Just Some Update

I seem to find a hard time lately getting to my blog and really posting anything significant that has happened or even the short funny things. I'm sure once fall and winter roll around there will be more time because I don't like the cold and would rather be indoors.

Our summer has been pretty awesome so far. We have enjoyed so much time in our backyard. Dan keeps it looking like a golf course always! The kids just run around out there and do anything from sprinklers, the kiddie pool, swinging, sliding, coloring with chalk, playing in the sandbox and just kicking balls around. Katelynn is definitely my swinger. She has loved the swing since she was a few months old. She will ask all the time if she can go out and and swing. Junior is a slide man. We have a small slide in the basement and it's the very first thing he pulls out and will go down it over and over and over again. Outside we have a couple of slides and again he loves it. He is not so much into the swing, he will go for a couple of pushes and then he wants to try and figure out how the latches work.

Katelynn has been busy this summer with vacation bible school, horseback riding lessons every Saturday, and she is now taking swimming lessons. Gotta love the daycare provider who is willing to take 7 kids to swimming lessons everyday for 2 weeks, it's got to be a lot of work. Katelynn has been doing awesome though. This is her first time in lessons and she has already started jumping off the diving board (with the teacher catching her). Katelynn is signed up for Preschool again this year because she misses the cut-off date for out town's kindergarten class. She will go three days a week. She is also going to do tap and ballet dance class again. Eventually we will stop the horseback riding lessons because we just can't pay for it all and once it gets colder I don't want to be standing outside (I know a little selfish on that part!) Katelynn has recently really started to pick up on her hand writing. She is so hard on herself when it comes to trying new things. She must do them perfect or she won't do it at all and forget Mom or Dad trying to help! She has sheets of letters that she practices on and we call them her homework for preschool and she will sit down now and try out more and more letters. She can write her name and mom and dad without help with the spelling or letters. She has started drawing a lot more in the last 2 weeks as well. She has started drawing our family, flowers and bumble bees. The flowers are actually really good and very colorful. A few weeks ago we went to the store and picked up some art stuff to keep them busy and we picked out these beads that you put on shapes and then iron the beads and the shapes stays. I remember seeing the one's that I did when I was younger. She has finally found something that can entertain her for hours. She asks everyday if she can go in her room and listen to her CD from vacation bible school and do her beads. It's so nice! This is really the first thing she has grabbed onto and really enjoys and entertains herself with. She is getting really excited for her birthday and knows that it is around the corner.

Junior is such a little man! He is the baby by the book. Everything that you read in a book this kid seems to do. None of these things happened with Katelynn. Junior was a good, happy baby. He crawled, he walked and now he is running everywhere. We have numerous bumps and bruises. We've had a bloody nose and still a scar on his forehead from the 4th of July fall on the cement. He has tried to stick things in the outlets (which now all have covers). We have caught in trying to clean the toilets with the toilet brush and when he couldn't find that he just stuck his hand in or a toy. All bathroom doors are to remain shut even when not in use now. The boy runs us wild. He is finally starting to pick up some words and use them. Just this week he has said Bubbles, Car, Hot, Truck, Ball, and Juice. He is trying very hard to jump and get his feet off the ground. He is a Daddy's boy. If he can be in the garage tinkering with any tools or following Dad around he is there. He actually throws himself on the ground and screams when we are in the backyard and the garage door gets shut. He loves balls. Any kind of ball he will hold it, throw it, kick it, golf it, bat it - you name he does it. He listens for the most part and helps pick up. If you give him a good enough direction to follow he will do it. He has had his first hair cut and you would think the clippers were attacking him! He looks like a little boy now.

We are preparing for a trip to Minnesota for the 2 weddings this summer. It should be interesting. Tickets were priced to high now that Frontier Airlines no longer flies to Fargo, what a great loss. Me and the kids will be home for 12 days and I decided that with high ticket prices and the number of days and driving that we will do at home that I would feel the most comfortable having my own car there, so we are driving. We are still trying to figure out Dan's situation. It's always hard with his work. He can't just take a week off and tell people to wait. He is all of the sudden extremely busy and has a bunch of work going on and our hired man is leaving at the end of the month to do his internship for his master's degree, so that leaves Dan. Tickets prices again are burning up and it is more expensive to fly him back on a one way then the round trip. Either way I will be driving the 14 hours with the 2 kids by myself, wish me luck!