Father's and Son's!!

July 9th Ryan took Logan on their FIRST Father's and Son's camp out!! We were all so excited. Logan LOVED every minute of it. Ryan had tons of fun too, although he could have used a little more sleep! Ryan said that Logan was just so HAPPY the whole time. He loves being outside and spending time with Dad so it was a win win! I had Ryan take the camera and he even took a few pictures for me!

I wanted a picture of them getting ready to go. Kaitlyn needed a picture taken of her first. Except she was too excited to see it to actually take the picture! She's so funny


The boys ready to go!



putting up the tent



setting up the air mattress


exploring the campgrounds




Mom and the girls stayed home. While we didn't do anything as cool as camping, we did have a great time together. As soon as the boys left I broke out a chocolate bar for each of us. Can't have a girls weekend without chocolate! Then after dinner we went and played at McDonald's play land and had some ice cream with some friends. The girls got to stay up way late and after they went to bed I watched My Sister's Keeper and bawled my eyes out. It was really good, and a nice long cry feels great sometimes. I spent the night dreaming that my children were dying of horrible diseases. Shouldn't watch movies like that when I'm pregnant! In the morning we went to a salon and I got a pedicure (thanks to some super awesome friends who got it for me for my birthday!) and the girls got their toes painted. We walked back home and got there the same time as he boys got home from camping.

Lovin the tub!!

Because of the flood we are blessed to get a master bath/closet in our house. While it has been a slow and painful process we are enjoying the benefits!! The tub is installed!! It's not finished yet, but it's in enough we can use. I LOVE it!! The kids love it, Ryan loves it. In fact the kids would take a bath twice a day if I let them. They did the first day! Here's a few pictures of the kiddos enjoying the new tub!





And yes the facet and handles don't match. The plumber took pity on a hugely pregnant woman and put in old ones while we waited for the new ones to be shipped. The new ones are in now and look beautiful.

AND it's SOOO nice to NOT have the tub in the front entry way anymore!!!

4th of July and my birthday!

This year has been such a WONDERFUL birthday! Saturday July 3rd was my birthday. Ryan and the kids woke me up with breakfast in bed by singing me Happy Birthday!! It was so cute and yummy! Ryan got me a supper cute card too. We got to go to a parade with some friends and then went to Sams and bought our closet floor, which Ryan put in that night! He also made me a cake! It was so yummy! Sunday was a great day at church and that night some friends came over and we had a yummy dinner (ribs, mashed potatoes, and corn on the cob!) and 4th of July sugar cookies and cupcakes! Ryan had Monday off, so he spent the day doing whatever I thought of. Which was mostly projects around the house! He painted the girls room, we went and got the rest of the supplies for the closet and he installed the closet for me! Poor guy worked nonstop on his vacation day just for me. Isn't he GREAT! I love that man!

Here are some of the pictures from the 4th of July parade.

Austin and Leah, this was Austin's first parade!


All the kids lined up waiting for the parade!





Cory and Austin (Amanda's camera ran out of batteries so I took some for her)


Jakie


Logan loved all the tractors!




Racing back after looking at some cute bunnies!


Thought this was cute



For Jace



Yogi


Horses



And my birthday cake!



I felt so loved on my birthday! I can't believe how many phone calls, cards, and FB well wishes came in. Thanks for making my day so special!

I was also surprised by all my husband did for me. Ryan planned an AWESOME birthday weekend for me! On the 16th-17th we (just Ryan and I!!!!) will be going to Milwaukee!! By our selves! No children! (Evan doesn't count, as he's still in utero) AND as if all that wasn't a HUGE enough present he got us tickets to see WICKED!!!! Seriously! I wouldn't have even thought to ask for that. He's so sweet and wonderful. Ryan told me about my present (we had to plan which weekend to go) before my birthday, so I wasn't expecting anything for the day of. But he went way out of his way to make it the PERFECT weekend for me. I'm so lucky! I love you babe!

Girls room!

I have been nesting a little bit, and since this is our first home I've never decorated a nursery before. So I decided to start with the girls room. They LOVE their new room! A few months ago we painted their room, but the color was too much and it needed a second coat anyway. So instead of a second coat we bought a new color. Ryan painted it as part of my birthday present! He was seriously awesome and did everything I even mentioned on my birthday weekend! But that's another post. Here are some pictures of what we've done to their room.

Ryan put up a fan, which I modge podged:





Painted the room and put up some decorations!





The butterflies are from Grandma D. She sent them for Em's birthday and we FINALLY decorated them and put them up. The girls love them. And the others are something I saw on line. I may add extra's eventually, but for now we're just doing those. I have some wall clings that will go up soon. The paint is supposed to be dry for 2 weeks before you put them up. Also the curtains are ones I made and we put up the princess corner. I don't know what you call that, but I got it at a garage sale for around a dollar. There's one more, but I think I'll put that in the play room.

I don't know where I'm going to put Em's bed once I finish painting it. Their room just keeps getting smaller! We may have to move to bunk beds soon!

For Fathers Day this year I tried to make it a little more special for Ryan. He truly is a great Father and I love him so much. A few weeks before Fathers Day I ran across a recipe that I KNEW Ryan would love, so I saved it just for him. It actually turned out really well. I'd have to say the icing was THE BEST I've had and the cake was excellent too. The kids certainly agreed about the icing! This is what I found the next morning:



They were liking all the icing left on the cake. Not that I blame them! It was that good! Here's the recipe:

Cherry Chocolate Cake
submitted by Brittany

printable recipe here
1 box of devil's food cake mix
1 (21 oz) can cherry pie filling
1 tsp almond extract
2 eggs

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9x13 inch pan. In a large bowl, combine dry cake mix, cherry pie filling, eggs, and almond extract. Stir by hand until well blended. (Using an electric mixer will break up the cherries.) Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool.

fudge frosting
1 cup white sugar
5 Tb butter
1/3 cup milk
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

In a small saucepan, combine sugar, butter, and milk. Boil, stirring constantly, for 2 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in chocolate chips until smooth. Immediately pour over partially cooled cake.

It's from this site that I love they always have super yummy breads and treats on there.

Strawberry Picking

Saturday June 5th Ryan and I took the kids to pick strawberries!! It was so fun! I was really excited cause I had never done this. The kids were pretty excited about it. Kaitlyn asked everyday if we could go again. She LOVED it!

The kids with their baskets running to the strawberries!



Picking the strawberries actually went really well. Kaitlyn picked the most and did it all by herself! Em's had to go potty so she missed out on a lot of it, but she was fine with that because there was mud (gasp!). She's such a princess, I love it. And Logan LOVED picking them too! If I would just grab em and put them in his bucket he would get upset. HE wanted to do the picking. So cute. All I had to do was point them out and he would pick them.








Logan would NOT let anyone hold his bucket! Those were his strawberries! Such a big boy, so cute!



We were only there all of 45 mins before we decided that was good. Logan and Em were ready to leave but Kaitlyn wanted to stay all day! We pick 9 1/2 lbs of strawberries! While I was checking out the kids got to sit on the huge rocking chair.




Definitely a good and fun experience. I'm glad we got to go!
We told our friends how fun and easy it was so a few of us got together on the next Friday and went picking again! This was the last day of picking (strawberry season is SHORT!) so there weren't as many good ones, but we still had a good time and got lots of strawberries. I didn't stay very long. It was supper hot and bending and being way pregos don't go so well together. The kids were happy to go again and we got to get a few more strawberries. Which was good cause we ate all the other ones!



I made strawberry freezer jam with some of the strawberries!!! It was my first time and it was SOO yummy! We've been eating pb&j's a lot more since then and it's almost all gone already!

Texas!

In May we went to TEXAS!!! We went on a WHIRLWIND trip. We left Thursday night drove ALL night, got there Friday morning and only stayed until early Monday morning when we had to leave again. We did however make the best of the time there! It was a while ago that we went that I can't even remember all that we got to do. There was lots of playing with cousins and staying up late talking. I did manage to remember to take some pictures. All of two. Why do I never remember while we're down there? Must be having too much fun! One of the fun things we got to do while we were down there is go ice skating!! None of our kids had been before. Emily was the first to try it, and she was very excited about it. Poor girl though, she just couldn't keep her feet under her, so Ryan had to hold all her wait and try to get her to keep her feet under her. They went around a few times, but she tired out pretty quickly and I think Ryan was pretty glad about that! We FINALLY convinced Kaitlyn to give it a try. She didn't even make it a 1/4 of the way around before she absolutely REFUSED to go any further and we turned around and took her back. Both girls happily played with grandma in the bleachers! I really wanted to get a picture of the girls ice skating, but I was too worried about helping them to pull out a camera. I did manage to get a picture of Ryan and he took one of me. I wanted proof that I ice skated 7 months pregnant! It was fun, but I took it supper careful to make sure I didn't fall and hurt the baby!




We had such a blast with both families. It was so hard to leave when it was time to go. But the best news, when we got home there were no catastrophes!! Our house was just as we left it. No flooding!!