We Likey the Wii

Give us a little free time without any kids and this is what we do, we take over the Wii and have our own fun. On Christmas day we started playing the Wii at 6pm and didn't stop until 11pm that night. And yes, Dad was here and playing the whole time. I think he really liked the golf and he was pretty good at it. I told him he has now discovered what we are going to get him for Christmas next year. I guess we will have to start having Wii parties and I'm sure Dad will show us how it is done.

All I Can Say is Wow!!

It happened again, I entered another Hero Arts weekly challenge and I won first place with this scrapbook layout of Riley. I couldn't believe it when I got on their blog and it said I was the first place winner in the scrapbooking category. I am so happy beyond belief and so grateful that they saw something with my layout to give it a first place. And with this first place win I receive a $50 gift certificate and a Hero Arts catalog to go shopping at their store. With money being tight right now this was a wonderful gift from Hero Arts. Thanks again for letting me share this excitement with you. If you want to see the full Hero Arts blog post the link is at the bottom of this post. BTW, I changed my club name for Hero Arts to Pocketful of Paper instead of having it Julie Batta.

http://heroarts.com/blogs/club/2008/12/18/what-a-talented-bunch/

Happy Birthday, Gavin

3 YEARS OLD (yesterday)!!! It is hard to believe that three years ago I was in Blanc Children's Hospital with you. Six weeks early, but you would never believe it today that Gavin was a premie. He proved to us that he was tough then, just like he is today. If you can't tell by the pictures, Gavin is a huge fan of the movie Cars. Even though the movie came out a while ago, he is so totally into every bit of it. I love his expression when he saw his Lightning McQueen tricycle, that is what kids' birthdays are about. Happy Birthday, Dude!! Rock On !!!!

Honorable Mention

Hi all. I am a happy girl today. I was given an honorable mention today on the hero arts blog for my card I made. Hero Arts is a card and scrapbook making company specializing in stamps, a very well known company in this industry. On their blog every week they have a challenge to design something and they announce winners of that challenge on Thursdays. Well this week was to make a card in minutes and I thought, why not try it. It was my first time doing one of their challenges and I was so shocked to see that I was an honorable mention. They said that it was their biggest challenge ever for entries. I am still shocked but oh so happy. Here is the link if you want to see my card, just scroll down to the last of the entries under honorable mention and my card will be under my name.
http://heroarts.com/blogs/club/2008/12/11/winners-of-the-make-it-in-minutes-card-challenge/

First Winter Swim Results

Sorry I don't have any pictures to post of the boys first winter swim meet. But hopefully in the upcoming meets I will get some taken. It isn't easy to take pictures in an indoor swimming area. I always have to do a lot of fixing on my pictures to make them look good.

The boys did great for their first meet. Winter swim is a whole nother ballgame from summer swim. The competition is greater and the practices are harder. Any given night for practices Zach will swim 1500 to 2000 yards for his age group and Jordan will swim 2500 to 3000 yards for his age group. That is a lot of swimming, especially when the length of the pool is only 25 yards, a lot of back and forth. They sure love it though.

For those who don't know, we go to Fort Dodge to do winter swimming through the YMCA. All of the practices and meets though are at the Fort Dodge High School. They have a wonderful facility there, they also have a great high school swim team. Jordan has been asked by one of the coaches (a high school swimmer) to swim for them when he is in high school. Something to think about I guess. :)

Here are the results of the first meet:

Zach -
100Y individual medley relay - 1st ( shattered his summer conference record by 20sec.)
200Y medley relay - 2nd (he was bumped up to the 11-12 year olds for this one)
200Y free relay - 3rd (had to swim the first and fourth leg because someone was gone)
50Y butterfly - 4th
50Y freestyle - 6th

Jordan -
50Y butterfly - 1st (has qualified for state and for regionals in Minn. if our info is correct)
100Y individual medley relay - 1st (beat old time by 10 seconds)
200Y medley relay - 2nd
200Y freestyle relay - 2nd
50Y freestyle - 4th

Awesome job boys!!

Design Team Tryout

I tried out to be a guest designer for a monthly scrapbooking kit website. I wasn't picked but now I can share my page that I submitted with all of you. I love this page and was hoping so much to be chosen, but it wasn't meant to be at this time. We had to follow a sketch and this is what I came up with. Riley is such a great subject to scrap because I like doing the girly stuff, although, if I change a couple of things on this page, it could easily become a boy page. I hope you all like it.

Just Realized...

...that I didn't post any pictures of Zach's birthday from the month of October. I am so sorry Zachy, I should have my scrapbooking taken away from me for a week. Hope the day was a fun one for you. Love you, Bud!!

Halloween Pics

Hi all! Long time since my last post. I just wanted to share with you some Halloween pictures of the kids. Jordan is absent in these pictures because he was at a sleepover with his friend. But, he didn't miss out on the Halloween fun. I guess him and his friend played some ding dong ditch em. I guess now we are down to only getting three costumes instead of four. I hate admitting that the kids are growing up.

Riley was a butterfly princess.

Gavin was a ladybug, and not all ladybugs are girls. :)

Zach was a cross between a skeleton and Jason. He kind of put his own outfit together.

I Hate Frogs...

...but my daughter loves them.



How did it happen that I ended up with a daughter that loves stuff like this. Maybe I was like this too as a kid, but I just decided to block all of that out because my fear of them today. I just get the heebie jeebies when I see one jump in front of me. We have had so many of them around here this fall and I am ready for the cold weather to shoo them away. But who can be grossed out at the smile on Riley's face while she is holding the frog. I guess as long as I don't touch it, I sure can capture the moment on camera.

Adventureland Pictures

Here they are as promised, more Adventureland pictures. There are three batches of these so keep scrolling down.

More Adventureland Pictures

Even More Pictures

It's Been Long Enough

Sorry about not posting for about 2.5 weeks. I haven't been feeling like being on the computer much lately. I just check my emails and weather and that is pretty much it. So, any of you faithful followers, sorry about the no posts.

Jordan is about done with his football season and he has improved every week. This last week he had four tackles and did a great job of making the other team run sideline to sideline on all the plays that went his way when he was playing defense. He did his job well on the offensive side of the ball too. Now once football is over we get to start thinking winter swim team in Fort Dodge and basketball. One busy kid.

Zach is almost done with football as well. He gets to play at the halftime of the home varsity game on the 10th and then his season is over. But he also gets to look forward to winter swim team and basketball. He is really excited about winter swim. He has been all for it since the beginning when we started talking about it. It is always great to see your kids have such a passion for a sport or anything they enjoy in life.

Riley is great and loving four year old preschool. She got to go to a cheer camp last weekend and she loved it. She remembered most of the moves and everything. She is also in Just for Kix dancing. She does that on Monday nights and is doing really good. Her teacher said she has a great memory and can come in and start where they left off the week before. Boy am I loving all this girly stuff with her. :)

Gavin is still my active little boy who sure seems to love life a lot. Whatever he is doing he is loving it and making the most out of it. He has become my house bug killer. Whenever he sees any kind of bug, he goes right for the shoes and brings one back to smash it, and then he is so proud of himself. He is still having monthly AEA visits and those are going great. I'm sure that as soon as he reaches three years old we will be told that he is doing great and that his speech is all caught up to his age.

Curt is doing his football thing right now. The RCL football team is 4-1 right now with a game this weekend at Kingsley-Pierson. Then the following week we play Southern Cal and we both have a chance to be 5-1 going into that game. SC is extremely tough this year tough and he knows we have to be on our A game to get a chance to beat them. Curt's shining moment was when RCL was ranked #9 in class A. But then we got beat by Newell-Fonda, the #4 ranked team. Injuries killed us for that game. The defense is ligit and doing great, Curt is the defensive coordinator and so I had to brag a little about that.

As for me, I just doing my thing. I watch Noah, Jeff and Missy's kid, when I am needed and I'm sure that will be a lot in the coming month or so with harvest. We just love having him here and the little two take quite a liking to him. I am also doing the coaching thing with the 3rd - 6th graders for volleyball. That will go on for a couple more weeks. I am also playing volleyball on Sunday nights in Lytton. It started out just women last year, but has grown into a coed pick up league. It is a lot of fun though and it is a great way to get to know people. Now if I could just get Curt talked into going over with me. :)

BTW, the pictures I posted are from our recent visit to Adventureland courtesy of Pella Windows. I will post more pictures of the weekend soon.

Scrapbooking

The first layout of Zach's is from his track and field day at school. And the second layout is from Gavin being Gavin back in late winter, early spring. I could scrap so much on that little dude that it isn't even funny. Hope you all have a good week.

And always remember, this is a HAWKEYE STATE!!!!