Good weekend

(Carla with Grandma (Kerber) Langan)

(my brother, Mark, Grandma, myself, and sister, Angela)

What a nice weekend we had this past weekend...my brother and sister and their families stayed with us - it was a great big slumber party!!!, we celebrated my Dad and Ruth's 25th wedding anniversary, and my Grandma and Aunt and Uncle from Arkansas were here to celebrate too!!! We're always so excited to spend time with them since we only see them once, possibly twice, a year so it was definitely a wonderful treat.

Now we're gearing up for our vacation to the big city of Minneapolis!!! HA!! No, we're really looking forward to going and doing a few new things that we haven't done in the past with the kids and honestly, the kids and I are just REALLY ready to get away from the Fank acreage for a while!!! The girls are especially excited about the possibility of going to the American Girl Doll store and are trying REALLY HARD to convince daddy that it's important to go to Chuck E Cheese!!! Grandma and Grandpa Fank are going with us as well, so it will be a welcomed treat for the kids to get a little spoiling too.

My poor kids have had NO pool time this summer - always just content to play on the slip and slide, so I'm surprising them tomorrow (Friday) and taking them to Algona to have lunch with Grandma Luedtke (which we haven't seen in far too long) and then we're heading to Algona's big water complex they have. I'm sure I'll have LOTS of pictures to share. Our time is running out for doing all these fun things that I've promised since summer began!

One year down

It's official - yesterday marked 1 year since Ana's seizures began. Again, we are so very blessed that her med's continue to work so well for her and that she has been seizure free since the start of them. Congratulations Anabelle - I look forward to many more days of your craziness, feistiness, courage, and love without any seizures!!!!

"I'm just looking at it mommy"

So, the other day I decided I would bake a cake for the kids since they had been begging me to make one. I waited until Kale went down for his nap to do it so it had plenty of time to cool down before I let the kids frost it. As soon as he got up from his nap, I wanted to get the toys picked up first but Kale was intrigued by the smell and refused to help me. I could hear him scooting one of the stools so I asked him what he was doing to which he replied "I'm just looking at it mommy". I told him not to touch it and continued on with my picking up. When I came to the kitchen, this is what I found...

So much for NOT TOUCHING IT!!! Little stinker.

July 19th marks one year since Ana began having her seizures. We are SO thankful that the medicine continues to work and that we've had absolutely NO seizures since starting the medication. We will go meet with the pediatric neurologist again to check her progress. I really hope she tells us we can start weaning her off the med's, but I figure Dr. Wirrell will keep her on them for one more year as she planned we would probably do. I think back to when it all began and thank God every day for giving her the strength to go through all of the blood draws, MRI's, sleep tests, etc. She's such a tough cookie.

The girls finished up soccer camp on the 10th and were sad to see it end. Their coach was really great with the kids and I see this being a continuous summer activity. Before we know it, Fall soccer will be starting!! It's so depressing to be doing school shopping already!

4th and family!!

What a wonderful 4th of July we had. We were ALL OVER the place that weekend, but it was a wonderful weekend and we got to spend time with family. The only thing that would have made it better would have been if we would have gotten to see even more family and the weather had been a little sunnier. The pictures above are some from the past couple of weeks. Kale is holding a pea in one picture, which came from our field!!!

The weekend started with rehearsal on Friday night and a wedding on Saturday in which I sang for. I hadn't sung for a wedding in quite some time, I was actually a little nervous!!! After, we headed to the reception for a bit, then headed home to change clothes and go back to town to watch the fireworks. We enjoyed spending the evening with Grandma and Grandpa Kerber, Uncle Mark and Aunt Roberta, and cousins, Katelynn and Matthew, on Grandma and Grandpa's boat. I'm not quite sure if there were actually any children still awake once the fireworks started!!! On Sunday, we went out to Grandma and Grandpa Fank's and spent time with them and Aunt Nikki and Uncle Ryan, and cousins, Hailey and Addisson. Upon returning home that evening, we had received a phone call to go out on the boat again with Grandma and Grandpa Kerber...so we enjoyed some lazy/fun time on the boat once again!!! So much fun!

Now the girls are enjoying soccer camp this week. It's hard to believe that summer is already half over! I can't imagine the kids heading back to school...we still have so many things yet that we want to do this summer!! I guess we better get on the bandwagon!!! I hope you all are enjoying your summer...until next time!!

The time has finally come.

Yes, everyone, Ana has FINALLY lost a tooth!!! After months of watching her sister lose tooth after tooth, Ana has finally begun the process! She announced to me a few days ago that she finally had a loose tooth. Then, tonight while eating toast (as you can tell by the jelly on her cheek!), she got a funny look on her face and pulled something out of her mouth, to which she announced "Mom, IT'S MY TOOTH!!!" Everyone was so excited for her because she has been so very patient. Congratulations, Ana!!!!

In quiet moments...

See, already another post!!! After a great day with the kids today, we rented some movies - one of which I've been wanting to see since it came out, "7 pounds". Such an emotional movie, and I come from a long line of emotional people so I knew I would be crying a lot!!! It lived up to what I expected it to be and I indeed did cry. After the movie was over, it was time to put the kids to bed - Chad was already in bed because he wasn't feeling well and was very tired. Most nights Kale requests for daddy to lay with him for a little bit (a job which used to be mine since Chad traveled quite a bit for work previously). On cue, Kale looked at me when he climbed in to bed and asked "will you lay with me for a bit mommy?" So I laid down with him, leaned over and gave him a kiss and a hug, told him I loved him and that he needed to close his eyes. Next thing I knew, he grabbed his blankie and covered me up (because I lay on top of his covers for an easy escape!!!) and snuggled his puppy in to my arms as if to give me something to comfort me as well as it does him. He then put his hands on my face and said "there mommy, you're all better now. I love you too" and wedged his little arm under my neck and fell to sleep. As I lay there waiting for him to fall to sleep, I thought about how he was comforting me with his puppy...but what he probably didn't realize is that all I needed was that little arm around my neck to make my world better. The girls used to do sweet little things like this all the time when they were his age, and honestly still do - I think that's the difference between boys and girls. I'm usually conning Kale in to giving me a kiss by using bribery of some sort so I can get one!!! Every night when I go to bed, I thank God for all the wonderful moments I have been given throughout the day - even when it seems like there are few - but this was one of those moments that makes my life the most complete. Thank you God, for the most wonderful blessings in my life.

Terrible mommy

It feels like forever since I've sat to write - for some reason I keep busy!! It has proven to already be a busy summer and doesn't look to be slowing down any time soon. Before we know it, the girls will be heading back to school again!



As most parents do, you try to teach your children the value of hard work and the rewards that can follow. The girls, and even Kale, spent time with me picking rock this year!! The days were not without whining or fighting! Like all rock picking days, they were hot, so that didn't help things either. They did work as hard as I expected and even more at time, but not without reminder that they got "paid" for their work and that helped things along a little. A couple of weeks after we got done, we took the kids to Spencer to buy them their surprise, which was a trampoline!!! They have been BEGGING for one for almost 2 years now and we finally decided to give in. It's been a great investment though and many hours have already been spent on it. We were very excited to spend some time with my step-sister Carrie, and her family, from Texas this past week. It was fun to see their daughter, Melissa Grace (3), play with our kids and hold hands with the girls when they crossed streets! Hopefully she didn't leave for their journey to Michigan with too many bad habits!!!



Now we're in the process of trying to make our summer vacation plans. We had planned to go to the Black Hills the last week of July, but all of Chad's employee's are taking their vacations during that month so we're trying to figure out a shorter trip to Omaha or something for the first part of August. I'm ready for a vacation and I think the kids will be soon too. Like me, they like to be on the "go" and feel restless being home for too long. So far I've been able to remedy that by going to the park and summer reading at the library, or even just a quick trip to one of the Grandparents houses. I think we're all itching to just get out of Emmetsburg for a bit!!! I'm already bringing up options for Chad and my vacation this winter!!! When flights are pretty reasonable like they are, it's hard not to think about!



The terrible mommy that I am, I haven't taken much for pictures yet this summer!!! I will have pictures to post soon and probably many good Kale stories to tell as well! Please say a few prayers for my Grandma who underwent emergency surgery last week. She's home now and recovering, so we pray for a speedy recovery for her. Love you Grandma!!!