Whew!

It was quite a whirlwind weekend we had last weekend! The Niehaus side of the family came to visit from Iowa to celebrate Jordan's and Lucas's birthday. Jordan's is in late September and Lucas's is in mid-November, so they split it down the middle and just made one trip in October to have a little birthday "party" for the boys since they couldn't all make both trips to celebrate both birthdays!

Crystal decorated them each a little cake - she's so creative!

We had a fun time, albeit VERY busy! My mom now has 6 grandchildren, and Meggan is the oldest one at 5 years and about 3 months old and Jackson is now about 4 1/2 months old!!! It's quite busy and very entertaining, but it can leave you pretty exhausted. By the time you get the dishes and kitchen cleaned up from one meal (with a few kid-related interruptions in the middle of it all, I'm sure), it seems as though it's time to start preparing for the next meal...

We just hung out all day on Saturday at Dawn & Jer's house, and then Sunday we headed out to Eagle Creek and enjoyed the beautiful fall afternoon weather! It was really nice out there, and the kids really seemed to enjoy it (after Jordan's pretty rough start, that is). We got there right at about 1:30 after Jordan fell asleep in the car for about a 30-minute nap, so it was just kind of bad timing for him. But he ended up coming out of it and enjoying the playground a lot and ready and raring to go! In fact, we're going to head down to Brown County to enjoy the outdoors there this coming Saturday because we enjoyed it so much! Meggan was truly thrilled and loved every minute of it with her hiking stick that my brother, Matt, gave her and Lily!

The fam on the trail!

Jump to Daddy, Jordan (one of his favorite things to do)!

WAY up high!!!

Family self-portrait (thank goodness Jason has nice long arms)!

It really was a lot of fun, and I'm glad they could all come out at the same time and enjoy all the cousins together (I'm just now thinking I don't think we even got a picture of them all together, and that's a big bummer)! Looking forward to the busyness of Christmastime already! :)

It's been a busy week so far as well. Meggan had gymnastics on Monday, as usual, but no choir practice this week because of fall break. She had her first parent-teacher conference on Tuesday, and she's doing GREAT in kindergarten! She has adjusted really well to school and the bus, etc. I'm so happy that she just seems so happy! She gets up in the mornings, puts her clothes on, eats a little for breakfast, and jumps on the bus... It warms my heart to see the grown-up little girl she's becoming! :)

Jordan was home with Jason on Monday and with me on Tuesday and Wednesday, as Nancy, our baby-sitter, was off on a little vacation with her family. I ended up taking him to the doctor on Tuesday afternoon, and we're back on the albuterol inhaler breathing treatments and 5 days of oral steroids and also an antibiotic. Poor little guy! He just can't catch a break when it comes to that darn tight cough. At least we had a nice break from all that junk in the spring/summer (since back in March or so right after he got his ear tubes). Unfortunately, I guess it wasn't meant to last ... 'tis the season; right?!?!

Hope it's been a great week for all!

Pumpkins, Pumpkins, and More Pumpkins!

This past Sunday after we got done at church, we headed out to the pumpkin patch with our friends, the Johnsons, and also some friends of theirs. It was a lot of fun! They have rides there (of course they do), so we had to buy tickets for a few rides. We headed out on the tractor ride to pick out a big pumpkin to carve, and then spent the rest of the time just having fun and using up our ride tickets! We had to get an elephant ear before we left too ... YUM!

The whole fam on the hayride! Yes, Jason and I really do exist (we just don't make it into many pictures on the blog)!!!

"Wait for me, Sissy!"

One of the little rides, the train (Meggan wanted to be the caboose). Of course, the whole path was gravel and it was pretty bumpy, so Jordan was pretty scared right after it started but then seemed to enjoy the rest of it!

So last night we finally got around to carving our big pumpkin. Jason let the kids help him use the huge carving knife (YIKES!) and then they had fun digging out the seeds and gunk on the inside. Then it was time to make a face for it, and Meggan chose triangle eyes and a square nose. After that was all carved out, Meggan colored on the finishing touches ... didn't she do a great job with the eyelashes and the vertical lines?!?! :)

Digging out he gunk! Jordan did not like it at first, but he finally dug in there and got all gooey! By the way, we had to tell Meggan that she couldn't go without a shirt like Jordan...

The finished product! Isn't she beautiful?!?! She wasn't a "girl" pumpkin until Meggan got done with her decorating and made her some girlish eyelashes, as she explained to us...

It's been a good week here, nothing much to report. We had the normal Monday night gymnastics and Wednesday night choir practice for Meggan, but that's about it. Looking forward to the weekend, as my family will be here from Iowa to hang out and celebrate Jordan and Lucas's birthdays together. Jordan's is in September and Lucas's is in November, so they're splitting in in the middle and coming in October to celebrate them both together!

Speaking of that, better get this job finished up...

Fun!

Last night Jason took Meggan to the church for choir practice, so it was Jordan and me home to hang out for a while! I finished up loading the dishes while he played with his trains for a while (what else?) and then I asked him if he wanted to go see the ducks (pronounced duh if you know Jordan) and feed them some bread. Of course, he nodded (just about the only way he answers in the affirmative, unless you really press him to say yes and he will finally mutter what sounds like yeah). Off we went to the pond in our neighborhood and proceeded to give the ducks a couple hotdog buns we had that were ready to be eaten. It was a lot of fun, and he loved it! He has been talking about the ducks every time we drive by the pond for a couple weeks now, so this was a big deal to him.

Tonight Jason went to dinner and for some bowling with the branch staff, and so it was just the kids and I hanging out at home. Since it has been raining here ALL DAY, we were stuck with indoor stuff. That's fine too, but I know Meggan was bummed that we couldn't go feed the ducks while she could go... We finished a couple homework activities that Meggan had left to do and then they were writing & "coloring" & building with blocks & playing on the computer (Starfall is a GREAT educational site if you're looking for one). It was nice and relaxing ... and fun!

Here are a few pictures from the last couple days of fun!!!

Jordan "coloring" on one of Meggan's starfall.com printouts!

If you're ever looking for Meggan, she is probably at the computer on starfall.com! She can't get enough of this site! They do it at school too during computer lab and such, so she's practically got it memorized, I think... :)

Jordan pointing as the ducks made their way over (they were all the way across the pond until they saw us over there)!

The ducks actually came pretty darn close to us! There was even a couple times when one of them was at the very edge (to the side of us, not directly in front of us) and standing on land walking!

Waving bye-bye to the ducks!

Hope everyone is having a great week!

Oh, To Be 5 Again...

and have your best friend stay overnight! Meggan and Sara have had a ball tonight! We will definitely have to let them do this more often - they are absolutely on Cloud 9! It was kind of thrown together as a last-minute idea so Sara didn't even get here until close to 7:00, but they've made the most of it (as evidenced by the appearance of Meggan's bedroom floor). Not that it was necessarily clean to begin with...



As some may know, Sara's mom used to baby-sit Meggan. Back when Meggan was 2 years old and going to "school" at Little Wings, she got REALLY sick in the months of February-March. She was so sick and looked skinny and super weak (not that she's not skinny anyway, but you know what I mean). She just had this bug that kept attacking her little body, and she couldn't fight it off - I think we kept her home from "school" maybe 2-3 days out of a week and then kept having to do that about every two weeks during those months because she would be back down and out. It was a vicious cycle!



Wendy saw us walking one afternoon and I think her heart just broke for her. We would chat with them off and on as we would walk the neighborhood, but we didn't really know them all that well back then. She offered to baby-sit Meggan, in all of our hopes that it would get her better and back on her feet without all those germs to have to fight off!

Well, I've often used the saying that God puts us in the right place with the right people when we need it, and she was it! She was the sweetest, kindest person, and Meggan loved it there from day one! When Jordan was born, Wendy (after many hours of thought and prayer, I'm certain) decided that the baby-sitting thing all day every day just wasn't really going to be for her and we all went about our ways in that regard - and we've missed that daily contact with them ever since! Since then she has returned to working a full-time job as well, not just giving up the daycare thing. So again, God put us where we needed to be then too .......... we LOVE being at Nancy's house and the love that she shows our kids while we can't be there!

Anyway, now that Meggan and Sara are both in kindergarten, they are back together again. And I truly believe they are loving every minute of it! They are in the same kindergarten class and get to see each other again all day every day - it's perfect! I love how things just fall into place sometimes...

Dancing to the songs!

Apparently, their gym teacher told them that if they're at home and don't have a partner to hold their ankles down for them that they can use the couch to stick their feet under and work on doing their sit-ups that way!

Snuggling in for a little calm-down time watching Barbie and the Three Musketeers movie that Grandma and Papa got for Meggan!

And what do we do with Jordan to keep him out of their hair? Why, we played some trains (I'm sure that's a surprise to all) and some cars and trucks, and then we mixed up some brownies to surprise the girls with! He had a few licks of the spoon and then wanted a banana instead. Who is this kid? He can't be mine! Must be Jason's... :) He ate the whole thing and then played a while longer and got his jammies on, brushed his teeth, and off to bed at 8:30.

Cheese - messy face and all!

One of the combinations he came downstairs wearing. He went to Meggan's room to play for just a minute before he went to bed (they said it was okay) and came down like this. Meggan's hat, two necklaces, a bracelet, his police car, and a little bouncy ball in his hand. WHAT?!?! Oh, well, at least HE knew the idea behind it!

So we're wrapping up the night here and going to have the girls lay down in just a minute. They are going to "camp out" in the loft instead of sleeping in Meggan's bed. We only have one railing on her bed, and I don't want to be responsible if the one sleeping on the other side happens to fall out and crack her head on the toybox or the wooden doll crib on the floor! Actually, they had that idea to camp out and I told them it was fine!

Here's to being 5 years old again and spending time with your best friend!

Our Baby is 2!

Jordan in his Cars gear and with his cake (not sure that he could quite figure out why everyone was staring at him)! Happy birthday, baby boy!!!

Can someone please explain to me how it's October already. I can't hardly even type the word "October" as I'm writing this post. The years truly do just keep flying by faster and faster...

As you all know (and if you didn't, you can tell by the title of this post), our youngest "baby" is now officially a 2-year-old. He turned 2 on Sunday, the 27th, and I just can't believe that it's gone by so fast! He is truly a joy - he really is just FUNNY! He absolutely loves his mommy and daddy, loves cars, loves his Geotrax trains, and really loves his big sister! As she will tell you all the time, "He's a monkey see, monkey do." Whatever she is doing, he wants to copy...

A boy and his trains!

Two boys and their trains! :)

Seriously, though, this boy is not messing around when it comes to his trains. He decides who gets to drive which one, and for how long, and where it needs to be going. Jason's train usually ends up on the little circle track you see on the left-hand side there because he will crash into Jordan's and make him MAD (he physically gets up and moves Jason's car over there)! As mentioned before, he is a funny boy!

It was a pretty uneventful week actually, but it was a nice one. We had a garage sale last weekend, so it was nice to get rid of some junk around here. We used some of the week to get ready for that in the evenings, but other than that and the normal gymnastics and/or choir practice nights, it was fairly quiet.

As always, it was nice to have Jason's parents here visiting for the weekend to help celebrate Jordan's birthday. The kids had a blast! Grandma and Papa brought them each a Halloween shirt, so they had to both "try them on" (in Meggan's language this really means wear it for the remainder of the day) and so we snapped some pictures.

They did great posing with their new scarecrows we just couldn't pass up at Menards:

Sibling love... :)

We LOVE our Grandma and Papa!!! Thanks for making the trip to come and spoil us!!!

Another Hiatus?

It would seem as though I took another hiatus from blogging. It's been a busy week and a half or so around here. We haven't had all that much going on, but what we had was time-consuming, I guess.

Last weekend I attended our annual state convention for our court reporting association, and there were some good speakers with good information. You gotta love CEUs (continuing education). I'm just glad that's over with for another year ... sitting there from 8:00-5:30 on Saturday and then again from 8:00-12:00 noon on Sunday was getting pretty old!

The kids went to Dawn and Jer's on Saturday morning since I had the convention and Jason had to work at the bank until 1:00. My mom and Dawn took the kids to the Zoo, so they all had a great time there! Then Meggan went with Mom to her house to help with the kitties and stay overnight, so it was just Daddy and Jordan for the rest of the day. They went to church on Sunday and then had some lunch. I got home around 1:30 or so, and then we just enjoyed what was left of the weekend.

This week has been quiet again, with gymnastics on Monday and then choir practice last night for Meggan. Other than that, we've just been preparing for the fall community garage sale in our neighborhood and hope to get rid of lots of stuff this weekend! I am off tomorrow to man the sale and then will continue Saturday from 8:00 until whenever we get tired of it.

Jordan's birthday party is on Saturday at 6:00 and Jason's parents will be in town for that, and we're looking forward to celebrating our little man's 2nd birthday!!! He's just getting so big so fast - he truly looks like such a little boy now and not a toddler at all. :)

No pictures to share today, but I promise I will share some in my next post about the weekend and the big birthday party and all that fun!!!

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. ;)