Good Old Daniel! :)

So I asked Daniel today if he wanted to get his haircut (and for those of you who know Daniel and haircuts...you can imagine how that question went over!)

His response?

"No haircut! I take a baff (bath!)!!!!!"

Apparently a bath is the equivalent of a haircut these days! :)

Have a great night!

Blessed...

I have realized how negative I have been the last couple of days...this whole basement thing has got me all up in arms...I hate having it all torn up, etc. I have been pretty bummed about it...

But what I have realized during this past week, we are very blessed. I've said it before but I"m going to say it again...we have family and friends who love us and will help us through anything and we have each other. We have some of the best friends anyone could ask for...I can talk to them on the phone for hours, we help each other out whenever it is needed and we care for one another. Our families are so supportive and are there whenever we need them. We know we can count on these people whenever we need them and I hope they know that they can count on us when they need us.

I just wanted to throw that out there again...I think it's easy to forget to express our gratitude to those we love. SO THANK YOU everyone!!!! :)

We love you!!!!

Pictures from Wyoming! :)

Here are some pictures from our trip to Wyoming! :) I have lots more but I figured we could spread them out over several posts! :) I also have to take some off of my other camera plus I think I need to snag some from others! Enjoy!

The Big Horn Mountains!

The boys posing with the mountains in the background...we actually drove up into the mountains!!! It was beautiful! I love the mountains...it has been a dream of mine to actually live near mountains....this is close enough to that for me! :)
On the way back from Sheridan and the Big Horns, we saw this amazing rainbow! It was the first rainbow my kiddos have ever seen!

We also visited Indepence Rock which about an hour outside of Casper. It was absolutely amazing to see this part of our history...being along the Oregon Trail there are names, etc. carved into the rock...it was an absolutely HUGE rock! :) Chris, Greg, Johnny, Hadyn and John climbed all the way to the top and said it was amazing! :)

We went to Thermopolis to visit the Dinosaur Museum and the mineral springs that are there. The kids loved seeing the dinosaur bones, etc. that were on display there! Chris wanted pictures of all of them!!!!

The mineral springs at Thermopolis flow into the river...they leave these amazing formations along the river bank!

Kate...she was a trooper hanging out in her carseat throughout the trip!
The canyon we had to drive through to get to Thermopolis...absolutely stunning. The picture does not do it justice!

I also have pictures of a waterfall in Casper, some hot air balloons we saw the morning we were leaving, and a lot of other things! :) I will post more later on! Have a great day!

The Basement....continued....

So our basement is drying out. A local company came and tore out all of the padding and has placed fans underneath the carpet to dry it out. The carpet should be salvagable along with some of our furniture. However, we are going to have to get rid of quite a bit...our couches are still wet and with Chris and his allergies/asthma we aren't taking any chances with them. We also have some other pieces that are ruined...it really does make me cranky when I think about it but thankfully we have gotten a lot of help from friends and family and it has helped to keep me calm.

Greg and a friend cut the bottom of our drywall off last night...just above the baseboard. It was all damp and this is apparently the best way to dry it all out. So now we have to replace the drywall right behind the baseboard and the baseboard as well. This will probably happen after the carpet completely dries out and is put back down...the carpet will be put back down once the local company come back and cleans both sides of the carpet...I am really afraid that this is all going to take forever!

One thing that is making me cranky is the insurance part of it...small vent here! Apparently, homeowners doesn't cover your sump pump overflowing!!!! :( That's right...not a single penny. It is apparently a separate endorsement that we didn't have...the kicker of it all is that this endorsement would have cost us a nice low 47 dollars a year...that's right. That's all it would have taken to cover the damage downstairs. Unbelievable. Well, that mistake won't be made twice because we have now added that endorsement so that hopefully next time it will be covered...of course, now that we have the endorsement it probably won't ever happen again!!!! How frustrating! :(

So to sum everything up....our carpet is still damp, the walls are a mess, and everything that used to be in the basement is now in our garage and in Kate's room...what a mess...

Oh well...you live and you learn, right???? :)

Hope you are having a good one! I'm going to put Wyoming pictures in a separate post so be on the lookout! :)

Well, Darn....

Well, we are back from Wyoming and what a great trip it was! I have TONS of pictures and lots of things to tell but before I can focus on all of that...

We have a wet basement.

While we were gone, there was apparently a 30% chance of rain from Wednesday through Thursday night...well that 30% chance turned into 13.4 inches of rain!!!!

That's right...13.4 inches.

In 24 hours.

Needless to say, our sump pump couldn't keep up and we are left with a mess in our basement. One of our friends came over and shop vac'ed the whole basement and took out 300 gallons of water...when Greg and I got home at around 12:30 last night, we promptly went downstairs to survey the damage...the carpet is still soaked and as we walked on it to clear things out, the water continued to seep up from the pad. We worked until around 2:30 getting things out and we aren't even close to being done...

The basement has that fantastic wet smell that I simply cannot stand and a lot of things are going to have to be cleaned before going back in...it looks though as though the damage to the furniture might be minimal...I don't know though...we'll see once it comes out of there...

We aren't alone though...I know many people in our little town got hit hard by this 30% chance of rain...a local dam at a pond broke and blocked a main road in town, Truman's basketball courts and other various building had standing water, ATSU's library has to replace a lot of books, etc., and a lot of other people have water in their basements as well. No one around here is prepared to take on 13.4 inches of rain in that short of a time frame...

I will post some pictures later on...but please keep you fingers crossed for everyone in town....I hope that everyone can get things cleaned up and put back to normal soon!!!!

Thanks for stopping by! I will post some about Wyoming later on!!!!!

Hello from Wyoming! :)

We are here in Casper, Wyoming with friends and loving it!!!!  It is absolutely beautiful around here...the mountains, the antelope all over the place...everything.  I love it!  :)

We have done lots of things since we've been here and I'm going to be sad when we have to leave Saturday morning.  It has been great.  I can't wait until I can post some pictures for you all to see!  

Hope all everything is going well and I will be back on with some pictures later on!

Thanks for stopping by!

So Excited!!!!

We are leaving in just a little while for a trip to Wyoming!!!! I am so excited!!!! We are going with our great friends and it is going to be a great trip! I don't know exactly what's out there but we are going to visit Laramie, Sheridan, Story and Thermopolis!!! I can't wait!



I'm sure there will be plenty of pictures when we get back! Hope you have a safe week and we will be back soon!

So Tired...

I know parenting is hard. I've just been hitting a wall lately and I'm tired. My boys are good kids...I know that. They can be sweet, they can be loving, they can be kind...but lately they have been very difficult. At times I have a hard time keeping a straight face with them (which of course just makes the situation worse sometimes) but most times I'm completely straight faced and serious but it doesn't seem to make a difference.

I feel like I say "Talk quietly," "Use your inside voice," "No running!" over and over and over and it doesn't matter. I am embarrassed at times by what they do and I really worry when we are around family and friends.

I want to be a good mom and raise good, calm, sweet boys but I just feel like I've hit a brick wall lately. I really felt like I was on track...they were calm, they were well behaved and now we are at times just out of control. Someone said to me, "They are boys...that's what boys do!" But no...that's not what all boys do and it is definitely not what I want my boys doing. I don't want them running around pretending to have guns. I don't want them using LOUD voices inside. I don't want them running in a house. I don't want them throwing things around just because they feel like it. I don't want them to yell at each other at the top of their lungs just to get their point across.

I know this is a moment in time and that overall, my boys are great. They are boys with others' best intentions at heart (most of the time!) but at this moment in time...I'm tired. I'm tired of repeating myself, tired of feeling like I'm not making a difference in what they are doing.

Ok...I'm done venting now...I've been packing for our trip for a while now and it's just been floating around in my head...do I feel better? Who knows! But at least I know that my boys are loved and that no matter what...they will grow up to be sweet men who will treat others with respect and kindness...this is just a moment in time and if I work hard enough...it will pass! :)

Thanks for stopping by and I will post a more upbeat post tomorrow! :)

Getting Big Fast!!!!

Kate is getting so big so fast! She has started really "talking" up a storm! She loves to coo at anyone who will listen, she smiles all of the time now, and she has started giving some warning signs when she is starting to get upset about something. She is starting to grow out of just simply starting to cry...she seems to be doing this earlier than the boys did...I really noticed it yesterday. She was starting to get hungry and rather than just full out scream, she just started making some upset coos and chewing on her hand...the full on screaming didn't happen unless I wasn't fast enough! :)

I just can't believe that in a month I go back to school, Kate will be four months old already, Chris will be starting kindergarten and Daniel will only be a year away from preschool...man, how time flies!

Have a good one!

Chris lost his first tooth last night! :) He is beside himself!!!!! What makes it even better is that he says it didn't hurt and it didn't bleed!!!! :) So he left his tooth for the tooth fairy who did indeed come and visit him last night! So here are some pics of my little man:

Getting Chris to smile normally is a challenge on any given day but now with a missing tooth it seems to be even harder! :)

On another note, I FINALLY have my computer back...the down side is it isn't fixed...AT ALL! I'm quite cranky about it at the moment...especially since when I called customer support for where we took it all they told me was that I would have to take it back to the store...and the best part was that after a 10 minute conversation with 4 different people, the last person finally said, "Well, ma'am, you will have to take it back to the store because they didn't fix it right." WOW! I at the point just had to laugh! :)

So my computer will be making another trek somewhere to be fixed...hopefully right this time. I didn't think it would be that difficult since it's just that the dvd/cd drive doesn't work. I thought they could just install a new one and we'd be good to go but apparently it is more complicated than I thought...or maybe not...who knows!

So that is the good and bad of my morning so far! :) Hope you are having a good one!

St. Louis Zoo!!!!

So while we were in St. Louis last weekend, we took a trip to the Zoo with my parents, my sister and my brother! It was tons of fun! Here are some of my favorite pictures from that trip:

Awww! How cute!

Daniel could have stood there and watched the fish for hours! He loved them!!!!

Even Kate seemed to enjoy the zoo...although she slept for quite a bit of it! :)

The boys' favorite animals of the day...the elephants!

This picture was Chris's idea...future photographer???

I just thought this was the funniest thing. There are apparently two ducks living in the Puffin and Penguin exhibit (this is an indoor exhibit that is really COLD!). I managed to find this one but I never saw the other duck...

Here is the peacock!!!! My mom found them first!

It was a great trip and a wonderful way to spend the morning...I'm hoping we can go back soon and see all of the things we didn't get a chance to see this past time! The zoo is so big you really need a whole day to see it all...what great memories! I also have TONS more pictures but these were some of my favorites...maybe I will post more later on!

Have a good one!

Family Update!

So for my own record keeping, I've decided it might be a good idea every month or so to write an update on each of our family members.  This may be more for me than anyone else since my memory is so horrible (ask anyone who really knows me and they can vouch for that!)  Anyway, I've been looking back through our old scrapbooks lately and it has hit me how much we have all changed and how we change from month to month (more the kids than Greg and I!) so this is going to be a good way for me to remember how things are changing...so here it goes!

Kate is now 3 months old.  She has started smiling and cooing A LOT!!!!  Greg and I can just sit on the couch and talk to her forever (or until she has a yucky diaper which she cannot stand!!!!).  She is really tracking things with her eyes and really looks around for the voices she hears!  :)  She is friends with EVERYONE at this moment in time and will share her smiles with anyone who will hold her and talk to her!  :)

Daniel as I've said before...now loves stickers!  Thank goodness!!!!  He is also doing a great job with the potty training!  He now goes on a regular basis and has only had a few accidents...whew!   :)  He adores his daddy and is downstairs right now helping him encase a pole that has needed it for a long while!  Such a big man!  I have been getting a lot of comments lately about his hair...it definitely has a reddish cast to it and people comment on how cute it is and they ask whether or not his temper matches his hair.  To that I just say...depends on the moment and his mood!  :)  He is getting better about trying shoes on but it is sometimes still a real struggle...and let's just not talk about haircuts..I think I may just let his hair grow really long!!!!

Chris is ANXIOUS for kindergarten to start!  He has also been sporting a little bit of an attitude lately that we are really having to put a stop to...we aren't quite sure where it has come from or why but man can it be frustrating!  He has taken to not listening and being quite bossy.  Someone had made that comment about him about a year ago and I got really defensive and upset about it.  So upset I cried!!!  I never viewed him as being that way and I truly don't think that he was that way...but all of the sudden it's all he seems to know!!!!  If you have any suggestions on making it stop please let me know!!!!  On the flip side though he has really started wanting to help out around the house by loading the dishwasher, emptying the small trash cans around the house, and picking up toys in the living room.  Now if only I could focus that energy on his room!!!!  He is really picking up on reading and he STILL has that loose tooth (in fact he now has 2 of them!)...he's not so anxious for it to fall out though!   And as of today he has decided that peanut M&M's are his new favorite candy!  :)

All of the kids are getting along really well!  Chris and Daniel LOVE playing together and of course have their brotherly fights.  These don't last long though and they really have starting showing some compassion towards each other!

Greg has a birthday coming up and he will be turning the big 30!!!!  We will be traveling to Wyoming on his birthday and so I hope to make it special while we are on our way!  :)  He is still working in the web development department and doing some work on the side.  He is good at what he does and I pray that he always loves it!!!!  In fact, he just returned from some training in Salt Lake City where he refreshed his memory on old stuff and learned a bunch of new stuff!!!!  He is currently feeling ambitious and is trying to finish up some unfinished projects around the house (such as the pole in the basement!).   

Well, what to say about me...not much is really different here.  I am feeling a little lost at the moment.  I know what I've always wanted (a family, a house, friends, and great life) and I have everything I ever dreamed of but somewhere along the way I have become stuck.  I think the small town is getting to me at the moment and I don't know why because at the same time I can't imagine living anywhere else.  Much about me hasn't changed...I still tend to be a people pleaser, I hate confrontation, and I really hate when I make my family and friends upset and I over apologize all of the time for it!!!!  

But overall I'm happy.  I love my husband, my kids, my friends, my house, my job (although I am sad that school starts up again soon...I'm loving the time off!), and my life!  Like I said, there isn't anything else I could ever want (except for maybe a closer Target!)  :)  I have a loving, compassionate husband, kids I adore and want to experience everything with, the best friends a person could ask for, and a nice house that is perfect for us.  I am truly blessed (especially now that DQ has come out with a Thin Mint Blizzard!  Yum!!!).

Now that I'm done writing this I think I'm going to mainly do updates on the kiddos...I don't see Greg and I changing that much that often...they are our lives and when they change then we must adapt as well!  :)  Speaking of adapting...I must now adapt to the fact that Miss Kate has decided that long naps are not her cup of tea!!!!  :(  Someone just woke up from a 20 minute nap and has something to say about it!  :)

Thanks for stopping by!  I'm going to post some pictures later on!

Do you ever have days where you wonder..."What in the WORLD is going on???"

Well, today is one of those days.  I don't know if there is a full moon (I should google that!) or if it's going to storm unexpectedly, or what but today is just one of those days.

Kids getting hurt left and right, moods are just crazy, and I just sit here wondering...what in the world is going on????

But perhaps it is just my perception...I know that I'm not in the best mood at the moment so maybe it's just the way I'm seeing things.   But even as I'm typing this, both boys have bonked themselves somehow and the cat is meowing at something unseen in the other room...crazy.  Please keep your fingers crossed that things settle!  :)  Maybe I just need to get out of the house...hmmmm.

Finally!!!!

Some progress has been made with my little man who can be a stick in the mud about so many things!!!!  This past week Daniel played with stickers, wore bandaids and actually went to bed without Chris BY CHOICE!!!!  :)

Daniel used to hate anything sticky on one side...don't know why....BUT this past week he has started overcoming this craziness!  At dinner with friends and family on Thursday he was given some stickers and he LOVES them!  He even asked for more at Walmart today!!!!

As for going to bed without Chris...that has been the hardest thing for him.  He loves to go to bed and know that Chris is on his top bunk.  The last two nights Chris wanted to sleep downstairs with his Grandma and Grandad who were visiting.  Daniel decided that he didn't want to do that and so he CHOSE to sleep upstairs in his room on the floor!!!!  :)  I love that he finds security in his older brother but it's also nice to know that going to bed at night can now happen without putting them both to bed at exactly the same time!  

On another note, we picked up Chris's school supply list while at Walmart (he saw them and just had to have it...although I think it is lost now!)...anyway, I was reading him the list because he was curious and he needs to take 20 glue sticks!!!!  The funniest part is that there are parenthesis behind this item and it stated that this was indeed not a typo!!!!!  I can only imagine how many glue sticks a kindergarten classroom goes through in a year!!!  I just had to laugh at the comment on the school supply list though and it was too funny not to share!

Hope all is going well and stop by anytime!

Lots of Pictures!!!!

Here are the pictures from their sitting on Saturday!!!! :) The pictures were cropped before they were printed but they aren't stored on the CD that way...a little frustrating but oh well! Enjoy!

This picture we actually got printed in black and white! :)

The brothers!

A big smile!

This picture was more cropped in than it appears here...but a big girl with a big smile!

My smiley man!

This picture was also cropped! But what a big boy!!!!

My three kiddos! :)

Greg and I decided to get in on the fun...we haven't had a picture taken of just the two of us professionally since we got married! Oh man! So here we are!

Our new family portrait!

Thanks for stopping by! I'm off to wash some bottles - the fun never ends! :) Have a good one!

Dinosaurs!

The St. Louis Zoo has this great exhibit right now on dinosaurs! While we were there we of course had to go check it out! :) The boys loved it!!!! I was worried that Daniel would be a little frightened of them but he loved them! He wanted to go up and touch them (there were close to life sized - we think - and they were animated!). A guy was in the exhibit showing real fossils and bones, etc. and the boys just stood there and listened to him talk for quite a while!

Well, what they saw must have really stuck with both of them because last night after we got home and settled, both boys were looking outside for dinosaurs!!!! Daniel really wanted to see the spiky one and he kept asking "Where the dinosaurs?" and Chris was just happily playing along and trying to convince Daniel that the trees were dinosaurs which of course Daniel doesn't get that kind of playing yet and so he kept getting mad at Chris! :) It was actually very cute! :) Someday really soon I"m sure there will be dinosaurs all over our house once Daniel gets what it menas to really pretend! :)

Speaking of dinosaurs, I'm posting this from my dinosaur of a computer. Like I said, my computer is out of commission for who knows how long so I'm back on my old HP. Fantastic. I'm going to try the picture thing later on but this runs so slow I'm thinking it might take forever to upload a pic! :) But I will give it a good old college try a little later on!

Have a great day!

FYI!!!!  My mom found the peacocks first today!  

I will put up a pictures of these later on...once I hopefully get my computer back.  I'm not sure how long that will be since they have to send it in to fix the cd/dvd drive.  

So because of this minor detail, posting will be sporadic for now...keep your fingers crossed that they get it fixed and sent back before Greg flies back into St. Louis at the end of this week...that way he can bring it home with him!  :)

So anyway, see you around soon!

Technical Difficulties!

Well, I have the pictures on the CD from our session yesterday....and I have the MacBook sitting right here (it's what I'm typing from!) but apparently I'm having technical difficulties with getting the pictures from the CD to the blog!!!!  The MacBook is not at all what I'm used to and I'm just getting frustrated at the situation!  So I"m going to move onto other things and hopefully I can use another computer to get the pictures up soon!

On a different note, we are headed to the zoo today!!!!  I can't wait!  The St. Louis Zoo is my favorite zoo (of course I haven't been to too many but that's ok!).  We are going to take the kids to see animatronic dinosaurs, baby elephants (Daniel won't stop talking about them!), giraffes, the Children's Zoo, and much more!

The zoo holds so many great memories for me from when I was growing up!  Although it has really changed over the years, parts of it are still the same and I just remember how much fun we used to have there....how amazing it was to see these animals that you have just read about.  I love the zoo and I can't wait to share that with my kids!  :)

One of my favorite memories is about the peacocks that live at the zoo.  See, the peacocks just roam around....they aren't in any one area.  My brothers and I used to have this competition as to who could find the peacocks first!  :)  It was always great fun!  I plan on trying that with my boys today!  I usually wasn't the first because I would forget to look for them...but it was fun anyway!

Well, hopefully I can get some pictures up today...I'm going to quit promising that I will get them up because that never seems to happen on time...but what I will promise is that eventually they will be there!  :)  I'm going to try my sister's computer later on today!  Consider it a surprise....you just never know when they will pop up!   Have a great day!

Happy Fifth of July!

I've decided this should also be a holiday to recover from the actual holiday! :)

Anyway, the pictures of the kiddos in their outfits may not happen until tomorrow (as in Sunday!)...It is currently 12:30 in the morning of the fifth and Greg and I are furiously trying to get everything packed and ready to go to St. Louis. I am still amazed at the amount of stuff it takes to get us out the door!

We are having our pictures taken later on today (10:3o to be exact!) and so be on the lookout for those! The kids are actually going to wear their outfits from the Fourth (part of the reason we are up so late...they are in the wash!) for one of the sets of pictures so you will get to see them in a more staged (is that the word I want to use?) setting!

My computer is actually going into Best Buy to be fixed (hopefully quickly!) because the CD/DVD drive doesn't work right and hasn't for some time...I'm planning on using Greg's computer to upload the pictures, etc...but it might take a little while as I'm not completely up on my MacBook protocol! :)

I hope everyone had a wonderful and safe Fourth of July! I'm personally very sad that it is over but am really looking forward to the next couple of weeks! Lots to do and see so that will mean more posts for you! :)

Our Fourth of July was great...we had friends over for dinner and fireworks. It was nice and relaxing to just eat, talk and play around! :) On top of it all it was BEAUTIFUL weather! I think the high got up to around 80...it was gorgeous! What a wonderful day!!!!

Well, please check back later on for the pictures taken by a professional!!! Please keep your fingers crossed that everything works out ok and that we get some great pictures of the kids!

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!!!!

Have a wonderful and safe Fourth of July!!!!!  I hope your day is filled with fun and celebration!!!

As for us, we are going to clean, play outside, and tonight we are having friends over for a BBQ, fun and fireworks!!!  We can see the city fireworks from our backyard and we also have our own to set off!!!!  I love the Fourth of July!  And what makes this year even better is that it is beautiful outside!  :)  The high today is a wonderful 78 degrees!!!!!  LOVE IT!

Have a fantastic day and I will be on a little later to post pictures of the kids...one of our traditions is to dress everyone in red, white and blue...Kate is the only one dressed so far and she is ADORABLE if I do say so myself!  :)  Anyway, be on the lookout for that!  

Thanks for stopping by!

Yesterday afternoon while in the car Daniel did the funniest thing! :)

We were on our way home from Kansas City and he had his aquadoodle and the water pen that goes with it and was just sitting in the backseat coloring...or so I thought! He was laughing uncontrollably at one point and so I glanced behind me to see what was so funny (and praying tha he wasn't doing anything to Kate!) when I saw him coloring on his aquadoodle....

With the pen between his toes!!!!! :)

It was absolutely hilarious! He was even testing out which foot worked best and between which toes was the best! He was just cracking himself (and me) up! I did get a couple of pictures on my phone very quickly but I think they are really blurry. If they turned out at all I will post them later on!

So there you go...Daniel testing the limits of what is possible yet again! The things the little man will do still amaze me! :)

Have a great day!

Only two more days until the Fourth of July! I can't wait! We have set off some fireworks and hung out outside recently in preparation of this fantastic day! We are planning on having friends over, eating wonderful BBQ'd food, watching the city fireworks and setting off our own fireworks. Ahhh...summertime! :)

Chris had his last day of summer school today. He was very sad to not be going back tomorrow and yet thrilled because he could stay up late tonight and watch a movie! :) Of course at this moment we are only 45 minutes into the movie and he is OUT! :) Many days of no nap is catching up with him! :)

Thanks for stopping by and checking up on us!

Last night we had a picnic at Thousand Hills State Park. We had a great time and it was absolutely beautiful! :) The boys had fun eating outside on the blanket, watching the ducks and just hanging out!

I will write more later on...I'm in a little bit of a rush this morning. I'm headed down to Columbia to meet my mom and sister so that my sister can come back up to Kirksville with me...I need to make it down there and back in time to pick Chris up from summer school. He only has 2 days to go!!!! :)

Here are some pictures and I will write more later on! Enjoy!

The boys looking out at the lake.

My three kiddos! :)
Daddy and Kate.

Mommy and her kiddos.

A big grin from Kate! :)

Thanks for stopping by!