Thursday

I love this weather. The days are so sunny and nice and then the nights are great for getting under the covers. As soon as the sun starts going down, the temps drop pretty fast, so having a sweatshirt or fleece is a must. Wendi and I took the kids and our twin strollers for a walk the other day. It went from being 80 out to 65 so fast. Luckily the kids had their fleeces and blankets. Silas of course was snuggled into his little carseat.

Although I love winter, I'm not looking forward to not being able to just go outside and go for a walk or swing on the swings.  Happy Thursday! Thursdays are my absolute favorite. Grey's Anatomy starts tonight too! I'm looking forward to my Friday off tomorrow w/ the kids and our pumpkin picking outing with friends! Oh and we are having a landscaper come and tell us what trees we need for our backyard. yippie!

Swinging into Fall

As Summer is ending and Fall is quickly approaching, we try to spend as much time outside as possible. Last night we played on the swing set before the sun went down. This is my favorite time of year, but I have to admit I'm not looking forward to not wearing sandels, bundling up the kids and runny noses. Ellie and Jack love swinging, especially together!

Weekend recap

We started our weekend (Friday for us:) with a play date with the newer neighbors across the street. They actually moved in at the beginning of the year, but we've never set anything up. They have a 4 year old and a 10 month year old. Ellie had fun playing with Ava. She actually just watched her a lot and kept talking to me. She is still very shy, but had fun. The boys just crawled around and didn't even notice each other. It's that age I guess, they would rather chew on toys and explore.  

We started our bowling league Friday night! It was nice to see everyone and actually get out of the house. Nick's parents babysat and everything went well. I wasn't sure how Jack would be since he hasn't seen them in awhile, but he did awesome!

Saturday was a sad day as we had a memorial service for this little boy. It was a celebration of his life and his family and close friends did a beautiful job telling stories and honoring him. It was so nice, but so very sad too.

We ended Sunday with some yummy breakfast at a local restaurant with Wendi, Nick and baby Silas. Jack tried toast for the first time. He loved it. I also experimented and he had mashed potatoes for dinner. He of course loved those too. 

Blake, the play date boy.

Ellie likes to help clean!

Such a good girl at breakfast!

Yummy toast.

Bay Beach

I've been wanting to go to Bay Beach in Green Bay for awhile now and we finally made the trip last weekend. The weather was perfect, not too hot and not too cool. My dad and mom also went with us and had fun watching Ellie enjoy the rides. Jack is still too little, but he didn't know any difference :) Nick and I also went on the roller coaster by ourselves, it was so fun!! The rides are so cheap, about 50 cents or so each. If we lived closer I would take the kids there a lot. The park has nice big trees and being on the lake is so nice. Can't wait to go back!

Ellie's first time on a little ride by herself! She loved it and went on 5 times after this.

Ellie was not a fan of this ride, I think at this point she was tired and didn't want to ride with this other boy. They had to stop the ride so I could get her out, otherwise she would have jumped!

Waiting for the train ride.

Jack the explorer.

Ellie and Nick loved the Tilt a Whirl. Me, not so much. I love rides, but this one made me feel sick!

Ellie is crazy

Ellie really likes We-we and Nick. She is always so hyper when they come over. This was taken about a month ago, before Silas was born. It's just kind of silly :)

Family Photos

We got our cd from our photographer back of our family photos. These are Jack's one year and Ellie's three year old pictures too. I thought it would be easier to just do one photo shoot rather than do several. I'm happy with some of them that turned out, but about 20 minutes in to taking the photos, Ellie became very impatient. She didn't want to wear the third outfit I had picked out for her and Jack was getting hungry. I ordered a couple canvas prints to hang above our fireplace in the kitchen and one along the hallway near the mudroom. I'm not sure what to do about the canvas prints that I will have once I put the new ones up. I'm starting to have a little bit of a collection. Maybe I can create a collage or something on one of the walls. I'd like them displayed somewhere but some are pretty big. I guess I'll have to check out pinterest for ideas! Below are the ones that I thought were pretty decent. I can't believe how fast they are growing. (sniffle)

 

To see older photos:

Ellie's 1 year photos

Ellie's 2 year photos

Jack's newborn photos

Jack's 6 month photos

Troublemaker...

with a capital T. Jack is trouble. He gets in trouble, he makes trouble, he is trouble. Here he is taking down the gate that blocks our upstairs. Not sure how he finagled it, but it collapsed on him. Yup... I'm totally the mean mom that snaps a picture before helping. LOL.

I remember...

The morning was sunny and bright like it is today, 11 years later. I was just getting to my desk at a job I've only had less than a month. I was 21.

My co-worker came over to me and said she heard that an airplane hit the World Trader Center. I thought "wow, that sucks" and was immediately on Yahoo to see if I could find anything. I didn't even know what the WTC was (remember, I was only 21). I've heard of it, but didn't really get it. There were a couple reports on the internet about a small plane hitting the building. Within 10 - 15 minutes as other co-workers arrived to work, it started to become a big deal. A bunch of us went to the board room (where our Executives have their important meetings) to see if we could watch it on TV. As I watched tv, listened to my co-workers talk and ask questions, I began to understand how big of a deal this was. It was in that room when I saw both towers crumble to the floor. My stomach felt sick and my heart hurt. It was something that was truly unbelievable. My boss told us for those of us that wanted to go home, we could. I immediately grabbed my purse and left. I met Nick at his sister's house because he was out in that area. I remember driving and feeling so sad. The next days and weeks after were even harder. I was addicted to watching every news show on TV. I just remember feeling so sad and crying a lot. I will never forget that day and will appreciate what our country has done to make sure something like this doesn't happen again.

Let me out!

 Mama! What's outside!?

Let me out!                     

Pretty please, Mama?

Oh fine...

Jack and Ellie have runny noses, so we stayed inside this weekend. By Sunday night they are starting to feel better!

Finally Friday!

When I hear the words Finally Friday, I always get a flash back to the country song that goes like "Finally Friday, I'm free again, got my motor running for a wild weekend!" remember that? George Straight sings it. It reminds me of being at my friend Kim's house in high school and getting excited for the weekend.

I've been ready for Friday all week and we even had off on Monday! It's been a long week of work and more work. I just started a new website that is scheduled to launch in February and all I can think about is Thanksgiving and Christmas! I'm getting the itch to go shopping for Christmas already, this is bad considering  September just started. My Thursday night class is going good. I have a good group of students and they all seem really excited and engaged in learning so I must be doing something right. Last night was pretty interesting as one of my students explained that he missed class last week because he was in jail for 2 nights and didn't have his phone or computer to contact me. Of course I looked him up on c-cap and sure enough he has an OWI, non-registered vehicle and even posted bail. I also think he was going through withdrawals last night, but he stayed and caught up on the assignments and did a decent job. 

Nick is taking an Anatomy class this semester to learn more for his job or maybe he'll go be a doctor or something. haha. It's only 2 nights a week, but we miss him when he's gone.

Next week, I will be starting my 4 day work week. I can not wait. My hopes and goals are to play with Ellie and Jack, organize things, deep clean things (cabinets, floors, areas that need a scrub down), try to potty train Ellie and maybe even get Ellie to start watching Disney movies. I know it's weird, but she just isn't into TV that much. Sometimes I wish she were and we could just watch it and veg out.

Happy Friday everyone!

Me and baby Silas.

Weekend recap

I love long weekends and starting next week, that will be my new normal. It will be so nice to have Fridays off. Our weekend was full of hanging out at home and getting some organizing done, Jack learning to push and walk with the purple car, shopping at the outlet mall, flying a kite, going to Ottawa Lake, swimming, taking Jack on his first bike ride, a bon fire with smores of course and watching a couple movies. It was awesome. Here are some pictures from the weekend.