Twins?

Heavens no, but they kinda look alike!! Dave and I have been saying how much Marina reminds us of Emma when she was little. Now I can see why.

Here's Lauren at that age too, but not as similar looking as the other two. They all 3 are definitely sisters!!

Anyway, we had a fun weekend again! What an awesome time of year even if our huskers lose!!

Yesterday early, the girls and I went to Krispy Kreme and then to the park for awhile while daddy slept. The house is much quieter with all of us out! :)

Then Dave made our favorite, "white chicken chili." For those of you who haven't tried it, it is the best!!!

Anyway, we ate tons of it and then watched the Huskers. We love to watch Pelini coach and even didn't mind the penalty he got at the end of the game. Atleast he has some spirit!!

I have to admit though I fell asleep for some of it though. All I need is a quiet house, dark room and a couch.

This morning was the usual church routine. Then to mom and dad's for a birthday brunch for Brian. It was yummy and we ate too much as usual.

Then, it was off to the pumpkin patch here in Bennington which truly was a blast. It was opening weekend so the admission prices were a little cheaper than usual and the crowd wasn't bad at all. Of course Stacy and I took tons of pics and probably drove our husbands nuts doing so. Sorry guys, you have many more years of that to put up with.

Emma had another birthday party to go to this afternoon then home, baths/showers, dinner and bedtime, all without my husband to help...yuck. Sorry, I'll try not to whine anymore! Here are SEVERAL pics from today.

3 of the 4 of these kids loved the hay bail maze. Guess which one was too old for it and thought it was "too easy" :)

For some reason, white pumpkins were a hit this year?

The baby chicks were a huge hit, and fortunately none of them were harmed by our children. :)

Very Busy

We had a very busy and very fun weekend here!



We enjoyed celebrating a baptism for my very good friend Lisa's son on Saturday, then we were treated to a wonderful Italian luncheon where we ate way too much. That bread alone gets us everytime.



Emma had a soccer game at the same time as the luncheon so of course grandma and grandpa saved the day again by taking her and Lauren. The game happened to be where the baptism was so it worked out really smoothly! Their team lost but Emma was thrilled about getting another goal.



Thanks to grandma and grandpa for KEEPING the girls the rest of the day and over night. I talked to Emma after the game and she instructed me that I could drop off her and Lauren's suitcases but I could not stay to visit. Alrighty then! They had a blast of course playing in the sandbox and at the park etc, etc.

I was able to get things ready for the shower today and boy was it nice to wash the windows without them getting slimed up 5 minutes later.



Then, we dropped Marina off and we went out with our next door neighbors who are a lot of fun. We went for pizza and beer and had a fabulous time. We haven't done that in years and we totally enjoyed it! THANK YOU THANK YOU Grandma and Grandpa.



This morning I went to church with the baby and was looking forward to a very peaceful time without the other two. Wrong!! I sat by the church's noisiest kids there and boy was that disappointing. Oh well, I'm sure mine have distracted a few families in the past.



Then we hosted a bridal shower for my cousin's fiance and had a really good time celebrating with her. We are SO excited to get together with all of our cousins for the wedding in October!! Emma had to call cousins Mason and Mackenzie in Hawaii tonight. We can only really call on the weekends because of the time difference and Emma thought it was so cool to tell Kenzie that she was getting ready for bed here. :) They will no doubt have a great time together in a couple of weeks.



That's it for tonight, I am wore out and am going to go to bed soon as long as someone cooperates. :)

I don't have any good recent pics to post so here is a pic of poor Emma's school paper. She had to write her name 50 times because she forgot to write her name on two assignments at school. It's kind of funny and kind of not. :) I asked her how many kids missed recess to write their name and she said "9" WOW, that's a lot of missing names. :) The 18 is just her number for things such as her hook for her coat etc.

We did it!

We survived a long weekend without Dave. It was a long weekend without him but we kept busy, had help from family and really actually it went better than I thought it would go.

Today was gorgeous outside!! How I love this weather!!! We went to a park with the twins after picking up Emma from school. Dave got home about dinner time then the girls and him went outside to "play football." Then, they came inside to "wrestle." Welcome home daddy. :) (I think I have girls) Anyway, I packed up Marina in my carrier and we went for a long and peaceful walk. It was probably the best walk ever!! She slept the entire time and besides dodging the crickets and grasshoppers, the walk was perfect.

We got the girls to bed then I took a jog to get the mail. (no, our mail box is not at the end of our driveway) It's not too far away really, but the jog was fabulous!

Dave got caught up on the Emails and blogs while Marina took a nap!

We are glad to have him back and I am looking forward to many errands tomorrow.

Lots of nothin'

Truly, not much is new here these last two weeks since my last post. So, there will be lots of odds and ends and random things but I think that's what I do best sometimes.

Seriously, my lack of blogging I think I will blame on Marina Claire. :) I know that that is probably not quite fair but truly, typing one hand is NOT COOL!! She is a little needy at night time and since that is my quiet blogging time, it has suffered greatly. I guess that's better than me blogging and her crying somewhere. :( She continues to change weekly and I can't believe how fast the time has gone. I will have to return to work on Oct. 20th BUT will have 4 weeks vacation to burn after that by the end of the year. (not bad huh) Anyway, I love my job so it makes the transition a little easier at least for me. Hopefully the youngest one will be sleeping even longer periods of time through the night by then.

As for updates with Emma, she is begging me to sign her up for ice skating lessons. She brings home these fliers from school and add that to knowing how to read them and it spells wanting to do everything. I think she has talked me into this one because the price is right and it will be a good and different thing to do. She had her first soccer game a week ago Saturday and they beat "St. Pius" 5 to 1, but seriously who's keeping score (besides Dave.) :) Emma scored two of their goals and was so aggressive it was almost comical. School is going great. This week she told me she learned what "accumulation" "precipitation" "condensation" and "evaporation" meant. Great Emma, now you can teach me. Their school has adopted St. Mary's School in Uganda. They have been raising money by selling Tshirts and have raised enough money to feed all 1100 and some students lunch everyday at school for the whole school year. The kids were so excited and poor Emma wants to send more food because she just can't cope with them only getting a cup of soup for lunch. And, the thought of no McDonald's is a little hard to swallow too. She also asked today if she could send them some shoes because they have to "walk barefoot on rocks to school." (I guess there is a kind side to Emma) (just kidding)

I know I go on and on sometimes but bear with me.....

I took her shoe shopping yesterday for some fall/winter church shoes. Mom and dad watched Marina and Lauren, so the adventure was rather enjoyable for the two of us. I know I have blogged over and over again about Emma's shoe fettish but it truly is an issue for Emma. ANYWAY, the first 3 or 4 places we checked either didn't have her size or "her size" didn't seem to fit at all. Probably on the fourth store I figured out the problem. She was secretly bunching her big toe up so bad that all the shoes seemed way to big for her. She admitted to me that she was doing that but just couldn't tell me why. Well, the reason is, is that dear Emma wanted to drag out the shoe shopping experience as long as she could manage and would be devastated if we found the perfect pair of shoes at the first store. Thank goodness we had some luck at Sears. BUT, when we approached the counter to pay for them, she quickly said, "mom, they kind of pinch my toes." I responded, "TOO BAD, we're buying them." You see, they were NOT pinching her toes but this purchase would mean an end to the shoe shopping. Seriously!!!! I bet if I had three boys, they would totally not care one bit what you brought home for them to wear. Oh well, memories I guess!!

As for Lauren Elizabeth......... her new favorite hobby, which Emma seems to think is SO hilarious is picking up dead spiders in the basement and flushing them down the toilet. Yes, I didn't believe this yesterday, but I witnessed today two times where Emma found dead spiders and Lauren literally came running upon Emma's beckon that she was needed to dispose of the nasty creatures. Sure enough, she bent right down, grabbed the dried up thing and threw it in the toilet. I on the other hand almost gagged and Emma stood back about 7 feet and laughed the entire time saying, "see mom, I told you." GROSS!!! She is totally potty trained now, thank goodness! the only bad thing is that sometimes at 4 or 5 in the morning she wakes up and calls for us to take her to the bathroom. I can't wait for the days where she can do it all herself.

Dave and my work partner and good friend Tom have been in Minnesota since Thursday. (I think there's another excuse for my lack of blogging) Anyway, they both love to fish so I promised the two of them that they could take a long weekend up there and they didn't hesitate to take me up on that. They both have caught good size fish up there and have eaten way too much as we always do in Minnesota. Dave called me while they were on their way up there to tell me that he got pulled over again. (We got pulled over on our way up there in May) :) Darn Cops. :)

They get back tomorrow and all of us girls are excited to have him home. He is missing his girls too (hopefully)

The house is finally looking "homier" inside. We finally got some blinds for the main level and last week I repainted two more bathrooms. Flat paint is so not cool.

We are looking forward to a bridal shower here next weekend, a football party the next weekend? and a family get together in October!

I have rambled on enough and have actually figured out how to hold the baby and type with two hands.

Here are some random pics and a pic of Dave and Tom and their prized fish. :)