4th of July!

You ready for a post with a WHOLE LOT of pictures?!?

Good, cause that's what you're gettin'!!!!

As some of you may have heard, Seward is THE place to be for the 4th of July! Everywhere you see the words Seward Nebraska, the words "4th of July city" aren't too far away. Since we've moved here, I couldn't tell you how many times people asked us if we were going to be around on the 4th b/c we wouldn't want to miss all the excitement. We made sure we'd be around and since Nathan got Friday, Saturday & Sunday off this past weekend, it made for a great time! To add to the fun, Nathan's parents drove from St Cloud to be here over the 4th and experience "Nebraska's 4th of July City!" I am just SO extremely glad that we live right in town and could walk anywhere from our house b/c parking and cars were nuts! We offered for some friends to park by our garage b/c there wasn't a single spot to park in town, it was crazy!

First things first. The absolute best part of the weekend was having all the household help of my mother-in-law! As many of you know, Mary is a "do it and get it done" kind of person so when something needs gettin' done, she does it! While she was here, she made most of the meals (they even brought some fish that they caught and we (she) fried fish!!), she cleaned my kitchen floor (a couple times), she did all the dishes, and she did all my laundry: washed, dried, folded, and put in the correct rooms! Wowzers! Thank you Mary!! I SO appreciate it!!

Mary even cleaned under my stove.....yes, under.

Wipin' down the floor

See those eggs on the griddle? Those are eggs that I didn't make! Ha!

(Okay, just realized that this picture wasn't from the weekend but of last Wednesday...oh well, it's cute so I'll leave it! :)

One of the big highlights was seeing The Wissmann Family Singers do their performance at the bandshell. They are a christian homeschooling family with 13 children and they all play instruments and all sing and they travel around the country doing performances together. (They are from Seward) They have a folksy/blue grass sound to their music and sing a lot of original songs, along with gospel and hymns. It was so neat to see them live!!

They also followed their performance on Friday evening with a musical that they created all by themselves. They titled it "Foundations of Freedoms" and it was about the founding fathers of our country and was based on all actual events and facts and quotes. It was incredible! They made all their costumes themselves and if would have seen all of the costumes and all the detail, you would be amazed!! What a blessing it was to hear the truth about our nation being found on a strong Christian belief.

I talked with the mom and dad of the Wissman family during the parade on the 4th. I introduced myself and we chatted about a half hour. She invited Nathan and I and our family to their church by Omaha so this morning we went to their small church in Millard NE. It was fun to meet some new people!

Few of the 'older' kids with their Dad on the right in the back

Some of the family, along with a few of the younger ones

It started to rain (pour!) right before the musical started. They prayed that the rain would stop and it did!! Today (at their church) we learned that the guy that was watching the radar said a big band was headed right for Seward and at the last minute, it went around Seward and then back on it's path again! Thank the Lord for answered prayer!! The pic is of some ladies wiping down the wet stage.

During the musical

"It's my FIRST 4th of July!....Do ya like my little pony on the top of my head?"

This is what usually happens when I try to take their picture.....

There's the whole clan!

On Saturday, Tiernan, Tom (Nathan's dad) and I went to the air show at the airport! It was so fun! That's always my favorite! I can never understand how the pilot remains in control of the plane when they are flipping all over the place!! The craziest thing to me is when the plane goes end over end! Yes, tail over nose and again. It's nuts! It was a lot of fun and Tiernan couldn't believe they could fly airplanes upside down!

This was a guy flying a plane who landed it on TOP of the Suburban below it. The suburban went 60 mph down the runway, the plane caught it and landed on it. It was sweet! They said that they don't know any other pilot in the world that is willing to try such a thing. After they came in the the crowd applauded, they went back out on the runway and he took off from the top of the suburban too!! 8 ft of runway! They called it the "Midwest's smallest airport"

We watched a lot of pole vaulting competitions. This guy obviously didn't make it over!

The parade started at 4pm and the boys were so excited to get some candy!! There were a lot of cars but only one band! Oh well, it was still a good time. And not too hot either! It was only about 70 and cloudy!

Brayan was content in his stroller

So was Ariella

Mary walking to the rides before the fireworks. It was misting out and heaven forbid she'd mess up her hair!!

We headed over to the carnival (which wasn't even a block from our house!) It was on the next street over! The boys went on the little rollercoaster first. Tiernan LOVED it but Caedmon hung on for dear life! I don't think he knew what it was going to do. He didn't cry or anything but we couldn't get him to crack a smile for nothing! I wish I could have got a picture of his face but they were moving too fast that I couldn't. Oh, it was so funny though :) They went on a couple more rides and then Nathan suggested we should go on one!! So Tom and Mary watched the kids while Nathan and I climbed up on the Octopus and prayed for God to protect us while this rickety old carnival ride spun us around and around and up and down! It was so fun (when I wasn't focused on my babies who wouldn't remember me if I died on this ride!) It's been a LONG time since I went on a ride (due to the face of me being pregnant almost every year!)

Getting off the ride

On the carosel

On the train

After the rides, we walked down to the elementary school to see the fireworks. They were going on in the park, but since we had already walked a couple miles to get here, we didn't feel like walking any further. We set out our blankets and waited until 10pm for them to start. The laws here are a little different than MN, fireworks--even the BIG ones--are legal and pretty much anyone who is anyone has them going off on the 4th.

The boys were SO tired! Caedmon wanted to just go home and go to bed. They were goofing off at one point and Nathan tried to threaten Caedmon by saying sternly "Do you want to sit down and watch the fireworks or go home and go to bed?!" He looks at him and says "Go home." Well, that didn't work out as planned!

Yep, that's Tom sittin' in the stroller...better than the ground!

Sweet girl all snuggled on mommy's lap

Ooooooooo, Aaaahhh!

The walk back from the fireworks was horrible!!! I mean, the weather was cool and all the kids were excellent (the two middle boys in the stroller, Ariella in the ergo on me, and Tiernan walking....he walked the WHOLE way!!) But I was SOOOOO sick of walking!! It was 11pm and we were walking 2 miles back to our place...ugh. It was exhausting! Even Tiernan admitted he was tired and that never happens!! But all in all, it was a fun filled weekend with so much to do, we didn't even see it all!!!

BUSY!

You might be asking yourself why have I just been posting pictures lately and not saying too much about life, what's going on with us, etc (or maybe most of you just prefer the pictures over me gabbing)...well, the reason is, when you get right down to it....I'm all of a sudden completely, totally, overwhelmingly....BUSY!!!

Seriously.

Once the day starts, it's NON-stop until all the little ones are sleeping for the night. Even at that time, I have about a gazillon things left to do but most of the time I choose to relax with my husband for a few mins before going to bed ourselves...all to start over again the next morning.

Story Time with Mommy

In our "relaxing" time after the kids are sleeping, Nathan and I have been watching season 5 of the TV series 24. I'm warning you that if you start watching this season, you WILL get addicted and you WON'T be able to go to sleep until you see "just one more episode!" Thankfully we only got 3 DVDs at a time so once those were done, we had to wait until we got the next ones from the store. Although with the video store being a whole, oh, ONE block away...we pretty much watched it every night until we got through it :) But now it's done...and it was good...and we are taking a break from 24 so we can actually get some things accomplished at night.

So besides being obsessed with 24 for the past several days, what have we been doing? The typical...Nathan works...a lot. 7 days a week now for the past couple weeks, even on Father's Day, how crummy is that, huh?? Thanks to my mom for sending me this book called 'The Toddler's Busy Book', I've been putting together activities for my MLK to do at varies time during the day. Tiernan loves it and can't get enough of it. The activites range from 'file folder games' that we can play together to simple 'put the clothes pins into the hole on the top of an empty raisin container' for the younger boys (Tiernan actually likes this activity too!) It takes a little to get everything organized, but I'm finally starting to get on top of it and have most of the stuff organized!

Boys with a couple file folder games from Grandma Barb

We've been going to the park every Friday (that it doesn't rain, which it's rained the past 3...) with other moms in the area and their kids and having a picnic, so that's something that we look forward to each week. We've also had some play dates with our friends Titus (2) and Christine (5 mos) playing in the pool in their yard or jumpin' on the jump-o-lene at our place (which, by the way, has a big hole in it now :( We've gone a couple times to a ladies house in town who also has 4 kids 4 and under!!! (We had an instant bond...we looked at each other and said "Ah! YOU UNDERSTAND!!!" :) She has the perfect set up for playing outside...a fenced in yard and LOTS of outside toys, bikes, slides, swings, a big trampoline, you name it!! The first time we went over there, there were 6 moms and 16 kids, with the oldest child being 4! THAT was a lot of little ones!! I've also met a gal who's husband works with Nathan and they are also from MN! She just moved here to be with her husband and she loves garage saleing and thrift shopping so we were instant friends :) They have an 18 mo old boy, Emmitt, who fits in with my boys nicely.

Tiernan and Caedmon with Titus

Christine...isn't she a DOLL?!?


Cheryl with her twin 3 yr olds (she also has a 4 yr old girl and 18 mo old boy)

And, Emmitt...who found the mud during one of our picnics after church :)

I've also been staying busy with cooking and baking, trying new recipes and making up my own recipes for stuff. The latest 'creation' of mine was protein bars for Nathan. When he took the first one to work, he text me saying 'I could eat the whole pan', so I guess they were a success! :) I've also been whipping together salsa every couple days to put in recipes and to have on hand to eat with chips, yummy!! Oh, and I have been dehydrating a lot too...jerky, cherries, bananas, pineapple, and my ABSOLUTE favorite....Cinnamon Applesauce fruit leather! WOW! That stuff is SO incredibly good!!

The boys jumpin' on the trampoline at Cheryl's house

Nathan playing some ultimate frisbee with a few guys from church on the evening of Father's Day. They also played some basketball. It was HOT out, but at least they got to do something fun on Father's Day! (even though Nathan hurt his ankle playing...ugh...)

Ok, well...it's gettin' late and I better head to bed. Nathan goes to bed early these days (now that 24's over!). He crawled into bed at 8 tonight and said he'd be out in a few mins...I knew better. So he said to wake him in a half hour. 45 mins later I went in there and he told me to get out :) It's now 10:05 and I haven't heard from him. The 90 degree weather, every day for 10 hours a day really wears him out! Plus, he's showing up now in Columbus, yeah..nice, I know (not!) so he's got a little over an hour drive each way. Hopefully after the fourth, he'll be showing up a little closer. Anyway, I'm off!

Bunch of Crock Crocs

And who does this Bunch of Crocs belong to?!?!?..........................





........................................To my MLK (Many Little Kids), of course!!!!!!

It's My Party Pictures........

.......and I'll cry if I want to!!!!

"Okay, I'm better now."

It'll Happen....

Mud..............................

.......................it'll happen.

Bite marks from older brother..................................

...........................it'll happen.

Bloody Noses....................

.........................it'll happen.

Accidentally putting on your little brother's clothes........................

.........................it'll happen.

Spilling your smoothie everywhere............................

......................it'll happen.

Playin' Dress Up!

A few weeks ago, the older boys each put one of Nathan's t-shirts on and ran around in it pretending they were some sort of monster. They had so much fun so I decided that they would probably like a box full of stuff to go through and try on! Well, that was the favorite thing to do today....play dress up! Yesterday I picked up a few things at some garage sales and the thrift store in town and found some stuff around here and put them all in a box. The boys had a blast!! I'm sure I'll have more pics of this since there was a lot more they put on but this is what I have so far.

If this doesn't make you laugh, I'm not sure what will!!! :)

Caedmon the Clown!

Having fun

Firefighter Tiernan....with cowboy boots!!

Okay, she wasn't playing dress up but this picture was too darn cute not to post!!! :)