Five Questions Friday

While visiting Kami's blog I noticed she's been doing this blog carnival, and I thought it looked fun and simple! So here I go!

1. What is the one thing that you reach for the most in a day (excluding phones and computers)? Well my phone wins hands down....but since we are excluding those, I'd say the milk! I feel like the milk container is in and out of the fridge so much during one day!

2. What is the farthest you have been from home?
Cancun, for our honeymoon! I'd love to go back someday! Well really I'd like any vacation with just my hubby again!

3. What kind of cell phone do you have? Love it or hate it?
I have an LG Lotus. I've only had it a couple weeks and I definitely LOVE it! I went from a ghetto no good phone to this one and it's great!

4. Coke or Pepsi?
I'll take a diet vanilla coke from Sonic please.

5. If you could go back and change anything about your wedding day, what would it be and why? Hmmmm, well there are a few things that I would like to have been different but to save hurt feelings I won't share them here. One thing I would definitely go back and change if I could though would be pictures. I LOVE my wedding pictures, but for some reason we never got pictures with Grandparents. My Grandma has since gone home to be with the Lord and I would love it if I had a picture of me & her on my wedding day.

Now it's your turn!!!

Erika's 3rd Birthday

Okay, it's totally catch up time on my blog! I just realized that I never posted pictures from Erika's birthday!

One of my long time dreams was to have a little girl and make her a barbie cake for her birthday and this year that dream true!!!! It was SO much fun making this cake! And super easy too. I'm not talented at all when it comes to cake decorating, so really anyone could do this!!!!

Opening her gift from Uncle Mike, Auntie Anna and her cousins!

All while they watched from Michigan thanks to Skype. Grandpa Ruch also got to tell her Happy Birthday!

(and Caleb got to say hi as well!)

Isn't technology wonderful???

We were blessed to have Grandma Ruch in MN to celebrate Erika's birthday with us!

Here's the birthday girl all decked out in her new dress up clothes and her fashion puppy!

I think this picture is hilarious!

Erika sporting her new barbie wig & shades from the MN Ruch's!

And much needed clothes from Grandma & Grandpa!

This is one of her favorties now too since it has a kitty on it!

And why only celebrate once?? It's her 3rd birthday and we ended up celebrating three times!
Here she is with her princess cake from Grandma Mary & Grandpa Matt.

And here is the awesome Barbie Dream House that she got from Grandma & Grandpa!

She LOVES it!!

Last but not least, here is the celebration we had with a few friends!Thanks Allie & Charlie for coming to celebrate my birthday with me!

Overall I'd say Erika had a GREAT birthday! She is a blessed girl and is a blessing in our lives! We pray for many more birthdays to come!

I know, I know....

It's been quite a while since I last blogged! I honestly just haven't taken the time to sit down and blog. I have been reading a few different books (which is so NOT me!), I'm currently sucked into Gilmore Girls, scrapbooking, re-organizing all the closets and there is the never ending pile of laundry. And a whole long list of excuses lifes occurrences as to why I haven't been blogging!

I promise to have some new blogs up by the end of this week!
Here's what you can expect: Caleb's birthday highlights, state fair, labor day weekend and our future rockstar. Plus I am sure there will be more!

I have a Kindergartener

I still can't believe it.

My baby is a Kindergartener.

I now pack lunches.

I have been to a PTO meeting.

I walk to the bus stop.

It's official. My baby is growing up.

Two changes.

Starting Sept 1st, we made some big changes in our house. 1st off.....we have committed to not eating out the rest of the year! The only exception is birthdays and an occasional date night. Amazingly, we have only eaten out once since then! We were headed up north and we all really needed something to eat and I had forgotten to make sandwiches. But for 17 days only eating out once is darn near a miracle!!!! I am SO proud of us for sticking to this. This was my idea and I knew that it would mean way more work for me, but I was ready for it! I have been making more and more things homemade! I recently starting making breads. I haven't made a regular loaf of bread yet, but I have made pizza dough, cheesy breadsticks and tonight I made dinner roals. And when I say homemade, I mean break out the yeast and flour...that kind of homemade!!!!! Don't know why I didn't start doing this a whole lot sooner, but I am so happy I am doing it now!!! I don't think we'll ever go back to store bought!

The 2nd change is me. I recently blogged about working out. I am sticking to it! I am going to the gym *most* mornings.....sometimes I just really need an extra hour of sleep. Although I am starting to see more and more that I have more energy from a half hour on the treadmill than if I stay in sleepytown for another hour. This change, this early morning workout thing has seriously transformed our lives. Not just mine either. Once I'm home from the gym I sit down to a nice cup of coffee with David before he heads off to work for the day. We have really enjoyed our mornings together.

I am still excited about both of these changes and it's been over two weeks......that says something!

I feel like a whole new person and I love it!!!!

Bunkbeds....the home made kind.

A couple weeks ago, David was able to take a long weekend off from work. The project: BUNKBEDS!!!!! David's dad built bunkbeds when he was little, so he's always wanted to build them for our kids too. Personally, I think that's incredible. Not to mention MUCH cheaper than store bought! Specifically....about 1/2 the price!!!

Caleb got to help out where he could! Here he's marking the wood.

We were at my brother-in-laws house for the weekend using their garage!

Let the work begin!!!

And David had an audience!

Apparently he stayed up until 3am working on the bunkbeds! (he got a late start....8pm) So the next morning when I went into the garage this is what I saw!!! He's amazing!

Here's Miss Erika. Making a "puzzle" out of leftover wood pieces!

And "helping" Daddy!

I didn't get any pictures, but our nephew Tim was a huge help loading all the pieces up and carrying them into our apartment!

And here's the almost finished product!!! He still needs to add a couple of supports to the top rail and then sand & stain it all. For now, we'll just enjoy them as they are!

The kids LOVE their new beds!

I am still amazed that we can go from this:


To this:


In just a matter of three days!!!!

Day #2

That's what today is. Day #2. I have decided that it's time to get serious. I am going all out. It's all or nothing now. So today, for the second day in a row I got up earlier than the crack of dawn and headed to our local Y. Early morning workout. It was GREAT!!!! I don't have a ton of time in the morning, but I know I am burning way more calories the rest of the day because I have boatloads of energy! Yesterday I accomplished more in a day than I could ever hope to! I have long wanted to change, I just haven't. Now's the time. Why now and not six months ago? Because now I am ready to do it. I am sick of being the fat mom, the fat wife, the fat family member, the fat friend. I am ready for change.

Lilli Putt

Earlier this week we took the kids to Lilli Putt. If you live in our area you know what Lilli Putt is. If you live in our area and you don't know what Lilli Putt is you must live a very sheltered life,

or in a hole.

Here's Erika, our star mini golf student.

She followed every rule her daddy told her and would NEVER pick her ball up and place it right by the hole so she could hit it straight in.

And she most certainly wouldn't purposely hit her ball into the water.

Simply because it's funny to watch daddy fetch the balls out of the water.

On every.single.hole.

Caleb on the other hand started to "get it" about half way through and really wanted to do it right.



Here's the clan soaking wet after the bumper boats. No pictures on the boats for obvious reasons.


Here's our future race car driver. For now he gets to ride with a great teacher who now has the desire to buy a go-cart....

(and just look at that smile on Caleb's face!!!! priceless!)

What a great fun filled afternoon!!

Do you see what I see?

We found this little guy in our deck box the other day.

It's rare that we find an actual frog and not a toad!

Here's a closer look! I LOVE frogs so this was really fun for me! :)

Rain, Rain, Go Away!!!

We have had a few rainy days!

Thankfully it's all cleared up and we've had a beautiful afternoon!

Which is good. I was about to go crazy. Two solid days of rain means A LOT of pent up energy!
Last night before bed the kids were WOUND up! What better way to wear off some energy than to go play in said rain.

As you can see, they had a blast! This was something we had done quite a bit when we lived in Texas, but we hadn't since we'd been back here (mostly b/c there hasn't been all that much rain).

Now we are ready for snow! :)

Busy busy busy!!!!

That is what we have been!!!! We've had family in town, church picnics, swimming lessons, birthday celebrations, young married picnic and all kinds of summer fun that has been keeping me away from the computer!!! Trying to squeeze in as much summer fun as we can before my baby starts Kindergarten in a few weeks!!!!
So please forgive me for being a slacker in the virtual world!