Summer's on the way

So, I'm a little late for May, only two days though :) I wasn't really thinking there was a lot to blog about, but then I started looking through some pictures...Hope you enjoy.


Here's our Hailey girl with all (almost all-literally) of her Grandma Rosey's jewelery on playing dress-up with her cousin Haddee on Mother's day.

Here's the kids at a good friend from church's wedding. They had sooo much fun dressing up (well the girls did) and dancing with their friends. It was a Friday night wedding so it started out late and went later. My kids are not used to this. By the end of the night Austin was asking if there was a place on the floor somewhere that he could just lay down for a few minutes. Hailey lost her voice and her eyes were bloodshot. And then there's Kara....she was like the energizer bunny. She couldn't stop moving and running and dancing. I think she knew if she did stop, she'd fall fast asleep. It was a beautiful night, but we were all tired the next day.No rest the next day, though as we were off to baseball first thing in the morning! Austin's actually playing t-ball, which is right for the age bracket they had, but he's been practicing and is a little more familiar with the game than some of the other kids (ranging from 4-6). The coach actually approached me to ask me if I'd call about moving him up to the older age group. He always has been pretty coordinated and athletic.

They have really enjoyed having him though, cause he can actually catch the balls that the kids throw him at first.

Uncle Dan and Aunt Martha were visiting this weekend due to the next part of the blog...

After t-ball, we went to his best buddy Caleb's b-day party at the park. It's amazing the bond God has given these two boys. Even though Caleb now lives 3 (long) hours away, they still love each other and have such a great time together.

We had a surprise 35th Anniversary party for Trevor's parents. Everyone could come and it was soooo nice. They loved it. We all had a great time talking and all the kids had a great time playing at home. What a blessed time to hear stories of their wedding and engagement, etc. It was simple, but beautiful and something we'll all remember.

Here are some great sprinkler pictures. This was kind of like the unofficial first day of summer for us. When we can get out the bathing suits and the sprinlker. What fun. It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon and Trevor and I just sat and watched the fun. The other kids in the pictures are our great neighbors the Gieglings. They are great friends from church that just moved in three houses away. What a blessing from the Lord! The kids love it!...and so do I.

Austin's long hair before we cut it. He had been wanting longer hair, so we let it grow. It had one kind of funny stage, but I thought it turned out very nice. We actually cut it right after the sprinkler fun because with the warmer weather, it was just too long. At least we know what it looks like now, and that if it gets long enough, it will actually lay down. :) (He didn't usually wear it all spiked up like that, although at times he wanted to)

Before the wet part.

Our last adventure for the month was for our 9th anniversary. We took the kids down to my brother's house (sadly I don't have any pictures from this) to stay and play their girls. Then we went to a bed and breakfast, rode bikes, watched a movie, read books, ate out for dinner and went canoeing on the Portage river. It was AWESOME. We've really been wanting to get outdoors for our anniversary and it's usually too cold and rainy. Well, we had an awesome weekend and we had a great time outdoors. Can't believe it's been 9 years. God is faithful.

April brings...

This has been an interesting and adventurous month! It started out with two short spring break trips. One to Alpena to visit some great friends (Austin's best buddy and one of my favorite friends too). On our way home started our van adventure. It quit (alternator) and we ended up staying in the Standish Motel for the night. God blessed us with a great guy to fix it cheap. So, we thought we were all set and headed to Rochester Hills at the end of the week to Trevor's brother's house. About 5 miles from there our transmission went out on our van. So, we left the van there in Rochester Hills and drove a rental car home. And the adventure to find a van began... We had been saving for this day because we knew it was coming, but when you are ready to drop that kind of cash, whew....it makes me hesitate. However, we were in a bit of a time crunch as the only car we had to work with was Trevor's work car which I'm not really supposed to drive. It wasn't terrible, but as the week went on and we were walking Austin to and from school in the rain and chill, I didn't really want to keep that up. So, we took off one afternoon to look at vans and came home with our new van. What an ordeal! Glad that's over.
Enjoy the other pictures too!

Fun at the Leavesley's in Alpena! Pile up!

Hailey and Beka

BFF's
So, Austin came home the other day and said, "Mom, do you know who my BFF is?" I just laughed! I said, "do you know what that means?" (I didn't think he'd ever heard that). He said, "yeah, do you?" It was Hilarious! Anyway, he said it was Caleb.

Easter beauties. Austin's kind of avoiding the camera lately...hard to get a picture sometimes!

More silly faces...

Bathing beauties

This is Hailey on the way home from Alpena. It had been a long trip :) The other two had amazingly great attitudes (including me), which made the whole adventure of one night in a motel kind of a fun family trip.

Ballet dancing with Aunt Martha. Hailey LOVES this.
She really wants to learn more and more. She just looks so cute in her little outfit.

March

Out comes the top tooth! With a little help from Kara's head. I think he looks so much older without his tooth. He has at least two more that are wiggly too...what a grown up.

St. Patrick's Day fun pictures.

Kara, and really Hailey and Austin too, are really into making funny faces lately...here are a few...

Awww, what the heck, I got in on it too :)

And a few pictures of the whole fam on these beautiful days.

And these next pictures are quite the story...to sum it up, Kara had been waiting until the end of the day to poop. She would go in our bedroom and bring some toys and do her business. Well, we'd been catching her and putting her back to bed or changing her diaper (which ever needed to be done). So, one night it had been pretty quiet back in the hallway and we thought all was well. So, I went to get into bed and could smell a...well smell. So, I searched around to see what I could find. Nothing. So, I figured that she pooped in our room and headed back to go to sleep. Went to look. Nothing, nowhere to be found. So, I came back into our room to do a better search. Finally something pink caught my eye from the closet. The doors were all pretty much closed, except for this crack with pink beaming out. There was Kara in the closet (with the door mostly closed) fast asleep on top of my shoes. Really she was OUT. I called Trevor in and we laughed and took pictures and she didn't budge. Then we changed her little red bottom and put her to bed. We laughed, but we knew that taking pictures just wouldn't do it justice to how funny it really was. But I just had to share it. So, much for the the short story... enjoy the pictures.
Oh, and inside of my tennis shoes I found two little dolls that she must have been playing with when she went out...

Last box of diapers??

Well, we've begun the process. I can't say that I ever feel "ready" to potty train, cause it takes work and consistency- which I don't always feel like doing. But, Kara can't stay in diapers all her life :) (I'm being a bit dramatic there).
Anyway, so we started. I never know how it will go, for each kid is different. Well, she sure didn't seem ready at first. After several accidents, she held her pee until after nap-time two days in a row. Finally she relaxed enough to go, and then again. After that she started to realize that feeling of having to "go" and how to relax instead of trying to push it out. Well, shortly after that she started telling me she had to go, and (in my cynical voice) I would say, "let's go"- figuring she already went. Well, to my surprise, she hadn't! I looked at her and said, "you're dry?!" And she'd look at me, kind of confused and say, "go pee, Mom" (in kind of an excited, urgent way).
So, she has been doing better than I could have expected. I think we've only had one pee accident in about a week! (We've been doing this for about 4 weeks now.) Obviously we still have some work to do, because the poor girl won't go #2. She's been holding it and having tummy aches. She's had a couple of successes early, but now isn't interested. So, we'll keep going...
she is such a joy (as her name states).
KARA JOY

Here's our set-up...and yes those are m&m's. What can I say, they work for her!

Not to leave out anyone... Here's Hailey and her good friend Gwyn playing dress-up (she kind of looks like a giant :) She's tall, but I think Gwyn is a bit on the shorter side...

And here's Austin with one of his many lego creations (Awesome!) and the LONG slipper-socks that Grandma Rosey made him this weekend. They're a hoot. They're being held up by rubber bands! :) He loves them, but has to wear shorts with them...kind of defeats the purpose :)

Happy New Year!

Here are some fun photos from the last month or so. By the way, I do have a "goal" this year to update this blog at least once a month. That seems attainable, so we'll see. Enjoy the photos!

Superhero muscles

Our first fire with a Sunday night snack feast!

Aunt Amy and Kara (both with their babies in their tummy:) Little Reuben was born 12.23.09

For Christmas with Grandma Rosey we went to the GR children's museum. Lots of fun!

We had a great time with family and cousins.

Christmas love :)
Legos, legos, legos....Austin's dream

Our Christmas breakfast....delicious

Kara's smoothie mustache


Yes, this is Coach K. He came to scout a kid from Mt. Pleasant. Trevor was....giddy :)


Well, if I keep up on this, hopefully it my posts won't be this long :)
Hope you enjoy the slue of different pictures.