This year Kiera's school had their annual skating party on Tuesday night and the kids LOVED it. The boys were very determined to learn to skate and were doing a pretty good job by the end of the night. It took Kiera a little bit to remember how, but after a few times around, she got the hang of it again. Eventually she informed me that she didn't need me to skate with her anymore. It's bittersweet to see her gain more independence but was very proud of how well she did. It was a fun night skating together as a family!
The kids had a lot of fun trick-or treating this year. The boys didn't remember going since the last time we went was 2 year ago. Needless to say, they were pretty excited! We decided to dig around the dress up box for costumes for the boys and I was happy they were fine with that. Kiera was very blessed to have Grandma Link make her costume for her. It turned out so cute and she LOVED it! Enjoy these pictures from our fun night!
Rapunzel
It's crazy how well this hair matched her real hair!
Tow Mater!
SpiderMan
Notice Spidey trying to figure out his web...
Still trying...
Is this right dad?
This is what the boys looked like the entire time...they ran from one house to the next
Still running...
Grandma joined us for our trick-or-treating. Thanks for the great costume!
I had to add this picture. One morning I came in the room to find the boys had set all of Kiera's Strawberry Shortcakes up and were happily playing. I guess that's what happens when you have a big sister to influence you. Should I be worried???
It's been quite awhile since I've updated this blog. A lot has happened since school started and yet it's all pretty routine information.
Kiera continues to LOVE school. She comes home full of information and we are pretty sure she doesn't get her 10,000 words in as she talks non stop from 3:30 to bedtime. At times it may be tiring, but I love knowing what's going on at school and it opens up a lot of room for great teachable moments. At the end of September, Kiera was honored by receiving the Student of the Month for her 1st grade class. This is given to students for their good behavior, kindness to others, respect for others, doing their best in their school work, and being a good help and participant in class. We were very proud to be able to attend this little ceremony and see her be honored for her positive character makes this parents heart proud!
The boys are enjoying their never ending play dates at home. I dare say they spend a majority of their day circling the kitchen table pushing cars, tractors, trains, and pretty much anything with wheels. I am always amazed how much time they can spend doing this day in and day out. It's fun to see their friendship and how well they get a long. On Wed. they enjoy going to Story Hour, which I am in charge of, and love getting together with the other kids and socializing. It's a nice out for us and definitely helps break up our week.
Ryan is busy again now that all the church programs are up and running again. It's always an adjustment once summer is over to see him gone a lot of evenings again and being the sole parent in charge of the oh-so-fun bedtime routine. But, we are thankful for his job and that he continues to enjoy what he does and does an incredible job!
This month we took our annual trip to the local pumpkin patch. It turned
out to be a much hotter day than anticipated, but we still enjoyed
ourselves. It's fun to see the kids enjoying all the rides and picking
out their pumpkins. Later in the week we did our pumpkin decorating and
we all had a lot of fun!
Caleb and his cowboy pumpkin (is the grin a match?)
Here is the book I made of our fun filled summer! We sure were busy and saw a lot of things. We thought this was the easiest (and quickest) way to share our summer experience!
Kiera is officially a first grader! She was so excited to start school and since she only went half days last year she was the most excited to take her lunch! We are excited to hear about her first day! Here are the pictures we took this morning:
Kiera also got her hair cut on Saturday. This is the before shot...
and the after! Very excited for easy hair maintenance in the mornings!
Ryan's folks had a tent they had rarely used and told us we could borrow it. We decided to try it out in the backyard again since the kids enjoyed that so much last year. This tent is much bigger than our old one and gave us a lot more room. The kids had a blast helping Ryan set it up and each had to take a turn hammering in the stakes. Once the tent was up they proceeded to haul everything but the kitchen sink into the tent. We decided to forgo the campfire and ate marshmallows plain and popped some popcorn. We hauled the laptop out and watched a movie together as a family. The kids enjoyed it and slept very good. I, on the other hand, slept TERRIBLE! About 4 am a good midwest thunderstorm came through. It rained so hard and there was thunder and lightning. No one else woke up, but all I could think of was our tent being underneath the tree that had been struck by lightning twice and we were all going to be toast (literally). Thankfully it passed quickly and I could sort of go back to sleep. At least we found out that the tent was nice and waterproof!!! I am still not sure we are ready to attempt real camping...maybe next summer!
Mid June my parents were able to come out for a visit. It was SOOO good to see my folks since we didn't get to see them at Christmas. It was extra special that we got to see my dad. Last August he suffered a stroke and I hadn't seen him since October when he had just been discharged from the hospital. After spending the week with my dad I was overwhelmed at God's goodness and incredible healing in his life. He is fully recovered and doing awesome! It was so fun to hang out with my parents and we are so thankful that God spared my dad's life and that we were able to spend a wonderful week together!
My sister, Tami, and her kids picked up my folks from the Minneapolis airport and then headed down here for the week. What a busy yet fun week we had! Here are some of the highlights of our week and you will see pictures of in the album above:
~ relaxing in the backyard
~ fun games of Cube in the yard
~ slip n slide
~ sprinklers under the trampoline
~ VBS!!!! (All the kids got to go while the adults stayed home and enjoyed a leisurely supper without kids!)
~ Brookings Children's museum
~ tye-dying shirts at the museum
~ learning some magic from the museum's visiting magician
~ morning runs with my sister
~ celebrating Father's day with my dad!
~ going to the local ski show
~ hiking around Falls Park and riding the trolley
~ Oma reading to the kids
~ bonfires and smore's
~ talent shows (check out the picture of Caleb & Joel playing the piano...they were fighting over the piano and my mom told them that one should play on the top and one on the bottom. Caleb didn't even hesitate and hopped off the bench and started playing the three pedals on the bottom! Problem solved! We laughed so hard!)
Overall it was a very fun week and we enjoyed being together so much! We were sad to see them go but look forward to the next time we are together!
Can you believe we have never been on an "official" family vacation? All our vacations are usually spent with extended family (which isn't bad, just different) so we decided we would actually attempt a short trip with just the 5 of us. Our destination was Omaha.
We managed to locate a reasonably priced hotel with a kid friendly pool near the zoo. We arrived in the evening and right away headed to the pool. The kids had SOOOO much fun and I think would have been perfectly happy spending the weekend at the pool. It had one water slide that all 3 kids went down over and over and over and over....
The next day we spent at the zoo. Omaha zoo is quite the place. We had heard great things about it and were VERY impressed. It was so nice to actually be able to walk around without a stroller and the kids did so well! Along with all the usual zoo animals there was a butterfly house, enormous desert dome that included swamps and caves and tons of cool stuff, an aquarium (which was my favorite because the fish swam all around you), and of course a real train, and a sky tram. The kids really wanted to try the tram, so I swallowed my nerves (as I don't mind heights, but with little kids, it does scare me a little) and we went for a ride. It was a lot of fun and gave quite a view of the zoo. We took a break for a picnic lunch at the car and then rode the train in the afternoon. The kids were troopers and had a lot of fun!
After the zoo we had to eat at Red Robin for old times sake and it was as good as we remembered! We then headed back to the hotel for more swimming. The kids were pretty tired that night. I must say that they slept very well considering all 3 were in one bed!
The last day we spent swimming again in the morning and then headed to the children's museum since our local museum got us in there for free. It was a lot of fun and the kids enjoyed playing with all the exhibits. Kiera was extra excited because she got to meet a princess and attend a Mad Hatter tea party with her.
Overall our first vacation experience was a HUGE success and we were so proud of how well our kids behaved and enjoyed themselves!
