We Now Have 2 One Year Olds!

It's was Brayan's first birthday yesterday!! Since Nathan was working, he didn't too much out of the ordinary, but it still was a nice day! We had ice cream cones outside after nap as a 'treat' and then we came in a made cupcakes! We waited until Nathan came home to eat the cupcakes so we could sing Brayan 'Happy Birthday' and blow out his candle (which Tiernan helped with!) Here are a few pictures of the day!

After enjoying his blueberries :)

Caedmon and Tiernan with their ice cream cones

Brayan enjoying his ice cream cone

Brayan with his cupcake and candle. We had to move it away from him because he kept grabbing for it!

" What is this?" says Brayan.

"Okay, it's not SO bad!"

"Actually, this is kinda fun!"

Thought I'd Make Ya Smile :)

Brayan was finished eating and was fussin' to get down. He had food all over his cheeks (although you can't see it too well in the picture....), he was whining, he's got a big goose egg and bruise in between his eyes on his forehead (ask his brother Tiernan about that one...) and his hair was sticking out on the one side...he was just in rough shape! But as soon as I pulled the camera out, he got a big grin on his face. I just thought I'd share :)

Fairs and Parks

Last week Wednesday I woke up and couldn't turn my head to the right or tip it back! I figured I needed to go see my chiropractor in St. Cloud. I was getting the kids ready to leave when I thought that it would be a lot easier if Nathan came with me. I called him and he said to wait until the evening and then if it didn't get any better, that we could leave Wed night when he got home from work and he'd take the day off on Thursday. That way he could get adjusted too and we could do a few things that we needed to do in St Cloud anyway.

So we drove to Nathan's parents house on Wed night and since I got a book at the library and read it out loud on the way, the 3 hour trip never went by SO fast!! WOW! I was like 'we are there already?? When usually I'm saying...ugh, this trip is taking forever! :) So that was nice. (By the way, the book was called House by Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker--they are Christian authors and if you like scary, thriller type books, then you'd love this one!)

Thursday we saw the chiropractor and did our errands and even made it to the Benton County Fair! We wanted to take the kids there to see the animals and stuff. It was super fun watching them have such a good time looking at all the cows, pigs, birds, etc. We came back home Thursday evening. It was a quick, but enjoyable, trip to St Cloud.

Yesterday, the kids and I went to Clear Lake to play in the park with a lady and her kids that we met at church a couple Sundays ago. She also called a friend that she knew, so there were 3 of us moms there with their kids. Courtney's kids were Breelyn (3) and Newt (2 mos) and Jenny's kids were McKenna (almost 3) and Emma (5 mos). It was SUCH a gorgeous day, couldn't have asked for better weather! We played on the playground for a little while and then had a picnic on the picnic tables. We brought lots of yummy food so that was really fun! Then we went down by the beach to let the kids play in the splash pad and cool themselves off a little.

That's about all going on with us this week. We are talking about moving back to Luverne after labor day so we'll see how that progresses and I'll keep ya posted!

The 4 older kids--Caedmon, Tiernan, Bree, and McKeena

Tiernan getting ready to run when water comes shooting up from that hole!

Tiernan playing by the water and Caedmon keeping a safe distance away :)

Cowboy Tiernan....he LOVES this hat!

At the fair with the baby goats

Don't ask why this is sideways!....Tiernan by the baby pigs

Dirty Brayan at the park

SO cute! Caedmon and Tiernan (Caedmon learned how to say 'cheese' during pictures :)

Brayan's pics

We were playing outside on the front lawn...our favorite thing to do now, especially since it's right outside Ms. Donna's door! She is the 81 yr old widow who lives below us. She is SUCH a sweetheart and she ADORES my kids! So she comes out to sit with me while the boys play. And she aknowledges every little thing they do and praise them for everything they give her (rocks, leaves, etc) so they really like her :) I brought my camera out the other day and snapped some pics of Brayan (which was a little difficult because it was really windy and he is ON THE MOVE but here are some I thought turned out SO cute! Maybe these will be his 1 yr pics. Enjoy!

What a cute smile!

He's into sucking on his top lip...this pic shows him doing it :) Still cute though...

Mid-step! He was chasing me so it was hard to get far enough away from him to take the pic before he would come clobber me!

This is my absolute favorite!!! LOVE the pose...good job Brayan!

" See ya later Mom!"

Had to include a pic of these boys too! This was before we got in the van to go to church, Brayan wouldn't sit still for the pic but he too was in plaid with khaki shorts :)

Grandma visits

Update on my pie plate.....Well, after nap I took the kids to the store last week to buy a pie plate so I could finish making my pie I started. There were no pie plates that I could find in Garner! Alco was the only place I didn't go and after being other places with all the kids, I decided it was time to go home. I just thought that the next night I would go to Alco and look after Nathan got home from work. Well, the next morning I went to a garage sale and I found a BRAND NEW pampered chef stone pie plate!!!! It was one of the 'family heritage' ones so it's all cute and pretty and it's a deeper dish one so it will work perfect for not only pies, but breakfast dishes, etc. AND, guess how much it was????...ONE DOLLAR!! Whoo Hoo!! That was this weeks bargain.... :) So since I've had my pie plate I've made lemon meringue and yesterday I made a peach pie!

Not too much else has been happening with us, that is why I haven't posted too often. Just hanging out and trying to stay cool in this crummy humidity!!

My mom went back to Arkansas with my sister last week and her friends from MN came to pick her up!!! They took 4 days to get back, traveling more east and west than north! They stopped at probable almost every small town between Arkansas and MN! But since Garner is right on the way back, they made a quick stop at our place to say Hi!! The kids loved seeing Grandma and Nathan and I had a great time laughing at the sillyness of these "adults" :) Nathan commented as they were getting ready to leave that he felt like he just went to a comedy show! :)

Here are a few pics:

From left: Evie with Brayan, Jane, Mom with Caedmon, Tiernan with Pat

Brayan doing his signature "walking while drinking"

Tiernan with his mommy!

Apparently Caedmon was having a serious conversation on the play phone

Maybe they are talking to each other? No, I think they were both talking to Grandma. Haven't I told them no talking on the cell phones at the table yet? :) (These are play phones, of course!)

Where's my pie pan??

Since I was in the middle of making a pie when realized I didn't bring my pie pan with us to Garner, I thought I would take this 'time out' and update the blog :)....until Brayan wakes up and then we have to go to the store to get a pie pan so I can finish making the pie :)

I got my bosch mixer in the mail a few days ago and yesterday was the first day i tried it out!! Wow! It made some awesome bread!! (Well, I was the one who made the awesome bread, it just kneaded it :) I made a mini loaf and gave it to the lady that lives below us. She is an 81 yr old widow so just adores my boys! I apologize to her quite often for the noise that we make upstairs but she says that now that she can put faces with the feet stomping she doesn't mind :) She is a very nice lady who even told me I could use her washer and dryer whenever I wanted to!! (She has one in her apt). I think I can still wash clothes in the basement but if I ever have to do a load when it's raining out, I might take her up on using her dryer since the one in the basement doesn't work.

Not too much has been going on with us. Nathan still works a ton and has been getting 'heat cramps' in the back of his legs during the night which is extremely painful and he loses lots a sleep over this, so that is something you can be praying for. We are trying to keep him hydrated with enough salt, calcium, magnesium, and potassium intake. We are thinking that we might be moving back to Luverne in Sept. but our plans change almost every day, so we'll see at the end of August if that's still the case :)

Update on baby Emmanuelle: she is hanging in there but is not doing very well. She really needs to have the first heart surgery done, but she's been having issues with her right lung. They found out the lung was very underdeveloped along with having some complications with it. The doctors were saying that they weren't going to operate on the heart if the lung had problems so they were going to do an in-depth CAT scan yesterday to see what really was going on with that lung and to see if surgery is even a possibility. Also, Laura (the mom) was not feeling well yesterday, she was very tired and light headed so they were going to check her hemoglobin levels. Please continue to pray for their family as they go through this difficult time.

We took Tiernan's staple out of his head the night before last. I'll just say that is the first and LAST time we will EVER let a doctor put a staple in our child!!! Ugh!! After realizing that we could have just duck-taped it shut (or at least asked them to just medical glue-it or tape it shut themselves) we weren't very happy to have that staple in. The scars from where the staple went look like they'll almost be bigger than the scar from his cut! And, it was formed in a CIRCLE....yes, a full circle! So we did a little operating (and a LOT of coaxing with ice cream...) and we finally got it out. Like I said, last time for that.....

Anyway, better get back to my boys!

Berries and such

A few days ago, my mother-in-law (bless her heart!) went to pick up (and pack!) our blueberries and cherries that we ordered this year from the same supplier as last year. Last year we didn't get cherries, so that is a new venture, but I'm sure they will be wonderful!! The total amount of blueberries we ordered was 140 pounds!! and 84 pounds of cherries!! Yikes! 90 of those bluberry pounds are ours and 51 pounds of the cherries!! What do we do with all those berries?? FREEZE THEM!! and then eat them all year long!! They are GREAT right out of the freezer as snacks, the kids LOVE them!! And also good in pancakes, etc. We'll let ya know how they are once we taste them! Yum!!

I went to a garage sale yesterday and got a few items and the lady told me to come back tomorrow b/c things will be cheaper. They already had a lot of items at 10 and 25 cents so I wasn't sure how they were going to mark those things lower than that, but I decided to go back this morning to see if a few things were there that I was interested in but didn't get. Well, we I showed up, she told me "everything you can fit in a bag is a BUCK!" JACKPOT!! So I went through and grabbed everything that was nice and cute, even if it was girls stuff (so I can give it away!) and I bought a bunch of clothes having one of Nathan's sisters in mind (she's a lot smaller than I am!!). It was so much fun!! This is what I got:

Adults:
1 sweater
1 jacket
23 shirts
4 pairs of pants
Pj set

Boys:
8 shirts
4 piece outfit
3 piece outfit
3 pair pants
sweat shirt and sweat pant outfit
3 sweat shirts
2 pair of shoes
winter coat

Girls:
13 dresses (so cute!!)
2 pair pants
2 outfits
2 shirts

And you wanna know how much I spent???? THREE DOLLARS!!! That's right 3 bucks!! I filled 3 bags, paid 3 bucks! Wow!!! THAT was fun!!!

Tiernan's winter coat we found at the garage sale...I don't think it's ever been worn!! He's been wearing it ever since we got home....strange, I know!

We stopped to see Jeremiah (one of Nathan's younger brothers) and Elisa's baby on our way back home last weekend. Here is their baby Eli Thomas (I think Thomas...) anyway, he was SOOO cute!!! Elisa had to leave about 15 minutes after we got there, but I got to snuggle with him for a little while anyway! He's so sweet....and lots of black hair!!