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Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Brodie and Drew Winter Concert

Thursday December 5 Brodie and Drew had their winter concert.  Both boys did a good job knowing the words and singing along.

The first graders sang first.  Here is Drew's class below.


Drew is the second one in on the top row.

This picture is of  Brodies class.  He is on the top row in the blue shirt.















After the concert we headed to Dairy Queen for ice cream.  That has become our tradition after school concerts.










Sunday, December 15, 2013

Oh Christmas Tree...

  This year we decided to save a little money on our Christmas tree so we skipped going to the Christmas tree farm.  The atmosphere of that place is indeed fun.  The hunt for that perfect tree, the hot cocoa, wagon rides, we really did enjoy all that.  However we usually spend a small fortune on a tree.  
This year we headed into town and hit up Menards.  There we found lots of nice trees.  We couldn't agree on a tree so we did something completely out of the ordinary and we picked out a mystery tree.  We called it that because we picked a tree that was still all wrapped up in netting.  We had no idea what it was going to look like once we opened it up.
Here is the tree when Daddy first cut off the twine.

We waited till the next night to decorate the tree and by then it was absolutely perfect!  We couldn't of picked out a better tree!  
It's always fun watching the kids go through their boxes of ornaments.  I have fond memories of doing that as a child.  I still love to look through my box of ornaments and reminisce about particular ones.  The kids are getting their own collections and building their own memories about certain ornaments.  


Once all the decorations were up it was time for the star.  Emily got to place the star on the top of the tree this year.  Daddy had to help a little.


 Some how we managed to get a good family photo.  It only took us 3 takes.  Of course it took a little while to figure out how to do the automatic timer, but once we figured that out it was smooth sailing.  Everyone cooperated.  Yay for us!


Thanksgiving Part 3

Once our bellies were full, the tables cleared, and food put away, it was nail time!  The second and third generation girls took turns painting each others nails.

Of course Emily was all about getting her nails painted.  She loves it.  And her second cousin Selena was so sweet (and brave) and let Emily paint her nails.  I don't know who had more fun with that, Emily or Selena!


Here was the end results.  Of course Emily thinks that she can paint mommy's nails now too.  I am not near as sweet or brave as her dear cousin so Emily has yet to paint my nails!












Saturday morning before we packed up to head home Will and his momma had to break out the ol' Kaypro to see if they could get it to work.  They wanted to show the kids the computer that their dad grew up with.





Unfortunately they could't get it to do much more than turn on but they had fun reminiscing and looking through old floppy discs.

The kids still thought it was pretty cool.  Dad's first computer looked pretty ancient to them.  Technology sure has changed a lot in the last couple decades.

Sunday, December 8, 2013

Thanksgiving Part 2


Thanksgiving morning started off with the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade on TV and Drew losing his front tooth.  Why the picture of all 3 boys?  Well, it took all 3 of them to help get the tooth out.  First the tooth was loose to begin with.  Drew had been working on it all week.  He lost the tooth next to it the week before.

Jake and Drew were messing around and Jake "accidentally" elbowed Drew in the mouth making the tooth bleed and become more loose.  And by more loose I mean it was basically just hanging there.  Ewww.   Drew didn't want to pull it out so he had Brodie do the dirty work.  After a little while the tooth finally came out!



I always get a family picture each Thanksgiving.  Here is this years.  Unfortunately there is usually one person who doesn't have the best picture.  This year it was Drew.  He was sad at the moment.
Here is the dinner table complete with name cards made by grandma.  


The family.  Minus myself and Jenny.
Grandma and Grandpa did something new this year and we went around the table and everyone said what they were thankful for.  It was pretty neat and something that will stay in the memory bank.

 
Grandpa Joel led the family in prayer and it was time to dig in.  It was an amazing dinner.  There was so many things to be thankful for.  Mostly, I was and am thankful to be part of such an amazing family.  I love each and every one of them so much.

To be continued...oh yes, there's more.

Thanksgiving Part 1


3 generations of bakers!  
We had a wonderful, relaxing Thanksgiving.  We spent a few days up in Colo with Will's parents.  I am dividing my post up into 3 sections because I have so many pictures that are just too good not to share!


We went up the night before and Emily spent the evening helping Aunt Jenny make pies.  
Only at your aunt and grandma's house could you be elbow deep in flour and have no grownups even bat an eye.


Here is Grandma teaching everyone how to properly flute the edges of a pie crust.  
To be continued.....

Sunday, December 1, 2013

Emilys First Haircut


At 3 years, 2 weeks of age Emily Joy got her first haircut.

Momma was tired of having her hair always in her face and covering her eyes so here are the results.

Now we can see those beautiful eyes and precious smile all the time.

Happy Birthday Drew




November 16th Drew Henry turned 7 years old!  
He has a love for super heros so he was happy to receive some new additions to his Imaginex collection.  

He found a puppy dog tin at the library so he had me make that for his cake.

Hard to believe my baby boy is 7!  He is the most sensitive, lovable boy.  I am so proud of him and I am not ashamed to say that he is definitely a mommas boy!

Happy Birthday Drew Bug!  We love you so much!

Monday, November 4, 2013

Happy Birthday Emily!

 Saturday our baby girl turned 3!  Our family celebrated that morning by having coffee cake and watching Em open her presents.  She got some new nail polish, a strawberry shortcake doll, bubble bath and a Melissa and Doug peg set.  She was a very happy girl.

Sunday we had her family birthday party.  She had 3 sets of grandparents, Will's cousin, aunt and her boyfriend, and one of her uncles come help us wish her a happy birthday!  It was a full house.  I always love having family get togethers.  We are so lucky to have such an awesome family!

!

Em opened presents and then we had cake and ice cream.  Here is her cake I made her this year.  She loves Curious George.  She even helped me decorate the cupcakes all the while telling me "you did a great job mom", "this is soooo awesome", "I lub (love) it!"  She knows how to make me feel good!

I never imagined having a baby girl in our lives.  Now I can't imagine our lives without her.  Happy Birthday Princess!

Saturday, November 2, 2013

Where to start?

Hmmm.  I don't even know where to begin.  My father-in-law informed me the other night that it had been almost a year since I  last blogged.  Now just 2 weeks shy of a year since I last blogged I sit here and don't even know what to write.  A lot has happened in a year.  All the kids are a year older and I have hundreds of pictures that I need to sort through and share.  That all seems too overwhelming so I am just going to start with the present.

I'll start with a little update on each of the kids and see where that takes me.















Jake is a senior in highschool.  Even writing that seems hard to believe.  He will be 18 in 3 1/2 months.  He is currently still enrolled in Saydel however he already has all the credits he needs to graduate so he doesn't have to go the  highschool for class.  In the mornings he starts an internship on Monday at the Altoona Campus for personal/physical training.  He will work there in the mornings from now until May.  In the afternoons he attends DMACC in Ankeny taking some business courses.

He is graduating in May and plans to attend DMACC to get his 2 year degree in business and then maybe transfer to Iowa State for Athletic training.  He just finished football where he was voted team captain.  His team won their first game in week 2.  This was the first game the team has won in 5 years.  It was a pretty big deal.  He was also elected to be on the Homecoming court.

 Walking across the track and being introduced on senior night.  Makes me sad to see him as a senior but I am so proud of him and excited to see what his future holds.
Tony is a sophomore.  He keeps himself busy building Lego sculptures, coloring, whittling sticks and anything else that can keep his hands busy.  He has a fascination with the history of weapons and can pretty much tell you anything you could ever want to know about them.  School pretty much bores him but he has been involved in the marching band and has had a good time with that.  He is doing percussion and has had some major parts this year in some of the competitions.  It has been fun watching him.

Brodie just celebrated his 8th birthday.  He had his first friend birthday party.  It's awesome to watch him with his buddies.  He is such a peace keeper.  If anyone was fighting or feeling bad he was right there trying to make things better.  He is such a good kid.

He loves football and has gotten to go to a few Iowa State games with Daddy.  He constantly plays football in the backyard.  He has gotten a lot of help and advice from his older brother.

Drew is in first grade now.  Part of him loves school and the other part of him would much rather be home with mom and Emily.  He is Emily's second mom and is always trying to take care of her.

He started wearing glasses last Spring.  We had no idea how bad his eye sight was.  They have helped him greatly, although he is still just as clumsy.


Emily Joy.  I don't even know what to say about her.  She is busy.  She is learning so much.  She loves to play with her babies and take care of her puppies.

She loves to be outside and play in the dirt and dig for worms.  This is a recent photo of her and a tomato hornworm we found that she cared for and played with for 2 whole afternoons.

She is finally getting some hair.  It's pretty long in the back.  But you can't touch it.  She hates when I brush it, run my fingers through it, and you definitely can't put it in a pony tail.

Whew, ok.  There is the short and sweet on all the kiddos.  It only took me 2 days and multiple interruptions to write this.  I am hoping to schedule time a few days a week to add photos and write a few posts.  We will see how I do!