Party

We had our first friend birthday party for Makayla. 9 of the 12 invites were able to attend. I think a good time was had by all.

Crafts were done, making princess crowns,

playing with various beads,

and painting nails.(Thank you to a very good friend for all of her help with the party, she was a life saver!) Definately lots of screaming and giggling were done by the girls! Hopefully a party she will remember for a long time.

Maggie is already planning her party with her friends. I had to remind her Kayla had to wait until first grade and true Maggie style said, "well I am not waiting until first grade to have my friend party!" I just replied we will see.

Birthday girl

Our birthday girl turned 7 on the 24th! I cannot believe how much life has changed in 7 years. She is truly a wonderul little girl! We just love her so much and are so proud of her. Makayla is such a smart little cookie, much older than her years reflect. She is an excellent big sister to all her siblings.

PJ was thrilled with all the packing materials, he enjoyed popping them with his bum.

Maggie loved her necklaces from her granny! and the box they came in.

Brie was thrilled with her hair pretty from granny. She rolled on the floor for almost an hour trying to open her gift. So this is the look of a proud little girl.

family pictures

Taking a family picture really is impossible these days! Not a one in the fifty taken caught us looking our best. It does make me quite nervous about family pictures closer to Christmas time!

I keep reminding myself we will treasure these photos and all the difficulty we had in obtaining them.

Boyfriend

My dear dear friend came for a visit for a few days. Our babies are 5 weeks apart! we are setting them up early! It was a lovely visit and her little man is such a cutie and such a sweet boy.

It is surprising how similar the babies were. Lots of the same actions and sounds! The time went by too quickly but it was so nice to have conversation in person and not worry about running the battery down on the phone!

1st tooth

So my little baby has her first tooth as of Wed. September 22! Bottom left, she loves to show it off and feel it with her tongue! She has handled its arrival well, only a couple doses of Tylenol. I cannot believe it is teeth time already!

Sundays.....

So my neice/hubby and kiddos arrived Sunday to go to the pumpkin patch with us. They were so sweet and made a birthday sign and cupcakes for our upcoming birthdays! Our kiddos parallel each other, though she opted out of baby number 4! I tried very hard to change her mind, no luck.

PJ was thrilled with his new tractor book!

Pumpkin patch photos.......

the train ride

meeting a real cowboy! the almost two year olds did not know what to think of him! They did love the sherrifs badges he was handing out.

A tractor ride that was not long enough according to the kids.

A giant spider web that they could make bounce! Note it was a bit rainy and chilly, see Brie covered by the blanket.

A little time in the wet, muddy pumpkin patch. I have to admit we have not been in a patch so early in the season and the vines were very twisty and caused lots of face plants for our little people.

The hayrack ride!

What a great day! it is always so fun to hang out with the neice and her family! Thanks for making it such a great Sunday!

Plans...

So we did not have any set plans for the weekend and it turned out to be a very funfilled weekend.

Friday night we ended up with my sister, neice, and great neice over for a brief visit. It is fun to have family at our house.

Saturday we were to have a soccer game but it was raining. The phone rang and it was the brother in law asking if were home for a visit....so Kayla's godmom, PJ's godfather, and my mom arrive for a little birthday bash.

Grandma and grandpa's gift to PJ was a huge hit! Pete could not get the tractor out of the package fast enough, poor PJ had to wait for every wire to be undone( I think it had no less than 100 wires:~) ) He also recieved very loud firetrucks and a bubble mower that are lots of fun as well.

I think Auntie Coke's gift of a fish took the cake though! "Rainbow" is loving his new home and family(I think). Yes our first pet and we are starting very small and slowly, a single beta fish.

Go Hawks!

The little ones were sporting their Hawkeye attire for the Saturday game. The big ones do not have Hawkeye stuff I realized so we must change that. PJ's blue eyes really are that beautiful in person as well!

Smiles

Pete is working yet another evening so feeding, cleaning, bathing, homework, tomorrows prep are on me once again. It is proving more difficult these days as Brie has given up the evening nap and insists she sit at the table with us and eat at the same time. As to save time Kayla offered to feed Brie, I did pause but then really what is it going to hurt right?. I got them all squared away and headed up to bath the middle two. When I returned the quote went something like this "Brie is a pretty messy eater huh?" Yes indeed as photographed she IS a messy eater but she was completely happy and full of smiles so what can I say.

Birthday girl

So my mom is having a birthday this month. My sisters and sisters in laws took her to the Winery restaurant in town for dinner. Some good laughs and several wine tastings later we all were left smiling. I have to say she is the woman I admire most in life, what an incredible lady my mom is. If I am half as caring, generous and wonderful as her I will be a very lucky person. It is a great honor to have her as my mother.

Here is group shot of the girls!

Friends

So five of us from the class of 93 got together. It was a great time catching us and laughing. We only manage to do this every 18 months or so, we are really going to try to do this more often. Our kids play so well together and are getting alittle older so are a bit less needy so visiting can actually happen a bit.

It was mass chaos but we did manage to get a picture of all our kiddos, all 15 of them!! We all got a good chuckle with the fact that 5 of us have created 15 1/2 babies! crazy!!(no folks who are quick to catch the 1/2 it is NOT me!! my friend Lally is due in 8 weeks:~)) Nice thought everyone but we are very happy being a family of 6 here.

Granny and Pop

Granny and Pop came to town for a conference and were able to sneak in a little time with the kiddos. Here they are snuggling with the babes! Our little people can never get enough of Pop's silliness or Granny's singing. Brie is usually the shy one but she had no problems with them!

Renaissance Festival

An early birthday surprise for our princess Miss Makayla. We took her to the Minnesota Renaissance Festival. Pete has always told me about it but WOW! until you see it in person, stories cannot explain this. Pete and the girls ready to check it all out! So I haveto say sorry this post is definately HEAVY on photos but it was too hard to narrow them down. Enjoy!

I borrowed a "snuggly" from his sister and Brie was my ride along friend all day!

A beautiful close up of each of the girls if I say so myself.

Check out all the scenery, this place is very large with tons of permanent buildings. Look at the photo backgrounds, truly amazing.

Our first of many fairies, this one cannot speak and plays a lovely tune on her flute.

Another gracious fairy handing out gems!

Watching a show.

ELEPHANT riding! who knew! Kayla choose the elephant. The line was pretty long so she got a short ride.

Mags on the other hand choose the llama, no long so a very long ride. She never stopped smiling the whole time!

The overall friendliness of the festival was wonderful!

Story time with yet another fairy type person, the children all trotted through the field, taking part in the actual story.

Having pixie dust sprinkled all over ones body is a must at the festival. I think it has been at least 4 baths and swimming and I still see fairy sprinkles in my childrens' heads.

Maggie did well with her wimpy lungs, lots of shoulder rides by daddy and

an occassional sit with Brie in the stroller.

A very pretty bubble fairy who placed bubbles in your hand.

Lunch and a show.

Face painting for Makayla,

and arm painting for Maggie. She was enjoying a tootsie roll during the photo!

Pete said we had our own jester! Brie was the happiest baby all weekend! We are very lucky. 12 hours in the car and she held it together until 30 minutes from home!

A walk to the Enchanted Forest!

Swimming at the hotel on Sunday before check out. The girls did not know the hotel had a pool until then. I know we are mean for not telling them but we knew Maggie couldn't swim Friday night because of bad lungs and Saturday they were exhausted!

Brie's first time in a pool and swimming, this girl LOVED the water. I am pretty sure if she could talk she would definately say this was the best part of her weekend away! Poor little thing her mommy forgot about sunscreen on Saturday so we all had pink cheeks Sunday.

Our return brought out BIG smiles from our little man we left with grandma and grandpa! We all missed him terribly but knew he was being well cared for. It sounds like he and they had a great time together!

A group shot before headed home Sunday night with grandma and grandpa! Not too bad after how many hours traveling! A great big thank you to grandma and grandpa for caring for our little boy so we could spend some quality time with the girls!