Kristen's Volleyball

Kristen is a Junior this year and is on the Varsity Volleyball team and doing great!  She plays "Middle" position so she rotates in and out with the other Middle girl - meaning, she plays half the game.  She only plays the front row for hitting and blocking.  It is so fun watching her play! 

Here is a clip from her game tonight.  Pay close attention to her big plays at the :10 sec and 1:34 sec mark.  (she's #4)

Also in this clip watch for her nice hit at the :45 second mark!

This is my favorite pictures of these two!

Bennett's Latest

So Bennett is officially potty trained!  (I think, I hope)...  For the past month+ he has been more and more consistent.  And in the past weeks he's only had a few accidents.  He's able to know when to go now and will often go on his own - on the toilet, he's apparently too big of a boy to use his potty chair.  He's so independent about it too; if I try to help him he will get mad which just ends up taking longer.  He tries to put his underwear and pants back on but it's a hit or miss if he gets it (and this takes forever too and sometimes I just don't have time or patience to wait for him to figure it out).  He only wears a diaper at night, and it's about 50/50 if he wakes up wet or dry. 

I've become confident enough to let him leave the house in underwear or a pull-up now.  He did so good at our cousins' wedding last weekend and didn't wet the whole day - which included a 2.5 hour drive, going at my grandma's house, going in a gas station and going in a porta-potty! 

Also, an update on his speech:  He's picking up new words left and right.  He said wedgie yesterday (thanks Mike) and noodle tonight at supper.  It is still not that clear but for those of us around him all the time, we can usually understand it.  And he isn't saying complete sentences yet but he is starting to combine enough words to get us to know what he is talking about.  For instance, the other day he said to me "Jon, bobcat, moo (cow), poop".  This means, "I rode with Jon in the bobcat and cleaned up the cow's poop."  So, it's coming, slowly but surely the words are coming!

He was helping me pick green beans and water the garden.  The bushes right in the front of the picture are my tomatoes.  He isn't getting that those need to be red and not green when you pick them!

He found this wig at my Grandma's last weekend.  It was hilarious and cute but weird haha!

What a big helper (when he wants to be)

Tye Die Update

Our church made $21 on our onesies.  That is about the price I was hoping for/figuring they would sell for.  We got lots of compliments on them and people asking if Kristen does these as a business :-)

A few months ago Kristen bought a tye-die kit and made herself a shirt and since she had extra dye left, she tye died a onesie for Ashley.  Well, I thought that it was really cute which gave me an idea for our churches pork chop dinner/silent auction coming up next weekend.  So I bought a few onesies and Kristen did the tye-dieing.  We're going to divide these up and put them in 4 different items for the bidding at the auction.  We're hoping the bids get high enough to at least cover our costs for the materials which comes out to about $3/onesie. 

Boys Onesies

Girl's Onesies

She had alittle dye left so I had her do this sweatshirt for Ashley and shirt for Bennett

5 Years!

Mike and I have been married for 5 years!  Seriously has it been that long?

Last weekend Mike and I went (by ourselves!!!) to Duluth (Lake Superior).  We had the best time!  We left Friday afternoon and ate at a Classic Denny's on the way.  We stayed at Black Bear Casino which is about 15 minutes from Duluth.  We stayed here instead of staying in Duluth because rooms at casinos are much cheaper than in a tourist trap - we paid $70 a night instead of about $100+ a night in Duluth.  Of course they want you to spend all of your money at the casino which is why they are cheaper.  Anyways, we got to our hotel around 8:30.  That night we went down to the casino each with $20.  I lost my $20 pretty fast on a slot machine and so since the blackjack tables were all full, Mike decided he didn't want to spend his money of slots and gave me his $20.  I was able to turn that $20 in to $92 on a penny slot!  Whohoo +$52 for the night. 

Saturday we left the hotel around 10:30am and first went to Duluth and drove down by Canal Park and the harbor.  It was packed with people though so we headed to the beach for alittle bit instead.  I didn't know this even existed but it's called Park Pointe Beach.  The water was freezing but the sand was so soft and thick - kinda like sand you'd find at an ocean beach.  From here we went out of town and drove north to go to the Temperance River State Park, then to Split Rock Lighthouse and then to Gooseberry Falls (where Mike proposed to me 6 years ago).  We walked some trails, saw the waterfalls etc. which was fun.  By this time it was evening and we went back in to Duluth and went down by the canals again.  This time it wasn't as busy or hot.  We had to wait about half an hour but we were able to see a big ship come in to the harbor.  I've never seen this before so it was pretty cool. 

Sunday we didn't do anything except drive home since Mike needed to go in to work in the evening.  It was a quick trip but it was so nice and relaxing for both of us.  It was such a nice time to reconnect and have fun without the worry of kids.  (Thanks to my family for watching them for us!) 

Here are a few pictures from our weekend.  And of course, not a single picture of the two of us - ugh.

I wrote in the sand M+R on a beach in CA on our honeymoon.

The point that the Temperance River meets Lake Superior

Historic Split Rock Lighthouse

Gooseberry Falls

The ship is passing under the Duluth LiftBridge

Lighthouses on the Duluth Canal Park

8 Months

It's late so I'll just give a quick summary of the things going on in Ashley's life. 

-She isn't officially crawling yet but with her belly scooting, she is everywhere and in to everything.  She gets herself from room to room and anything she finds on the floor goes straight in to her mouth!  This has become so annoying.  I try to keep the floors picked up but she is constantly chewing on things - most of the times when I check it is just cheerios but I've also had her chewing on paper, a cookie Bennett left on the floor, a pebble from the park, and a small toy hay bale of Bennett's.  Ugh...

-Just in the past week she has started pulling herself up on to her knees and she has made it to standing a few times also.  This meant her crib got lowered even more.  She looks so big laying in her crib now that it's so far down.

-She has said DaDa a few times.

-She's eating 3 meals a day and 3 bottles.  She loves her food and gets sooo excited when it's time to eat.  I made her some baby food that she is enjoying - green beans from my garden, sweet corn/carrots on sale at the grocery's store and a pear/strawberry combo.  The veggies were definitely cheaper than buying Gerber baby food but the fruit was not and was actually more expensive. 

-I put her on the bathroom scale the other day and I think she only weighs about 15.8lbs.  Much much lighter than Bennett when he was this age.  She is wearing 6-9 month or 9 month clothing and size 2 diapers.  She should be in size 3 by now but I'm trying to use up the last of my size 2's. 

-She has learned to wave Hi, Bye & Night Night.  This is fun :-)

-She is still very addicted to me which is not fun.  If she sees me leave the room she has a fit.  If she is with other people, she is usually fine.  But then, when I enter the room, she'll start crying.  Ugh to this too...

Here are a few pictures throughout the month of my smiley little girl.

 She hasn't used the bouncy seat in months so I was getting ready to put it away.  But to occupy her while I did dishes one day, I put her in it.  She looked ridiculous!  It makes her look so long and big.

 We put the bouncy seat away and pulled out the walker (sniff sniff)

She really likes standing by her music station.  I like that it keeps her happy and content for a long time :-)