Poor Jordan

Being the tallest player and the post on the Wildcat's team, Jordan tends to get put up against the tallest kids from the other team. Supposedly they are all 7th graders, but sometimes I wonder. How do you get this tall and only be 12 or 13. I guess, Jordan is close to being the youngest in his class, but never would have guessed that he would still be dwarfed by some of these kids. I just have to chuckle at these pictures because he looks so stinkin short. Time to be aggressive Jordan, because your height is not going to help you much this year. :o)

And all these kids he plays against, how easy is it to block some one's shot or just stand on your own two feet to shoot a layup without anyone being able to match up. Needless to say, we have been beat every game, but they still keep trucking and I love their desire to improve and better themselves as a team and individually. And Jordan, I hope you know I am very proud of you and your desire to always do your best and keep fighting. You have such a great competitive spirit and I hope you never lose that. When times may look tough (or tall) just keep on going strong and always know I will be your loudest cheering section.

Happy Birthday, Gavin!!!

How did this happen, how did my baby turn 4 already? Can it be true that I have already shared four wonderful, happy, silly, cranky, rambunctious, fun years with this cute little boy. It can be true and it is. I continually press the pause button on my remote but it won't keep this little boy from growing up, although it does honk Gavin off when I do this because it disrupts his Transformers movie. Sorry, Dude!!!

Can you guess how old he is with his frosting fingers, this was a big hit by Daddy and he had to do it to all the kids.

A priceless expression when he found out that he got the one gift he really wanted.

His Devastator Transformer. Please grant Curt the patience to assemble this baby!!

My generic cake. I consider myself a crafty person, but never a cake decorator. My thoughts is that it gets eaten up to quick anyway for anyone to notice my amateur skills. Hurry up and eat the cake people before everyone finds out I can't decorate a cake.

One last parting conversation -

Me: "Gavin, you are four years old now, you are growing into a big boy."

Gavin: Looking at me with concern, "But can I still sit on your lap."

Me: "Of course you can buddy, anytime you want."

Gavin: Runs at me with a huge smile and a big hug. "Thank you, Mommy"

Me: My heart is now officially melting.

Finally!!!

Hi everyone. I am finally back to blogging. I just got my computer back to normal and am loving it. So, here are some old pictures from the end of the summer to help warm you on this cold December day.

Riley and Gavin annoying their brothers by throwing rocks in the pond, and scaring the fish.

Love this picture. I wish I had a my better camera with me to capture the true feeling of this picture. Such a nice quiet moment.

Ahh, success. And poor Jordan looking on wishing he had caught it. But it is half his anyway because I think he baited most of Zach's lines that day.

I love this picture too because it shows the great patience Jordan is having fishing. That is unusual for him but for this night, he was being as patient as he could get. I just wish he could have caught a fish for a reward.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to have more updated pictures for you soon.

Christmas Photo Shoot

Sorry it has been so long since my last post. Still having computer problems but I am able to work in safe mode until our computer gets taken in to get fixed. Argh.

Anyway, here are a few photos from our weekend photo shoot. I normally take our pictures in mid October at Dolliver Park when there are more leaves on the trees, but this last month got away from us and I had to settle for few or no leaves. I even stayed around town to take these pics due to the little time I had to get the pics done. In a small town of 2000 I was worried I couldn't come up with good locations to take the pictures, but it turned out pretty good. My only problem was the sun as you can see in a couple of pictures. And of course the group photo shown is not the final cut for the Christmas card pic, got to keep that one hidden a little longer. I got a good one for that though. :) And since someone will ask, no, Curt and I didn't get in any of the photos. Due to the lack of time, I didn't want to work with more poses than necessary. Lame excuse, I know, but hopefully next year. A least I got a lot of family pics on our vacation this summer.

Have an awesome weekend. Ours starts today since the kids have tomorrow off. Glad it is going to be nice out for them to play outside all they want.

Computer Troubles

Hi all. Sorry I haven't posted anything for a while. I am having troubles with my computer. We got a virus and haven't gotten it in to get it worked on yet. I am still in the process of saving my pictures and music and other things we want to keep before I take my computer in. I am going to save my pics to a jump drive and hopefully I can post some pictures from there. I am currently working on Curt's work laptop so I will do my best to post some pictures soon for you all. I just love doing this blog, it is my way to keep you all up to date on our everyday lives. Here's hoping my computer is back in working order soon. Especially before I need to order Christmas pictures. :)

UNIdome

Zach is #64, slightly off to the right from the center of the photo.

Second one from the left on the line.

What a fun season it has been for Zach and his Wildcat team. For their very first year of having 3/4 grade tackle football, they have a 4-0 record (and they may have a chance to improve on that if their last game is rescheduled). It has been a lot of fun watching them play, even though our closest game was an hour and 45 minutes away, and not one single home game this year. We played at the UNIdome, Waverly, Mason City and Rockwell (which is up by Mason City as well).

These pictures are from the UNIdome, and that was Zach's very first game. I have been so proud of him this year. He really knows his assignments and does a great job on the line. I know the line isn't much of a glory position, but he knows what he does leads to bigger things for his team. He also got a couple of solo tackles this year on defense as well as assisting. It's been fun Zachy, can't wait until next season!!!

My Entertainer

Riley is 100% the entertainer of the family. She will play the same songs over and over again and make up all sorts of routines to them. And if Gavin is allowed, he gets to join in as well. And as you can see in this video, he pops in with some very cool earrings on of Riley's, sometimes I worry about that kid. :) And no, Riley's hair is not that long, she has a wig on, she thinks it adds to the star factor.

Crazy Hair Day

Thought I would pop in really quick and post a couple of pictures from last week. It was our Homecoming week last week and Monday was crazy hair day. The boys really wanted to paint their hair and so I got the paint and we just went with the rest. Not sure if Jordan was too thrilled with his hair but everyone loved it at school. It's Ace Ventura meets Wolverine, not what we were going for, but it's what we ended up with. Zach's is supposed to be clown-like and I think we pretty much achieved that. I got quite a few compliments on his hair as well.

As for the Homecoming game, we won and are now 5-1. Big games coming up, our toughest of the season. Hopefully the Wildcats can pull it all together and come through with some wins.

More Back to School

I'm back with some photos of the two little ones and their first day of school. They were at least more inclined to have their photos taken so I was able to take a few more than the older two.

Here are Riley's pics and she was so excited to start school back up again. She started September 3rd and is in prekindergarten. That is not to be confused with preschool. It is basically a kindergarten class but only a half a day. We didn't feel the rush to push her off to kindergarten when she just turned 5 in mid August. Her preschool teacher said she was ready for Kindergarten, but with her age it was totally up to us if we wanted to send her there. We figured why not give her another year to grow older and she absolutely loves school so I'm sure she wouldn't mind another year of it.

Here is Gavin all ready for his first day. He sure doesn't have a lot of supplies to bring, actually all he had to bring was a change of clothes (he threw the scissors in there because he wanted something like that in his picture since his brothers and sister had that kind of stuff). Gavin is in 3 year old preschool and goes twice a week on Tuesdays and Fridays. He was excited for school as well. He was basically pushing me out the door when we were at school so he could start his day. My only obstacle I have found with him and school is that it isn't fun to have to wake him up early to get ready for school. I spend about five minutes every morning just trying to get him out of bed. He even goes to bed by 8:30 so he shouldn't be too tired, he just isn't a morning person.

Back to School

Wow, what a bad blogger I have been, my two oldest started school on August 28th and I am just now posting about it. I just don't have the drive right now to sit at the computer for very long periods of time. Hopefully that will get better otherwise I may not have any visitors to my blog anymore. You wouldn't leave me now, would ya. :)

Here is Jordan with his back to school stuff. I always take pictures of these every year to see how their piles change. And when I scrapbook these pictures I always put the supply list on those layouts. For Jordan this year we actually weren't given a list at all. For their age, grade 7, the teachers just assume we all know what the kids should need by now. It was still hard for me to get what he needed because 7th grade is so much different than sixth because he has a different teacher for every subject now this year so it would have been nice to have a little guidance in picking out his stuff. At least what we got is all working out for him right now.

Here is Zachy with his stuff looking all ready for the 4th grade. We did have a list for him, made it so much easier, not cheaper, just easier. There is no such word as cheap now when we have all four kids in school from preschool to 7th grade.

I always have to pose the kids on the porch as well every year. A tradition we will have to keep going with now. And luckily you can't tell it here, but can you believe that I actually forgot to take the first day of school pictures. We got so busy with the morning that it totally slipped my mind. I always take the supplies photos a few days before school so I didn't have my camera out to remind me to take pictures. I felt like such a bad mom but as long as you take them the next day or so all is good, right? That is what I told the kids and they are happy with that, so forgiving are they, love em.

I'll be sure to post the pics of the two younger ones soon.

Vacation Series Photos - The Last of it!

Sorry again that it has taken me so long to post. I was having troubles there for a while with not being able to get into any blogs through blogger. Couldn't view my own and other people's blogs. Was a little bummed there for a while because I like to blog hop. Anyway, here is the last of the pictures. I technically have hundreds more, but I just picked some of my favorite photos and a variety of places we visited. Thanks for taking the time to view them all and now it is on to school photos and sports stuff, the next chapter.