A fun time with cousins

Last Wednesday-Friday, Alexis and Brayden both had their school days off for MEA. It was fun to have Alexis home, although all I heard Wednesday was she was bored! Even after we played for an hour straight:)

Thursday, my Brother and Sister in law had asked us to watch their boys while they attended their adoption PAC classes. The kids and I had fun playing with all the toys. Another fun thing was going up and down the stairs.

Nathan in the Jump O Leen

Nathan helping me vacuum

Nicholas driving the semi over the bridge

Nick and Brayden having a fun conversation

Riley doing some carpentry work

Nick feeding the fish

and watching them eat

Cousins

Oops, I'm a little behind here:)

Last Saturday we brought the kids to an apple orchard/pumpkin patch to pick out our pumpkins and get some apples. It was a really warm day and the bees were out(Alexis was running away from them, she is terrified of them!). Everything was going well. We went through the pumpkin patch.

Brayden pulled them back in the wagon so we could pay for them.

We decided not to go through the corn maze this year. Which Alexis wasn't too happy about. However as you can tell in this next picture she had too much slumber party the night before and was pretty grumpy and edgy! We drove to go pick our own apples. Brayden found one right away. I wanted to take a picture of both of them with an apple in front of the trees. So the bees were swarming(luckily she didn't get bit) and she was running away from them and she couldn't find the right apple(So dramatic, she is!) And she was in tears:)

Smile like you are loving this kids:)

Finally after all the pressure of finding an apple the waterworks are gone:) And the apple is making her happy

Brayden too:)

Well, we did have a fun day.

When we got home we cleaned out the garage and brought in a few of the pots. It is nice to have that done for the year. Although I am not ready for all the cold icy days ahead:(

Alexis' First Sleepover

We told Alexis she could invite 2 friends and have a birthday slumber party for her golden birthday. She was very excited and kept asking how many days until my party.

The girls had a fun time. They started out making their own pizzas

While the pizzas were baking they decorated their cupcakes

Brayden too(Jason ditched me so Brayden was stuck with us girls)

She blew out her candle

opened her gifts. More horse stuff:)

We had decided to set up the tent in the basement for the girls to sleep in. They loved it. They watched Alexis new movie(The Little Mermaid The Beginning) and ate popcorn. There were a few scary stories told and then it was time for bed.

Opening her presents last Monday night. After a dinner of her choice at Perkins.

She was excited to open up her my little pony gifts:)

Alexis and I

Monday the 6th

Last Monday Alexis' kindergarten class took a trip to the nature center. Jason decided it would be fun to go with to chaperone her class that day, seeing it was her birthday. They had fun walking around, seeing the turtles and finding fall leaves. I didn't get much info or details out of them. However, I did get him to take the camera to get some pictures:)

Here she is trying to guess what is in the box


Checking out nature

A few of the leaves she found

:)

I picked up my computer yesterday:)

I will have an updated post tonight after the kids are in bed:)

My lifeline is infected:(

My laptop has been infected with 210 traces of viruses!

It is getting cleaned up and will run like it's brand new, I hope. I should be getting it back on Monday. So I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend:)

My little girl is going to be 6 tomorrow!

We celebrated Alexis birthday on Saturday night.

Here is her cake that she absolutely LOVED! What could be better two horses and a cat:) She wanted to eat the slice with the cat:)

A few of the kids eating dinner

One of her gifts, a horse trailer with truck and also a couple horses.

Singing Happy Birthday to Alexis

Our Fam

Her slice

A very cute dress she received for a gift, she absolutely loves it! It will be perfect for a wedding we are going to in a couple weeks.

Is it really October!?

Wow, we have been busy around here!


We have spent a lot of fun times with Jason's side of the family this past week.

Jena and one of her daughters, Sydney and son Tyler arrived on time late Thursday night. Jason picked them up at the airport. Friday we had a slow morning, I got Alexis on the bus and then we just relaxed, that afternoon we went to the lake. It was a beautiful day. Just the right temperature and sunny. Jason took the kids for rides on the jet ski and took them tubing also. Tyler and Brayden played in the water with Jena and Lyndie. That night a few more people came. We were able to meet our newest great nephew, Michael. We helped Jen make her yummy spaghetti. Mmmm so good!

On Saturday we had plans to meet at the Mall of America. About 30 minutes before we were suppose to leave. Alexis started acting different, she was complaining of pains in her stomach. I decided to stay home with her and about and hour later she got sick:( Once she did that she was pretty much back to normal and kept saying Brayden is having more fun then me and I wish I wasn't sick:( I feel so bad for her. She was really looking forward to the merry go round and being with family! We were able to take a walk in the afternoon and got some fresh air. Everyone arrived around 5:30 and I made Korean BBQ(Bulgogi) for them. Aunt Kelly brought cheesecake, so good!!

Sunday we hosted a wedding shower brunch for Jason's nephew Kyle and Liz. I had a lot of help from my sister in laws. Everyone seemed to have a fun time and we had lots of good food. Once everyone left, a few of us had some great conversation and enjoyed some potato soup that Jena made:)

Monday was the day Jen left. We hung out for the morning and then Jason and Kelly brought Jen back to the airport. It was sad to see them go home. They say they will be back in August, we can't wait to see them then:)

Tyler is just too cute:)

Brayden, Jason and Sydney on the jet ski

Brayden and Aunt Kelly

Brayden and Cousin Lyndie

Jason walking with Tyler on the dock

Roar-Playing with Sydney

Tyler playing peek a boo with Jason

Jason put Tyler to sleep on the 4 wheeler

Brayden having fun playing with Cousin Luke

Jason pulling Sydney and Alexis on the tube

Jason and Mitch

Aunt Amy and Tyler

Brayden and Sydney playing again.

Jason holding our great nephew Michael

Sydney and Alexis had a lot of fun playing together too. Sydney did a lot of reading to Alexis.

Saturday when Alexis was feeling better. The cat she is holding was from Jen, she sleeps with it every night along with her other 2 stuffed and 1 real:)

A Very Hungry Caterpillar

Wow three posts in one day:)

Every year we go through the process of collecting caterpillars. Feeding them milkweed until they make a cocoon and then they turn into the butterfly. This spring/summer wasn't a good year for the monarchs. We weren't able to find any caterpillars until about 3 weeks ago when we found 5 of them within a few weeks. So Sunday was the day that 2 of them came out and became butterflys. The kids were super excited. We waited for them to dry out a little and let them start opening and closing their wings. Then we brought them outside and let them walk on us and then put them on some flowers for them to fly away when they were ready.


Here we are opening the container for one of them to get out.

Alexis took it first


She said it was tickling her arm

So it was Braydens turn

If you look close you can see one on the flowers in the background by my hand and one on the stick .

We were able to see one fly away but the other one was sneeky and flew away when we weren't looking. Alexis brought one to school which should be coming out tomorrow or Wednesday. Then we have one left which just made it's cocoon last Friday.