What's New...

We've been busy as usual with our day to day activities. Last weekend the kids had a ball outside playing and raking up leaves. Katie loves to drive the cub tractor and now has the job of picking up leaves with the attachment! WoW! Ben is a little ticked about this, but handling it well. He loves to be out with Jason and be his big helper! He helps stack the wood after Jason chops it and brings some up to the back porch for us. When Daddy's not home he's in charge of watching the fire. As soon as it starts to get down, he yells for me to put more wood in the fire!


Ben finished up gymnastics and loves to do head stands against walls.


Katie loves to flip!


Ben is showing lots of interest in reading


Katie and I spent some time last weekend scrapbooking together.

Helping Daddy out in the yard last Saturday.




Heading down the back to dump the leaves in the back woods.


We are so blessed to live here. The kids love to head down the back to walk in the woods. Later on this particular day they took me down to the "cave". Ben had me bring a sword in case I fell down. He was very concerned about my ankle. Thank goodness for my sword.






Jason has been very busy getting all the wood ready.







There she goes!

DogSitting

"Flash 1 and Flash 2"

This was taken in the morning. It started to thunder just as we were leaving the house. Koda and Dakota were going crazy. Ben went in to check on Koda, he was so sweet, he lined his animals up in front of his crate so he wouldn't cry and be sad when we left:) He is a sweet boy.

So yeah we have been watching Koda my parents dog. They went down to Disney with my sister and her family. Jason and the kids volunteered to watch him. I thought to myself, great one more thing to get ready in the morning!!! REally he was fine and I like the little guy.

The following I will give them as a bill for the week we had him, actually over a week!
ITEMS
4 new pairs of socks-1 pair for Ben, 1-pair for Katie 2-pairs for me
1 set of AA batteries...I don't think he swallowed them, but did chew on them
Popsicle sticks
1 smurf
one new queen size comforter (he peed on mine)
1 new hair band for Katie
New pack of woman's underwear
Paper Towels (he threw up 3 mornings in a row)

Cost of Labor
1 hour per day x11 days for walks
1 1/2 hours per night x 11 nights for extra time getting Ben to bed due your Hyper Active Dog
2 hours for time spend refereeing the two dogs
6 hours a day refereeing Ben and Koda (seriously)
11 hours total for time spent disciplining Ben AND Koda!!!!!!!
11 hours for time spent searching for Teddy's Ear
24 hours spent looking for TEDDY!!!!!!!

I could go on but I'll stop.

Time Spent on Koda having fun with the kids= Priceless

BEN'S THINKING...I LOVE IT!

So for the last week Ben has started to get up before me and come into my bed. The first thing he tells me is about his dream. He has talked about his dreams a few other times, but never for a few days in a row. When he's done he wants to hear about my dreams.
Well today, he is soooo cute, he tells me that he dreamed that he lost me. He couldn't find me anywhere and he looked all over. I said how that must have made him sad. He then says, "Why couldn't I find you. Where were you?"
I said, "I don't know, I wasn't in your dream."
Ben says, "Yes you were, I just told you that you were in my dream. Where were you?"
Me, "No honey, you dream your own dreams and I dream my own dreams. If I'm in your dream it doesn't mean I had the same dream."
Ben thinks and then touches my head. "You were in my dream."
Me, "No..."
Ben, "Oh, you mean your dreams are in your mind and my dreams are in my brain?"
Me, "yes."

Another Ben story.
Katie got asked to the flower girl in her Uncle Ryan's wedding to Amy. Amy called and asked her and as you can guess she was very excited! She kept going on and on how she was going to be in a wedding and wear a pretty dress.
So we're sitting on my bed one night talking and she is again talking about being a flower girl and Ben is watching intently. Katie says she going to have to practice how to be a flower girl.
Well Ben pipes in, "Oh no Katie, you don't have to practice. You already know how to be a flower girl. You already know how to water flowers!"

I could not stop laughing I thought I was going to PEE in my pants!!!
Katie of course just shook her head.
OH Ben, how I love the way he thinks!!!

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL

KATELYN GRACE, 2ND GRADE, AGE 7 1/2






SISTER AND BROTHER


BENJAMIN OWEN, PRE-SCHOOL AGE 4 1/2




Embarrassing Katie...I just wanted a picture of her going to school.

Catch Up

We had a very busy August and start to our September! Before the kids and I took our last trip up to Maine we squeezed in some more fun around here!
On Monday, my friend Caroline and I decided to take a road trip to IKEA. Cool, fun right? Well we had all 5 kids with us! Yipee let the fun begin. We did put them in the supervised play area. Some may say, "bad mom" but we wanted to be able to browse in peace. Plus all of our kids are so long and stick together we knew they would be okay. They had two nice older women there that day, we were nervous for a moment leaving Ben and Morgun, but our excitement for shopping for nonsense took over. So they run in and we sign the forms. Then we find out, we only have 45 minutes then they beep us! What?!? Do they know how BIG the store is? How are we suppose to do anything with that much time!!!! Don't worry we did and we went and got the kids when it was time. Then we went to lunch there. Yummy!!!! Of course we had to have some drama. Today it was Ben, he was so excited he kept forgetting to listen to me and have "good" behavior. So he lost his treat when we left (ice cream cone). So the funniest part of the whole trip was when I had him strapped in the cart and heading to the snack bar. He says, "Mom I wasn't bad." I said, "really? I don't think you had good behavior..." Then he announces with the most serious face, "Momma, I was good, you just think I wasn't good."
How could I not laugh!!!! He is so funny!! But he did not get any ice cream cone!

Then on Wednesday we decided to take the kids (same clan) to the zoo. We thought this would be good practice for our future road trip to Maine. Caroline and her 3 were coming up with us for a few days. So it took an hour to get to the zoo. We never once heard ourselves talk let alone think! They were soooo loud!
We had a very good time though and the kids were AWESOME!!! The crazy thing was, none of them fell asleep on the way home?!
Here are a few pics.




Then it was off to Maine with my friend and her 3 kids. My nephew, Liam, was up there so he had fun taking them out in the canoe and they all had fun taking out the paddle boat. We had a lot of fun. We had beautiful weather and the kids had a blast on the tube, riding in the boat and playing in the water. Liam had a mohawk and the other boys thought he was so cool, so guess what...yup Mason, Ben and Morgun got mohawks too.







Then Jason and I went back up to get Katie and Ben. We had a last fun weekend, great weather, minature golfing and hanging out at the lake.








Minature Golfing fun.
Ben and my Dad both got Hole in 1's. Can you believe it? Katie was ticked that Ben got one and she didn't! Oh well, girls still won!