A Little Ladder

The other day, I walked into our living room and it smelled like something was burning. I walked all over the house trying to figure out where the smell was coming from and then what was actually burning. It took me awhile to figure out that it was our ceiling fan. Too bad our ceilings are so tall. Tom assured me he could do it.

This was quite the project. First he tried doing it himself. Then he enlisted Jack's help. They had two smaller ladders. Jack was holding the new fan (which is the heaviest thing I've ever felt) over his head while Tom tried to reach the wires. He was hoping to just attach the wires at the end of the pole that hung down, but that didn't work. He finally had to rent a 14 foot ladder from Home Depot to reach the ceiling. I'm glad it wasn't me up there on that thing.

Kade is 8

I can't believe that Kade is eight years old. I kept asking him what he wanted for his birthday (meaning a present) and the only thing he kept asking for was the ice cream sandwich cake. Being the bad mom that I am, when I went looking for candles, I couldn't find any. Finally on the top shelf in the way back of the cupboard I found a box of candles, but there were only seven, not eight. Kade didn't seem to mind though.

We got Kade a new bike because his other one was way too small. I don't think he was thrilled with this. He was afraid to get on and ride it. We made him do it and within a few minutes, he was fine.
Grace and Megan in matching outfits. I need to get a sewing machine and learn how to use it so I can make cute little outfits for them while they're still young and will let me dress them.

Grandmother and Grandfather visit

It was so nice to have Tom's parents come visit and help out with the baby and kids. Everyone was so excited for them to come visit. Thanks for all your help!!!!

Megan is still working on being happy when awake.
One night, Clark went into their room and found Grace in his bed. She decided that she needed to sleep in there with them. She got her own little bed on the floor and was more than happy for her slumber party.

More baby pics

I have been trying to do this post for a long time. It seems that the last four or five times I have sat down to blog, the baby starts crying so I can't finish. Megan is asleep so here goes.

Kade loved to be Superman so I guess Grace is following in his footsteps as Supergirl.

My parents came to visit after Megan was born. It was so nice having extra help. As you can see, Megan is crying in the picture. She definitely has a healthy set of lungs!
My dad spent the two weeks they were here fixing my falling down fence in the front. Whoever built my fence didn't do a very good job. Every time it rains and is windy, my whole fence falls over. He was out there in the high 90 degree weather everyday braving the humidity. Thanks Dad.
Grace loves to dress up. Can you tell? She also loves to play tea party with her Tinkerbell cups.
Megan hasn't learned to love bath time yet. She is fine for the first few minutes and then cries.

Everyone is adjusting to the new baby. Grace is a little Mommy. Whenever she hears the baby cry, she runs to find a pacifier and then shoves it in Megan's mouth. The boys are really good with her as well. Kade has decided that he wants to be the favorite brother so he tries to hold Megan as much as he can.

She's Here

Our new baby is here. Megan Kristine was born a week ago. She came 15 days early. She weighed 7 lbs 8 oz. and was 20 1/4 inches long.

Grace was so excited to see the new baby but since she hasn't been getting naps lately, she fell asleep in the car on the way to the hospital.
She did wake up right before they were going to leave.
The kids are all excited to have a new baby.

When we got home from the hospital, Kade started getting everything ready for the baby. I had a bunch of baby items in my bedroom so he was assembling everything.

More Awards

All the boys did well in school this year. They all received straight A's for the year. Way to go!

Awards

We had our end of the year awards ceremony yesterday for Jack. I can't believe that it's that time of year again. Time just seems to fly. Jack made all As this year. Good job Jack! He also had 510 AR points for reading for the year. He should have gotten 2nd place for that but they gave the award to another kid who had less points. Tom told Jack to tell one of his teachers but I know he won't do it. I guess it doesn't matter - it just would have been nice for him to be recognized.

He did not want me taking his picture. Can you tell?
This is the cake that Jack made for the Boy Scout Chili Cook-off and cake auction this year. Last year he made a dragon cake. I found this recipe on-line and told him that I thought people would pay money for it. It was a chocolate peanut butter cup cake. His cake and my chocolate mousse cake were the two highest selling cakes of the night - around $60 each.
Here is the last award we received. I entered my same chili recipe that I make every time we have to bring chili to a function. This year I won. Can you believe it? Shocking. I am now the proud owner of a chili trophy for the year.

Happy Birthday Grace

I can't believe that Grace is 3. When I asked her what she wanted for her birthday, I was expecting all kinds of toy ideas. Her response every time was a pink cake. That is all she cared about.

I made my Aunt Karen's strawberry cake for Grace. I had forgotten why I never make this cake - the frosting never turns out right for me. She still loved her cake.

Grace loved her little kitchen set she got for her birthday. She put her apron and hat on right away and didn't want to take them off for any reason.

Easter 2011

We always take a family picture on Easter, but we didn't get it this year. At least there's one of the kids.

Tom dressed Grace for church. I had planned on her wearing a green dress so when he told me he got her dressed he said it was the new dress. I said what new dress? He said the one with the tags still on it. He had picked out last year's easter dress. She didn't wear it last year because it was too big. This year - too small, but she loved her princess dress.

Decorating Eggs
The boys were a little disappointed this year that there were only 4 dozen eggs to color. The funny thing is - they ate all the eggs within a week.


Grace only did a couple eggs but they were very bright colors - just like her hands.



Easter Dinner

So I cooked a ham for dinner. We were supposed to eat at 4 p.m. It was after 7 p.m. before we ate because the dumb ham took forever to cook. I must have found the only non precooked ham they sell. Perhaps it was frozen in the middle. I don't know. All I do know is that it cooked for 4 hours and it was perfect when we finally ate it. I worried that it was going to not be done to worrying that it was going to be super dry. It turned out fine in the end. This is why I shouldn't entertain.

Since we don't have any family close by this year, we invited a few families over for dinner. Here are most of the kids before the egg hunt. There were four gold eggs that had money in them. Kade tried to hard to find one. He purposely passed up all kinds of eggs in his search for the golden egg. He didn't end up finding one and cried when he realized he wasn't going to get one. Jack took his egg and re-hid it for Kade without being asked. Jack is such a good boy.


Easter baskets

The kids had to figure out clues to find their baskets. Tricky bunny.

Can we say crazy hair. Grace's hair looks like this every morning.

I tried being crafty this year. I saw this idea for wheat grass on a blog and decided to try it. The first try didn't work. I guess old wheat from my food storage won't grow. I should have known this. After I bought new wheat, it worked great. The kids gave the grass a haircut.