When I'm Old & Dead

So, we're driving to school today and it's abnormally quiet. Pretty soon Maison says, "Hey Mom, guess what I want to do when I get older?" Not knowing where this is going I hesitantly say, "What?" "I want to work at Country Landscapes with Daddy and draw cool pictures for people like he does." "Great!" I say. He follows up with, "I think I'll get a house in Fox Run too so I can be close to work."

It's quiet again for a couple of minutes and Libby says, "You know what Mom? When you get old and die I'm just going to live in your house, then I can probably cook my own food."

*Note to self: Sleep with one eye open and make sure my life insurance is up-to-date!

Maquoketa Caves State Park

Well, Daddy planned an exciting day at Maquoketa Caves State Park in Maquoketa, IA. Not ever being there before we didn't know what to expect. We were definitely under prepared! There was only one cave we could actually walk through. It had a nice walkway and a lighted ceiling. The other caves required you to have a headlamp or flashlight, and a desire to belly crawl like a snake! However we had a great time walking the entire trail. It was extremely beautiful!

Click Play for a Spelunking Adventure

Living History Farms

Maison's school went to the the Living History Farms in Des Moines, IA today. Maison's school has been studying Iowa History since the beginning of the school year, so this was a perfect trip for him and the school.

Click Play For a Trip Back in Time

11 Months Old

Oh my, where has the time gone? Hard to believe our last baby is almost a year old! Squiz has had a busy month so far! She has seen her first ISU football game, has had a couple of sleepovers at Grama Shari and Papa Ed's house, popped in some new teeth, and really wants to walk!

Speaking of Squizzy's teeth, she has the two middle bottom teeth and a couple on the top. Not the middle two top teeth, but the two teeth beside the front teeth. Now we aren't big fans of witches, vampires, etc, however the rules are going to have to bend a little next month. Assuming the two top teeth don't come down, we are going to have to dress her like a little vampire bat!

She still isn't 20lbs yet, and finally wears 9month clothes! Libby decided that she is still my peanutty and Squiz can be my honey bee. I wonder if Squiz will ever be able to think for herself? She won't have to with a big sister like Libs!

Henry Doorly Zoo

Click Play to Join Us at the Zoo

After the ISU/NDSU game, we stayed the night in Ankeny. Friday morning we headed off to Omaha to stay the long weekend with Jason's friend Eric. Eric and Nancy have 2 boys, 1 girl, a baby due in October, and a great dog named Chester!

Our kids don't see eachother often, but they seem to pick up right were they left off everytime we do get together! Eric to their kids and we took ours over to the Henry Doorly Zoo for the day. Nancy hung out at the house with Chester for a little R and R. The kids had a great time at the zoo and the weather was perfect!

Squizzy's First ISU Game

We took all of the kids to ISU's first home game against NDSU. Kind of ironic for me in a sense. What did we eat? Buffalo meat! The kids had a great time and Squizzy loved the whole thing! She did awesome! Her and Libby are definately into football, Maison is into the free stuff and watching the cheerleaders.

Stuffed Fish

Well, this summer when Maison was in Canada he caught a 36in Northern. It had been a while since I had seen one and now I get to see it everyday! Papa Dan had Maison's fish stuffed! Man that thing is nasty! Nasty in the sense it could rip your arm off and beat you with the wet end! YIKES!

I informed Jason and Maison both that it had to go in Maison's room and that it would be the only dead thing brought into this house! Meanwhile this fish is sitting on the kitchen counter and the dog is going completely nuts. Gracie wants this Northern in a really bad way! Jason let her give it a sniff and when she licked it, it was decided then and there that it had to go high on the wall.

The First Day of School

Hard to believe the kids are going back to school. Part of me is looking forward to a little quiet and some alone time with Sqiuz, but the other part of me is going to miss my daytime companions! Who is going to talk my ear off all day? Squiz better learn to talk in a hurry!

Maison is going to be in 2nd and a half grade this year. It was a tough decision, but he truly lost a year with his rough start in kindergarten. He is the only boy and the girls in 3rd grade could technically be in 4th or 5th. We would rather see him be confident and enjoy school than to struggle and wonder why he can't do the work the girls are doing. It will be good for him to be able to work in a boys group with the 2nd graders. He is really excited about being able to work with the boys!

Libby is in the senior class at preschool. She is super excited about being with her"school friends" again! I've already heard who she wants to invite to her birthday party! To think I have to have this discussion daily for another 11 1/2 months. WOO HOO! Hard to believe they are as old as they are. Does that mean we are getting older too?

Happy 5th Birthday

Hard to believe Libby is 5! Seems like yesterday when we brought her home and Maison tried to feed her Doritos! Since Libby is rather girlie, I decided to take her and a couple of her friends to the Beauty Shop to have their hair and nails done!

I was sure they would be so giggly and chatty, but I was completely wrong! I've never seen a group of girls so quiet in my entire life! There was NO talking or giggling! Just silence! It was the craziest thing I have ever witnessed!

After the girls were all dolled up, we went back home for some pizza, cake, ice cream, presents, and bouncy house fun! Everyone had a great time. We even continued the party the next morning with some card opening and cake and ice cream for breakfast!

Libby lovea all of her gifts and cards! She loves the Pet Shops, her Hello Kitty bike, and all of the sparkly cards. However, I think her favorite gift is her number 5 birthday girl from her Godmother Becky! She knows it's coming every year, but she is so excited to see it! Goofy girl. She combined some of her birthday money to buy the Hannah Montana movie which has been running nonstop in the van since the purchase!

Thanks again for all of the cards and gifts!

10 Months Old

This month will be quite busy for little Miss Squizzy! We will celebrate Libby's 5th birthday, the kids will both start school, and she will see her first ISU game!

She isn't walking yet but Jason thinks it will be soon! She will stand up on her own from a squat. She is very stable but only because her toes are digging into the carpet and hanging on for dear life! She likes to walk behind her little walker and play in the Tupperware cupboard.

She is definitely the most stubborn out of all the kids! She already "lets them have it" when she doesn't get her way! Temper Temper! She has a great GGGRRR face!

Looks like she could get 4 upper teeth any day now! I think I'm kidding myself when I say her temper will subside when her teeth come in. Thinking she's crabby because her teeth are coming in. One can only hope!

Swimming Lessons

This year swimming lessons seemed to be more difficult for some reason. Maison has taken level 3, three times before he passed and Libby has taken level 2, twice before she passed. They had a great time in swimming lessons this year, but there were a few days that the temp was so low, they had to take the kids in-doors! We definately DID NOT get our money's worth this year with our pool passes!

Fun in the Sun

Our neighbors Nichole and Jason invited us and the kids for a day at the beach. The kids had a blast playing in the sand and tubing! Iz loved being on the boat! Libby went tubing, but she wasn't too sure about the whole thing! Maison on the other hand would have tubed the entire day! He is quite the fish.

Of course it wouldn't be a trip with the Allen's without some sort of drama! My Jason sliced his toe on a broken prop. Nichole's Jason fixed him up pretty well, but I really thought it could have used a couple of stitches! Then when we went to leave, the boat wouldn't started so we had to have someone tow is in. To top it all off, our Jason got the remote to the van wet and we couldn't get in! GRRRR! I wonder if they will ever invite us out again?!

Click Play For Some Fun in The Sun!

(Bring your own first aid kit!)

Paddling For Hope: Dragonscapers

Click Play to See the Dragonscapers in Action

WARNING

Some of the Music in the video might not be appropriate for children (Clarence Carter: Strokin')

This year Daddy's company, Country Landscapes, Inc, participated in Paddling For Hope which is sponsored by My Angel Foundation. Country Landscapes was invited to participate in the Dragon Boat Races at Gray's Lake because of their work on the Chinese Cultural Center of America in Des Moines, IA.

The Dragonscapers made a strong showing in the time trials, but fizzled out in the actual race. One of the other teams challenged the Dragonscapers which proved to be successful for Country Landscapes. Everyone had a great time! It was quite an experience. We are already looking forward to next year!

Splash!

So we headed to Des Moines today because Country Landscapes has entered a Dragon Boat Race for tomorrow. More on that later. We decided to stay some place with a pool so the kids could swim. Everyone had a really great time. Our friends Curt and Jill met us there for some swimming too!

Click the Play Button to Get Wet!

Weird Weather

So this summer has been quite different. What's all this hoopla about global warming? We have had a total of one week where the temps reached into the 90's! It's hasn't been a great year for the pool, but it has been a great year for playing outside! However, when the storms do roll in, the clouds have been very weird looking!

Because of the nice weather, we have seen quite a few hotair balloons floating around North Liberty. Not too long ago we saw them being blown up in the lot behind our house.

No One Is Leaving Until...

Have you ever had one of those weeks? It's just been a strange week. Jason woke up Friday morning complaining about being stiff and sore. He hardly complains about anything so I knew something was up. I suggested he go to the doctor and he actually agreed. (Translation: It must have been really really bad for him to make an appointment.) They ran all sort of tests on and off for most of the week and the only conclusion was that it was some strain of the mono virus!

One night I went down to the gym for my second workout for the day. As I was leaving the gym the lady at the desk says, "oh shoot, your husband called and I told him you had left already." I take off for the van because Jason never calls me and for him to call me at the gym means he went to alot of work to find the number so it must be serious. I call him back on my cell phone to find out that Maison was running through the grass, tripped and chipped his front left permanent tooth in the driveway! I race home and as I'm driving Jason is telling me it is only maybe a third of his tooth. So I'm thinking it won't be too bad. Maybe they can just file the other tooth down to match! Imagine my surprise when I got home to find that more like half of Maison's tooth was missing!

Earlier in the week, the kids were over at Grama Shari and Papa Ed's house and Izzy was giving the kitty more love than he could handle, so naturally, he "put the tooth on her". (Translation: he bit her arm).

Then there's Libby. She was next door playing with the boys on their swing set/fort. I hear a bunch of commotion and Libby comes home screaming. I asked her what happened and all I heard was... I was whaaaaa, sniff sniff sniff, sob sob, then whaaaaaaaaa, I told whaaaaaaaa, but I don't want to play anymore sob sob. I was never able to get the whole story from her and of course each kid had their version of the truth but some how Libby was going to slid down the slide when all of a sudden the rock climbing rope got wrapped around her neck. It's amazing that no one saw anyone put the rope around her neck! I'm sure when she's 30 we'll hear what really happened.

The story wouldn't be complete without Gracie! Our neighbor Carey thought it would be a great idea to have Gracie come over and meet their new dog Jack. I was hesitant in saying that she gets nervous around dogs that are bigger than she is. Against my better judgement I went and got her. Jack took one sniff of her butt and she snapped at him. He didn't like that and snapped back puncturing Gracie's ear. Gracie doesn't get mad, she gets even. After Jack lost interest in her, she took off and went up on Carey's deck and left a Cleveland Steamer right by their sliding glass door! I'm sure that really showed him!

At that point I made the executive decision to keep everyone in the house for a couple of days just because I could hear the cash register dinging in my head!

Summer '09

So I finally got my new camera; the Nikon 5000D. I absolutely love it! If I could only figure out all of the cool things it does by yesterday!!! Here are some pictures of the kids. Maison's 8, Libby's 5, and Squiz is 9 months. Maison says to me the other day, "hey mom, when I'm 11 Libby will be 8." I gave him my best "you're crazy" look and he says, "I did the math." Some days it's so hard to believe just how old they are getting!

9 Months Old

It is really hard to believe our Squizz is 9 months old! She is still a little peanut! Only about 15lbs still and a little over 28in long! She is traveling a little better now, mostly in town driving but you definitely know when it's time to head home!

She loves to eat, eat, and eat! She is drinking less and less formula as Papa Ed gave her strawberry milk in her bottle! At least the strawberry milk was whole milk! Squizz also loves playing with her Sissy's dollies. Unfortunately Squizz always has to be the Daddy because he is the only doll with hard plastic hair! Libby doesn't want her dollies' hair to be ruin as she spends hours and hours fixing and brushing their hair!

Squizz has been to the pool a few times and loves to swim! She loves just floating on her back! Next year she will be much more fun at the pool!

4th of July

Jason took all of the kids up to Vermillion, SD to visit their cousins for the 4th of July weekend so Mama could get some well deserved R & R! I was sad to see them all leave, but mentally my brain gave a huge sigh of relief. Maybe technically that would be considered a brain fart?!

The kids had a great time with their cousins as always!