Lovin' the sledding hill!

The kids went out to the back side of the pond to so some sledding today!  Neighbor Evan joined them!  They had a blast.  I think that they were out there for over 2 hours!  Why, oh why, didn't we think of this earlier this winter!?

 Neighbor Evan getting a face full of snow!

Reese n me!

Rarely am I ever in photos.  You moms know why...I am almost ALWAYs the one behind the camera.  I love taking photos and it is almost always of the kids - our kids, neighbor kids who are playing with our kids, nieces, nephews...

Someday I want be able to show my kids I did exist!  :)  Dave took the camera tonight and took a few photos.  I am in a few of them.  One is a close-up...I need to finish that Crest Whitening Kit I bought a while back and only used like 3 or 4 of the strips!  Time to whiten up those teeth!

 Not a bad photo of me...can't see all the wrinkles...just really close-up!

The girls were playing "Ring around the POSY" tonight.  They just love this "game."  It makes me dizzy just watching them!  And it just makes them GIGGLE like crazy!

YUCK...when is this thing going to go away!?

I think that it was back around Thanksgiving that Dawson ended up at the clinic with a sore throat.  The kids quick brought up that they both had warts...Dawson's on his foot  (2 - one on his heal and one on his toe) and Kendall had one on her hand.  The PA looked at them both quick and said, "you,  those are both warts.  Go ahead and treat them with some wart stuff."  Alrighty!  Well, I have to admit that we have not been very good about putting the stuff on every night, maybe every other or every 3-4 nights.  The one on Dawson's heal went away rather fast.  But, this one on his toe seriously will just not LEAVE.  The night after I took this photo, it actually fell off, but it is still there.  Guess it is like a double-layer wart and Compound-W is earning their $ from us!  We keep teasing Dawson about it a little but here's to hoping it goes away soon!

Homework with Daddy!

The only "homework" that Dawson has in Kindergarten this year is a weekly letter packet.  Every week the different letter that they are working on for the week they have to think of 4 different things that start with that letter and either draw, cut out from a magazine/paper, etc and put in it the ALPHABET book.  Daddy was helping Dawson on this particular night...so, I thought I would snap a few quick photos!

Love to see them working on it together!  Mostly Dawson can do it on his own, but I think that this was a little bit "harder" of a letter to think of different things to write & draw!

Where's Reese?

Because the girls share a bedroom, for the past 2 years, Kendall has had to go to sleep in our room then we transfer her to their room before we go to bed.  This thing with getting Reese to sleep in her toddler bed, has been, to say the least...FRUSTRATING.  None of the other 3 were like this.  Guess that is part of the "no 2 kids are the same mentality!"  She just really has not napped well or slept well since we took down that darn crib!  If only she had not been climbling on it and out of it!
I went to check on her tonight and this is what I saw...

a completely empty bed.  Quick glance over to Kendall's bed and this is what I saw...

She moved EVERYTHING.  Pillow, blankets, animals, you name it!  It was on Kendall's bed.  Normally I would have just left her but I did not want Kendall to get hurt in the middle of the night if she got up to use the bathroom and was in Reese's bed!

Argh...can't figure this camera out!

I have watched the videos that came with my camera and I think that I have come to the conculsion that I just need an addition flash, an external one that I can add on.  Most of these gyms that the boys play in do not have any natural light and I just don't think that I am getting enough light from the gym lights.  So, I guess that will be added on to the list of things to buy...at some point!  So, for now, some good pictures, some bad pictures (mostly, I can take like 400 photos and probably at least 3/4 of them are deleted at home!), and some bad pictures that are sort of cool though blurry!

Saturday's game!  Another win!

 At least you can see Carter in this photo...the rest are a blur!  Good try Carter! 

 At the beginning of each quarter, they have to match-up with a player from the other team.  They can only play man-to-man defense at this age. 

Sunday's game - another win for the Globetrotters!

 Carter with some AIR!

 Ben was on FIRE this game with his freethrows.  I had never seen him get fouled so many times and make so many of them!  Go Ben!  See the ball in the net!?

Grace is ELEVEN!

Our niece, Grace (formerly known as Gracie, but mostly now we hear her called GRACE...guess that is a sign of growing up!) turned 11 today!  I remember back when she was born - Dave and I had been dating about 6 months... we went up shortly after she was born to visit her!  She and Carter are about 1.5 years apart!

We love you Grace!  We hope you had a wonderful day!

Not quite sure how old she is in this photo (Dave's sister used to send him photos occassionally of her) but I would say that she is 3-4 months old at the most!

Now here she is (with Kendall)!  Almost a teenager!  Watch out Auntie Dawn & Uncle Todd!

A quick little photo shoot!

I have wanted to get some photos of the kids, along with Dave & I since last fall.  But, we just did not get it to work out.  So, I decided to have a friend just take some quick photos of the kids for Dave - a little Valentine's present.  Carter did not want to be there (& he really needed a haircut) so you can tell on his face that he is like "let's get this done with!"  Dawson was cooperative though he was semi-following Carter in the tone of "let's get this done with" ya know Monkey See, Monkey Do!  the girls were "hams" and could have had Wendy take their picture all day long!  I snuck in a few photos so that my kids actually have a few of me...with them!  One that is NOT a self-portrait!

Since Dave is a PACKER-BACKER, I had the kids wear their Packer garb and let Carter choose which side of the border he wanted to be on...guess him and I will be on this side of the border! 

Great Defense!

The 3 boys, along with Carter, that were on Dave's basketball team have all come such a long way.  Sure you will probably get tired of hearing of this, but they really have.  They really seem to enjoy playing and have become quite the group of kids to watch.  Guess they had a really SUPER coach last year that started them off right!  I mean, who would have thought that they would actually think that "running plays" really DOES work!?

I have figured out how to take consectutive shots with the camera.  Though many of them are still blurry (gotta watch that video on my camera one of these days!) I have gotten some great shots of the boys!

This is Dylan.  I love this shot of him.  It cracked me up when I saw it.  This boy is all about DEFENSE.  And, he has become quite the defensive player!

And, Ben!  He is LOVING blocking shots this year!  He can get some serious AIRTIME!

And, Carter!  He is loving driving the lane this year!  He has made quite a few baskets doing this move.  Last year he HATED it!

They won this game again today!  Wahoo!

This girl...is driving me nuts...but I love her to pieces!

We really have been struggling on this rollercoaster with Reese and taking naps since we took down the crib.  Guess we should have just built up the sides of the crib higher so that she would not have been able to climb out.  But, she gets out of bed, plays with toys, reads books and so on.  Well today is a first.  I found her on the floor (that is not a FIRST) but what she was wearing was a FIRST!  I have heard of people putting their kids to bed in their clothes so that they are ready for the next day...but...

 Love these shoes!  Kendall wore them when she was about this age but they did not get worn too much, so they are in pretty good shape.  We had just dug them out of the "new clothes bucket" for Reese so I guess she was really wanting to wear them!

 Love this sleeping beauty!

Black & White Day!

So, today at Kendall's school was the color black day.  She wanted help picking out something that was black.  While I have A LOT of clothes that are black, Kendall is limited on what she has that is black.  But we were able to pull this cute outfit together.   As she is standing in the bathroom admiring how cute she looks she tells me "that is just how a girl is!"  Seriously, how do they come with with these quotes?  It sure was cute!

Stop watching the TV for 2 seconds and look at me!

Not quite the one...

It is that time again, this time with my little sister, to go look for the dress that is "the one!"  I have gone in the past with Jamie (though she had already found "the one" when we went out looking she just thought she needed to look a little more!), with Jen (she knew what she wanted when we went looking and she found it!) and now with Heather.

We went to the Wedding Shoppe on Grand Ave, where I got my dress.  The appointment was really a disappointment - we did not get to look through the dresses.  The girl that was helping us was picking out dresses based on what Heather was telling her she thought she wanted.  This was a big disappointment to all of us.  Seriously, no digging through all those dresses.  :(

She looked so pretty in some of them, but you could just tell that they were quite the one.  Plus, it really was hard to justify, maybe the "one" was out there, we just did not get to find it.  So, we left the Wedding Shoppe with Heather putting a few gowns on the list of "maybes." 

Jamie and I went to another dress shop in Blaine with her one day... a few more that possibilities... but still hesitation (especially at the price of these 2!).  This 2nd photo was one that she tried on at the wedding shoppe, too, but she just wasn't sure!

She went on to go to a shoppe in Maplewood (and found one that was sooo pretty on her, but she wasn't quite sure) and then went to a shoppe in Stillwater.  Her mind was on that one in Maplewood and that one went on to become the "one."  Stay tuned in the future October 12th to be exact for the dress reveal!  It is so pretty!

The Phone is broke

Today Carter's friend, David called wanting to see if Carter could "hang out at his house today for a while."  Yes, HANG OUT...that is because they don't get together anymore to "play."  I remember that age.  Anyway we were just about to eat so Carter told David that he would give him a call back after we were done eating.  But after lunch we forgot that we had to run to Michael's to get some craft stuff for a project that Carter needed to start on.  So, Carter was going to call David back to let him know that he was not going to be able to hang out. 

~ Carter picks up phone and scrolls to David's #

~ Carter pushes the CALL button

~ Carter looks at me with this puzzled look and tells me that there is something wrong with the phone.  It is making a BEEPING noise

~ I pick up phone, push call button, and hear the BUSY tone.  In all these years of talking on the phone he has NEVER heard a BUSY signal I guess!

Dave and I were cracking up and Carter was like "how was I supposed to know?"  We said that I guess in this day & age he probably wouldn't know that sound.  With all the call waiting, cell phones and so on.  Who really hears that sound anymore?  None-the-less it made Dave and I laugh and Carter learned what a busy signal is!  Probably one of the only times he will hear that sound!

If only they knew...