Picture recap

Ellie on Easter morning

The egg hunt

Reading her book from the Easter Bunny

Her favorite dress with new Easter shoes

Crazy girl!

Siblings at preschool graduation

Me and my girls

"Star Student" helping out at graduation

The graduate

Accepting her diploma

Being recognized as a "Star Student"

Fedora boy at Track and Field Day

Hat on, egg race, very intense

Last day of 2nd grade - cool dude!

 

The last few pictures are of the kitchen remodel and the girls' bedrooms.  Fun to start projects, never fun going through them, but super fun when they are finished!

You'll notice that even though Ellie has her own room, she prefers to sleep on the trundle in Lauren's room.  Not really sure why I even did a separate room for those two!

Back by popular demand!!

Back by popular demand means different things to different people.  To me it means that more than one person requested that I start blogging again, but to pin point an exact number (it's two), would be very difficult so I'll just say it is somewhere between 1 and 100.  Apparently that is enough for me so it's time to get back at it!

Here is a quick (as quick as can be done to cover the past 7 months of our lives) recap . . . .

Ryan:  Ryan is an official 3rd grader!!!!   And he will be an official 8 year old tomorrow - time flies when you're having fun and Ryan is certainly a reminder of that.  But before he graduated and before he becomes an 8 year old, he did a few other things too.  He continues to be our little book worm.  Take the kid to the library and it's like taking a kid to a candy store.  He has his favorites (most of which are books that I can hardly follow because of all the "good guys" and "bad guys"), but at least he enjoys them and it keeps him busy.  He also really enjoyed school this year.  He had a great teacher and she pushed him to keep on learning new things, and by the time the year was over and he wrote a "reflection" page on the year, the things he looked forward to most were, "learning division and multiplication."  The kid definitely loves his academics, but is still working on his athletics.  A bright note on that subject though . . . his class took the honors of "Tug-of-war Champions" this year at Track and Field day and you would have thought the kid did it all on his own the way he reacted.  "Worst to first" in just one year, not bad for a kid who wore his angry birds fedora along with his sweat shorts and t-shirts (clothes that he does not, by the way, like to wear, he prefers jeans and a "dress" shirt most days).  That's our boy.  We love him, his sisters love him, and we'll certainly look forward to all the highlights that this summer brings (he is taking a "Reading and Running" program and "Lego Robotics" class this summer so I'm sure he'll have lots of stories to tell).

Lauren:  Lauren is an official kindergartener!!!  Preschool was an absolute blast for Lauren and full of surprises for us.  Apparently Lauren is an absolute angel in class.  Yes, you read that right, our Lauren is an angel (at least that is what the teachers keep telling us).  Our little "angel" made lots of new friends and seemed to always have a birthday party or play date to attend.  The kid has a busier social schedule then I do!  She still loves to push our buttons at home and some days I consider giving her to one of her teachers to keep since they like her so much, but by bedtime she usually pulls through, changes her attitude, and does something so sweet you can't help but forgive all of her bad behavior throughout the day.  She was a great helper with Ellie and Colton throughout the year and even though she caused about 50% of the fights that happened between the 3 of them, she put the "babies" (as she called them) in time-out 100% of the time to, as she said, "help you out mom."  Such a sweetheart!  Her main concern for next year . . . who is going to help me out while she is off at school all day?  Like I said, she is a sweet kid with a good heart, she just "forgets" things" everyone once in a while (I guess).

Ellie:  Ellie is an official preschooler (I had to keep the trend up)!!!  This past 7 months for Ellie has been busy too.  She turned 3 in April, started having lots of bloody noses (like her big sis), and refuses to stop sucking her thumb (even though we've tried everything from hockey tape to custom made, guaranteed - I need to get my money back - thumb gloves).  The thumb has been her best friend since birth, no chance she is getting rid of it now.  I've gone as far as telling her that her teeth will fall out if she doesn't stop, and she just smiles and puts the thumb back in like the conversation never happened.  We also had Ellie screened a couple of months ago for speech, and like Lauren, she qualifies for speech class which she will be starting in the fall along with her two day per week preschool.  If you missed that, I wrote that will be gone for two morning each week in the fall which means this momma will have 5 free hours to herself each and every week!!!!  Oh, what will I do with my time?

Us:  by that I mean Trav and I.  We made a decision that we are going to love our house (every single bit of it) so with that in mind, I took on the job of revamping a few of the rooms.  I started with Lauren's room (it had been the nursery for all the kids and was in dire need of a paint job and some major updates), and before I knew it, Ellie's room was done too, and so was the kitchen, the entryway, and the garage (yeah, we got a little excited!).  Lauren's room was the room where I tried out all of my newly acquired skills (basically sewing).  I made her curtains, bedspread, and cushions for her toy bench.  Trav got his first try at hanging wall decals (a huge fairy blowing dandelions into the wind which took us at least an hour and a half to hang), and I tried out some fun Pinterest ideas which if I have to say so myself, turned out pretty nice (think hanging pom poms, and cheap printables - they were fun and easy).  Ellie's room took a little more work to figure out which direction we were going, but one trip to Ikea with Grandma and Auntie, and we were well on our way (basically Ash told me what to buy, and I bought it).  The kitchen was a pretty big change.  We had some custom cabinetry made, put on new door hardware (I should clarify here, I put on new door hardware, hinges and all), got some new countertops, and voila, it's like a whole new kitchen!  Although getting there was not fun at times (at one point I called our cabinet guy at 9am when he was supposed to be there at 8am, and he responded with, "I'm running about 4 hours late").  I'm pretty sure that sentence should never even be spoken, but we got through it and in the end have a kitchen that looks nice, and more importantly, functions like it should. 

That is it for now.  We are off to the Y because it is raining yet again!  I'm hoping this rain doesn't continue all summer long because I'm done with indoor activities.  I need some sun, fun, and water otherwise it's going to be one long summer!

Will be posting some pictures this afternoon to give you a picture recap as well, hope you enjoy!

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.