got binkies?

just wondering? ;0)

my monsanto man

well garran had training at Monsanto on monday. he said it went pretty well. he came home with this hat that he won during training because he was able to answer some question about corn!

he's so smart ;0)

Anyways, he said that his boss looks like an older, taller version of a friend that we had in Iowa. Ironically I believe he works for Monsanto too. Anyways, while we are grateful for the job, we are bummed that it will not start for another week or two. I am sure there is a lesson to be learned in this, but I will be glad when we have income coming in again. 2 1/2 months is to long for me!

crazy days

today feels like this. wild. we are busy cleaning, doing laundry, having a pipe in our wall fixed and my second ultrasound is this afternoon. hopefully they will get everything they need this time. i have to admit, getting ultrasounds here is not my favorite. they do not give you any pictures, and the ladies i had last time were not so friendly. they were all business and kind of cold. the other time i have had ultrasounds have been great, in Iowa. the ladies were always nice and they always handed out a ton of pictures. i miss that. especially since we won't be doing this much longer. oh well. off to finish folding laundry and cleaning the kitchen. i really hope to get all my stuff checked off my list by dinner time!

in my head.

for some reason i can not get this out of my head. so i thought i would share.

good mom vs. evil mom

so here is my dilemma. our house backs right up to the path that leads to the park. so we have a pretty heavy flow of traffic of kids. the boys have made two little friends, one is a boy and one is a girl. this kid has told the boys that his name is Master. not really his name. i will not say his name on here, but that is not his name. anyways, here is my dilemma. if it is a hot day and i give my kids a Popsicle, do i mind letting their friends have one to, absolutely not. i think that is fine, and I have seen our neighbors do the same for our boys. where i have the issue is when the following scenario happens, as it did today.

kael comes up to the back door.

kael:master needs a Popsicle!

me:well tell master he better go home and get one.

i don't know if this really irritated me today more than other days, because i saw "master" take something from kael that he had been eating and finish it or what. i don't know. maybe i am just in a mood. i just don't feel like my back door is a drive up window. am i over reacting?

looked out the window and look what i saw....

in charge.

so in this picture i caught kael wagging his hand back and forth. cullan touching his tongue to his nose. well then there is briea...looking very in charge!!

monday

what a great thing to wake up to on a Monday morning!!

lazy sunday afternoons

and this is one of my favorite ways to spend them. this is our spot. when she gets tired, she just crawls up on my lap, we rock, and out she goes.

my budding artist

this is a picture cullan drew today. he brought it to garran this morning. cullan said that he had drew a picture of garran so that he would know he loved him.

dr who

so as the story goes, garran used to watch this show Dr. Who with his dad growing up. it still comes on the BBC network. so we have started watching it. i am not a super sci-fi person but it is a pretty good show. however we have a new super fan at our house. that's right Cullan! we watched an episode today where Dr. Who was wearing a bow tie. Cullan asked if we could make him one. so here is the actual dr. who from the show.

this was cullans own version of Dr. who! he came down stairs dressed like this and wearing his new bow tie. he is such a funny kid. i just love him.

loves the pages

so i found this feature on blogger where you can add stand alone pages to your blog. i have been trying it out and love it. mine are on the side of my blog under the picture of garran and i. i have decided to use them to tell about each one of our family members. if you want to find how to do it, go under edit posts. at the top there is a tab that says edit pages. when you click on that, there will be an option to start a new page. you can have up to 10!! just some random knowledge for anyone who is interested.

something delicious!

i found a recipe on this wonderful website for homemade watermelon popsicles. oh my goodness! YUMMY! we decided to make them last night after the kids had already gone to bed, just due to the hectic night with tornado's and all. anyways it is super easy and if you have a really yummy watermelon it makes just that much better. i am not a huge popsicle person, but these are really good. you can tell it is made with real fruit and well it is just good.

to prove it, i thought i would post pictures of my cute kids enjoying them!

if you want the recipe here it is! let me know if you try it and what you think!!

4 cups of watermelon

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup hot water

2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

mix sugar and water until dissolved. add lemon juice and stir. blend liquids and watermelon in blender and pour into popsicle molds. freeze overnight. ENJOY!

melt your heart

every once in a while your kids will come out of no where and say things that just melt your heart. yesterday i had one of those moments with cullan. i was sitting in the chair and cullan came over and asked if he could talk to the baby. i said sure. so he leaned towards my stomach and said the following things while patting my stomach.

"Hi baby, I have a spider man book bag. I have lots of toys in it. You are going to come live with us on my birthday." Then the part that really melted my heart. He leaned in really close and whispered "I love you baby".

future chef!

i have been trying new recipes lately. we found this recipe for a pasta salad. it is so yummy. perfect for summer and very colorful. Cullan loves to help. he absolutely LOVES to cook! so before you call DHS, i do let him chop tomato's for the salad, however i am surprised that it will even cut the tomato's. it is extremely dull! but he saws away and has a great time. he even told me tonight, while i was standing next to him, "Hey Mom, grab a knife, let me teach you something!". Ya, those were his words exactly. no ego on this kid!!

out!

when this girl is out...she is out!

do you see what i see?

the cutest little freckles ever are starting to pop up on this cute boys nose!

i am so excited. i love freckles!

rain

rain, again. BLAH. another day inside.. we need some sunshine...and soon!!

sometimes its hard to put into words.

but this pretty much does. this is our house today. to humid with very real chance of storms keeping us inside. kids bouncing off the walls. parents not finding much to do. so yup. this pretty much sums it up!

Happy Father's Day!!

today has been a pretty laid back fathers day. we went to church, but had to leave early because briea had a reaction to something that we still can't figure out. her whole head is read and itchy. she was super blotchy and looks pitiful!! Anyways, we gave garran his father's day stuff yesterday! here are the kids giving it to him.they were so excited. they sure love their daddy!Happy Father's Day Garran!!

I could not ask for a better father for my kids! They are very lucky to have you.
Happy Fathers day also to all the Dad's in my life!
George, Jeff and Mike!!
Hope you guys had a great day too!

kael

i know i posted this on facebook, but i wanted to make sure this picture made it on here. this is how kael got out of the shower. where he comes up with this, I will never know. he is such a funny kid.

**side story**
when i was putting Cullan into the shower tonight, he asked to look at this hand held mirror. after inspecting himself for a few minutes he says to me, "Mom, my head looks GOOD!".

fathers day guest

my dad decided to come and visit for fathers day this year. so today we decided to give him a tour of our new town and find a fun place to play. we tried a new park that we had not tried yet. it was great. it had this big wooden castle. when I say that it was big, I mean it was HUGE!! the kids had a blast and we and fun watching them play.

 they boys loved this tire swing. i was amazed at how high the boys got. garran would just keep pushing them and they would squeal higher...higher. they are just crazy little boys!

 they also loved this zip line thing. they were so funny. i wish it was longer, but it was fun for what it was.

 here are the kids with my dad. we always try and get a group shot when he comes to visit.

scary

ok this storm last night was by far one of the scariest i have ever seen. in the first picture you can see how blue the sky was and then all of a sudden this wall of pure black just started moving in. it was not just moving, it looked like the clouds were unfolding over and over each other. i have to admit i got a little panicky. i checked the news, thinking for sure there would be mention of a tornado. nothing, just severe weather. i tried to snap a few pictures before the down pour and lighting started. it was creepy how everything just went black. 

practice...practice

i can not remember exactly where i read this, but i read somewhere that having kids trace letters or numbers with these dot painters really helped with their handwriting skills. i decided we would give it a whirl. cullan can spell his name but some of the letters are backwards and the u is kind of funky. kael still pretty much just scribbles. so here was our fun for the day.they did a bunch and really had fun. cullan keeps asking that we do the dot art again. i have to limit it a little because they go through so much paper. ;0)i was impressed with how well kael did with his name and that cullan did not try and turn any letters around. here is some of their work. it was a fun little activity for the day.

brothers

are so cute!

backfire!

so today i tried another fun version of food color painting. this time i put food coloring and water in some spray bottles that i got at dollar tree. can i just say i love dollar tree. they make it very easy to have some frugal fun!!

cullan spraying the blue!

briea was trying to get in on the action. she just liked the water fights!

then of course my fun starts to backfire on me. instead of squirting the pavement like they were supposed to...they start spraying each other.

cullan was not to bad..but oh dear. when my kael does things, he goes for it!!!

so we decided that was enough fun. time for a bath..this was before the bath...wish me luck!!

what am i going to do with this kid??

ps. when kael came inside and saw himself..he said "Cullan, what did you do to me? I am blue and shiny all over!!!"
**UPDATE...SHAVING CREAM TAKES FOOD COLORING OFF SKIN LIKE MAGIC**

J-O-B

the phone rang today...training the last week of the month and then starting sometime in July. I wish it was earlier because we still won't have income for a while but at least it is coming...sometime!!! I am so excited!

Good Things to Come

Good Things to Come

click the link above to watch!

I loved this message, so I thought I would share.

bubble snakes

more frugal fun. this was an idea i tried last summer with the boys that was a hit and is super easy. here is what you need.

 water bottles, wash clothes, dish soap and rubber bands.

simply cut off the bottom of the water bottles, put a wash cloth around the bottom. attach with a wash cloth. dip is soap and blow!!

here are some examples of our fun!!

 the great thing about this is that it makes one big long string of bubbles like a snake. my kids love that!

 um. i just added this because i think she is cute!

i will tell you one trick. if you are using a pretty sturdy water bottle like a Fiji water bottle, regular wash clothes work well. however if your water bottles are not that hard plastic and are a little less sturdy a baby wash cloth is GREAT!! try if you would like. it was fun for everyone. 

round two.

well i guess i was not the only one that thought yesterdays ultrasound was a bust. the doctor called this morning and said that she was not happy with the ultrasound at all. that the pictures were not clear and that the girl had even forgotten a couple of things. i am hoping round two goes a little better and hopefully they will get all the images that they need.

i was nervous when they called because I thought that something might have been wrong with the baby. however she said that from what the could see, everything looked ok. they just wanted to see it a little bit better. oh well. we will see what happens. off to schedule the next ultrasound.

uneventful ultrasound

well this was by far the least fun ultrasound i have ever had. it started off lame because it was a student and an instructor, so they would not turn the monitor so I could see anything. BLAH! Then it took forever and the poor girl that was the student was having a hard time because the baby would not cooperate. It took an hour. It was the longest one that I have EVER had.

However on a different note. Even if we wanted to find out what we were having, we would not be able to. This baby was sitting with its legs crossed and would not budge. Oh well. Guess it worked out the way we wanted anyways!!

Oh and the lamest part. We got no pictures at all. NOTHING!

Guess we will just have to wait and see what the real baby looks like!

today!!!

we are going for the ultrasound!
we are being brave and taking the whole gang since we do not know any sitters here. wish us luck. i am hoping to get some cute pictures.

somedays

do you ever feel like this some days?
because some days I do!!

baby news

well for starters I have to say that I really love my new doctor!!! I was very worried because I have not always had great luck with my doctors in the past, however this one is great.
she is very to the point, which I like. She is personable and easy to talk to which I also like.
so for my first appointment this is what we have learned.

1. i have an ultrasound tomorrow. if everything goes according to plan, we will not be finding out the sex.
2. my doctor has already decided that we are going to have a c-section at 39 weeks. due to complications with cullans delivery and due to the size of our babies, that is what she feels will be the best plan.

*the funny part to that is that 39 weeks starts on October 18th. Cullan's birthday is the 17th. YIKES! Hopefully cullan will not mind it being so close.

so for now we have a lot of info to digest and some other decisions to make. i will post pics tomorrow if we get anything good at the ultrasound!

sweet dance moves

this kid has always had some sweet dance moves. he just cracks me up! Cullan is not to shabby either.
ps. sorry he is in his undies. kael hates clothing. we put it on and somehow it magically comes right off.

kids sayings

i always say this before i post, but because i use this a family journal, i like to document funny things my kids say or do.
these are more for my memory, but you can enjoy as well.

tonight my cullan asked if after dinner he could have a "frozen sandwich".
it took me a minute to figure it out...yeah he meant an ice cream sandwich.

the other day i was telling kael that he had the choice between two different things.
kael looked at me very sternly and said very frustrated.."mom, i do not like those chooses!!"

movie in the park

Friday night we went to the first "movie in the park" of the summer in our new town. the kids had a great time and we had fun. the only down side was the horrible humidity and the MOSQUITO'S!! i put bug spray on everyone, and it really did not even phase them. anyways we got to watch "the fantastic mr. fox". i was amazed that the kids thought it was so good. i was not sure if they would like it but they did. we had a picnic dinner at the park before hand. you can tell it was pretty hot. poor kael needs a haircut and was starting to soak through all that hair!cullan was just relaxing, doing some people watching!briea wanted to just get up and run around. it was ok though. there were so many kids and tons of space. so we let her run for a little while. she was having fun chasing her brothers.before the movie started they would play fun music for the kids to dance to. they did the chicken dance, ymca and the macarania (??). cullan and kael were hesitant at first, but after a few minutes they were the stars of the show!!!!!