Fire Engine Rally

The Fire Engine Rally was today. We have been for the last 5 years. (excluding last year when Em was born) There is a parade of just fire trucks, all the sirens blaring. Emily didn't mind the sirens at all. And the boys, of course loved it! It was right on the river front this year so we sat back on the grass, laid out our blanket and waited for the sirens. It was smaller this year and we didn't stay for the muster. maybe next year we will. The boys did get to climb into and out of a few trucks.

The boys had never been down to the riverfront before....they saw a train go right by us, they saw the barges up close, and we saw the arch helicopter tours set down and take off quite a few times. It was a super fun day!

oh what a day-oh what a week.

Our week has been so crazy. I started back at work for the school year Monday, em and noah joined me at daycare. day went well, em was tired as could be when we got home. tuesday comes and she is just not up to par. She ends up being sick most of the night, and vomitting everything she ate that day. FUN for mommy. Daddy at his fire meeting me trying to get the boys to bed so I can put Em to bed. We sit to read a story and she just starts puking. UGH, all over mommy of course so i'm yelling , GO get me a towel. My lovely boys come back with 4 pieces of toilet paper (noah) and a paper towel from ethan. AHHHHH-get me a towel! so get that squared away, noah cries because the book got nixed. Wash up me and Em, go try to give her meds as she feels feverish, more vomitting. call rick, pleases come home early. Wednesday I keep her home, she is clingy but not sick-until 5 then she has a fever. go to the store get motrin. she takes that and it is breaking by bedtime never to return! woo hoo. but Noah starts coughing. ok no big deal allergies, zrytec to the rescue. he is ok thursday, more coughing friday. But we have a playdate at Chuck E cheese. we go he is good. Naptime wakes up with a 101 fever. ok go to the store motrin for him! (how I ever ran out is beyond me) all night he is up coughing fever returns and his breathing is becoming more and more labored. This morning I try to steam him in the bathroom see if that helps break it up, it doesn't. Off to urgicare we go. His oxygen level were so low we didn't have to wait. Around 93%. he got a breathing treatment and oral steriods. by the time we left he was back up to 97-98%. He is on steriods for the rest of the weekend. and hopefully we are all on the mend and no one else gets sick!!!!!!

My baby is 1!

My baby girl is 1! I don't know how it happened. She is runnng all over the place! Crawling was just not for her, and really neither is walking! We went to Grant's Farm on her actual birthday and had a good time. She was kinda interested in the animals but not really...she did like the mister getting her wet though. (the boys liked that too) Saturday the 8th we had her party...I rn around all morning trying to get things ready, and subsequently forgot plenty! We had just enough food for everyone and I got rave reviews on my food....that is a big accomplishment for me. We had three cute little cakes, courtesy of Nikki. I wish I could say Emily loved it and got right into it....she didn't. As much as we tried she just would not touch that thing! until she hhad a spoon and someone fed her, then all was good. The same thing went for her presents, she didn't really like opening them, mommy and her auntie shelly just showed them to her. :)

And this is what happens after three hard days of partying! She loves her new chair and wanted nothing to do with going to bed for a nap this day! Usually I'll ask if she's ready for a nap and she will go climb the stairs. Here she just wanted to sit in her new chair with her taggie and her thumb! She promptly fell asleep in less than 5 minutes. It was just too cute, I had to snap a picture or two. BTW-her new nickname is Linus. At least it is when she has a taggie in her hand and a thumb in her mouth!

house news

We are currently updating our house to put it on the market. hmmm....isn't i funny how you fix up your house just to get rid of it? I have two new bathrooms-One of which I've wanted remodeled for the last year at least! We did some landscaping outside, painted the house (outside) and are working on painting the inside! I'm really excited about it but it has all come to a halt. Our a/c is on the fritz! Rick took it all apart and thought he found the problem, searched around got teh part and put it back together. No luck, still isn't working. He thinks it may just nee to charge, so I'm praying and keeping my fngers crossed that it works tonight. It's supposed to start getting hot again. I am thanking God that the weather is so unreasonably cool for mid-July. we've done ok with the windows open and fans going in everyroom. It got hot the other day after dinner, so we will be having sandwiches tonight, or cereal, or dinner out. I am not turning on the oven or the stove! I am also decluttering the house! Packed up half the boys toys, most of Em's stuff and our china cabinet and our bookshelves all gone! I'm hoping it won't have to stay in storage very long!

YUMMY

Aaaahhh the joys of toddlerhood! She's not even a year old but she is definantely all toddler. The boys have broken the child lock on the cereal cabinet and Em caught on pretty quick! She will go in and usually toddle back to the living room with her box of cheerios. Well, this morning she was quite and then I heard it....the cereal hit the floor. I was too busy snapping pictures and laughing to even tell her no-no. Ethan did get told that he needed to make sure the boxes were closed and the bags folded up good inside! It was pretty funny.....the boys never did this. But at 2 1/2 they both dumped dog food all over the basement.

Ethan turns 7

On June 27th Ethan turned 7 years old. I just can't get over the fact that i have a 7 year old? Just when did that happen??? I really feel like I have missed the last year of his life. I was sooo pregnant last year on his birthday and Emily took up so much time as an infant. I still remember much of his birth...like I was watching Days and had to turn it off to give birth. LOL. Anyway nostalgia over. He wanted a star wars party and I wanted a small party! So we opted for about 15 kids at our house. It turned out to be a great day, beautiful weather. We even got to be outside! Ethan's godmother made him the best cake ever! I always ask her to make our cakes with two simple statements. What the theme is, and "do whatever you want, we our your ginuea pigs" She really outdid herself!

More farm country

Other fun parts of our Iowa trip! On the way their (somewhere in Illinois) we saw windmills....pretty cool I thought. Then as we make our last turn to get to Clarion, we see hundreds of them! On Rt. 69 in Iowa, close to Clarion! I jokingly told the boys they should count them, they laughed at me. But Daddy bieng the Daddy he is, he started....he lost count at around 115! We also saw a place where they were storing the parts to the windmills and we saw a few propellers on the bask of semi's. I told the boys "look, a giant propeller" to which Daddy (again being the Daddy he is) said, "No it's for the world's largest plastic fork." We got a picture of the kids standing near one....but turning pictures the right way still elludes me. lol

Since we left clarion earlier than we would have liked we opted to see the John Deere Pavillion in Moline. Noah was in love and crawled up onto the first tractor he could. They got in everyone and had a great time. Emily was happy to be out of her stroller and I just had to take the picture of her in the tractor tire. Again, seems like a tradition we missed out on by not going to the farm. Our next trip to Iowa can not go without a trip to the farm.

Family reunion June 2009

Over Father's Day weekend we took a trip to Iowa for a family reunion.

On Saturday morning we met up with some of the cousins and aunts and uncles for breakfast. The train track runs right by there and the kids saw a train. (ok-two engines and no cars) Well, six faces were pressed to the window as the engines stopped at Hardees! I guess engineers need to eat too! He came in got his food and asked if they wanted to see the train! Of course, so he took the kids out to get in the train! That man absolutley made their day!

The Long Family Reunion

Here we all are! My dad and his brother and three sisters and all the spouses! The cousins-I think only 3 of us were missing. And notice, Cale is the only male among us! And a cute stairstep of all the 2nd cousins. (I remember when we were little our own stairstep cousin pictures growing up) The only one missing in this pic is Indy-she was hiding in the back! And we even got a picture of all the "outlaw" cousins.

We had fun visiting and watching the little kids have fun together. They played on the playground took turns with fiching poles and some of them even caught fish! They played ball and played with bubbles and moon sand! Most of them didn't even remember ever meeting before but they all became fast friends. Ahhh-the joys of childhood!

Luke and Emily became cute little friends-even if he did try to give her everything out of her diaper bag! SO CUTE! Noah fell in love with Shanna. i think the kicher was when she took him to the deeper end of the swimming pool Saturday afternoon. The morning after we got home he asked if he could ride a plane to see his "friend" Shanna.

I really hope we can do this more often. I always loved my summer vacations in Iowa and I know the boys will love it too! I love that even though we are so far away we can still be close with the family. Even Rick said he wanted to stay longer next time so the boys could do more. Can't wait til next time!

Chicago

Let me begin this blog by saying I know 35 of the greatest women ever! I "met" most of them five years ago. We belong to a message group and met while we were trying to concieve. Lots of us have kids that are all the same age. Lots of us had trouble concieving. We have all become very close! This year was our 2nd annual get together. Last year we did Memphis, this year we did Chicago. It was great seeing everyone again. There were only 9 of this year but we had fun. One of the girls surprised us saying she couldn't make it, but flew in for the weekend. One of the girls even flew in from London for the weekend (with her 14 week old baby) just to see us! Oh and his name is Noah! He is the second most adorable Noah I have ever met. ;)

We didn't do much sightseeing but ate and drank and visited lots. Which of course was the point of our get together! We did walk down Michigan avenue and we ate Bennihanas. For those who know me that is quite an amazing task for me. I tried new food. And I do not care for zucchini! Or whatever it is that I tried that the chef called jumping worms. he said it was some sort of potato and I love them so I tried....ewwww is all I can say! Jenni, Kristin, and Mandy (above) Jacki, Alicia, and Jenni (below)

Sioban and I

We also shopped at Ikea and The legoland store! I HAD to go and buy the boys special presents.

10 years!

Rick and I celebrated 10 years of marriage on may 29th. Sometimes it feels like yesterday that we got married and other times it feels like we have been together forever. Just some random things I remeber from our wedding day. We almost ran into each other outside the sanctaury. It was a perfect memorial day weekend with no rain in sight! I didn't cry at all during the cermony! (I cry at everything but didn't that day) It is by far the happiest day of my life. Followed closely by the birth of our beautiful children, because we wouldn't have the kids if we didn't have the wedding.

We had a big BBQ with some of our family and friends. It was great to have some of my best friends all at my house at one time! I never get to see them all at once! (man I need a girls weekend with them) Nikki made an awesome cake for us! She even made the top tier all white just for me! She made all these cute little figurines to put on our cake that represent the last 10 years of our life. Lighthouses, computers, and a scraapbook just to name a few! It was delicious!

Memorial Day

Well, we had big plans to go to the zoo on Memorial Day, unfortunately the weather was not very cooperative! The chance of rain was too great so we opted for the science center instead. On the way there Noah asked where we were...I wasn't sure what he meant and told him St. Louis. He responded, "then where's the arch?" He is so smart and funny! I had to snap a picture of the arch just for him! It actually turned into a very long day with some nice weather in between bouts of rain. We ended up at the Science Center, turtle park, and a stop at the zoo! The boys had fun outside at the science center and we saw the big statue dinosaurs. We posed for a few pictures before Ethan heard the thunder and we were told it wasn't safe to be outside. So back inside we went to leave...it looked rather nice out despite the thunder....so we decided to go to turtle park!Turtle park is right across the interstate from the zoo. It consists of three large turtle sculptures and a few little ones. You can climb all over them and we have visited before. This was Emily's first time and as we were walking I started remembering that the small statues were named after the creator's children and I was sure there was an Emily. sure enough there it was the little turtle named Emily! I made the decision right then that hse need to have her picture taken on her statue every year! (now I hope I can do it)

The weather was holding out on us. We decided since we (read I) had promised Noah we could go pet the sting rays that we would go to the zoo! We got there and walked through the river's edge and saw lots of animals. Noah was very impatient though and kept asking about the sting rays. He was so happy when we finally saw the pavillion! Both boys did such a good job! I was so surprised that Ethan put his hand in to touch the rays, with Noah there was no surprise. noah would have got in the tank if they would let him! We wee lucky to be there during feeding time so we bought little bits of fish and shrimp....Noah tried so hard to feed them but you have to be under them and he just couldn't get his arm in deep enough! So, YAY mommy got to feed them! It was really neat though. This would be the time that Rick noticed it was pouring down rain and the stroller was getting wet. He and Em left to go retrieve it. The boys and I soon followed and we ran to lakeside cafe. Emily loved running and seemed to love getting wet in the rain. We decided to leave and of course the rain had stopped by the time we got to the zoo enterance!

All in all it was a wonderful day!

Holiday World

There are a few high points in the last few months!

Over mother's day weekend we went to Santa Claus Indiana. Wendy and Bryan and the girls went with us and we had a wonderful time at Holiday World.

It is such a great family park! We had free soda and sunscreen all day! The tickets were so reasonably prices. We spent the day there for right about $100! We had no need to buy many souveniers (I have introduced the boys to squished pennies!) The kids loved everything!!! It was nice for the boys to have friends to do things with! Noah and Olivia fell in love with the canoe ride! I think they rode it 20 times, the lines were short and a few times they even got to pick what color canoe they wanted! Ethan and Amber and I rode the scrambler....Ethan did not like it! he said he felt so sick. He did recover quickly though. His favorite ride was Gobbler Getaway...a turkey shooting ride! And all the kids loved the bumper boats! They rode those at the warmest part of the day...and that wasn't very warm.
Emily had a big weekend! She was an angel at the park! She slept most of the day and was happy when she was awake! She had her first taste of ice cream, and boy did she love it! You know the saying I scream....well she screamed her happy little high pitch scream until we gave her more. Here is what she looked like when she was done!

We had a great time camping in our little cabin and Wendy was nice enough to give us the bedroom so we could set up Em's playpen. The kids all slept upstairs in a loft with 3 twin mattresses all pushed together. They were in heaven!

We can't wait to go back again next year!

Catch Up!!!

Ok so the story goes, I broke my laptop. I think I fried it, we sent it in and got it fixed under warranty. Thank goodness! But my computer was wiped clean...Rick got most stuff off but I lost all that had to do with the blog, and I just couldn't figure it out! I'm so illeterate when it comes to the computer.

So I figured I would just say the highlights of the last couple of months.

Emily has learned so much! She is mastering walking right now. just tonight she was pulling her walker behind her.

Ethan finished 1st grade with flying colors. His teacher made a slide show of the year for each of her students....she is such a great teacher! Ethan learned so much!!! He is such a good reader, i am amazed...but also hate that he can read the menu on the digital TV and set reminders for when his fave shows are on!

Noah-well he's just been Noah! cute and rotten as ever!! He loves his little sister and his big brother!

We have had a wonderful year thus far and I will keep this up from now on!!!!

The big party! Noah is four! Haha friday was his birthday he was 4, saturday was his party...he thought he was 5! He's so silly! He had a great birthday!

Friday we took him to the movies. hotel for dogs...cute enough for him! He liked getting all of mommy and daddy's attention. Although he did want to go to Ethan's sleepover with him. he had popcorn and soda and furitsnacks for dinner! The party was great, he had about 12 friends there! They all loved decorating theri own cupcakes. sunday we had some family over and we had dirt cake made by Daddy! His fave toy was by far his v-smile pocket!!! He loves it, and is way better on that then the tv version.

The Eagle has landed

We went to Alton yesterday to go eagle watching. It's a yearly trip but with Rick having the day off we got to go on my birthday this year! After a slow start....leaving, forgot gloves, leaving again, stopping at red box, and dropping Em off at daycare. We finally got on the road! The boys watched amovie on the way up. We started looking as soon as we got into Alton. We stopped at the little museum at the lock and dam. I really thought they would be bored but no way! Noah ran to everything and was so excited! The got to pilot a river boat down the Mississippi, the whole time saying things like, "turn, turn turn!" and "don't run into it, watch out!" They made eagle masks, they saw fish and other river animals. When we left we looked for some geocaches. ok...not we....Rick. (It was freezing out!) He found one, and thinks he found another, but the trash can was frozen to the ground so he couldn't get to it. The boys wanted a treasure, but we had nothing to trade in the van. Our cache stash is in the truck.



We saw lots of eagles up the river road and on the bluffs. We stopped once and Noah and I got to get out and walk down the walk to see a mature eagle in a tree. They are so beautiful! We stopped to look at 4-5 on the bluff. But that wasn't as interesting to the boys as the roadkill on the side of the road! Boys will be boys.



We saw loads on the river. The river was awesome in and of itself. We've been coming for the last five years or so and I've never seen the river frozen. It was covered in big huge chunks of ice, sometimes it looked like ice from bank to bank. I can't wait to go again next year!

Ethan's first pine wood derby!

Ethan had his first pine wood derby race today! Scouting is a continued tradition in this family and we knew the day he was born he would be in boy scouts. His grandpa and his daddy and uncle are big into scouts, so there was no denying that Ethan would be too. His cousin Max is too and Ethan watched the derby with him last year. He was super excited about helping Daddy build his car. It of course looked like a star wars spaceship. Don't ask me which one though as I have no idea. Daddy and Ethan went to Grandpa's shed to cut the car (while Mommy sat home nervously awaiting Ethan's return with all 10 fingers.) I only say that because max got stitches one year! They painted it and Ethan helped with various parts. They put the finishing touch on and off we went! Ethan raced his car 4 times and came in first in one of his races! he was super excited, but he was super excited his first race too and he came in third. He got a ribbon for his car and afterward all the boys were racing on the floor and Ethan broke a part off. Just a small part! Now that it's home I think it will go on a shelf in his room!!!! All in all it was a great first derby for him! He loves scouts! And so do we!

Ok, so I've jumped on the blogging bandwagon. I figured the new year would be a great time to start! I guess you could say this will be one of my new year's resolutions. This year has started off very well. Emily is 5 months old and thriving! Although she is going through some sort of growth spurt right now and is wanting to wake at 6 am. This has ended up with me taking her to daycare early with me. I'm hoping we will get her all straightened out this weekend and she'll go back to sleeping til 8 or 9! Ethan has a big month planned! Our little tiger cub will be in his first pine wood derby soon. He and Daddy have big plans for the car! Stay tuned! And Noah-his birthday is all he can think of! Since early December he would say-"Mara's birthday, Christmas, Johnny's birthday and then MY birthday." So plans are under way for his construction birthday! I really hope I can keep up with this!