Per Your Request

I actually got some comments on my blog!!!!! Wooo Hooo!!! From people who don't normally comment WOOOOO HOOOOO!! (Not that I don't love getting the comments from my MIL and SIL's - but a girl can get a little bit of a complex seeing all the people that check in on her blog yet no one wants to say anthing....) SO, that I got an actual comment/ request (from, yes, two more family members.) I must be sure to oblige!

Trying to catch them saying "Slobby Hobby" is a little (ok, a lot) like "trying to catch lightning in a bottle..." But I tried. John knows that he doesn't say it right, therefore the hesitation on his part.

Enjoy!

Slobby Hub Hobby

A little background information:
Sweet MIL has been taking one kid at a time on Tuesday afternoons to have some special Grandma time. Somehow my children equate "special time" with "special money being spent - time" but thankfully, my MIL is a sweet sweet woman and indulges them. Anyway, yesterday was John's turn and his Grandma took him to the Hub Hobby. A MECCA of boy toys. John was thrilled to receive to cars that you can take apart and put back together. When he got home he couldn't wait to tell us all about his adventures.

John: " Sofie! Grandma took me to the Slobby Hobby and bought me some CARS!!!"
Mike: "John, it's not the Slobby Hobby, it's the Hub Hobby"
John: "Oh... Sofie, Grandma took me to the same store she took Daddy when he was a boy, the Hub Slobby Hobby..."

Oh dear, I have no idea why he thinks the word Slobby is in the name of the store, but Mike and I frequently corrected him last night and by the end of the night he was indeed saying "Hub Hobby"

But then this morning:

John: " Sofie, when we grow big (and find spouses), lets take OUR kids to the Hobby Slobby!"
Sofie: " Ok, but you have to have kids first BEFORE you can take them to the Slobby Hobby... Hobby Slobby Hub..."

Oh, for Pete's Sake! (As Lilia would say....)

Ya Gotta Kiss a lot of Frogs to find your Prince

Photographing children isn't so much an art form, (for me) as a study in persistence. I take A LOT of photo's hoping to catch at least one that looks half way decent. But as I was sitting here looking at the pictures I've taken. I was laughing at the pictures that I had deemed "sub-par" more than the ones that were "usable"! So I thought I would share. :)

Remember our recent trip to the Zoo? Cute kids with sweet faces...
I give you cute kids, funny faces!Or how 'bout back in "the day" (ya know, a year ago) I had a cute Before and After post of Lilia...I just neglected to show you the Middle of those Before and After shots.

Remember this post? Sofie was smiling so nicely for the camera...
Not so much here... I truly don't know why she had this look on her face. This isn't her mad face. I've seen her upset and this isn't it. Maybe it's a "I'm in pain!" face? Or a "this place smells like a farm!" face? I have no idea.

And lastly, we all got such amusement out of this photo:
Little did you know I had this gem in my massive picture library as well...

A Little of This and a Little of That...

Here are some random shots of our day today. I love these days where we are home all day long and just go from one random activity to another. There's no rush on any of it. Just a day of kids being kids, babies being babies and Mommies... well Mommy's making sure nobody gets too hurt. :)

Caleb is an official thumb sucker now! He's so sweet. At 4 months old he isn't even crying when I lay him down for a nap. He just rolls over and starts sucking on his thumb. Actually, for his afternoon nap he DID start crying when I laid him down and wouldn't quit. I realized later that he has a little sore on his thumb!!! Poor boy! His thumb needs to get toughened in quick. Pretty soon he'll have a big ole' callous like his big brother.Sofie, being my creative child, wanted to make a necklace for herself today. So she found a bit of ribbon and threaded some buttons on to the ribbon. I was very impressed! It was a fat ribbon and the buttons had tiny holes. (We did have the conversation about being very careful when tying things around one's own neck...)Mike has been busy digging out all the ugly rock in the front of our house. John has been his faithful side-kick for the entire project so far. John took it upon himself today to start in adding the steaks to the ground...
Lilia is a fun mixture of wanting to be just like her Sissy (ergo the oversized blue skirt of Sofie's) and independently doing what-ever it is that she wants to do. I love how she can play, with Nuk in hand. Somehow the Nuk always stays aloft.
Lastly if anyone was tempted to maybe go camping with us, but thought Hayward, WI sounded to far away. I'm sure we could probably be convinced to camp closer, like Baker Park Preserve .... :)

The End of an Era!

Last night was John's closing program for Awana Cubbies. He was so excited. Being the second child he know all about what he gets to do NEXT and can't wait to do it. The end of Cubbies means that he will be in Sparks next year. The 1st things he asked me this morning was, "Momma, am I a Sparky now?!" What a gem! It's hard for him to wrap his brain around the fact that he won't be able to start until next fall. It seems like a lifetime away for him right now!

Anyway, last night was the closing program. They did it a little differently this year. It was outside...brrr... and there was an ice cream social afterwards... outside... double brrrrr..... The kids loved it, though, and all had a great time. (till, ya know, they finished thier ice cream, and their lips were turning a little blue, and they tried to bury themselves in hugs to find a little warmth :) )So an end to another era. John has finished Cubbies! Lilia will be starting up next year. Pretty soon Caleb will be donning the blue and red vest! This time truly goes by SO fast.

The 1st Camping Trip of the Year!!

I can literally feel my step getting lighter and my mood lifting in anticipation of another camping season at hand! We are going to start our season May 8th-10th this year. We always like to do at least one trip before Memorial Day.

Anyway, to all you local family and friends... do you want to join us?!?!!? We are going to Hayward, WI (it's closer than you think) there is a KOA Campground that is offering a FREE nights stay that weekend! So whether you're in a tent, pop-up or travel trailer we'd love some company!!!!

Below is the link to the campgrounds website. I haven't made any reservations yet. If you would like to join us, please either leave a comment at the bottom of this post with your email address, or just email me personally, (or call, write, send up a smoke signal, you know, whatever... :) )

http://www.koa.com/where/wi/49146/

My Fair Maiden

I got SUCH a good chuckle when I down-loaded my pictures from the Zoo. I had just been randomly snapping shots, hoping that I would get some good ones. I didn't really see what I had taken a picture of until I saw it on my computer.

I call this one, "Why so melancholy my fair maiden?" I think a whole fairy tale could be inspired by this photo! :) I guess a picture really can say a thousand words. :)

A Day at the Zoo

Blogging in the winter is hard. The days start to meld together and it feels like nothing noteworthy is going on. And that's true to an extent.

Nothing immediately dramatic is happening, but what is happening is all important. I'm laying a foundation for our children that will be REALLY dramatic in a few (or more) years down the road. Hopefully I'm dramatically molding their hearts and minds to swim against this world's sin, to have a reason and a hope to trust in Jesus and dramatically live their lives for Him.

But today we got to do something noteworthy. We drove ourselves way across town and visited the free zoo. It was just a perfect day. My sister-in-law and my niece came with and Mel was a great tour guide for the kids. She read them all the signs and answered their questions. The kids also enjoyed spending time with their cousin. They just adore that little girl. There were plenty of animals to see and plants to look at. The weather was just perfect, inside and out. It was a perfect Zoo day.

And the Winner Is.....!

This is probably a pure Grandma post. Meaning that I don't know if anyone except our mothers would really care about how all 4 kids compare with their 4 months stats. But I find it all quite intriguing, and I know the Gma's do too. :)

Caleb seems like such a MOOSE right now! He's huge. But come to find out. All the kids were tall (all around 90th %) at 4 mo. of age. Their weight on the other hand....

Lilia was our light weight, only (only - it was still 90%!) coming in at 15 lbs. 12 0z. at this stage of the game. Sofie was at 16 lbs, 12 oz. John was quite a hefty 17 lbs and 2 oz. BUT the big winner here is Caleb. He's 19 lbs as of yesterday. Wow! I knew he was getting heavy, but 19 lbs! Holy Cow! I've always said I have big babies and small toddlers. How true that is!

Easter Weekend - Joe & Carrie's House

Well, after the great fun at David's house. We briefly visited my grandparents. It was wonderful to see them. It had been a long time!

Then we went to my brother Joe's new house! It's just beautiful. It sits on an acreage and is spacious inside and out. They have updated most of the finishes. My favorite was the carpet in the master bedroom. That was VERY luxurious.

We started off this leg of our trip with another Easter egg hunt. Kids are amazing. Even though they had just done an Easter egg hunt and David's, they couldn't wait to get started on the next one.
Then we spent a lot of time cuddling kids and eating yummy food. Sofie got her fill of holding Eli. Since he's older and has better control of his body. He was a LOT more fun to hold. (Caleb is still reminiscent of a sack-a-potatoes...)Eli also knows how to tickle!
John went back and forth between his crazy shenanigans and quiet contemplation. :)
We had such a wonderful time.

Easter Weekend - David & Andrea's House

We have finally made it to Iowa for a weekend! Between having a baby and spending our summers camping, I think it's been close to a year since we have visited my home town.

This weekend we were able to spend Easter with my family. Both my brothers have moved since the last time I was there and so our weekend was very scheduled to make sure that we were able to fully take in each brother's new house.

For the noon meal on Saturday, we went to my baby brother's house. I loved it. It's basically a modern log house. I loved the ski chalet feel of the rooms and the great vaulted ceilings in the main area. The house is sitting on a very wooden lot and you can even see a small pond from their backyard.David, the ever resourceful guy. Has bought this wood burner to warm his house. So the cost of heating his house? Free!

Andrea cooked some very yummy food. Here she is "smashing" the potatoes. They were very fun to eat.

We had decided to have an Easter Egg hunt at both houses for the kids, they had such fun searching around the yard and finding all the eggs. Thank goodness the weather was nice. An outside Easter Egg hunt is much more fun.

Lastly there was lots of baby snuggling, toddler hugging , and all around kid cuddling going on at all times. There was never an empty lap.

Books and Baubles

This last weekend I went to the annual Minnesota Homeschool Conference again. It was a different experience this year. It was in town so I didn't have to get a hotel room or spend the WHOLE entire time there. So it was more like a meeting that I went to, than a conference.

On Friday I went with my MIL. It was fun to see the conference through her eyes. When we walked in she said, "It's a whole different world in here..." She's right about that. It was fun to show her the exhibitor hall and have her meet the author of my curriculum. Plus she was able to see the many friends and acquaintances that I've made in my short homeschooling journey.

The sad part about it all was that I didn't go back on Saturday. Man! That baby Caleb is heavy!! I can't very well leave him at home, but lugging him around on Friday was all that I could take.

So an abbreviated MACHE for me this year. But the time that I was there was very fun.

One of the purchases that was made in the exhibitor hall were some early, "Learning to Draw" books. I tried to hide them and have the kids wait until this summer to use them. But it was a losing battle. Sofie LOVES the book that is all about princesses and shows how to draw jewelry. I've been so impressed with her creativity! She draws the jewelry and then cuts it out and tapes it to her ears and Lilia's ears. It's so cute!

The Crib

It is SO hard to transition this last baby into a crib! I just don't want to. I have all sorts of excuses. I can't find the monitor, The blind for the window needs to be installed, the crib is full of ... stuff... But the truth is that I just don't want to give up knowing he's right beside me. Though, whether I like it or not, time marches on, and so my baby is getting too big for his bassinet (plus his desire to be a side sleeper...)But I lock him in tight with his sleep positioner and he's not strong enough yet to roll over it. So now I've been having him take naps in his crib during the day. But at night... we'll I just sneak him back into his bassinet...