Kate's Baptism

This past weekend the whole Loken/Kleist/Quast clan got together to celebrate Baby Kate's baptism.  Our crew (plus three more) was more than enough to fill up three pews in the front of the church . . . three infant carriers, three babes, two 2 year olds, a 4 year old, a 7 year old, and 11 adults.  It could have been the recipe for a perfect disaster at a new church, but by the grace of God (literally), all the kids (and most importantly, Kate) were just about perfect.  Ellie and Colt got ants in their pants towards the end of the service, but other than that, all the little people did great.  Lauren even took the lead and brought Ellie and Colt to the front of the church with her for the children's sermon (and other than one attempted run away), the kids did great with that too!  Here are a couple of pictures from the day. 

And here are a couple of pictures from last week when Auntie and Kate had their first sleepover at our house.  Ryan proved he still has it when it comes to holding babies and giving the adults some time to get stuff done.  And below, he proved that he can still multitask...watch cartoons, hold the babe, and pose for a picture - what a kid!

Happy Halloween!!

As most of you know, yesterday was Halloween.  And to help celebrate Halloween, both of the older kids had Halloween parties (actually, Ryan's was called a "Fall Festival" because the public school don't promote or celebrate any holidays so as not to offend anyone - dumb).  Anyway, I've always wanted to help out at their parties, but have never been able to in the past mainly because I always have other children to take care of.  Well, this year I made a point of ""dispersing" the other kids so I could make it to at least one of the parties (Ryan was not happy I couldn't do his, but I am going to try to make his "Holiday Party" in December work).  So off the kids went, (Colt stayed with his mom, Ellie went to the neighbor's house, and Ryan was in school), and off we (Lauren and I) went to her Halloween party.  It was so fun to see how Lauren interacts with other kids and her teachers when she is, "on her own."  She is so confident, so calm, and so GOOD when she is at school (why can't she always be like that at home?).  Overall, the party and the experience of seeing how things work at her school was great!  It was fun to meet some of her friends that she talks about and finally put a face to their names.  Like I said before, I'm going to try and do Ryan's party in December  and going forward, I am certainly going to make more of an effort to get into their classrooms and learn more about their lives outside the four walls of our house.  Below are a few pictures from Lauren's Halloween parade, and the rest are of the kids (and one with the neighbor kids) before we hit the town for some serious Trick-or-Treating (we actually made it around an entire block this year before the kids were ready to go in - 1 block took about an hour, 6 kids, lots of talking, walking, and more talking makes for a long "walk around the block").  Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween!

Corn Maze

To start things off on the right step while Trav is out of the country, I decided to let the kids decide what we should do on a beautiful Sunday afternoon.  Their choice . . . the corn maze!!  And a good choice it was.  The place is 5 minutes from our house, the sun was shining, and most importantly, I had a coupon ($13 per person is not cheap).  So after a late breakfast, the kids all picked out their own clothes (a new thing they've been wanting to do lately), we packed up, and drove down the street (ok, it's not just down the street, it's more like 9 blocks, but you get the idea, it's really close).  We haven't been to the corn maze for a couple of years (like I mentioned before, it's kind of spendy), but when we walked in, I was happy to see some new attractions (and so were the kids judging by their smiles).  We did it all (or at least tried to) . . . the bouncy pillows, the corn pit, the maze (the little kid one not the big one), listened to some music, played on anything and everything they could climb on, had some mini doughnuts, and even took in a magic show.  The one thing the kids were not interested in was seeing the animals which is weird because in the past they always wanted to see them (maybe we've over used our zoo pass this year and seeing more animals just isn't exciting?).  Anyway, after 3 or so hours, everyone was sweaty and dirty and it was time to go home.

Ryan "lost" his head

And now the girls are trying to "lose" their heads too

It was a great start to a hopefully great week.  We're at Tuesday already and everything is moving along nicely.  Trav sent a couple of emails saying how wonderful Columbia was and telling me about his "work" dinners (since when do work dinners consist of awesome food, drinks, and live music?) - I think I need to get myself a job already!  Although, this has sort of been like a vacation for me too - one less mouth to feed every night, one less person to divide my attention with - guess we're all winners this week!  Just kidding, we'll be happy when Trav is back in the good old USA (and then he can take over as Ellie's butt wiper, it's getting old really fast!), can't wait for Daddy to be home!

MEA already??

Apparently time flies from the end of September to mid October - not sure why, but it seems like we've been  busy and clearly I've been lazy with my writing.  Time to get back on track . . .

So MEA "break" was just this past week (I'm still not really sure why we have MEA - it's not like school has been in session all that long, but apparently everyone already needs a break?).  Anyway, with MEA break, comes a lot of extra planning.  There is no way I'm going to sit in the house for 3 straight days with all four of the kids (Colton being our plus one), so it's always a struggle to find some fun activities that everyone can participate in.  And surprisingly, this MEA break went pretty well.  We spent the first day (Wednesday) at our friend's house (luckily for us, this family has two kids to play with, one for Ryan and one for Lauren, and even luckier for us, their mom doesn't mind having a couple of 2 year olds tag along so we all got to have some fun).  After a busy morning/afternoon of fun, the kids and I packed up and headed back home for some late afternoon naps and a little rest - a good start to the break.

On Thursday, we were joined by Grandma Loken and Auntie (and Kate too) for a trip to the zoo.  I wasn't sure what to expect with this trip being MEA and all, but surprisingly, the place was not too packed.  We've done the zoo many times in the past where it's been just me and the four kids, let's just say having a Grandma and an Auntie (even with her newborn) along certainly makes life easier - so thanks for coming along ladies!  I tried to make a point of taking more pictures on this outing (especially since my time wasn't completely consumed by keeping an eye on everyone), and was pleasantly surprised when I downloaded the pictures tonight and saw that I had taken 52 shots - not bad if I have to say so myself.  Then, the pictures started downloading and all I saw was blurry shots of animals way too close up and that's when I remembered that Ryan decided that he should be in charge of the camera for the majority of the zoo visit - great.  So if you ever want to see tons of "so-so" pictures of big blurry animals, stop by and let Ryan walk you through our visit, I'm sure he'll be more than happy to do so.  I did find this one though and had a good laugh.  I was out getting our lunches at this time so I'm not really sure what was going on (or who was in charge), but it looks like Ryan might have tried his hand at taking a picture of actual people and not just animals - too bad the only person who is looking at the camera is also the only person who is upside down - oh well, at least he tried.

And here are the few that I managed to get in before Ryan took over . .

 As you can see, getting all the kiddos to sit and look at the camera was nearly impossible so these are as good as it gets.

With the zoo down, and only one more day of break, we spent our final day of fun at the dentist - yay!  It was actually fun though because no one had any cavities and after our appointments, we spent some time at the mall where we ran into Dawn, Paul, Tyler, and Amelia and where we rode the carousel, played around, and had a bite to eat - nice!

With MEA technically over, we still had the weekend before we had to get back to real life so we decided to have some more fun.  Saturday was spent helping our favorite little plus one, Colton, celebrate his 2nd birthday.  Really, what could be more fun on a Saturday than Thomas the Train and ice cream cake?  After the festivities, it was back to get ready for our new reality for the next week . . . being Dad-less.  Trav had to leave for Columbia early on Sunday morning (it was either 4:10 or 4:40am - I was still half asleep) when he left and that meant it would be just the kids and I for an entire week - can you imagine!!!  I'll get to some of our fun in the next entry.

Taught by a 5 year old

This post is all about Lauren and how she has learned two of the more difficult things in life, first, potty training, and now, riding a bike.  Let's back up a bit . . . Lauren was just over 2 years old when I started potty training her (I insisted that we never have 2 kids in diapers at the same time so she had to be done before Ellie came along).  Anyway, the potty training was going, but no going great.  In fact, I was getting sick of the sitting by the potty and waiting for things to happen (give me a break, I was probably 7 or 8 months pregnant and my patience was rather short at the time).  So then we take a little trip to our friends house for the day and they also have a 2 year old, but their 2 year old was potty trained (and he was a boy!).  After seeing that, I was a bit defeated, but to my great surprise, Lauren saw Saul (the previously mentioned 2 year old) as a mentor, and poof, just like that, she was potty trained (maybe "poof, just like that" is a bit over the top, but you get the idea, one day hanging out with Saul to show her the ropes, and she is potty trained).  Why couldn't everything in life be that simple?  Well, today proves that maybe it can.  Our 5 year old neighbor girl, Marley, just learned how to ride her bike this past weekend without training wheels, and after seeing it just one time, Lauren wanted to try.  To say I didn't have my doubts would be a lie, but because Lauren was so insistent, I gave in, took the training wheels off, and spent the majority of the rest of the day running along side Lauren while she tried to figure out how to ride.  And surprisingly, she did alright.  She couldn't start or stop, but she could ride a bit once she got going (we were happy with the progress).  But, Lauren wasn't done.  She wanted to be able to start, stop, and ride all by herself, enter, Marley.  After our picnic lunch today (with the neighbors), the girls were looking for something to do.  Wanting to keep them busy, I told Marley that she should teach Lauren how to ride her bike so they could ride together.  I figured this would keep them busy for at least 15 minutes.  And it did, but not only that, Marley had Lauren starting, stopping, and riding all by herself all in that 15 minute window.  One minute I'm watching Marley "teach" Lauren how to use her feet to get started and the next minute they are cruising down the street together - apparently learning to ride bike is easy, who knew?  It does make me wonder though, does Lauren not like my teaching methods, or does she just save her best for when she needs to impress?  I won't complain, but if this trend continues, it looks like we'll need one of her friends to teach her how to drive in 12 years, now that should be scary!

Fall

Fall (or Autumn), may be my most favorite time of the year.  The weather is cool, but not freezing, the sun still shines, and there are lots of fun apple orchards and pumpkin patches to visit.  So this Saturday, after visiting the new babe, we decided to make a day of it in Buffalo.  We had a quick lunch at the local KFC (popcorn chicken is always a hit with the kids), then we ventured out to find the local apple orchard.  It was a bit chilly in the morning, but by the time we actually got to the place, the sun was shining and the wind had died down making it an almost perfect day.  When we got to the orchard, we weren't sure how everything worked, but there was lots to see so we dove right in.  And the best thing about the place, no entry fee (the place by our house is $11/person just to get in the "door").  We hardly made it two steps into the place and the kids found the "play area" and that's where we spent the majority of the day.  Think hay bales, tress, swings, playhouses, and some random ride on toys - the kids were in heaven!  Here are a couple of pictures from the play area . . .

And here are some pictures of everyone picking some delicious Honey Crisp apples.  The picture with Ryan holding his face is the aftermath of Trav holding him up high in a tree to get the perfect apple - mission accomplished, got the apple, almost smacked Ryan's face into a branch - oops.

A fun little Saturday!!