Picture fun

I finally got around to taking the kids' yearly pictures yesterday after school. With the weather being a little cooler and beautifully sunny, I thought it was my best chance of getting some good pictures. I've probably said it before, but I absolutely LOVE the camera Chad bought for me - it allows me to take such wonderful pictures of the kids and catch moments I may not have gotten with a smaller camera that you have to wait for the flash. It's definitely been a great investment for us.

If you'd like to view the pictures, the site is http://fankfamilypage.shutterfly.com

A little chuckle

The past 4 years that we have lived at our house LOTS of hunting has been done by many people. I always chuckle and give them a hard time because they go out in freezing cold weather, sit high up in a tree right along the river, and most days come back with NOTHING... yet I probably saw 8-12 deer in my yard or turkeys in the field just south of our house while they were sitting in those trees. My advice has LONG been to just set up your hunting tents on the deck in front of our house and I'll even bring you out some coffee now and then if you'd like!!! My case in point - check out the picture I took the other morning, from my kitchen window RIGHT NEXT to my deck:

(some day people will listen to me!!!)

Birthday Bash

What a great birthday weekend!!! My little man turned 3!!! We enjoyed celebrating with cousin Matthew again this year...but this time we did it at his house in Ankeny on Saturday! Kale's cake was a tractor and trailer carrying a load of cows! TOO FUN! I always go crazy with the kids' cakes, but it's the one fun thing that they will always have pictures of so I like to try to make it memorable!! We'll be celebrating with the Fank family during Labor Day weekend since schedules allow everyone to be together that weekend but had supper with Grandma and Grandpa Fank on Friday to celebrate. I think all stores were sold out of tractors/combines/trucks/bob cats (or bob bob's as Kale calls them) etc. as Kale got many of them and was SO excited about every single one - especially since that's the only type of toys he likes to play with. So excited that he has YET to even touch the bike we got him!!! Now he'll be getting ready to go to 3 year old preschool a couple mornings a week for a couple hours starting the middle of September. I think he's excited about going, but not excited about ME not staying there with him!!

What started out as a cold for Kale has officially spread to EVERYONE in the house!! It's not much fun feeling miserable on these beautiful days we've been having. Hopefully no one at the party caught anything from us. Enjoy the wonderful week!!!

Big girls

(getting ready to head out the door)

(Mia's locker!)

(Ana's locker...with her sidekick, Kale)

It's official, the twin towers are now grade schoolers!! They started 1st grade this morning without any hesitation at all...there was probably more from Kale and I than anyone!! The girls were up bright and early to get themselves ready for school. It helped us a lot that we had the opportunity to go in to the school last night to meet their teacher, get their lockers, and find their desks. They made sure to point out to their teacher their lost teeth, tell her all about their American Girl dolls, and many other things that they thought the teacher should know!!! It's still just so hard to believe that they're this big already.

I decided to celebrate with Kale that it was "our" time again by taking him to McNally's bakery here in town and we've spent all morning cuddling and watching cartoons - I felt I needed to celebrate with him to let him know he's important too!!! Kale and I plan to take the girls to Dairy Queen for ice cream when we pick them up at 1:00!!!

Minneapolis

What a great short long weekend we had!!! Sounds so funny to say it that way, but we enjoyed ourselves so much, it just went too quickly. Unlike here at home, it rained at some point almost every day we were gone!! My tomato plants reflected just how badly we needed back here when we arrived home!!

The kids and I took off early on Thursday and headed to Medford to do some shopping for school clothes. Chad drove up with his parents after work. We didn't arrive in Minneapolis until late and it became even later when we couldn't find our hotel!!! Who knew there could be 4 Hilton hotels in a 5 mile radius!!!??? We stopped at every single one of them!! It was a good laugh for that late at night!!! We enjoyed time at the Mall of America and IKEA the next day because it was raining. The girls were super excited when they were surprised with the opportunity to pick out the bigger American Girl doll (which they had been begging for for their birthday this November) and chose the dolls that looked like them!!!! So Emma, Ana's doll, and Melissa, Mia's doll, have now joined our family. I don't think they have hardly put them down since they got them! Kale, being the simple boy he is, got a big bucket of legos from Lego Land and is in heaven with those!!! ME, I was excited to find the handles that I really wanted for my kitchen cupboards at IKEA for HALF the price of Menards...and for Chad - the pure excitement of getting to put them all up for me!! HA HA For some reason, I highly doubt he is as excited about it as I am!!!

The rest of our time was spent at the Como Zoo, Underwater Adventures at the Mall of America, and the pool. It's always nice to get home, but it always seems to take me the whole next week to get everything put away, laundry done, etc.

Good times...

What a great weekend...the kids and I enjoyed having lunch with Grandma Luedtke on Friday and then we headed to the Algona pool and spent about 2 1/2 hrs!! Kale had a hard time understanding (15 minutes after we got in to the water) that we had to get out of the water for 10 minutes for break, but what's a little crying and screaming at the pool, right?!? I had promised the kids snacks when we left the pool and we weren't even out of Algona and Kale had fallen asleep...pretty rare to see him fall asleep during a bag of skittles!!

Saturday was spent at Arnolds Park for the Kerber Milling employee appreciation day. The kids had SO much fun, and great strides were made on the fears of both Mia and Kale. Mia had promised before we even went that if we bought her some cotton candy, she would try all of the rides...and she held true to her promise, as did we!! Before we knew it, I was riding every single ride 3-4 times in a row with the girls while Chad watched Kale. Needless to say, we were ALL exhausted by the time we got home. But the trip was topped off with a quick stop at Mrs. Lady's for supper!!!! There is nothing that makes me happier than their cheese and jalapeno nachos!!

It was a great family weekend!!! Now we're ready for a great family vacation!!!