My helper

My girl is starting to really be quite the helper around the house. She can do dishes all by herself if required including putting everything in its right place (well mostly). She can clean like a crazy lady, just like her mom ;) and keeps her room very neat. Raegan's messy bed (that she fills with toys) drives her nuts and she will come and say "will you please clean up Raegan's mess?!" Tonight after getting groceries she was helping me unload bags and i was moving stuff around and she asked "can i organize stuff mommy?" so i let her at it and waahlaa....i think i know what her new chore will be each week when i come home from getting groceries...




Not bad huh? She had so much fun doing the meat and cheese drawer that she moved on to the door. I will let her have fun in my fridge any time now!

First summer outing

We started out our summer vacation heading to the zoo with some friends! We have not been to the zoo in a very long time and i was reminded just how long it had been when i saw how many changes had been made to the KC zoo...i think i was 7 months pregnant last time trying to keep up with a bunch of first graders the last time...

I didn't take any pictures of animals but i took some pictures of some some other little wild things...

we ate our picnic lunch and thankfully didn't realize there was a wasps nest right where mine and Lincoln's knees were till the very end!

Avery didn't get the memo that we were taking a picture...she was busy being a water fountain

the kids loved climbing around in the big tree

catching a little shade!

Ethan and his buddy Westin were dying to see some crocodiles!

we rode the train around a couple of times...the breeze was so nice!

Raegan and Lincoln dragging behind...they were having discussions about who would carry the fan

Raegan would not ride on an animal. She wanted to sit on the benches,
these three on the other hand wanted to ride each and every animal on the carousel! I let them go about three maybe it was four more times but after almost dozing off i thought we better get off or i might curl up on the bench and go to sleep. It was a little too relaxing!

We had a great time! The kids made me promise that we would go back sometime this summer and watch the sea lion show since they have mastered their sea lion voices. I wish i had a little video of them running around calling out to the sea lions...good thing no zoo keepers were around, they may have been mistaken for sea lions, captured and kept at the zoo!

Spring soccer 2010

In stead of taking my camera to every game, i decided to pick one day to get all my pictures in. This past Saturday we had a full day at the fields, having rain makeup games. It was hot and humid, but i will take that anyday over cold! They have two more games. One tonight and then the final one on Saturday. They each had a great season, Trey was so much more aggressive this year. Avery has never really struggled with being aggressive, she continued to get right in there.They both did great and they could probably tell you how many goals they each had but i'm not sure. Here is our day in pictures...

goal #1 for Trey!

goal #2!

i don't think there is a caption really necessary for this one!

these boys have played soccer together since 1st grade! they work so good together!

just chillin in the chair to fight over!

Seth's dad coached them this season!

Avery taking the ball towards the goal!

half time

peek-a boo mommy

Avery and her friends that she plays with. hopefully we can keep these girls playing together for the next couple of years too! She and Emma have played together for three years now!

Farewell to 5th grade

Thursday was Trey's farewell breakfast for the 5th grade class. They are movin on up to middle school! We enjoyed a pancake feed and one of the moms did an awesome slideshow of the kids with pictures of kindergarten and then fifth grade.


creating "the circle" they told about what was happening in the world each year that our kids were in elementary

Trey receiving his certificate of completion from the principal

me and my big boy!

signing the memory page

Hi, my name is John

It was college orientation and a cute blonde hair blued eyed guy came up and introduced himself to me. My initial thoughts were that he looked pretty cool but that he was loud and obnoxious. I wasn't going to start dating any particular boy, i had had it with guys, i just wanted to have fun.

We struck up a friendship immediately and started dating despite both of our parents instructions to stay away "from the seaba boys" and "the neir girls" (long story behind that but our older siblings had dated). He would go running with me every afternoon, back then we didn't get into arguments about who was not holding a steady pace when we ran together. ha!

We fell in love scrounging up enough change to put a couple dollars of gas in his car to get us to taco bell. We would sit by the hour in the parking lot talking about and planning our future. I remember discussing how many children we wanted if we got married. We both wanted four!

We said "i do" on a rainy May day (much like today) he had just turn 21, i was still 20. We had no idea what our future held but were excited to start our life together...

15 years later we are celebrating our 15th anniversary together. I am not just saying it when i say "i am married to my best friend".

We had the carefree pre-kids stage when we both worked full-time and spent our weekends at the movie theaters, watching every movie that came out! I honestly cannot even remember what i did with my time back then!

We then entered into the phase of starting a family. We had two children within a period of two years and life got busier. We bought our first house, i went to working very part time and enjoyed being home during the day with the kids.

The next phase we entered into was a period of about three and half years where in trying to grow our family we lost three pregnancies and dealt with secondary infertility. It was a sad and frustrating several years. John was always there with a shoulder to cry on and an ear to listen.

God had more plans with our family and the next phase was two more children within two more years. We now were extremely busy and sleep deprived as our last child dealt with allergies that caused her to have a very rough first 6 months.

We are in the school days phase now and can't believe we have middle schooler next year. I still have the two little ones at home with me, our house is loud and full of action. There is never a dull moment, and some days i live for nap time. I know we will miss these days so we are trying to slow down and enjoy them.

We are so thankful for these fifteen years that we have had, God has blessed us with our dream of four children, even though some days our four hoodlums make us feel like we are going to lose our minds we wouldn't trade them for the world!

There have been bumps along the way, high points and low points. I am thankful that through all of it, i have had my best friend by my side. Don't get me wrong lot's of days we drive each other nuts, but he has always been there to support me and love me!

Happy Anniversary babe, i love you (even though you are still a little obnoxious) and look forward to the next phase of life...maybe it will even be a diaper free phase soon... :)

"I pretty"

"i put makeup on mommy, i so pretty"...


it was about time to buy some new eyeliner anyway.

Global Orphan Project

I didn't really know much about the Global Orphan Project. I knew our church had sent a group to Haiti after the earthquake with that organization and i had see the video and heard the touching stories.

I was invited by a friend to run a 5k put on by the organization. I wanted to do it, not only for the fun of running it, but what a great cause to run for!

The head guy, Mike Fox was let out ahead of the entire race group 2 minutes and some odd seconds, as we stood there waiting for our turn to go they said "every second represents a million orphans"! That really got me, a million per second...Wow! The motivation behind them letting him out early other than to represent the orphans around the world was anyone who could catch or pass him was entered into a drawing. I did see him a ways up ahead but he finish almost 2 minutes ahead of me...i have this thing about 2 minutes... (going over my goal in the half marathon by two minutes...)

I hadn't run a 5k since pre-kids. I have been focusing on longer distances which i love, but i forgot how much i loved the 5k. I mean, it's over before you know it...no long drawn out pain, ha! I set my goal as wanting to be under 27 minutes and my official time was 22:17, so i was happy! The rain held off for us till after the race so it was just a nice cool morning, perfect for running!

I did learn that every penny you give to the Global Orphan Project goes straight to the orphans, which i think is awesome! For more information on this great organization visit this site

Oh and i think i found some new running partners! Thanks Karlynn and Molly, it was fun and we will do it again! :)

Randomness

I should be sleeping right now since i'm getting up early to run a 5k road race but i can't seem to make myself go to bed before midnight...i think my body is so used to going to bed late every night. I used to have so much trouble sleeping before races...would toss and turn all night awake...times have changed. I can sleep like a log, run or no run the next morning. I did not have enough going on, i guess, to make me tired back then.

We went to Worlds of Fun tonight. I took the kids out of school an hour early and we went straight there and had 2 hrs of rides. It was beautiful weather, we wished they were open later but closed at 6 tonight. The kids don't get upset if we don't have time to ride a certain ride because they know they will get to ride it next time...i am already loving these passes! We attacked and devoured a funnel cake and i had to pinky promise Trey that i would buy him dip n dots this summer before heading home.

this is where these two will be hanging out a lot this summer!

ethan watching daddy, trey and avery ride the zulu

And lastly but certainly not least i had to share my mother's day card from Ethan. He was so proud to give it to me and it melted my (purple) heart. To the left of my interestingly shaped body...that is him...he explained that to me. I love 4 year olds!!

Have a great weekend!

Gearing up

I am gearing up for summer. The kids have six and a half days of school left! Every year i am kinda thrown by the chaos that going from a certain schedule everyday to nada....don't get me wrong i love to sleep in, i love being able to be lazy in the mornings, but i like how the schedule helps me get up and around and getting things done...i get in a routine. Summertime comes and that routine get's thrown out the window, kid's don't nap well because of older siblings home in their rooms, kids want to skip breakfast but snack all day long, kids are lucky if they get their teeth brushed at the beginning of the day, their is a lot of fighting, too much television watching.... SO, i spent a good part of an hour today setting out my summer rules (i'm totally about letting the kids have fun and enjoy their summer, there just needs to be some order to our day) and a whole new behavior/points system that we are going to try out. I now just need to go buy a big white board of some sort or come up with a keeping track system...so if you have any grand ideas in that dept i am all ears.

I have it all written down, down to how many marks get's what consequense and have gone over some of it with the kids and they seem to like the idea. They might not think it is so great that they get computer time and television time completely taken away for too many marks...

We are excited about Worlds of Fun opening on Friday nights this weekend. We have only been able to go two times so far because of our busy weekends with soccer games and things. Friday night is our family night and i can't wait to go scream with my kids on the prowler!! That ride is crazy by the way...love it!

This is just to break up all my writing...this is the coveted spot on the couch. I can't tell you how many fits are thrown because of this spot. Ethan was such a peace maker today. He said "let's share the spot raegan" and they did! This picture makes a mommy just want to tickle those little bellies! It really wasn't midriff (sp?) day at our house today, i promise!


I'm running a 5k with a couple of friends from small group this Saturday, so we are hoping for decent weather...no thunderstorms would be fantastic!

I realized just how tired i was today when i got to car line up about 40 minutes early today (wasn't worth going all the way home and back) i could not keep my eyes open, raegan was sacked out and so i set my alarm (i didn't want to be that car everyone's honking at cause i was fast asleep when the line started moving) and sacked out for the next 40 minutes. Ethan kept jabbering to me and i kept saying "mommy just needs to rest her eyes for a little bit, can you sit quiet and draw for a bit?" He was a good boy :)

Hope your having a good week, i am ready for the rain to go bye bye and the sunshine to move on in!