watermelon smiles!

Last summer a gal that I used to work with at the cancer center took some photos of her kids with BIG slices of watermelon.  They were so adorable so I had to do it this year with the kiddos...we should have sat outside so that don't have to see all the "stuff" in our house!

The kids had a blast eating the big pieces!  It sure was a juicy watermelon - you can see the drips down their chins.  A good way to end the summer!

Carter is TWELVE!

Where have 12 years gone?  I cannot believe that he is 12 already.  He will be in middle school this year.  Sixth grade! 
Things about CArter:

• He loves baseball, pitching mostly!
• He played basketball for the first time last year and is excited for the season to start again in December this year!
• He is an excellent reader.  He is currently on the last book in the Harry Potter series.  He also likes a series by Rick Riordan (writer of Percy Jackson) - i originally bought him the first book in this series because the main characters are CARTER and SADIE (our old dogs name).
• loves to ride his bike, especially since he can ride down to Casey's with his friends
• loves watching sports on TV (he is mostly a packer fan except when the vikings play the packers then he cheers on the vikes!)
• he likes having his hair a little longer...and did not like it back in February when the gal at Great Clips practially sahved his head when he only asked for a TRIM!  Thank goodness Auntie Heather is a hair-professional and he will never go to great clips to have his hair cut again!
• he loves his brother and sisters
• he wants to start to babysit...maybe next year?
• he can't stand when Dawson leaves a mess in their room
• he likes to help me cook - and wants to do it mostly by himself with a little assistance from me!
• gets paid $3 to mow the lawn
• can't stand snoring (I mean, who can!?)
• likes music - he desperately wants an iTouch but his mom (and Dave) think otherwise so for now his Sansa MP3 player will do
• likes most foods!
• one of his best friends is BEN!  they are like peas in a pod some days!

you were only a few days old in the picture - maybe a week!  It is one of my FAVORITE pictures of you!

Happy Birthday to you!  Thanks for bringing lots of joy to our lives! 

Probably the last day at the beach for 2012

One of the last days before school starts and the kids were itching to get out of the house and do something.  It also happened to be Carter's 12th birthday!  So, we packed up and headed to Rice Creek Chain of Lakes in Centerville.  We have not been to the beach in a year, maybe two and the last time it was a little "murky" since it was the end of the season then, too!  But, we took a chance as long as there was no reports of swimmer's itch!

The kids had a blast.  I packed up a picnic lunch so the kids played and ate when they were hungry.  Dawson was so busy playing that he did not eat until we got in the car!  There was a lot of playing in the sand, splashing in the water and just plain old fun at the beach!  We even met another DAWSON while we were there (i thought I had heard someone else "DAWSON" but thought maybe they said AUSTIN?  A little while later I called for DAWSON and a boy came up to me and said "hey, how do you know my name!?")

MN Zoo and DINOSAUR Exhibit

I wasn't planning on going to the MN Zoo this summer (gets a little spendy with 4 kids - last time at 1/2 off due to our membership at the Como Zoo it still cost $36 & Reese is still free & Dave was not with us!) but once the kids saw that there were DINOSAURS at the zoo, they HAD to see them especially the boys!

We met Uncle Drew, Auntie Jamie, Boston and Cooper out there.  Thanks to Auntie Jamie, we got in for only $20 this time.  She had some free coupons so all we had to pay for was parking and the DINOSAUR exhibit.  It was a warm day, though not quite as warm, or should I say HOT, as it has been lately.  First thing we did was head to the dinosaurs. 

 This Dinosaur was the first that you saw and he spit at you!  The kids loved it and it felt good on this warm day!

 Auntie Jamie posing with all the kids!  Too bad I sort of cut off the dinosaur in the background!

 There were a few "misters" on the path right in the beginning.  It felt really nice to cool off in those things.  I think that Kendall and Boston were the ones that played in it the most - the rest wanted to go and see the dinosaurs.

 I love this photo of Kendall, Cooper and Reese - the fact that you can see the sharks eyes glowing!  Kendall was excitedly pointing out "the shark, the shark!"

 While the penguin is not my favorite animal (the orangutan's are!) i LOVE watching the kids watching the penguins.  This time the penguins were being "hams" and swimming right in front of the kids, bouncing up and down almost as if they were following the kids hands!  REESE was loving it!

 This wall is crazy cool, it wasn't working the last time we were out here so the kids were excited to be able to make the fish "move!"

 We used to love to go to Como Zoo to see the butterfly exhibit that they did in the summer.  But since they haven't had it for a few years, it was fun to see it at the MN Zoo.  No butterflies landed on the kids but it still was fun too see all the different kinds flying around.  Too bad they only live a few weeks.

 All-in-all it was a fun day.  I am surprised that Reese was the only one that fell asleep.  The other kids were close, even Carter and Teagan!

Another wild and crazy party!

Today was the boy's birthday party - Carter is celebrating his 12th and Dawson his 6th!  Where has time gone?  Seems like not too long ago Carter was just a baby, then he was almost 6 when we had Dawson... now Dawson is 6.  Time really does fly.

We had the typical party goers - minus a few.  :(  Dawson sure missed his buddy Tynan and we missed cousins & Aunt & Uncle from WI and Auntie Jen {feeling under the weather :) }and Uncle Joe (darn fantasy football).  Sure glad that we had nice weather this year.  The last few have not been the best weather wise. 

We had some dinner - pulled turkey and beef on buns, fruit, chips & mexican caviar (so yummy but I only make for parties as it makes a ton), pasta salad, cupcakes, cake, ice cream.  Then it was on to presents, and then cake & ice cream.

Dawson and his buddy Will!  So happy to have gotten some new Legos - one of his favorite things to play with (Carter LOVES Legos, too).  Carter's new "ride!"

 My feeble attempt at a lego cake!  You can't tell too good from this photos, but it was.  I love PINTREST for ideas.  The only thing so hard about making your own cake is getting those darn primary colors to look like primary colors!  I just cut a 9x13 pan in 3 strips, then cut one of those pieces in 2 and then stacked them.  For the knobs on the top, I took the advice of someone and cut big marshmallows in half!  Cute idea but I need a little practice on it!

I have to remember to take a photo of the boys WITHOUT all the stuff in the background!  I seem to recall that most years, this is how my photos turn out.  Also, I need to remember to take just a photo of the food and the cake.  I love to see the "spread" when everything is out!  It always looks so yummy!  And, this particular year, mom chose not to bring her camera (we would find out at a later date why!). 

Carter and Teagan spent a few during the day filling up some water balloons!  Oh, what fun they had for about 10 minutes!  And, most of the balloons were popping on the ground after they bounced off someone.  Finally they figured out that if you threw them on the ground they would splash up at someone.  Not sure if we should have filled them fuller or if they were just not good water balloons!  Uncle Tommy even got involved in the water action.  The kids had a blast!

 Can you tell that Kendall was not too happy that the water balloons were all gone!

 The little kids had a blast playing in the cooler filled with water!

 Whoops!  She wasn't too happy when she got dumped on!

All-in-all it was another fun-filled, crazy day.  The kids love it.  So, on it goes!  Until next May when we celebrate a few more birthdays...or April, when we celebrate another month filled with LOTS of birthdays!

Date Night!

Dave bought me tickets to go to Blake Shelton at the MN State Fair.  I have not been to a concert there in quite some time.  Of course, I took some photos with his iPhone, now I need to get them from him so that I can post them on here.  I also forgot to get a photo of him and I at the concert!  Seriously, I am always taking pictures of the kids when we are out and about, but I never get one of us when we are out and about.  Guess I should have gotten that iPhone!

The concert was good!  It is too bad that I fell down the stairs at home today so I was limping a little - not the best thing to be doing walking around the fair.  Sometimes I try and multi-task too much and I guess that falling down the stairs is a good reason to not try to so much!  I really tried to catch myself as I was so grately falling down 2-3 stairs that I landed on one foot with my toes bent under and all my weight on that foot.  Goodness sakes, it took all I could to not say a naughty word or 2!

We met up with someone that Dave shoots trap with on Tuesday nights!  This will be like the only time I meet him since no "girls" are allowed at trap, well, except for Kendall!

AFter the concert we headed to Tom Reid's for Andrew's SURPRISE 30th birthday party! 

What a date night - by the time we got home it was after 1:30AM - time to get the sitters home and crash!

It's been too long!

I started off so strong on this blog, then I slowly puttered out.  Not that I have not wanted to blog, just have been too busy or have just forgotten!  Plain and simple.  No denying that!
Anyways, I am back at it.  I have too many things to blog about so like they always say "start with the earliest and catch up!"  I sure do have lots of catching up to do but it is all going to be backwards!

Day 5 - final night!

Another day of "relaxing"... wait, there is not much relaxing going on when there are 4 kids around that want to do something "fun!"  If not, then they are BORED!

It rained a little at night so our final bonfire was delayed and shortened, but that is ok.  There were 3 other nights of them!

They were swinging so nicely on the swing.  I love when I see them being so sister-ly.  I hope that they will always be so close.

 Kendall has been wanting to go down the slide the whole time we have been up here.  She has crawled up a few times but has always ended up climbing back down.  This time she finally went and was crying as Carter helped her off the slide.  The water wasn't that deep there but I think she panicked a little thinking she couldn't touch.  Thank goodness for BIG brothers!

 I LOVE this photo of Dawson!  Probably one of my best photos I took on this vacation -out of the 500 or so that I took in 5 days (i had to go to Brainerd on tuesday to get some batteries - i went through 8 AA batteries and 2 rechargeables that I could not find my charger for since I normally put it on a docking station).

 Look at this...another photo of me!  Too bad it is just my legs and feet.  Man, sure wish they would get a little sun like my arms have.

Kendall crashed on the couch - she was so tired from the vacation. 

Day 4 @ Auger's and DAWSON'S 6th Birthday!

Happy birthday to our little man, Dawson!  I cannot believe that he is 6 today and that soon he will be in Kindergarten!  Just think, 6 years ago, I was FAR away from a resort, on this day we were at "Camp United Hospital."  We did not know if Dawson was a boy or a girl, so when we called family, we told them everyone was wonderful - they had to come down to the hospital to find out if it was a boy or a girl.  Nana brought Carter down and I remember when we asked him if he had a brother or a sister.  He could not figure it out.  We told him to look at the color of the hat on the baby - did he know now?  He still did not.  So, we had to let him in on a little secret that he had a baby brother!  AT that point he proceeded to ask how we knew it was a boy and not a girl.  It is funny how you forget those simple things that we just "assume" and remember that as kids, they don't know those "rules."

We celebrated the day by letting Dawson open a present - a cool remote controled race car, some lego figurines, and a beach towel - and then the usual day of fishing and swimming / playing in the sand.  Later in the evening Dawson got to try out his remote control car!  Reese and Kendall sure giggled as it raced around and tried to get them!

 I LOVE waking up in the morning and hearing the loons.  Something about that sound.  There were 4 loons hanging around the lodge area, you would see them multiple times throughout the day.  There were 2 adults and 2 juviniles.  I loved to sit and watch them and attempt to take photos.  The bottom 2 are the best ones that I got.  My camera just doesn't have enough "umph" to zoom out on them. 

 Daddy took the boys out at night (and in the morning) and these are 2 of the fish that Carter caught.  They were nice bass.  He was SUPER excited about it.  Dawson caught a few small bass and some sunfish - pumpkin seeds, I guess (I learned that those are sunnies that are bright orange on the bottom, hence they look like pumpkin seeds!).  All-in-all, a wonderful day!