Updated Pics!

The kids in front of the firetruck in Grundy Center!


Jordan driving his car!

Meggan's ballet dance costume!

Meggan's tap dance costume!

Jordan on Uncle Matt's swingset!

All 6 of the "Niehaus" side grandkids on the swingset! L to R: Lucas (Dawn's), Jordan (mine), Olivia and Lily (Matt's), Jackson (Crystal's), and Meggan (mine)!

Meggan at Chick Fil-A (with her peace signs facepaint) showing all the ribbons she won for her big-wheel race championship win!

Jordan the monkey! Nuff said. :)

Hope you all enjoy!

30 is just a number...

Okay. So if I was more than a sad excuse for a blogger back in April, that must make me a pitiful excuse for a blogger here as June draws to a close. Wow! I have been slacking on the blog for sure. Hope nobody has missed our smiling faces too much. :)

To sum up the last almost three months:

Easter weekend came and went with Jason and the kids making a trip back to Iowa to visit the family! They had a great time - and all came back extremely tired but enjoyed the trip!

Meggan wrapped up her kindergarten year on Wednesday, May 19. It's so hard to believe that our baby girl is officially a first grader now (and she'll remind you of that quite frequently)! She got her teacher assignment for next year and will be in Mr. Hamilton's class. She's very excited about it (he's really funny is what she likes to tell you) - and I will be very interested to see how she does in a class with a male teacher. Not that that's a bad thing at all ... just not something we've ever experienced. She will do great no matter what. That much I'm sure of! She was a star student in kindergarten - and even ended up winning the big-wheel race at the end of the schoolyear! She was the fastest kid in all of kindergarten, boys and girls included!!! It was fun!

Over the Memorial Day weekend Meggan turned 6 years old. It sounds redundant, I know, but it's hard to believe our baby girl is a 6-year-old. That just SOUNDS so much older than saying she's 5 years old for some reason. She truly even looks older, more like a kid and not a little girl. * sigh *

The first weekend in June brought about Meggan's dance recital. She had a tap dance number and also a ballet dance number. She did a great job and had a really fun time learning a lot in this session of dance class! We were so proud of her!

Jordan is getting ready to turn 3 in September. He is a quick-thinking, fast-running, training wheel bike riding ball of energy that is all boy for sure! And he is so FUN! Our little boy is growing up right before our eyes, and it's hard to think that he'll be a 3-year-old soon. He can ride that little training wheel bike with the best of them - and just can't get enough!

We had a blessed winter season where Jordan wasn't sick at all. We had to give him his breathing treatments maybe a handful of times from November to March if he happened to start a little cough that sounded a little tight - but he wasn't at the doctor's office at all and it was so GREAT! I have never been more thankful for anything probably in my life!

The kids are both enjoying the summer and the swimming pool! It's so fun to watch them enjoy the water and have fun jumping in and paddling around! Looks like Mommy needs to start giving a few "private" swimming lessons soon... :)

I turned 30 years old yesterday. I'm truly okay with that - 30 really is just a number; right? I'm thinking my 30's will be pretty great!

All else is going well here in Indy! Life is good and we can't complain a bit.

Over a Month???

I have been more than a sad excuse for a blogger lately. We've been keeping busy with Meggan's dance class on Monday nights and choir practice on Wednesday nights. As the weather has gotten warmer (in the 80s for high temps the past week or so), we've been enjoying LOTS of time outside! Playing in the yard or taking walks or going to the playground or a park, it doesn't matter what it is for these two kiddos as long as you're outside!


Jordan backing in all of his riding equipment, as if he's parking them!

Meggan kicking back (in the garage, however, so she's still outside) writing and coloring, her favorite things to do!

Meggan and Cami at the park last week enjoying a day of their week-long spring break!

Just Meggan at the park!

And Jordan at the park!

Things are well here in Indy. We all had quite a healthy winter, which was AWESOME compared to Jordan's first two winters. As the spring weather and sunshine has come, it has definitely lifted our four-walls-are-closing-in winter outlook! What a great year this will be to enjoy the kids! It's just amazing to me how grown up they are, especially Jordan! Meggan was already great and pretty well self-sufficient - such a big girl and a huge helper! It's been a true blessing this year as Jordan has grown out of the "sickie" little boy and into much more of a big boy! He's out of that constantly-chase-him-down stage and he just wants to play (and pretty well entertains himself or loves being entertained by the neighbor boy, Michael, who's almost 10 now)!

Here's to fun in the sun!

End of February Already???

So I'm really not keeping up with the blog that well this year so far ... maybe I'll work on that! It's been another couple weeks since I last posted, so I thought I'd stick a few pictures up here that I snapped last night while the kids were playing. It was a nice, laid-back night just staying home and playing (after they chose pizza Lunchables for supper (I know, ew!) and Meggan finished her homework up quick). They played cars and Geotrax trains the rest of the evening until it was bath/shower time!

Meggan getting all of her Littlest Pet Shops situated JUST RIGHT in each of the train cars!

The final assembly line they had going on. Yes, those are cars and a tractor that she was manually pushing along the track instead of just using the train cars that have a remote... :)

It's been a busy couple weeks, but I truly can't tell you what we've really been up to. :) The kids stayed the night at Mom's house last Friday night so that I could get up and go to our office meeting on Saturday morning, and they had a BLAST! They love going to Grandma's house and helping with the kitties!

Letting Mommy try and get a good picture of them together!

Other than that, not much is new here. Looking forward to March and - hopefully - some spring weather starting to show its face!!! We need to get outside and burn off some energy and play! We've seen some sun the past couple days, so that has been wonderful! Even though it's still cold, at least the sunshine makes people feel better!

They're just so freaking cute!

Have a great weekend!

Recent Happenings!

I noticed that it's been a couple weeks (or maybe even more, but who's counting?) since I last managed to post on the blog, so this will be a little recap of what we've been doing! It's not like we've been super-busy or anything ... just haven't gotten around to it.

Actually, whenever I think about posting, I never think I have any pictures to post. I went to download the ones I snapped this morning of the kids in their Valentine's shirts to e-mail to Jason's mom and dad, and I had forgotten about the ones from the Children's Museum a couple weekends ago... Man, it stinks getting old! :)

A couple weekends ago we decided to go ahead on Saturday morning and have some fun at the Children's Museum. Our membership was running out at the end of January, so we wanted to squeeze in one last time! We had been meaning to get there so Meggan could see the big Barbie exhibit that opened in mid-December, and we finally got there. She loved it! I think we're going to go ahead and renew our membership - the kids had a BLAST that morning!!!

Meggan in the Barbie fashion show runway (they have a whole bunch of stuff in the back that you can dress up in)!

Jordan enjoying playing in the sand at the PlayScape at the Museum!

Last weekend was, of course, the big SuperBowl game. We were SOOO sad to see our Colts get beat by the Saints, but it isn't always the best team that wins; right?!?! They had a great season, and we still love our Colts! Of course, the kids looked so cute with their Colts gear that day, but my camera battery was dead and I forgot to ask Dawn or Jer to snap a couple with their camera and just e-mail them to me. Oh, well. I'll snap one of them someday soon and post it. From school Meggan got (well, we bought) a jersey-shaped necklace and picked to put #44 on it and then got some jersey-shaped earrings that are dangly and picked to put #18 on them - they're so cute! And they were only $5, so that was a fun little something for her!

Valentine's Day is upon us this weekend, and this afternoon is Meggan's party in her classroom at school and should be lots of fun! Meggan's teacher told them to wear red or something with hearts on it, so I thought she looked pretty cute. We also had to put red on Jordan. I took a picture of each of the kids this morning before heading off to school/sitter/work, and then Jordan decided I needed my picture taken as well. He did a pretty good job (of course, I had to squat down or he would have gotten nothing but my legs and feet in the picture...)!

Meggan looking extra cute!

And Jordan looking extra cute too!

"Say cheese, Mommy!"

Wishing everyone a Happy Valentine's Day! Hug the ones you love extra tight!

Fun with Friends!

This weekend was so much fun! Our friends that moved to Ohio about a year and a half ago made the trip to Indy to hang out with us! Their mom and dad went to a dinner downtown on Friday night, so it was just me and the 5 kids here to get some good playing time in. We ate some pizza and then played the night away.

Meggan and Rachel hard at work doing a little painting!

And their finished products! Meggan's is the bear on the plate and Rachel's is the cat!

Then they had to do a little dancing!


Everyone getting in on the action!

By 9:30 Jordan was ready for bed, so he dismissed himself from the party and went to bed. Meggan, on the other hand, stayed up until midnight and thought that was so cool! The girls and their parents left around 11:30 but I let her stay up a little longer and then told her it was already midnight - the look on her face was priceless! :)

On Saturday morning we met them and some other great friends of ours at the skating rink! What a blast! Jordan even went out there for a while, with the help of all those girls! ;) There was Jordan and then 5 girls, ages 3 to 12 or so (I'm not exactly sure how old Greta is, but she's in middle school) - he was having a ball. He would fall down on purpose, just because the girls would laugh at him and then have to help him up. What a little ham!!!

We ate with them at Texas Roadhouse and then they were headed back to Ohio. Yum! It was so fun to see them, and we hope to see them again soon! We may even go visit them at their farm up in Ohio - I think the kids would have a blast! We'll miss them until then...

Meggan had a great time at her friend from school, Valerie's, birthday party on Saturday afternoon, and then we had a great time watching the Colts play their way to the SuperBowl yesterday after church! What a fun weekend!!!

This pic is just for fun! Meggan gave Dawn, Mom, and me all a tattoo on Saturday evening while they were here eating dinner with us. When Dawn asked her what she wants to be when she grows up, she informed us she wants to be a "tattoo person" because she wants to use those needles, you know. WHAT? SERIOUSLY? This is a pic of mine that she put on top of my foot. Do you think she's got a career? (Hahaha! She's just so funny!)

100!

Tomorrow is the 100th day of school for this school year, and they make a big deal out of this (at least in kindergarten they do)! Meggan has all laid out for tomorrow her Colts jersey along with her Dallas Clark jersey necklace (have to wear the Colts gear since they play this weekend - she even picked the number that she wanted put on the necklace, 44) and her necklace with 100 beads they made this week at school as well!


So tonight we had to get her homework all finished up, which included a posterboard with 100 items on it. You could put whatever you wanted - and try to be creative. However, I think we kind of took the "easy way out" and went ahead and just did 100 stickers. I just couldn't imagine trying to glue 100 things on there (such as cottonballs or paperclips or whatnot) and have them fall off constantly, etc.


Here they are doing the 100 chart. Jordan was "helping" in his own special way, but he was having lots of fun! They were supposed to put them in groups of 10, to make it easier to count them while they're showing them in front of the class. Okay, so the lines aren't straight or perfectly spaced either (let's just say I am NOT the artist of the family). It was really hard for me to just let her do it by herself and not "fix" it so that the stickers were straight across and spaced out right. She also has 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, and 100 written to the right of each row that you can't see in the picture. She did a great job!


These stickers are very serious work!




Being silly (they wanted to put their posters in front of their faces)!


C-H-E-E-E-E-E-E-S-E!

We did manage to fit in a few minutes of Mario Bros. Wii tonight after getting all the homework done and before it was time for a bath. I think we're all glad that tomorrow is Friday! Hope everyone is looking forward to a great weekend! GO COLTS!!!