LONG Time...

I have been absent for a while ... oops! We haven't been extremely busy, but I guess just busy enough that I haven't gotten around to blogging about what we've been up to! :)

We enjoyed a nice Labor Day weekend with an extra day that Jason was home from work, which is always great! We traveled to Columbus, Ohio, as we do every year, for the annual base ball tournament there. Jason's parents joined us for the weekend over there, and they had a great time with the kids and also getting to take in some base ball! The guys did a great job, playing 6 games in the span of 2 days, and had a wonderful time! The weather was gorgeous, and now that the kids are getting a little older and a bit closer to independent (Jordan still has a ways to go in that category), it was quite enjoyable!

Meggan's new "hanging down" earrings, as she calls them! A bunch of the girls at the base ball games were having one of the players' wives make them cute earrings, but since they were just costume jewelry, Meggan couldn't wear them. She was pretty sad, but we found these little 14k gold ones at Kohl's on Monday and she was SO excited!

Last week was rather uneventful, with the usual evenings of choir practice and gymnastics for Meggan and the other evenings just hanging out at home! We had a great (and busy) weekend, including a date together while the kids stayed at Dawn & Jer's house overnight and Jason got a tattoo! He has been wanting a tattoo for literally YEARS and finally found the perfect one for him! I think it looks great, although I don't see myself sitting in the tattoo artist's chair any time soon ... or probably ever. :)

Getting started!

The finished product! (For those of you who may not know, Jason is a HUGE fan of Superman and also, of course, of base ball. This one was perfect!)

I did have a strange feeling one night, albeit very short-lived. Jason was at softball practice (he's going to play on a co-ed team that will play on Friday nights for 5 weeks) and I gave the kids a bath quick after going to a park and having a picnic and playing for a while. I got them all dried off and with their pajamas on and got their teeth brushed. I walked out of their bathroom after drying the counter off and it was really quiet. It is an odd sound for me ... Jordan tends to be quite close by at pretty much all moments of the day.

The kids were both playing in their rooms, ALONE! This is not uncommon for Meggan really, but normally I at least have one at my feet or yelling "Mommy" to get my attention or something. I wasn't sure what to do, so I grabbed the camera and decided I would have to put it in writing. They are both growing up so fast! Jordan will have his birthday party in just 2 short weeks, and our baby will be 2 years old. Time sure is passing us by, but it's so fun as they get into this more independent and personality-growing stage of their lives. They are both so much fun and so smart (we might be a little biased on that one)!!! I just didn't want to forget that moment. :)

Meggan coloring and drawing!

Jordan and his car racetrack!

Hope it has been a great week for everyone, and I'll try and do better this week! No promises though. ;)

Not Much!

We haven't really been up to much lately, it seems. It was a pretty laid-back weekend around here.

Jason had to work on Saturday morning, and the kids and I hit the YMCA for me to go to aerobics class. From there we headed down to Mom's house because Meggan (and Jordan) wanted to see Grandma and see the kitties. We got home for naptime, and Dawn and Jer brought Lucas over for naptime as well. They were going on a date night, and Lucas was hanging with his crazy cousins for a sleepover! We didn't do much other than just play around the house and outside, had some supper quick, and went on a little bike ride after that (Meggan on her bike, Jason pushing Lucas in the jogging stroller so they could keep up, and me with Jordan on the back of my bike). That was pretty fun, and then it was time to head home, take a bath, and get settled down for bedtime.

Lucas came to church with us on Sunday morning and played in the nursery with Jordan while the rest of us went to church and Sunday school hour. They have a special series right now for Entry into Kindergarten, so we got to enjoy that with Meggan! They had a little demonstration showing just how little time we actually get to spend with our kids each day (it boiled down to about 2-3 hours per day after school, work, supper, etc.), and it just makes you realize you have to truly enjoy it and make the most of the time you do have together!

Meggan started gymnastics class back up on Monday night and then has choir practice at church tonight. Other than that, our week has been pretty simple, and we like it that way!

Jason's parents will be here tomorrow afternoon, and Meggan can hardly wait! Of course, Jordan is really excited as well, but he can't quite put that into words yet, other than "Papa" and "Ma-ma". They are driving out here to head over to Columbus, Ohio, with us to enjoy the base ball tournament the team plays in each year over the Labor Day weekend. It is always an enjoyable time because all the families come along and stay in a hotel and have all sorts of fun together! We're all looking forward to the weekend (and I'm looking forward to having a couple extra pairs of feet to help me chase Jordan down)! It will be a really fun weekend together!

It's just really hard to believe that September is here already. Before we know it, it's going to be time for Jordan's birthday and our baby will be 2 years old. YIKES! That hardly even seems possible! For now we're just trying to enjoy our time as a family and some less busy evenings that seem to be going on around here...

Meggan reading a Dora book to Jordan ... isn't that so sweet?!?!?!

Another Fun Weekend!

Crystal and Jackson (well, Jesse too, but he went on to Bristol for the NASCAR race) came to visit us this past weekend! What a fun weekend that went by WAY too fast! It's always so fun when family comes to visit us, but it's getting busier and busier with all these kids dancing/running/crawling/laying around everywhere...

It's hard to believe that Meggan has completed almost 3 1/2 full weeks of school. She is doing awesome! She really likes her teacher and seems to like school a lot! She battled a bit of a stomach bug pretty much all of last week, which Jordan finally picked up and over the weekend when he vomited on Jason. His seemed to last just 24 hours, so that was at least a plus! Poor things!

Meggan will start up gymnastics classes again starting Monday evening (we decided to take a break for the month of August and just enjoy the last few weeks of summer and get her back into school mode and all that entails), and she has choir practice at our church on Wednesday evenings. That should keep us busy for a while! She is sigend up for an 8-week session, but I have a feeling she will want to keep going - she really seems to love the gymnastics classes!

Tonight we met Jason at Home Depot and purchased a new grill. I will have to post a picture on here soon - it is pretty sweet! Ours decided to stop firing up, so we decided it was time. We use the grill a lot, and especially when it's nice outside. After that we stopped at Chick Fil-A and had some supper and, of course, got Meggan's face painted since it was kids' night. It really is cute!


Meggan's princess face paint!

Sorry that I don't have too many pictures from the weekend - sometimes I am terrible about grabbing my camera. Maybe my sister, Crystal, can e-mail some to me (hint, hint) and I'll post them up here!

Hope everyone is having a great start to the week! I'm all caught up on work (yippee!) and ready to head to Terre Haute for my job in the morning!

Perfect Weekend!

Jason didn't have to work on Saturday morning AND there wasn't a base ball game this weekend!!! How exciting!

To short-circuit the grocery shopping and get it done before the weekend was officially here, we met Jason at Buffalo Wild Wings for supper on Friday after he got off of work. After a yummy supper disappeared off our table, we headed to Wal-Mart to get the groceries we needed. He took off from there to head to Sam's Club for diapers and a few other things we normally buy there instead of at Wal-Mart, and the kids and I headed back home. Now we could enjoy Saturday and Sunday and not have to squeeze grocery shopping into the mix!

We made plans to head to the Indiana State Fair on Saturday with the Johnsons, and we all had a blast! We made the rounds through the animals and the little farm experience (where the kids gather eggs, pick vegetables, "milk" the cows, etc., and then at the end they can sell their stuff to the market and get "money" to buy one item). The kids had fun walking through there and picking out there goodies, Meggan a carton of orange juice and Jordan a little box of Pops cereal, and then it was time to head to the rides!

Meggan wanted to try some of the bigger rides, but after riding the Crazy Mouse roller coaster with Jason, she's more than perfectly happy on the smaller section of rides! She did love the caterpillar roller coaster, and I even caught her with her hands in the air during the second or third time that her and Maggie decided to ride it!

The kids in the garden picking their veggies!

Riding the motorcycle ride together!

There's Meggan in the fourth row back with her hands straight up!

After the fair we came home and then Dawn and I got to go out to dinner and to the mall by ourselves! What a great time! We shared a meal at Cheesecake Factory (so that we could have a piece of cheesecake) and shared the cheesecake too ... then made our way into the mall and came out with a few new pairs of shoes and a new shirt! It was a really fun time, and nice to get the chance to talk to Dawn without the kids screaming in the middle of us... :)

In the meantime, the kids and Daddy had popcorn for supper and watched a movie that Jason took Meggan to the movie store to pick out, The Singing Princess. Looked like they had a good time (sorry, but the pics were a little blurry)!

Popcorn for supper? On the living room floor? Daddy, are you feeling okay??? :)

After church on Sunday we decided just to come back home and hang out for the day. We filled up the kids' pool in the backyard, and they swam for a while after we ate lunch and before Jordan was ready to lay down for his nap. Then we all ended up laying down for a while, until it was time to eat some supper and head to ChristCare Group in the evening!

It was such a great weekend spent together as a family! :) How thankful I am for these 3 wonderful people!

Mommy and Jordan's Day to Hang Out!

Woo-hoo for Friday! Our baby-sitter took today off so that she could go out of town for a long weekend, I think to visit family. Anyway, since we don't really have any kind of back-up childcare, that meant I just HAD to sign out for the day and stay home with him (you like how that works?)!

We started off a little rough, as he was crying and whining for a while and I was worried that I might regret this day...

Then it was like he hit a switch. I don't know what it is about this boy, but oh, how I LOVE him!

"EEE!" Since he doesn't say S or CH, that's what he says for "Cheese!" CUTE!!!

We rode on my bike to a big park that's a couple neighborhoods away (which means it was probably a good 8-10 miles total of riding)! He played and played. It wasn't even a big park, but he just kept going up and down the slide, up and down the slide, anywhere he could RUN. I think he could have done this for hours if I hadn't made him leave so we could eat some lunch! We had Mac & Cheese with some fruit for lunch, and then we played upstairs for a while. We wrestled (consisting of him jumping on me and me throwing him back onto the floor, just for him to get back up and jump on me again). At 1:30 it was time for him to lay down and get some rest.

Meggan will be home around 4:00 from her first week of kindergarten! She has done so great and made such a wonderful transition back into the all day, every day swing of things!!! Sure, she is tired in the evenings, but she's just done so awesome - and we're so very proud of her! What a year she's going to have...

Tomorrow we are going to hit the Indiana State Fair, and then I'm going to have dinner and probably walk around the mall with Dawny (kid-free, yippee!). Then Sunday is church and we might try and hit the YMCA and swim at the pool for a while. Hard to believe it's just a couple more weeks and the pool will be closed until next summer! Lots of fun to be had this weekend!

I wish I could join Jordan and take a snooze during naptime, but I figure if I get some work done that I will feel better and enjoy the fun weekend a lot more!

Mommy and her little man (don't mind the no makeup look ... I did manage to squeeze a shower in since I got all sweaty riding the bike with 27 pounds behind me, but forget about the makeup today)!!!

She's Off!!!

Our little kindergartener (with her High School Musical backpack she picked out)!

So the morning went just fine! Meggan was so excited that she couldn't even eat all her breakfast. She told me her "belly was hurting" ... but then a minute later she told me that it was because she was just too excited! I'm really glad that she was though - if she would have started crying or telling me she didn't want to go, I know I wouldn't have been able to hold it together!

It helps to have "distractions" too. Katie and Cami were down here talking to her while we were outside waiting for the bus to come. Dawn even asked her boss to let her go in to work late so that she could see Meggan get on the bus for the first time - her and Lucas were a great distraction for Meggan (and her mommy) as well! That was so sweet and thoughtful of you, Dawn - THANKS for being there for this special day!

Katie, Meggan & Cami (look at those blonde beauties - YIKES)!

Just Meggan & Cami this time!

And then there's Jordan, who was much more interested in playing in Daddy's car (and that "cheese" again)!

I did have to hold back a couple tears right after she left, but it went pretty well actually! It does seem like it just happens so quick ... all of a sudden the bus is pulling away down the street and they're gone! I'm so excited for her to tell me about her day this afternoon!!! :)

And they're off!

Wow, she's officially a kindergartener! Check that one off the list of MANY things that we'll have to make it through in her lifetime...

From Kindergarten to Married...

We got home from going to church this morning, followed by a couple hours of swimming at the YMCA, and Meggan went straight up to her room. Here is how she came out:




"Mommy, now I look just like a bride!"


"Mommy, take my picture like a bride with her flower."

Seriously? Doesn't she know I'm already having enough trouble getting over the fact she's heading off on the bus to kindergarten tomorrow? As if I needed her to start talking about her getting married..........

"Jordan, say cheese!" :)

He wanted in on the camera action, so this is the result. He still has the eye-closing thing going on!!! He is SOOOO funny!

With all the talk about Meggan heading off to kindergarten these days, I probably have left Jordan in the dust. He is turning into a 2-year-old nowadays, as his second birthday is quickly approaching and will be here before we know it! He really can say more words than I tend to give him credit for (no, they may not all be pronounced perfectly), but I think I don't give him as much credit for the words he can say because he still only uses them when HE chooses to - and at NO other time! He's a stubborn one, that boy! :)

They were both swimming like fish today! Meggan has little diving rings that she loves to swim after, and one day she will even go in and under the water without her nose plugged! I don't mind that she does this, but I know she would learn to swim so much better if she would just use both hands. Jordan even jumped in and out and was kicking his feet around in the big pool - that's kind of a first for him over there. He's getting braver and braver in the baby pool, but usually when we head over to the big pool, he freezes up and just whines for Mommy the whole time (even when I'm standing right there HOLDING him)!

Long story short: Not only my baby girl, but my baby boy (who's not such a baby at all anymore) even seems to be growing up before my very eyes these days..........

So now Jordan is napping and Meggan and I are going to finish watching the Strawberry Shortcake Christmas (don't even ask) movie that she wanted to rent at the video store last night (hey, the kids' movies are FREE)! On this her last day before she's officially a kindergartener, I'm going to lay down and snuggle up with her and hold on tight (before she doesn't want me to do that anymore)! That day will come soon enough ... and these transcript pages that I need to get done can wait until later tonight!