Trick or Treating!

I think we are trick or treated out at our house! Friday evening we went to my mom's work (she works at an assisted living center) and made the rounds to the residents' apartments, and the kids collected a lot of treats! Then yesterday we had a trunk or treat in our church parking lot, which is always fun (and easy) as the kids just get to walk around the parking lot from car to car and collect even more treats! Last night we made it through the entire upper half of our neighborhood, but just didn't think the kids would make it the rest of the way. We stopped at the cul-de-sac behind our house, where they were hosting a fall festival, complete with tickets and games and prizes galore! Meggan got pretty much an entire grocery bag full of little happy meal types of toys from there, and was then pretty much frozen solid and we headed home. Jordan only played one or two games there and won a couple cars, but then he was done for the night and went home with Daddy!

Friday night at Grandma's work!

Saturday afternoon in the church parking lot, along with Maggie and Faith (a/k/a Super Girl and Butterfly)!

All in all, it was a fun Halloween this year! Meggan was enjoying herself with all her friends and dressed up in her cowgirl outfit. Jordan was RUNNING around the whole neighborhood just trying to keep up with all the big kids in his Woody outfit from Toy Story. Lucas only made it halfway through the 'hood with us and then was too chilly and they went home, but he was having fun while it lasted in his Buzz Lightyear costume. Too cute!!!

The whole crew (minus Ellie as a dragon, who didn't want to be in the picture, and also minus Ashlynn as a pumpkin, who didn't get into the picture either) before heading out in the neighborhood: Lucas as Buzz Lightyear, Brady as Darth Vader, Will as Luke Skywalker, Camryn as a vampire (I think), Michael as something to do with Choppers, Katie as a gymnast, Meggan as a cowgirl, and Jordan as Woody). What a group!

Hope it's a great week for everyone!

One of Those Days...

Ever had one of THOSE days?!?! Apparently, Jordan was having one of those nights at least this evening. He had a 10-minute meltdown just because he decided to drop my jacket off the back of the chair onto the kitchen floor and I told him he had to pick it up. He said no, I counted, he said no, I swatted his booty with the "paddle", and he cried and he cried and he cried. REALLY? It wasn't like I swatted him hard - he was just that emotional/tired/not feeling good.

Doesn't he just look pitiful?!?!


By the way, he did pick up the jacket after all that... ;)


At least his trains can still make him happy! That is, as long as he could sit in my lap and we could drive them together. I can't say this upsets me - I kind of like it when he actually wants to sit in my lap for a little while!


Sitting on my lap on the floor drinking his V8 juice!



And sitting on my lap on the floor playing trains!

Then he decided since Meggan wasn't here that he could actually have free reign on the piano, and he played that for a little while. Cute!

Looks like a little Mozart, huh? (I doubt it very much if Daddy would really let that happen even. Not that playing the piano is a bad thing ... I just don't think Jason would really want that to be Jordan's forte.)


Meggan is staying the night at Sara's house tonight - and she could NOT have been more excited about that! Sara's dad and big brother, Reed, are away for a guys' weekend while our township schools are on fall break (which means you got Thursday and Friday off of school) over here in Indy, so it's just the girls tonight! I'm sure they're having an absolute BALL!!! All I know is that Wendy had taken a sheet of VERY yummy-looking cookies out of the oven just before I left... :)

Jason has softball games tonight, the last of which begins at 10:30. Yikes!

Jordan is in bed now and I'm going to take to a nice hot bath, I think! Happy weekend to all!

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!!!