nursery fun with stella and drew

aren't they cute....unfortunately the fun ended when stella decided to show off to drew how she bites with her 2 new teeth.

Gods fingers

so we're driving down the road the other day and Sydney randomly asks me...

"mom, where are Gods fingers?"

i give her the standard "what?"

"you know, God's fingers, where are they?" this time asked with that impatient girl tone.

i tried to figure out where she was going with this when she says...

"If God has us in the palm of His hands, then where are His fingers?"

Of course! i just love the questions my kids ask, i hope they never stop asking. i love the way they process stuff so simply and matter of factly.

Dylan just had to pipe in and end the conversation with a "nu-uhh, God's in my heart"

here are some recent photos...

getting the christmas tree

the state of my kitchen... but more on that later ;)

austin, our new designated "reader"

austin and drew at the rollerskating party. didn't they coordinate outfits well!

dylan and his bff kayden

thoughts on corn

merry christmas! love, dylan

our kid is 7.....

austin is now 7 years old....and what a great age to be!
still young enough to dress up and turn into a power ranger with a mere change of clothes, yet old enough to read a book to himself and understand the consequences for the decisions he makes.

a little bit about austin at 7...

he has an amazing imagination. he still enjoys dressing up in his costumes and turning into a superhero with dylan (although school hinders him a little :) right now he likes all things star wars and power rangers. he loves to play with legos and he's really good at creating fighter jets. he is also a very talented artist and really enjoys sitting at the table drawing and making crafts. he loves school, and i am amazed at how much he has already learned! favorite subjects...writing and art. least favorite...reading.

austin is growing up to be a responsible little boy that we are so proud of. he is a pleaser and very tenderhearted. he tries so hard to make good decisions, and is quick to apologize when he knows he's done wrong. he is also quite the jokster we hear!


alright, enough doting....we love you austin!


"mom, can you PLEASE get me the build your own lightsaber kit from target?" said by austin more times than i can count in the last few weeks.

austin LOVES stuffed animals, so we went on a date to build a bear.

our attempt at r2d2

best sister

just when i start getting down about all the sibling fighting going on around here, my sweet austin delivers this note to his sister......they do love each other!

yep....

goodbye dillene...hello dylan!

it was time....
when Dylan was 1 i said that i would cut his curls off when he was 2. when he turned 2, the plan was to cut it at the end of summer.... well then it was absolutely, most definately going to happen after the baby was born.....well, as the "baby" is on the cusp of 9 months old, i finally did it!

it all started with a trim of the bangs, and then a little off the sides, then a little off the back... and then before i realized it, i'd created a very sweet bob cut- at which point it all had to go.

i'm good with it though. as much as i loved those curls, it had to go for dylans sake.
it was getting to the point that whenever we were out in public he was referred to as " young lady, big sister, little girl" etc. way more often than he was referred to as a boy.

as he so firmly told the nice man that gave him a penny to ride the pony at meijer
"i'm not a grill, i'm a boy!" unfortunately, this was becoming common lingo for him. he was having to defend his "boyness" way more often than any little boy should have to.

so we say goodbye to our precious "dillene" .... and hello to our spunky, still full of sas, little boy Dylan!

duck, duck....goose!

The day i've been waiting for has finally arrived! Tim took both boys duckhunting together for the first time this past weekend......while the girls headed to the mall :) Dylan had a blast sitting on a bucket blowing his goose call and saying "dad, there goes one!" Austin enjoyed it for the first 45 minutes, and then got a little bored.....but everytime a duck flew over he would perk up again, blow his call, and point his cap gun in the air.

stella's crawling

stella's 8 months old and crawling..... where has the time gone? It makes me smile to watch her crawl, and see that look of glee on her face when she reaches her destination-- it just makes me sad how quickly time flies by! it almost makes me want to have another (gasp!)

i must say, this crawling thing with 3 older siblings is interesting. our first 3 were born pretty close to each other, so when dylan was a baby the others were 2 and 3. they did not play with little legos yet, or tiny beads, or google eyes, or make paperclip necklaces etc. (can you guess all of the things i've fished out of stellas mouth today? :)

anyhow here's a little video mom. dana, do you remember this sweet little outfit?

yearbook yourself

alright, my curiosity got the best of me......thanks michelle :)

1952

1960

1976

1982

1990

random soccer, static and stella

fall soccer season is officially done......sigh. what beautiful weather we have had! i have such mixed emotions about soccer. it's such great exercise, and the kids love running around playing with their friends. it's also fun to watch them grow and learn teamwork ..... however it makes for more busyness right when you're trying to figure out the school thing again. don't get me wrong, i'm not trying to complain- i realize i only have 2 kids playing .....i'm just happy it's done until spring!

austin loved to play "right defender"

Sydney and her bff Emma

dylan and the trampoline....not good for his hair :)

cowgirl stella

fall fun

this past weekend we made our fall visit to klackles orchard. the weather was absolutely gorgeous, and once again good times were had by all.




austin petting the snake

sliding on the inflatables

shooting apples

picking apples

riding the apple wagon

stella didn't like the inflatables

austin riding the bmx track

syd wants a bunny :)

memory lane

whenever i look at this picture it makes me smile.
i can still remember the day....my birthday 1995 @ chi chis.... the only place in town where a poor college student could stretch her dollar on free chips and salsa. it takes me back to a time when many of my best friendships were formed- carefree times.

we've changed and grown so much in the past 13 years. when i met tim i was a "stubborn city girl", as he so affectionately called me. tim and i were so different. i knew that hunting was a real thing, but i thought only people living in montana actually did it. i thought cowboy boots were tacky. i had never been off-roading. i measured my distances in minutes, not miles (this one still causes arguments). tim introduced me to so many new things. he intrigued me. some of my fondest memories are from those days. we would go out for coffee almost every night of the week to Perkins (no dennys for us, we were sophisticated:) we would sit for hours drinking pots of coffee while tim ate his chocolate chipper, me my cinamon roll, talking about all the homework we still had to accomplish.

we celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary last month. we laughed because tim(who insisted on wearing his cowboy boots to our wedding, thus causing me to write a disclaimer in our program) suprised me with a quick trip to a resort where we golfed. he never would have seen that coming ten years ago:) we reminisced back to those early days of marriage and realized how much our lives have changed since then. we laughed about everything that went wrong at our wedding, we talked about all the good times, we laughed about all the things we fought about in the early years of our marriage.

as much as i look back to those days and crave all the time that we had, the lack of worries, the carefree fun, i wouldn't go back. after ten years of being together we are in such a good place. it's a comfortable place. we know each other well enough to read each others minds, we understand each other WAY better than 10 years ago- our arguments are much more efficient now ;) we have 4 beautiful children, and he still thinks i'm hot!.... oh so much to be thankful for. i love you tim, can't wait to see what the next 10 brings!

yep, she's ours

whenever anyone meets stella i always hear " yep, she's one of yours." from the moment i laid eyes on her she has always felt so familiar to me. her looks have changed a bit through the months.... when she was born i thought she looked a bit more like austin. however last night i was going through old pictures and i pulled out sydneys 6 mos picture....


sydney 6 mos


stella 7 mos



our beautys!