Tomorrow.

Tomorrow morning I am heading out at 6am with the kids and driving home!!! We are very excited! Our original plan was to drive on Wednesday with David, but I wanted more time there. David is working on Monday & Tuesday, so he can't come early with us. We were able to find a cheap flight for David on Wednesday morning, so it's going to work out perfect! He'll get an extra day there too and he's happy about that. And I am contemplating driving straight through and not stopping! (of course with the exception of eating and potty breaks...I'm just not stopping anywhere over night like I have done in the past) I'm crazy I know! But I think I can do it! The kids are VERY good in the car so that is what makes it possible. Plus with leaving so early I should be able to make good time and hopefully get to Blaine around 10 or 11. I do know my limits and I will stop if I need to though. I'll have plenty of movies and snacks packed for the kids! Pray for safety as we travel! See you all soon! (If you are in MN that is!)

No snow....

Tonight in the car we were talking about Thanksgiving and Christmas. Caleb is starting to get a grasp on the concept of time, so he was asking how long till Christmas. I don't remember exactly how the conversation went, but we did say that Christmas is a little over a month away. To which Caleb replied "it can't be almost Christmas, there is no snow".......oh yeah, is he a Minnesotan or what???? Everyone said we wouldn't miss the snow and winters of Minnesota.... you're all wrong! I mean, we definitely will enjoy the 70 degree weather while we can, but Christmas really won't be the same without snow! This will be the first Christmas with no snow for any of us. Maybe God can work out a miracle for us!

Oh and speaking of Christmas...I know it's a little early for my blog to be all decked out for Christmas. I put it all together myself though and I want to be able to look at it for quite a while so I skipped making a Thanksgiving one. However, once I figured out what I was doing, it was really easy to make it all. I might be changing it up more often now! No promises. My kids need me more than my blog needs a new layout. And I need some sleep. Goodnight.

Getting a new look.....

I'm working on making my own background and design for the blog. Sorry if you are visiting tonight and my blog is a mess! I will have it all figured out soon! :)

Halloween Pictures!

These are a little overdue! We had a pretty good Halloween this year, although it was just another reminder of how much we miss home! We normally go to my dad's and the kids trick or treat with their cousins, we really missed that!!!
The playgroup that we are a part of had a Halloween party, so we went to that (which was the weekend before Halloween). On Halloween we took the kids to a "trunk or treat"....yes you read that right. We had never heard of anything like that before! And it's literally just that. The one that we went to was sponsored by a local church and people decorated their trunks and it was pretty much like a mini carnival. The kids had a really good time! We also did a little trick or treating at a near by neighborhood. Overall, the kids had a blast. They got WAY too much candy though! I'll probably toss it all out in a couple of weeks because I'd rather them not have a sugar high everyday for the next two months!

At the trunk or treat....bowling on the streets of gold. Complete with a guardian angel. :) (just a tad bit cheesy....)

Superman with his Superdaddy! :)

This is November??

Yesterday it was sunny and 78! It was the perfect afternoon to take the bikes out and wear off some energy! (while having fun, of course!) Seems weird that Thanksgiving will be here in a couple of weeks!

Another funeral

David's Uncle Jim passed away a little over a week ago, and the funeral was last Thursday. If you read my blog regularily, you will know that this is the second funeral for David's side within the past six weeks. First his Grandma's at the end of September, and now Uncle Jim's. Funerals certainly get you thinking about life. This time of year is always a little different for us. In just two weeks we will celebrate Dylan's 4th Birthday. In case you are wondering...we won't ever stop celebrating his birthday. He's our son and he deserves to be celebrated and remembered! We will be in MN for Thanksgiving, so we will have a chance to celebrate there as well. Our yearly tradition is to send him balloons and have cake. We purposely chose to travel to MN on Thanksgiving and not Christmas so we could be there around his birthday. We know that it's only his earthly body in the cemetery, he is not there, we know that. But it's still important for us to go to the cemetery. It's one way for us to honor his all too short life.

PhotoHunt: Blue

I found this fun new blog! Each week there is a photohunt theme. This week is blue. Here is my FAVORITE blue picture! We have a large version framed in our house. This was taken in January 2005 on our vacation to San Diego.



PhotoHunt

More practice....

The other day I was on the phone and David was home....on the couch napping I believe...anyways. Erika is two and man, two year olds know when nobody is watching them. I forgot to put my makeup bag away. Need I say more. I got to her before she destroyed anything. She got to the eye liner before I got to her though. I must say that I am impressed that it was only on her eye and the surrounding area. (the mark on her cheek is a scratch from earlier this week) The girl knew what it was for! Did I mention she's two? She could use a little more practice. I think we'll wait about 10 more years for that though. Lesson learned: put makeup bag away every morning!

And yes, I bribed her with a sucker so I could take a picture.

600!

That's how many view's I've had since I added the counter at the bottom of the page! WOW! I didn't think too many people were actually reading my blog! YAY! Now maybe we can get to 1000....haha! :)

Raisins.

This afternoon our snack of choice was "cracker fish" (aka goldfish crackers) and raisins. Little did I know that when I left the room for TWO SECONDS Erika would decide to put a few of her raisins up her nose. Yes up her nose. Thankfully only one side so she could still breath. There was a brief moment of panic on my part as to how we were going to get them out. But then she turned around with a raisin on her finger and said "mom booger raisin"......I quickly left the room. I had to laugh but didn't want her to know it! She successfully got all of her "booger raisins" out and all nasal passages are clear.

The Little Gym

Yesterday we took a trip to The Little Gym with our playgroup. It was loads of fun! I especially enjoyed the two hours afterwards when BOTH kids napped!!! That is rare in this house now since Caleb doesn't nap anymore! Here are a few pictures!!

He's a very brave little monkey....

I love the next two action shots I got of the kids. I just wish I had a better camera.....

Very proud of the flip he just did and wanting to see what I got on camera!
My two little monkeys!!

Just some random pictures....

This is my life with a little girly-girl! She brings her purse everywhere we go! She even has a play cell phone (well actually I think she has 4 of them....) and she has play keys & lipstick that she keeps in there. Don't forget....she's TWO!

Daddy & Caleb...out for breakfast on Daddy's day off.

I love this picture....you can really see her curls!

This is probably the best picture I have gotten of the kids in a long time!!!

Our first pumpkin pictures....

Last week I took the kids to Calloway's for a kid's day event. We had fun and got to bring home a free pumpkin for each of them!

I love this picture of them!

Decorating their pumpkins...

It never works out to have them both smiling or at least not making faces at the same time....

This one turned out pretty good though....here they are proudly holding their popcorn.

Our trip to Goodland, KS

Here are a few pics from our trip to Goodland for Grandma's funeral. We certainly enjoyed the family time!!

Erika, Megan (cousin) and Caleb

Swimming at the hotel

Megan & Caleb were buddies the whole weekend!
Grandpa with the queen of dirty looks.
Grandpa & Caleb
Erika dosed off at dinner....
Caleb with Daddy, Grandma & Grandpa
Frieda (my mother in law), Ann (my sister in law) and me

My new hobby!

I have a new hobby that I am passionate about....COUPONS! I joined a coupon group here in Mesquite. I have a new organization system that I love and I am loving going shoping now! Not that I didn't love shopping before, but grocery shopping is totally different when you are saving so much money! Today I spent $47.59 and I saved $54.78!!!!! How exciting to save MORE than you spend!!!! And I didn't even have a coupon for everything that I bought! (which really is a big no-no) It does take time, but so far it's paying off!

Sorry....

It's been a while since I've blogged!! We've been busy and we had to go out of town. Last Thursday David's grandma passed away. We are very sad to loose her, but we rejoice in knowing that she is with her sweet Jesus. (and I am certain she has held our Dylan!) We traveled to Goodland, Kansas for the funeral. It was a really nice trip for us. We had David for 4 solid days, how wonderful! As a family, we really needed some time together! And of course it was nice to see everyone. I got to meet some of David's family that I had never met before. Caleb loved playing with his cousin Megan. Erika, well her and Megan weren't too sure of each other. Once they spend more time together I'm sure they will play good. I have a lot of cute pictures to post but I need to upload them to the computer first. Hopefully I will have time tomorrow to get them up.

My baby is five!!!!

Yesterday was Caleb's fifth birthday! I can't hardly believe it's been five years since his scary early arrival! I'm so thankful he is a healthy big boy now! :) We had a great day yesterday! Initially he was very upset that we weren't having a birthday party with all of our friends and family from MN, but he had a very fun day so he was okay. We took him to Toys R Us to buy a toy with his birthday money. Next we headed to McD's for some lunch, then to Walmart to pick up his cake and then home to play! It was a fun day. David was able to get the day off too, so that made it even more special. Here are a few pics of the fun day!

He didn't like the candles...but he loved the cake. He asked for a football cake this year!

Caleb with his cheesy big grin, lol. I mostly wanted to show you the wrapping paper he wanted his presents wrapped in....yes, it's Christmas paper! I had to take some stuff out of the closet the other day to find something and the paper came out and he saw and got very excited and asked me if I was going to use it to wrap his bday presents!! The kid LOVES all things Christmas! And the best part is it saved me a few bucks!!!

Grand Central Station...the toy he picked out at Toys R Us. He has other train stuff that all connects with it, so we were able to make a huge track! He has played with it non stop!

Hard to believe this was five years ago.....

A few pics from last Saturday

These are from last Saturday during the rain/wind we got from Hurricane Ike. The kids had fun playing in the rain!!!

This was across the field at the park. There were kids out there playing football all day!!!!

The wind in the afternoon was crazy!!! I can't even imagine what it was like on the coast!! SCARY!!

The letter R

Erika is talking a TON lately, but she doesn't quite get the R sound right, and most of the time just skips it all together. Because of this you would think our daughter swears! I assure you she doesn't! A few nights ago we were in the car going to meet Uncle Nate for dinner and she said "I see a bridge"....take out the R and say it like a two year old, and, well, you get a cuss word! David and I were laughing so hard!!!!

Today we went to walmart (yes, we are crazy, but I assure you the store was packed so we were not the only crazy ones!). It was raining a little when we went into the store, but not too bad. When were done getting groceries, it was POURING and the wind was crazy too! We were soaked! When we got home I figured the kids could play in the rain for a few minutes since they would have to change anyways. When we got in the house I said to Erika "let's get this shirt off of you" to which she replied "yeah, get this shirt off me"....again, take out the letter R. Of course she doesn't know what she's saying or why it's funny, so I try not to laugh....otherwise it's repeated MANY MANY times!

A few highlights from our trip home!

I have a TON of pictures so it's hard to choose which ones to share! Here are a few of our favorites!
Here's Erika at the start of our trip...she's ready to go!

This is at the MN State Fair!Me & David at the State Fair
Cookies with Allie during our shopping trip to Albertville
Playland fun with Jonathan, Allie & Jackson
Playing horseshoes with Auntie Teri

Me & my cousin Katie

Our second trip to the state fair! This is on the sky ride! A favorite tradition that we normally do with Daddy (and I am usually squeezing his arm during the whole trip!) Of course corn from the corn roast!
Uncle Lee & Auntie Teri with the kids
Me & Erika
Caleb & Erika got to go on a few rides!
My little farm hands!
Hanging out with cousin Courtney up at the lake
Erika & her mUncle (as she calls him!)

We had an awesome time! We got to see a lot of family & friends! We missed Daddy quite a bit, so even though it was hard to leave MN again, we were excited to come home to Daddy! We will be back in MN at Thanksgiving! Hopefully there will be some snow by then! That is one thing we will all miss!