Besties!

I watched Kael & Nora the other day while their beautiful mama had a TV interview for the Legs for Lorisa bracelets my sister in law Heather is making.
The boys were SOOO excited to have Kael here.
Sidney & Nora are getting to such a fun age. They get so excited to see each other. Nora always tries kissing Sidney & Sidney is always either a)pulling Nora's hair/hairclip/flower etc (she's jealous) b) crawling/climbing on top of Nora.
They LOVE Kael.

Watching intently on what Kael is up to.

Sidney going for Nora's hair.

Aren't they just the cutest!?!? I love these 2 girls.

Playing together!

PTO Carnival

Heather invited us to go to the PTO carnival tonight. Justyn is on nights & we wanted to get out of the house, so we said YES!
We got there & bought our tickets & went right to playing games.

Cayden really wanted to do the "cake" walk. It was a dud & he said "lets not do that again"

They decided face painting looked like fun. Prestyn got a little nervous when he sat down & with the first touch of the brush. But he did good. He got a star.

Cheesy.

Cayden got a basketball.

I asked if they were having fun & they said "YEAH"!! We were waiting in line to get balloons. I had 2 tickets left & told them they could each get one (thought they were 1 ticket/balloon) We got up there & they were 2 tickets for 1 balloon, so they picked a color out & we got it. The lady asked if we wanted another one & I said we were out of tickets, but thanks. And this litlte 7/8 year old boy comes up & hands us 2 of his tickets and says he wants them to get another balloon.
Talk about melt my heart. I told him it was okay, we didn't need it & he should use it for himself. but he just shook his head & insisted. I thanked him & the boys were cheesed & thanked him too!

The wall came down

When I saw Justyn come in with a sledge hammer I knew he meant business.
He tore out one of the spindled divider walls in the basement.
We had plans to re-finish the basement at some point & add another room, just hadn't planned on starting this soon.
The water just pushed our plans up a bit.
I'm actually a little excited to see it all transform & take shape

(maybe it's having the Sidster in our room or the boys sharing a room, but I"m excited)

As you can see, the panelling NEEDS to go.

We had some joyful little helpers. (he's totally my son)

And this is what happens when you have your almost 5 year old take a picture...not bad....

um...okay...

and a self portrait, see I told you he was my son.

and a close up of the support beam...perfect...in case we forget what it looks like?

and the results of the action.

Cayden rides his bike!!

Happy Easter!

We did not have a traditional Easter.

We were manning the home front, dumping water every 2 hours or so.

Not sure the latest count of how many gallon's Justyn has dumped, but I heard 70 earlier today....I'll have to double check.

We read the resurrection story to the boys this morning.

I was so impressed with Cayden who told US the story before it being read to him.

He told us about the crown of thorns, and being nailed to a cross, and the people being mean to Jesus. He told us how Jesus had died on the cross for our sins to save us.

Then he told us about the angel & that Jesus had risen from the dead.

Nothing better than hearing the miraculous story from the mouth of my almost 5 year old.

We had a nice easter lunch together as a family.

HAPPY EASTER everyone.

Remember the real reason for our celebration today!

Showing off

These 2 are just too cute to not share.
They were so proud of their finished eggs.
Aren't they adorable. I just LOVE these little people.

Easter Egg Dying 2011

Even with our turn of events for the day today, we still managed to sneak in some time to dye some Easter Eggs.
The boys had been looking forward to it all week.
Thankfully I had boiled the eggs yesterday.
We just had to hold them off until the basement was undercontrol.
Then we had some fun!
They were excited to see all the colors.

and cheesed to get to play a bit.

and of course, getting dirty is ALWAYS fun...they're boys after all.

not quite a dirty

Sidney didn't get to do eggs, she just watched & ate her puffs.

oh the joy (insert sarcasm)

We certainly didn't plan to spend the day today tearing the carpet out of the boy's rooms & sucking water from the floor/wall, but that's what's been going on since this morning.
About a week ago, we notice the neighbors 2 houses south pulling out carpet, ugh oh. I knew my friend who lives 1 house south of them had gotten water in their basement, but didn't think anything of it.
2 days ago we noticed our neighbors directly south of us pulling out their carpet.
We started paying closer attention.
This morning we noticed damp carpet in the corner of P's room. Justyn set out to "watch" it, and started the shop vac & fans.
It didn't take long to realize there was more coming in.
So he was gonna just tear out the corner section, then realized it would all have to come out due to the wet spot in the MIDDLE of P's room.
This is how far the water had seeped in from having the vac off for like 2 minutes.
Wherever there is a crack in the flooring the water is seeping in.

We didn't even notice anything in Cayden's room, until we went to set up Prestyn's bed in there & Justyn steped in a wet spot. You could see the line of water following what appeared to be a crack in the flooring. When we pulled up the carpet that was exactly the fact.




The boys get to "bunk" together for awhile, not sure how long our house will be like this, but as of 7:00pm tonight Justyn had dumped out about 24 gallons of water....so it might be a little while.

This is the water heater room, we noticed the wetness on the crack yesterday, but it hasn't come in further than this here.



We are just praising God that we were home & not gone for the weekend. Pretty sure if we had left town we would have came home to a WET basement, not just a couple of rooms. I'm so thankful Justyn was home & off of work too! PRAISE the Lord. He takes care of us through everything!!

TRANSFORMERS

For one of Cayden's birthday gifts we re-did his room in TRANSFORMERS.
He loves all things TRANSFORMERS & love the movies.
He thought it was awesome, especially the huge Optimus Prime on the wall.

He thought the bedding was cool too, he even "hugged" it.

Colossians 3:17

And whatever you do,

whether in word or deed,

do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus,

giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Colossians 3:17

CUBBIES AWARDS

We had cubbies awards night tonight.
Cayden did a wonderful job at AWANA this year & LOVED it.
Next year he'll move up to the sparkies & Prestyn will join cubbies.
SO FUN

Sunshiny People!

I just have to say, some people are just "sunshiny people"

Today I was elbow deep in a preparing a meal for another family,

preparing a meal for OUR family & one for the freezer.

I of course, decided to start this mid-morning,

so I happened to be working on all of this through our LUNCHtime.

NICE.

Prestyn didn't want to eat his lunch, he just wanted a cookie.

Sidney was throwing her food on the floor.

You get the picture.

Cayden had finished eating, Sidney was cleaned up & crawling around & Prestyn was STILL finishing up his lunch when the doorbell rang.

I still have burger browning on the stove, food all over the place...etc.

I opened the door to find my friend Alicia M with THESE:

Some VERY scrumptious looking CAKE POPS!! Oooh my soul.

They were so festive & cute.

My kids were begging to eat them right away, but they have to wait until Daddy gets home.

Thanks Alicia, for making my day a little brighter!
SO SWEET!

Schmeckfest for MS 2011

This is me with my beautiful friend Lorisa.

We met in October of 2008 at MOPS. We've been friends ever since.

(Well once she finally realized I wasn't all crunchy granola, and that I didn't make bread EVERY day & I didn't cloth diaper ALL the time...teehee)

She is the reason I hosted Schmeckfest for MS.

Lorisa was diagnosed with MS 6 years ago.

My family & I joined her team Legs for Lorisa the last 3 years & walk at the MS Walk to help raise awareness & find a cure for MS.

She doesn't let her MS stop her though, she's always reaching out & helping others, all while raising her 2 small children.

She's one of those people who sees a need & goes above & beyond to help out.

She has a wonderful husband who supports her through all she does.

Lets face it, she simply makes me want to be a better person all around.

We had 40 people attend Schmeckfest for MS (including kids) and raised just over $500.

We served verenika & gravy, sausage, zweibach, peppernuts and kuchen.

It seemed to be a huge success & I'm thinking we may do it next year, but open it up to the community.

My 11 year old nephew Kole played guitar throughout the night & did a fabulous job.

He's got some killer talent & his mama Heather even did a duet with him!

It was awesome!

A peek at our guests! My nephew Beau (8) also had a table set up to sell his artwork. He came up with this idea on his own because he wanted to sell his artwork & give the money to the MS society so "they (MS Society) can help her so she doesn't hurt all the time" He's a pretty talented little artist. If you'd like to join our team & walk with us in Bismarck on May 7th, get ahold of me & let me know, I can get you all set up. If you can't walk but would like to contribute go here:

http://main.nationalmssociety.org/site/TR/Walk/NTHWalkEvents?px=8162050&pg=personal&fr_id=16285

and make your donation.

Every dollar helps!

Golfing with Dad.

Justyn took Cayden golfing with him.

Cayden was SOOO excited to get some one on one time with Daddy.

He had to use a right handed club, the course didn't have any lefties. It just makes me smile to see him in action.

What a goofball.

THE SUN CAME OUT

We are SOOO excited to have the snow finally melting away.

This winter has been entirely too long.

Sidney LOVED going down the slide.

Cayden, Sidney & Prestyn all LOVED riding in the wagon, they didn't love taking the time to pose for pictures though. The boys got bored with my photo taking & found a stick & a little spot of water & were fishing. All of a sudden they'd yell "FISH ON"

The Gator, or as Prestyn calls it the "agigator" is always entertaining.