A night in the life...dinner

Ok, here we are snapping the ends off the green beans- we love fresh green beans! Lovely aren't they?:)
Ally tried to help- she just would snap the beans and throw them into the bowl- Kylie would try to correct her and let her know that you can't throw the yucky end into the bowl. She did not quite get it!
Kylie begged me to put this one in- she took the picture of me dancing to the cd Thousand Foot Krutch- we usually make dinner listening to some sort of music.

And while we are waiting for water to boil, or chicken to cook, we dance together!
Kylie made the dinner tonight:), here she is stirring the green beans, we like to saute them in fresh garlic and olive oil and a little bit of butter. Yummy!!
Kylie is grilling the chicken- we love to grill!!

Yeah- daddy just came home from work- he looks so handsome!!
Here is our yummy dinner!

Congratulations Katie and Jason!

Congratulations Katie & Jason! Well most everyone already knows that our dear friend Katie is engaged, however I wanted to post the news on my blog as well! They are planning to get married this September- and staying in the area! Yeah! She has been living in the apartment over our detached garage- so it has been nice having her close by!! We will miss her, but thankful she will only be about 10 to 12 minutes away. She has asked all of us girls to be in the wedding, which we are so honored and looking forward to taking part in their special day!
We love Katie and are so thankful for her and the friend she has been to all of us. As Emme says "she is my bef friend". She has been watching our kids since Emme was a baby, so almost five years now- thank you Katie, our girls are so excited when Katie comes to babysit!
We are goofy girls!!
These are some pictures we took while visiting out in Colorado.

We love you Katie and are so excited for you both!!!!

yeah Kylie!

Yeah- Kylie is done with first grade!!! It went well this year. We are glad to have some time off for a little while. Now- I am ordering books for next year! I will be teaching Kylie 2nd and Emme kindergarten- and chasing after Ally. Fun fun!!

We don't really have much planned this summer- just hanging out and relaxing! Oh and she was not riding the four wheeler- just posing for a picture! This is one of daddy's - I need to take some more of her on her own.:) They have not ridden in awhile- maybe we will take them out today! Looks like it is going to be nice- yeah!

Ally's Dora Party

Here is the cake I made for Ally- the writing looks totally off, oh well- 5 hours of decorating for five minutes of eating- totally worth it. I enjoy decorating cakes! Love the look on Ally's face while we were singing happy birthday to her!

Sneaking a lick of icing.

She is so cute waiting to blow out her candles!

Big girl- Happy Birthday!!

Thank you to everyone that made her day so special!!!

Happy Birthday Allyana!

Happy Birthday! I love you so much! Little Ally is two today! What a big girl! Gotta love the "racin' stripe". All my girls had that little strip of hair down the middle!
She is so joyful!! I love this picture of Ally!!
Well, I have pictures from her Dora party yesterday- however my camera battery died. So until I find my charger, they will be stuck in there.

Miniature Golf

We took the girls miniature golfing tonight! Ally was dancing to the music the dj was blasting over the loud speaker. Sorry this one is kind of blurry, but here is the gang!
Emme and Kylie posing in front of the waterfall- poor Emme hit her eye today, it is a little swollen.

Thought this was a neat shot of all the girls!
Ally was upset because we she wanted to get into the water and we told her no- gotta love the bottom lip!

They gave Ally her own special club. So cute!
Here are my cuties- minus one- should have taken one of daddy with his girls.
Oh, the winner of course was daddy!! I loved Emme's honesty, Kylie too, but Emme was cracking me up- she would yell 9 or 10, 8, whatever her score was- and most of the time it was those numbers, where as we would quietly say 8 or whatever. No concept of the game, just to get it in the hole and count how many times it takes to get in there. She was just having fun! We all had fun- thank you Daddy!!

Painting!

The girls did a little painting today! It was such a nice day today, we went to the park this morning and then came home and had the girls do some painting while Ally took a nap- otherwise I think the deck would have had a little more paint on it if Ally was awake!:)
Excuse the mess on the side- guess I need to go through all that junk!!

Thank You!

Well first I want to say thank you to everyone who was praying for Todd yesterday! He is doing well today. Here is the scoop- Todd called me yesterday morning from work asking me to make him an appointment to see the doctor- ok that was the first sign that something was seriously wrong- Todd never wants to go to the doctor. He then calls back and says can you come and get me and take me to the hospital. He was feeling really dizzy and was having shortness of breath- his speech was really slow and slurred. And have the time he wasn't really making sense. I was already on my way at his point and he calls again and said they(the guys in the office) have called 911- just find out what hospital they are taking me too. I made it there before he left,so I followed them to the hospital. They did all sorts of tests, EKG, blood work, and a Cat Scan, but after hours of waiting, all the results came back great. He is healthy and they could not find anything wrong. Praise the Lord for that. While we were there he was progressively feeling better, so that was good. He was saying that while he was inside at the ambulance he could see me and was thinking I don't want to leave her and the girls- he was having thoughts that his might be it. That was how weird and awful he felt. He had a vision from the Lord that he saw Him arms wide open, not like He was welcoming him home, but that he was taking care of him and there was nothing to worry about. And then He sort of patted him on the back and said get back out there and do my work. You still have a lot to do for me(the Lord). So Todd was encouraged by that- (I hope I explained that they way he saw it). But we are so grateful for everyones prayers during that time yesterday- we truely believe the Lord healed Todd. Thank you so much! It is such a joy to see the body of Christ come together and join in prayer for one of the body- thank you also to Katie for watching my girls all day! WE love you all!

Air Conditioner down!

Yeah- our downstairs air conditioner stopped working. Not good- our house as most of you know is always freezing. So we had someone come out today to see what the problem was- well I had a coupon for a free service call, if they find the problem and we decide to use them, the fee is waived. Well he found the problem- a switch plate that turns the unit on downstairs went bad and this de-humidifier that is plugged into the air conditioner was unplugged. So what would of cost us maybe $3 to 5 dollars for a new switch plate outlet thing, ended up costing us $85 for the service call. For him to fix it, the quote was like $160 for parts and labor. Crazy stuff! But at least our air is fixed. And that it wasn't anymore than the service call I had to pay for. Thankfully it has not been too hot. The nights have been cooling off, so that is good!:)

"Chapstick"

While I was posting about corn on the cob Ally came in to show me what she was up to- putting "chapstick" on- only it wasn't chapstick, it was a glue stick. Silly girl. Thankfully she put most of it around her mouth and I don't think she figured out how to make it turn up, so there was not very much to put on.

Corn on the Cob

We had corn on the cob tonight for dinner! Yummy! One of my favorites. Well, while we were peeling the corn, Ally thought they were "Nannas". Emme enjoying being a helper!
Ally enjoying her "pop pop". I think she thought it was something like popcorn. So cute!

This picture does not even come close to what I walked out and saw. Ally found the box that contained the supplies for Kylie's Latch Hook Kit. Well they all preceded to take all the little pre-cut strings and throw them everywhere in our basement. This was taken after they had been cleaning up. I had gone upstairs and thought- oh I need to go take a picture of this. They were in the process of cleaning it up- you can see one of the munchkins hands. Crazy girls- a little confetti to brighten my day!:)

Fairy wings...

I went to a yard sale this weekend and found some new dress ups, one of which were these fairy wings. If anyone knows us at all, we love fairies in this house especially Tinkerbell and her fairy friends. We had a little time of dancing and taking pictures in the new dress ups. Here is Emeline looking so beautiful! Allyana posing in the new skirt and wings
I loved this one of Kylie- she is so pretty!

Explosion!

Think if you will for a minute, if someone came to your door and said "Hi I am from such and such company, we came by today to inform you that the construction crew across the street will be using dynamite and heavy explosives to blow up some huge rocks. We work for the construction crew in letting everyone who lives within a certain number of feet know about this and also video around their house to document any pre-existing cracks on the driveway and/or foundation. Just in case you begin noticing some cracks forming or anything else that may have broken after they have been blasting. " Would you sit outside and wait in anticipation for some big explosion? Well we did, and boy was I disappointed. We felt the ground move but that is about it! Oh well- they are not done yet and will continue with the blasting over the course of a few days. They didn't want to do one big explosion- that would be a little scary. And can't do multiple blasts in one day- I guess people complain. Oh well- a little excitement for the day!! Just was curious if anyone else would have been sitting on their porch in anticipation?

Bonfire and S'Mores!

Ally ate alot of graham crackers - she just kept going over and saying "more please".

We had a bonfire last night-there is a "burn ban" from May 1st till some time in the fall. So we aer taking advantage this weekend and having a couple of bonfires. Rick V. and his boys came over and Eric, Brande and Ansleigh came as well. Thank you Rick for bringing over the stuff to make S'Mores!

Flat tire

Well, I went to a couple yard sales today and at one I am looking through this woman's stuff and her son comes over and I hear them talking- he says "hey you need to find out who is driving the suburban because it sounds like air is leaking out of one of the tires"- sure enough it was mine and the air was leaking out very fast!! Well he offers to change it and put the spare on- how kind. So he does that and I then take the tire over to a tire place to see if they can fix the leak- I ran over a screw and it punctured it good and he says that it was too close to the edge and our tires will need to be replaced. So that was a fun morning!! Now I am trying to find a good deal on four brand new tires!!:) Wish me luck!
How kind of the Lord to let that happen at a yard sale and not on the road some where. I have changed a tire, but not nearly as fast as that man did. Thank you Lord for watching out for me and my girls!!!

Catching Tadpoles

On Friday there are two girls in the church that come over to help by watching the girls and/or help me clean. Well this week they were outside playing with the girls in their playhouse- and then decided to catch tadpoles. They had so much fun. Two of Kylie and Emme's friends from church came over as well. So the six of them were out there catching tadpoles- I think they caught like thirty of them.
Emme had a long weekend- she fell asleep lastnight at the dinner table - so cute!!

Thin Ice

When we were in New York visiting friends and family the girls played this game called Thin Ice. It is with marbles that sit in water on the bottom ring and you place a paper towel on the top and then transfer the marbles to the top -"ice" whoever breaks through the ice loses. The girls really enjoyed playing this game- I had never seen it before, then a couple of weeks ago I pulled up at a yard sale and the girls yell- "Thin Ice"- they have that game. So for 75cents I bought them the game. They were so excited- as you can tell on Emme's face!:)

Sorry- don't have any idea where you could purchase this game- I do love the expressions on the kids faces on the box- so, had to take a picture of that!!:)

Bubble wrap...hours of entertainment!

I don't know if anyone else remembers popping bubble wrap as a kid (and grown up)- well my girls love it. Todd received a package with some in it- and the girls went crazy. Here they are running down the long line of bubble wrap- it made the loudest popping sound. They loved it!
Kylie and Emme picked me some flowers from the back yard yesterday! They are so sweet! I love their thoughtfulness!

What a big girl...

Well, we had company this past weekend and we had them stay in Ally's room. So instead of having her stay in our room in the pack'n play we decided to try the "big girl" bed. She slept for four nights and only got out of bed one time. The only issue was if she lost her binky- then one of us would have to help her find it. She did great! We may move Kylie into Ally's room and have Ally stay with Emme. Ally also asked to go pee pee on the potty- so we tried that and she did it twice, so I put big girl panties on her- yeah not so great, wet in those twice and then poo poo- but hey she did go into the bathroom to do that. I felt like because we had company I couldn't really commit to taking her every 15 minutes, but she is understanding more and I will try again this week to maybe take a full day to potty train her! I did the whole give them tons to drink and ask them all the time- every 15 minutes- if they need to go or just make them go sit on the potty and try. It worked well for Emme- some friends of ours while visiting them trained Kylie!:) So we shall see- it sure would be nice to get Ally out of diapers- the larger the size of diaper, the more expensive!!!

Ahh a leak!

Well, when Todd was outside yesterday afternoon he noticed some water coming up out of the ground near the side of our house where the main water line goes into our house. Opened the door to the unfinished part of the basement and water was all over the ground. He turned off the water and the main water line near the street. According to the water company, from the meter on is our responsibility if there is any damage. Well, he had no idea where the leak was coming from and how deep he was going to have to dig. Well, he ended up only having to dig about 20inches and bought a part to fix the leak in the PVC pipe for $13. We were anticipating spending some serious money to fix that- thank you Lord for you mercy towards us and giving my husband the wisdom to fix the problem.

It was amazing to realize how much we use water for- It happened around 3 in the afternoon and we weren't able to turn the water back on until a little after 8 last night. I had to water jugs left over from the park the other day, so we used that to wash our hands, Kylie was a little grossed out about not being able to wash her hands before dinner- so we found a solution. And hey- no cooking last night, we ordered pizza! I am truly thankful to the Lord that the problem is fixed and for the simple luxury of having running water!