First Day of School

First day of school from a new home.

Emily - 7th grade, not wanting to go back and do any homework!
Carter - 4th grade, the one most excited about going back to school this year!
Casey - Kindergarten....yes my baby is now in school full time....Tears have already fallen...just like the day not so long ago when I sent my first baby to school for the first time...I need my husband to make me laugh!!

Randomness

When I stumbled into the bathroom this a.m. before 6:30 a.m. Al told me that I missed a rainbow without the rain and a really cool orange sky...

Turns out, I didn't miss it!! My lovely husband grabbed my camera and took some pics!!

This is random because the pictures are kinda out of order, hence random. We went to the State Fair yesterday for Carter to receive his award on a picture he entered int he open class!! He was one of 222 awards out of 4,000 entries and only 900 are even displayed!! Way to go Carter!! That is just awesome! Mom didn't even get displayed this year, but you did and we are soo proud!

(his is the one on top of his boots...)

I have another budding photographer. Emily thought this Pepsi can sitting on the tree was coo,l so I handed her my camera and let her snap away! How fun to have so many interested...Al's already thinking of entering something he took in the fair next year. The themed category is churches.

Back to the rainbow before the rain....and more orange sky.

Happy Monday All!

My New Deck

My new deck is where in envisioned sipping my morning coffee in peace and quiet and perhaps watching some wildlife.

What I've found so far is that my new deck is a place of lots of activity. Take this airplane for instance....

Carter swears he buzzed one of our trees!! You know our trees aren't very big!

It's still a place to enjoy my coffee. Especially with the new umbrella Al and Carter brought home for us!

And it's definitely a place to enjoy family!! My Carter and I watched the plane together and enjoyed my new deck!

We officially have an Acreage...

These pictures are really out of order, but hey at least they are here and we can share them!:)

We went to a little street festival called Herb Fest after church Sunday. It's kind of like a street fair with a huge focus on plants, herbs, lawn ornaments, etc.

We had such fun! We came home with baby kitties....Butterscotch...

Beige...

OOooh! I got this crab for my garden too!!

Emily has her named kitty 'Lil Rascal and my named kitty Sassyfrass, "Sassy" who hisses and growls every time you reach in their little kennel. We are trying to get them acclimated to our "acreage" and to Max...we'll see what happens. I'm a bit unsure about Max....Hopefully all will be well.

Baby kitties are so sweet.

Isn't this crab cool?? The high schooler that made him is taking several creations to state fair and hoping to go to Iowa State next year...We had a soft spot for him...

I couldn't resist this pouty face. What a cutie! And he thinks he's being sad! Silly Casey! Moma loves all of your faces...

This Sunday we head down to the State Fair on one of our many trips. This one's for Carter and a prize he won for his photography in the Open Class. Next week is to take Em's State Fair picnic table and the next week is for her working exhibit! Awesome kids!

Check This Out!!

Check this out! It may be my favorite part of our Movie Theater Room! A good friend came and helped me put this decal on the wall...obviously I don't have the patience for such things!! It was a real pain anyway; being so big and being sent a bit wrinkled!! But she did it and it looks awesome!!!

This first one is on a wall by itself and needs some real film reels beside it to give it depth! And of course in the film strip slots I am supposed to print some 8x10 pictures so I can show the "movie of our lives." How cool is that??!! I just need to get on the ball and find some cool pictures or take some!! I bought some clip frames so that I can hopefully change pictures around and not keep the same ones up forever!!

What do you think? Should I go for a theme of pictures. Old ones? New ones?  Random favs? I can't decide!

Who Knew??

Who knew going to the Hair Salon could be sooo much fun?  While I got a highlight and cut, Carter got a Justin Bieber flip with green and orange stripes...

Casey obviously got a large mohawk type cut that is bright orange and Ems was a little more reserved just getting a trim with glitter highlights. (They are hard to see, but are there nonetheless.)

Do you notice also, that I have a deck???!!! It's so awesome!! Just makes me nervous without rails, but they are being worked on!!! Hooray, I can sit on my deck and have my coffee! I'll just have to start getting up a bit earlier....

Then we headed to Wal-Mart to spend our gift cards from Aunt Amy and Uncle Ted that the kids got for birthdays...Everyone added just a little of their own money to the card.Emily got a DS game she wanted...Carter got a green snow cone make that we need to take a picture of yet and Casey got a slip and slide.

Working fun into the little moments in summer!

V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N!!!

We were lucky enough to take a little vacation 4th of July weekend. We went up to the Minnesota and The Mall of America....The Lego Store was a big hit! Al even found something he couldn't live without. He's really just a big kid.

We didn't ride rides in Nickelodeon Universe cuz we were headed to ValleyFair, but Casey wanted to meet SpongeBob.

It was the first time we'd been to the aquarium in the Mall.

There was one spot where they actually got to touch under water creatures. Fun!

The jellyfish were with lights that changed colors. I had a hard time taking pics because there wasn't quite enough light.

Nemo....

The kids named this one "Mr. Lips" The really cool sharks and sea turtles weren't cooperating for pictures!

We made a stop at Hooters for.... wings...Of course! What else??

Hooters had hula hoops to entertain the kids...I guess I am a big kid too. But Emily said, "Mom, you have to move your hips." I asked, "Well, what was I moving?" She said, "I don't know, but please stop!" Oh, Emily!

Emily can obviously move her hips, her arm, her neck, etc. She's got it goin' on!

This was my favorite part of the tour of the Schell Brewery. The tour was interesting, the grounds and gardens were beautiful, but the peacocks...Amazing!

We went to Valley Fair, too and Emily and Carter got to ride roller coasters for the first time. I didn't take my camera because of rides like the Wave! Casey wasn't tall enough for the roller coasters but they had a special section called Planet Snoopy filled with rides and activities for his age/height! One of our fav parts was Snoopy's Playhouse. It was a big room filled with little foamy rubber balls. You had vacuum tubes to suck up the balls and put them in yellow mesh bags, then you could shoot the balls out of guns on the top floor, or dump them in canons, float them on air, etc. It was a blast for our whole family. We probably played in there for over an hour!

We had a lovely campsite and campground. One morning we went and did crafts. The kids and I made KOA tie dyed shirts and they painted wooden crafts, too!!

The last day we had s'mores for breakfast...well, the kids did. Al and I baked in the Dutch Oven!

There was time spent playing Legos. Happy 4th of July!

Here's and origami $5 Emily gave to Al...his change from the bundle of firewood.

We had such a great time together, relaxing and playing and enjoying each other! It was great to get away! Everyone should try it!