Mauryn Turns 11 Months Today

Oh sweet baby girl, I can hardly believe you are almost a year old. Where has the time gone?? It seems like only yesterday we were anxiously awaiting your birth. Now here you are crawling, climbing, babbling, making faces, and getting so very independent. I love watching you grow and see your personality develop. You have started to make lots of funny faces and you crack yourself up - which makes us all smile and laugh. You bring sunshine and joy to each day. I feel so blessed to have you for my daughter and I am thankful to God each day for you. I love you baby girl!

Mauryn definitely had something to say!

Mauryn loves "talking" on the phone.

Mauryn's getting ready to dance!

Here is a little clip of our dancing girl:

The Joe's Crab Shack Experience

To celebrate Lance's birthday, we went out for dinner to Joe's Crab Shack with our neighbors. Lance and Pat (our neighbor) enjoyed their big buckets of crab legs. The highlight of the night for the kids was watching Lance dance around since it was his birthday. I have a video clip of it but I can not get it to load (UGH!) and I have tried a number of times (maybe I will try again later today). When the hostess was seating us I mentioned it was Lance's birthday. As we were having dinner there were a few other birthday people in the restaurant who were having to do silly things. Morgan really wanted her dad to have to do something. When dessert arrived for the kids, Morgan told the waiter it was her dad's birthday. He came back out and had Lance hold a salt shaker in one hand and a pepper shaker in his other had and then he was supposed to shake everything but the salt and pepper shakers. I must say he was a very good sport and he made the kids' entire night!

A family photo

Lance enjoying his crab legs!
Landon's YUMMY dessert - he was so kind to share!
OH this is so yummy!

Happy Birthday Lance!

You are 36 today, another year closer to 40 - can you believe it? It just doesn't seem possible that you are THAT OLD!!! :o) Happy Birthday to a daddy who is so in love with his kiddos. You encourage them to take risks, you are silly and wild with them, you let them eat ice cream far too often, you tell them silly bedtime stories, you take them to work sometimes even when it might make things harder for you, and you give them so much love.

Enjoying the waterpark!
Teaching the kids how to ski

A little hiking and climbing

Thank you for being a great daddy to our kids. Thank you for working so hard for our family so that I can stay home. Thank you for starting your day so early every morning. Thank you for being spontaneous. Thank you for being a risk taker. Thank you for thinking and caring about our families future, even if it meant we had to move 1500 miles from friends and family, selling your two practices and essentially starting over. Thank you for being able to forgive and move on. Thank you for being the leader of our family. Thank you for supporting the decision to home school even when you were a bit unsure about it.

Happy Birthday Lance! I love you!

A Weekend Filled With "P"'s

PUMPKINS: The kids have been so anxious to get pumpkins, so on Saturday I took them to get their pumpkins. We didn't go to a pumpkin patch (bad mommy!) because we are going to one in a few weeks for a field trip - not that we can't go more than once but it was a bit chilly on Saturday and I really wanted to get some things done around the house (excuses, excuses). There is a great little farm stand about 2 minutes from our house. We loaded up and went there to pick out our pumpkins. The kids had fun just playing on their pumpkin pile and choosing their very favorite pumpkins. Mauryn loved climbing on the pumpkins and standing on them. She was so sad/mad when it was time to go and I had to pry her off of them. We also picked up some hay bales and corn stalks to put in front of the house. Landon loved "organizing" all the pumpkins.PEE: On Friday evening, I had just taken Mauryn out of the tub and I hear giggling and squealing from the bathroom. When I come in Landon is holding a bottle in the tub and there is something yellow in it. Yep, it was his pee! Instead of climbing out of the tub to use the toilet (right next to the tub) he found a bottle in the tub and just peed in the bottle. I guess it is a good thing he didn't pee in the tub. As I am laughing inside, we had a little talk about using the toilet instead of a bottle. Where he comes up with these ideas I will never know??

Landon displaying his pee bottle!

PRACTICE: Landon LOVES to use markers. He has been very good with them in the last few months -coloring only on his paper, remembering to put the tops back on the markers, etc.. On Saturday he wanted to use markers to color and make a picture while I was cleaning the house. He was busy working on some pictures and being very quiet - that should have been my first clue that something was wrong. He cleaned up his papers and markers and we were having lunch. While we were eating lunch he pulls his shirt up and there on his belly were an orange letter L (backwards) and a blue letter L. I said, " Landon what is on your stomach" He said "Oh mom, I was just practicing my letter L's for you in the Broncos colors." Well of course we had a discussion of where it is appropriate to use markers and on our stomach is not an appropriate place. He definitely will not be using markers unsupervised again for a while (thankfully the marker washed right off!).

Landon's Bronco L's!

What was your weekend filled with?

Polka Dots and Bowling Balls

FINALLY I figured out a theme for Mauryn's birthday party - Polka Dots! I was really struggling with when/how to do her party. It is a little sad that this is our first baby to celebrate their first birthday without any family close by. I still wanted to do something but our November is crazy. Lance is gone or on call for the first three weekends. I wasn't finding a time to plan a bigger get together with friends and kiddos. So, I decided to just do a lunch party on her actual birthday. It is going to be a small get together but I think it will be perfect for Mauryn without being too overwhelming for her.

Her polka dot invitations!

Morgan's birthday is also in November (3 days after Mauryn's). Morgan is definitely at the age where she wants a friend party. Morgan decided to do a bowling party this year. She is super excited about it. She has only been bowling one time but there is something about bowling that gets kids excited. We found some cute ideas in family fun (like the invite below) for a cake and a tshirt to give away as their "goodie bag". I will post more as we start working on those projects.

Morgan's bowling party invitations!

The invitations are done but will not go in the mail for a while - it is nice to have that off my to do list. Morgan had a friend over yesterday afternoon and the two little ones were napping so I took advantage of the time and got the invites done. It made me realize how much I miss doing scrapbooking and card making. I need to find a little desk or something to be a workspace so I can set my stuff up in the house and work on it when there is free time. One of these days.....

Milkin' Mamas

Do you like the title of my post? It is the name of the breats milk bank I found who is willing to take what is left of my frozen milk! YEAH! When Landon was about 4 months old I donated 1500 ounces of frozen milk to a breast milk bank on the east coast. It was very difficult to find a breast milk bank that would take milk from an out of state donor and at that time there was not a breast milk bank in MN. I still have quite a supply of milk and I am not tapping into my frozen milk very much. I use a bag, maybe two bags a day for Mauryn's sippy cup. Lance and I were just discussing the other day what would happen to this milk. Today I did a search on the internet and found a breast milk bank out of CA that has accepted me as a donor. The next step in the process is for my ob and Mauryn's pediatrician to fill out a medical report. Once those reports are received and I pass as healthy, they will send out a kit so that I can have my blood drawn and do a cheek swab (they do a DNA test to make sure it is truly my milk). Once the tests are done and I am cleared Milkin' Mamas will send me a cooler so I can ship my milk. After they recieve the milk it is then tested and then spun and put into storable containers. This milk is then used for premature babies and babies who are very ill at birth. God blessed me with a good milk supply and I am so thankful I can share it with others.

Just a Little Fun

I received this on an email from a friend and decided to just post it on my blog!

Four jobs I have had in my life:
1. cashier at a gas station
2. nanny
3. elementary school teacher
4. mom and home school teacher

Four places I have lived:
1. St. Peter, MN
2. Rye, NY
3. Ames, IA
4. Winsted, MN

Four places I have been on vacation:
1. Cancun, Mexico
2. Chicago, IL
3. San Diego, CA
4. New York City

Four of my favorite foods:
1. popcorn - especially from the movie theater
2. chocolate chip cookies
3. grilled cheese sandwich
4. tacos

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. on a beach anywhere in the Caribbean
2. visiting family and friends in MN
3. on a vacation with my hubby and kiddos - Sea World, San Diego Zoo, Disneyland
4. there are so many places I want to visit, I can't just pinpoint one place I want to be

ENJOY!