Trip to the Midwest

I had the opportunity to fly to Wisconsin this past weekend to see my brother graduate from the University of Wisconsin La Crosse. I took Emily with me and left the big kids with Dad for a long weekend. Aaron kept the kids busy doing fun things like going to Tracy Aviary, Liberty Park, and Wheeler Farm. I had a relaxing few days with the rest of my family!! Jeffrey & Brittany have a cute house in WI and it was fun to travel somewhere new. Emily LOVED looking out the window.

Me & Jeffrey (Congrats again!!)

The view of La Crosse, WI from Grandad Bluff (A geocache, of course)

I had a 4 hour layover in Chicago on the way home so I did something a little crazy: I rented a car and drove into the city to visit the Hard Rock Cafe! I collect guitar pins from the HRC and get credit from the pin club for each cafe I visit. Aaron sent me with his GPS and off I went. I made it to the city and back with a stop at the HRC and a drive through stop at a local Whitecastle restraunt in just under 2 hours. (Emily slept the WHOLE time!!) The ladies at the rental car office thought I was out of mind and said there was no way I could make it there and back in enough time to NOT miss my flight. I was willing to risk it and was glad I did. It was a little surreal to think I was driving through Chicago. This isn't a very good picture (Hey...I was driving) but I tried to snap a shot of the Chicago skyline. Of course I forgot to take a picture at the HRC. Dang it!

It was a fun trip!! Thanks Jeffrey for having us!!

Our Sunday Best

Kaya
Logan

Emily

Keeping Busy

It's 11:51PM on a Friday night. Here I am. The house is quiet. Everyone has been asleep for hours. I am exhausted but I've neglected my blog long enough. Plus I might as well stay up 8 more minutes now to wish my friend a
Happy Birthday on Facebook! :)

It has been an adventurous couple of weeks. Kaya has been playing Tball and I offered to help out as the team mom. Who would have thought they'd have 2 games a week AND a practice. C'mon - it's TBALL for the love of all things. It's been fun but go go go. Kaya had her kindergarten orientation today. I'm excited for her. The past 5 years have totally flown by. I look at Kaya every day and am in awe over her growth both phyically and in her personality. She only has 3 more weeks of preschool and we should find out by the end of the month what track she'll be on for school.The stomach flu bug (not to be confused with the swine flu) hit our house this week. Emily kicked it off sometime Monday night/Tuesday morning. We didn't even know she had gotten sick until the morning when I went in to get my happy girl at her normal time. She got sick during the night and we didn't even know since she didn't cry. It was a lovely mess but she was in good spirits.

(A cute picture of Emily's CLEAN crib!)Aaron came home from work on Wednesday afternoon since he wasn't feeling well. He was only home a short time before he was officially stricken with the flu bug. Approximately 2 hours after Aaron got sick, Logan came to me in the kitchen complaining that he didn't feel well. I didn't even have enough time to react. Poor guy. We ended up throwing away the kitchen rug. In the midst of cleaning up Logan's episode, Kaya got sick. All I could do was laugh. My poor family was falling apart. Even Nick wasn't feeling well. We lost count of how many times Kaya and Logan got sick. Poor things. They both slept well that night and rebounded the next day. Aaron stayed home a day from work and is starting to feel better. I'm the lone survivor at this point. I cleaned, sanitized, and washed every possible germ carrying item in the house. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

In the midst of the craziness I've managed to work on a few projects. Aaron and I built a train table for Logan to use with his Thomas the Tank Engine set. The kid needed a designated area to play trains. I was tired of him using my kitchen table and he was getting frustrated with Emily playing Godzilla to his train city on the floor. I got the design from my Aunt. I was pleased with the end result. So was Logan. It was totally worth it.I also managed to designate a day to sewing. After sewing some patches on Aaron's scout uniform I decided to FINALLY sew a new bedskirt for our bed. The skirt that came with our comforter was not very well made and fell apart the first time we washed it. It was tolerable and I just left it. That was until Logan decided to make the barely noticeable hole bigger. I used the flat sheet that came with our set to make the new bedskirt along with a twin size white flat sheet I had bought a couple of years ago to make ghosts out of our trees in the front yard. It worked and I didn't even have to buy anything!!

So here's a BEFORE picture: And the AFTER picture. Not too shabby. (Just don't look TOO closely!)In addition to building and sewing I've been cleaning, fixing, and organizing. I was able to fix our dishwasher with the help of our cousin Brian over the phone in Washington. We also purchased an external hard drive for the computer to back up and store pictures and important documents. We decided it was time to protect ourselves in the event the computer ever crashed. With all the digital pictures now - it could be tragic. One more thing checked off the to do list.

Here is a picture of our family outing to find a night geocache.
As far as cleaning goes, I've been working on cleaning the grout in my home. I have A LOT of tile. Long story short - It's gotten so dirty in 4 years and the only way it's going to get clean is for me to get down on my hands and knees and SCRUB it. It's working. It's just time consuming. Especially with 3 little kids. We paid somebody to professionally clean and seal it 2 years ago. By the time they were done, it looked worse than when they got there. A TOTAL waste of money. So I've included a picture to give you an idea of how much tile we have. (This is about 1/2 of it) I've also included a sort of before and after picture. It's really kind of gross to look at. You don't realize how dirty it is until you start cleaning. It's a work in progress...Well, it's late and I really need to call it a night. Please forgive me for the long update and the terrible run on sentences. I write like I talk and I could NEVER make it as a professional writer!! Hope this post finds you well! Sleep tight!!!

Happy Birthday Ryan!!!

Today we celebrate Aaron's brother Ryan's 33rd Birthday. The kids love it when Uncle Ryan comes over for dinner, usually on Sundays. Ryan likes to go outside, push them on the swings, play with them in the backyard, or even play hide and go seek with them in the house when it's cold. We are lucky to have Ryan living close by. We have been seeing more of him on Sundays since he taught us how to play the "Settlers of Catan" game. We play using Ryan's German version but we're hooked and determined to beat Ryan. It's been a lot of fun. Hope you have a GREAT birthday Ryan!!

Happy Easter!!

8 Months Old Already

Emily is officially 8 months old. She is crawling everywhere and is now pulling herself up to anything she can. Emily LOVES to play under and around the kitchen table. She's always trying to climb in and around the chairs and pull herself up. She's not "cruising" the furniture yet but I'm sure it won't be long. She a very happy baby and loves the attention of her brother and sister. Of course, everything goes in the mouth too. No teeth yet. (Thankfully for Mommy). The funny girl LOVES cereal bars and playing peek a boo. Emily has been such a joy to have in our family! Emily's cheeks and nose are a bit orange from all the veggies she eats.

This is how Emily fell asleep one day.
Emily likes feeling the air that comes out of the vents.

Trip to California

I got a wild hair and decided to drive to California to visit our families. BY MYSELF with 3 kids!! The drive went surprisingly well. I bought a portable DVD player which really helped keep the big kids entertained. Emily slept off and on the whole time. She did surprisingly VERY well. We enjoyed the nice warm weather in Cali. We even got to go swimming with Grammie Serr. We were there to celebrate my Dad's birthday and just enjoyed spending time with the grandparents. I also spent time working on some Family History and scanning historical documents from my grandmother. All in all - it was productive! Here are a few pictures from the trip: My Dad and Emily
Kaya & Great Grandma Serr
Logan found Uncle Nick's Buzz Lightyear at Grammie Serr's house.