You know what that means!!!!! Saturday shopping trips BACK ON!

Meeting Austin

Joel had to work in Minneapolis Thursday and Friday. I took the boys up on Friday afternoon and my friend Tonya met us at the hotel to hang out (take Eli swimming) for the night. Thanks T! We had fun! On Saturday we went to Krista and Brent's. Craig and Jen met us there, so we got to meet Austin finally. It was great to see everyone, and the best part was that the kids played so well together. I hardly saw Eli the whole time we were there. The ride home wasn't so fun. The 5 hour trip took almost 8 hours. Granted we stopped at the Outlet center for a few minutes and stopped to eat, but we drove in HEAVY rain most of the way home.

state fair

We basically rolled out of bed and went to the state fair this morning. I think Joel even woke Noah up. Nothing like a cup of chocolate chip cookies, a corn dog and cotton candy for breakfast!

pool party

Good thing Joel was there to catch Eli off the diving board just in case the swim vest, arm floaties, and ring weren't enough!

After naps Saturday afternoon, we went to our friends' parents' house to go swimming and grill out. We ended the evening with four wheeler rides and fire works. Eli had a blast. Noah just wanted to run around the pool.

zoo

We had a very busy weekend which is so unlike us!! We started Saturday morning by picking up our niece Grace and heading to the zoo.

Austin

I stole this picture off Craig and Jen's blog.

new nephew

In fact, he's so new that I don't even have a picture to show. Oh, and he doesn't have a name yet. Craig and Jen had a baby boy at 11:57pm last night. He was 8lbs 110z (a couple weeks ago, Jen's doctor told her that she didn't think the baby was very big). Some of the other details are a little fuzzy since I haven't talked to them since 1:15am, but baby and mama were doing well at that time! They were also leaning towards the name Austin. Congrats Craig and Jen. We now have 5 boys out of the 6 grandkids on my side of the family (poor Katelynn). Maybe Krista will get the girl (due Feb. 25th with #3).

Noah and Coco

We stayed at my Aunt Cindy's for a couple of nights when we got together with Joel's family earlier this week. Noah loved Cindy's dog, Coco. He would walk around the house saying "caca".

Poor Baby!!!

Poor thing! I hope your day was better than this guy's! Look at how wet his shirt is from drooling. He had one tooth pop through, and there is another one on the way. On top of the teething, he has a terrible runny nose. He kept putting his finger in his nose this afternoon. Maybe he was trying to stop the snot from pouring out.

The power of advertisements

Eli keeps seeing this commercial for Jumpin' Jack's on TV, and he's been asking if we can go. We finally went this morning. The boys had a lot of fun!

golfing with Grandpa Jim

another birthday picture

I just got this picture that Grandma Cathy took at the party. Noah and I practiced blowing all last week, and he was getting very good at it. I guess he folded under pressure. As you can see, it took all four of us to blow out that one candle.