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.