It's A Girl!

We are thrilled to announce that we are expecting a baby girl the beginning of May!

I couldn't be more excited, but I think Carli may have us all beat! She was beyond ecstatic when the ultrasound tech told us it was a girl. "I was right! I was right! I just knew it! I'm so excited!" Chad and I had little tears of joy already knowing that we would be having a girl.

Baby Reese!

The Pledge of Allegiance

Kyle of course, thinks he is just as big as the rest of them! So cute.

Thanks Ms. Janette! Carli and Nate LOVE preschool!!

Really?

I'm not sure where we got this girl!!

We're Off to See the Wizard!!

Carli and Nate have been on a huge Wizard of Oz kick! They have watched the movie a million times, know all the words to all the songs and sing them all day long. So...it was only fitting we made them costumes for Halloween.

My mom helped make Carlis Dorthy costume, and I found Nate and Kyle a Tin Man and Lion costumes on craigslist. Im not sure why, but Kyle was terrified of his Lion costume and wouldnt have ANYTHING to do with it. Carli and Nate; lived in theirs for the whole week! :)

We had a great week celebrating and dressing up. (The best part (for mom) was, "selling" our candy to the dentist and getting to spend their dollars at the dollar store!!)

Faker Baker

We stayed a few nights at my parents while they were out of town this past week. One night, Kyle decided he was not going to go to bed, and needed to have a little stay up. It had been a rough day with no naps, plenty of falls, and a possible ear infection. We let him "milk it" with a heat pad. I think he felt much better after that! :)

2 Teeth in 1 Week...Crazy

Our Carli girl is loosing her teeth as fast as she got them.

Sept 22nd

Sept. 30th

I can't believe she is getting so big.

More Sugars!

I was asked to make 300 Square Monogram sugar cookies for Chelsea and Spencer's wedding. I was very excited and very nervous to make such a huge amount. After all, I am very new at this.

It took Monday and Tuesday to make 12 double batched of sugar dough, baking 12 cookies at a time (I have massive pans, regular ones only hold 6!). Wednesday I made and colored 3 large batches of Green royal icing, and 2 large batches of Black. I would have saved myself some stress and time had I just made one more of each! Thursday, I got busy! With the help of Megan and Emily we got almost all of the cookies outlined and flooded with green. Then it was a matter of the finishing touches, which I was left on my own to complete. Boy was I nervous. By Saturday I was ready to start bagging. I sat in front of the TV, watched movies and talked on the phone with Chad while bagging and tying all of them up, completing my project by Sunday night!

It was such a huge process. Very happy to have had the experience, and hope to have some more orders in the future.

Thanks Chelsea and Spencer for letting me be apart of your special day. :)

Most were tied up with black ribbon, but I ran out after 100 yards, and of course didn't get pictures of that one!

The freezer. Piled high and deep!

Believe it or not, after making over 300 Squares, I wasn't tired of cookies. I had left over dough and black icing. What better way to use it up than spider web cookies, just in time for Halloween! Don't you just LOVE?

Im going to make some more cookies this week, so stay tuned for more pics! I feel like Im getting a little better. :)

I'm a "Soccer Mom"!

Not sure about all this "Soccer Mom" stuff, but I do have to admit it was pretty great watching Carli score 3 goals in her first game. Thats not to say I wasn't proud of Nate too, but he didn't do a lot during his game! :)

Excited and ready to play.

At least he wasnt the only one not sure what was going on.

Yup, someone took the ball away. Devastating.

Ready for some fun.

At first, we thought this was a jungle gym!

Then we remembered...

Playing like a Pro!

I hope I can survive the season. Practices 2 times a week, 2 games every Saturday with a horrible parking situation, having to carry chairs and push a stroller through the grass and up and down hills, all by myself. Hopefully family with will want to come watch (help during) the games!!

Sugar's!

This is what my sister and I have been up too all summer! Decorating fancy sugar cookies. I spent about a month blog hopping, watching videos, and learning about all of the best recommended products. I went out, bought everything I needed and got straight to work. We have had a blast! From start to finish it takes at least a full day to make these beauties, and that does not including drying time, before bagging them up individually! If we don't screw anything up too bad, they are well worth the time! :)

We didn't know we would be so into it, or we would have been taking better pics along the way.

Our first! Bridal Shower Cookies

Fathers Day Grandpas!

Bridal Shower

Can you really get much cutter than this?

Monogram Baby Shower Cookies.

(We now have baby cookie cutters!!)

I'm a cheat!

I haven't blogged all summer, but I have been catching up! So read on, there are lots of new post. (I change the dates, so they are all in order!)

Visit to Omaha!

Since Chad has spent most (all of) the summer out of town working, I thought now would be a great time to attempt a road trip to Omaha to visit the Uncks! I knew I wouldn't be able to do it on my own, so I took my little brother Mark along for some extra help!

The drive out went great! The kids watched a few shows, colored a ton, and ate plenty of junk food. Mapquest said 10 hours...and we made it there in 10 hours. How great is that? We stopped 3-4 times, only for potty breaks and gas. I had planned on stopping and letting the kids play at a play place, but we passed one and never found another. They were sad for a minute!

We had plenty to keep us busy for the week (if 6 kids wasn't busy enough). Here are a few pictures.

Pizza Machine!

Rides, tokens, tickets, prizes, pizza, slurpees, ice cream, nachos, & tacos! How fun is that for 6 kids? They loved it!!

The Slide!

2 Big slides in downtown Omaha. Not sure how many times they went down, but they all loved it. Wax paper made you go faster!!

The Zoo!

Our favorite part of the trip. First was the butterfly garden. Carli thought she was living a "Fancy Nancy" dream.

My kids could have spent hours in the aquarium! Amazing.

Gorillas! This was fabulous. As we were getting ready to move onto the next animals, the gorillas and orangoutangs starting 'singing' a little song to us. We all loved watching them puff up their necks! Very entertaining! :) (too bad we dont have pictures of the actual animal.)

Thanks Uncks for a great week we will never forget!

Happy 3rd Birthday Nate Dawg!

What a great day for the birthday boy. I think 3 is my favorite birthday for the kids. They actually have some sort of idea what is going on, and a genuinely excited about everything, and talk about it for days! :)

We started the day with presents, singing and cinnamon roll 'cake'.

Shirtless, because he is ready to swim and use that super soaker in the pool!!

Don't they look fabulous?

I stole this idea from the Jensens. The kids have LOVED seeing pictures of themselves since they were little. The idea now, is to put them all in a book, and then only have pictures from the past year on our fridge for the next bday.

What a cool dude. He loves his new bike. Too bad for now, its too hot to even ride it.

Toy Story 3 Party!

The wanna be Rex Cake!

All the girls! Trying to wait patiently for cake & ice cream.

Opening presents! He got tons of fun Toy Story things. :)

What a fantastic day.

"oo-n-finity an beyond!"

Glued Shut

Kyles head used to look like this...

Now it has a lovely scar.

One night after getting out of the pool and heading in for baths and bedtime, Kyle come running in through the kitchen and somehow crashed on the Kaboost. As soon as we saw him hit, we knew we would be on our way to the ER. It was dripping blood like crazy. Luckily Chad was home, bc all he wanted was him, and there was no way I was going to be able to do this on my own.

We quickly called our neighbor to come and stay with the kids while we too him in. Legacy ER was so great. They got us in fast, were super nice, and did a great job glueing his head shut.

We hated seeing our baby hurt, but are very grateful it was nothing worse. Poor baby.

Pictures (w/ Mom)

We tried again. Angie came out and spent at least an hour in the hot sun trying to get a fabulous picture of all 3 of my kids. I thought if maybe I was in them, I could at least be poking smiles and holding on to Kyle so he wouldnt take off running. It still didn't help. Of course the ones of the kids on the side of the blog, she took as well! One on one, they all take great pictures (well, not sure whats up with Nates funny face, but...)...so not quite sure why we cant get a good one of the whole family! (Maybe because Chad wasn't with us!)

How about Nate's goofy grin? What is that?

One of Chads favorites!

Dancin'!

It's too bright!

Love this boy, he thinks he's so funny!

Thanks Angie, for the great attempt! Lets do it again sometime! :)