My Little Pony

On Saturday Jeremy was doing the insurance on a farm/ranch about 40 minutes north of here near Cambridge. The couple invited the girls and I to come along so the girls could ride the pony and see the horses. Emily loved it.

Bri was a little unsure but still enjoyed it.

They also had buffalo next door:

Here are a couple short videos, one of Emily riding "Beanie" and the other of her singing in the van.

Fun with grandpa and grandma

Jeremy's parents were here this past week (Susanne for 2 weeks, Mark for 1) and we all had a great time. The girls even got to spend the night at grandma and grandpa's one night and everyone actually survived! It sure was strange coming home to a quiet house that night, then waking up and getting ready the next morning in peace! Jer and I played in a golf tournament that morning, my first "official" tournament. My score wasn't that great (119) but other than the first hole, I felt good about it and had a lot of fun.

The weather has been absolutely perfect lately, and last Sunday we all took the boat out on Rum River.

Grandpa was nice enough to share his root beer float with the girls:

It was a great two weeks filled with barbecuing, walks, pedicures, golf, ice cream, boating, parks, IHOP, . . . did I mention the gorgeous weather? :) We also visited the ENT (Ear, Nose, Throat) doctor for the 2nd time, this time for Emily. Her tonsillectomy is scheduled for June 22, and Bri will do the same later this year. Fun! If anyone has any tonsil recovery tips for a 3-year-old, let me know!

Graduation

Last weekend was spent in Nebraska getting my sister graduated from high school. Congratulations, Jessie! We had a wonderful weekend with all my family and the girls loved spending so much time outside and with cousins, grandparents, aunts, and uncles. They don't get to do that too often. I won't say much more for now but will have a bunch of pictures below!

So you can see who belongs to who. . .

My brother Brian, wife Michelle, son Jacob, and step-daughter Rainey:

My sister Annie, husband David, and daughter Paisley:

The house I grew up in:

I'll leave you with a final story. Jer was having a "blast" taking care of the bird and rabbit population throughout the weekend. One afternoon we were all hanging out in the yard and playing ladder ball, when we noticed a mother bird bringing worms to her babies through this little hole in the corner of the gutter. Jer thought he would help the "problem" by trying to stick some tape on that corner with the end of a broom. As he was working on it, the bird pooped on his face. The bird seemed to say, Take that! I believe Jer had the last laugh, though. :)

WHY?

Emily has entered the "wonderful" phase of, "Why?" I always knew this was eventually going to come, but for some reason when it's your friends telling you about it, it almost seems cute rather than annoying. Wrong, it's annoying. At first you think, how nice, she is being really inquisitive. Then after about 5 times of "Why, mommy?" you just want to say, "BECAUSE!" It only started yesterday but in two days I've probably heard the word "why" at least 200 times. If it were used in meaningful places I wouldn't mind, but when it's asked after something like, "Yes, daddy had chicken nuggets for lunch." "Why?" then it just gets exasperating!

Now, to let Emily redeem herself in cuteness points, here is another short performance by her. Let me know if you can figure out the song this time!

Keys Cafe

I awoke this morning to a homemade card from my hubby, then he said he was taking me to IHOP for breakfast. I love breakfast (almost as much as I love ice cream) and my favorite thing to order is pancakes. Then he asked if I wanted to go to Keys Cafe instead of IHOP and I decided yes, that sounded great. As you can see below, they have giant pancakes. I always wonder if one pancake will be enough, but it definitely is, I couldn't even finish it.
The girls got the Mickey Mouse pancake which was awesome! Especially the bacon that Jer and I ate most of, even though Emily got Jer's love of bacon.

The atmosphere is neat there, it almost seems like you're in a small town. And the girls were saints, I think it was because they were so hungry. They usually have breakfast right when they wake up, but this morning they didn't even complain about being hungry.

The food was great and we had a lot of fun. It was a wonderful way to begin Mother's Day.

Happy Mother's Day!

Since I am always talking about the "grandparents" (our parents), today on Mother's Day I would like to thank all the other "moms" in my life. Since our real moms are 7 and 27 hours away, our friends have been our lifeline here in Minnesota. We met some wonderful friends while at Northwestern College, friends from jobs along the way, and most recently some wonderful friends at church. Many of us are friends from MOMS group and our Sunday night small group.

There are many other wonderful moms in my life and good friends that aren't in this picture, but here are a few that I treasure so much. I think since becoming a mom I've learned how valuable good friends are. I love that we can just be ourselves with each other, we can learn from each other without feeling judged, we can laugh and share stories, we can call each other up and say, The kids are driving me crazy, let's meet at the park! I love that we pray for each other. I love going through the same parenting phases in life together, knowing we are not alone. God designed us to go through life together and I am so grateful for the friends in my life. Happy Mother's Day to all the moms in my life, you are special to me.

My jobs

It's a joke with one of my friends about how many odd jobs I have. Although I don't work "outside the home" here are some things that I do:

1) My main job is that I work for a family friend who owns a "forest product" company. I take care of the shipping of logs from here (midwest and east coast) to a veneer mill in China. Basically it's a lot of emails, faxes, spreadsheets, and stuff like that. Once the logs are bought, I oversee the shipping process and all the paperwork to get them to the mill. I started this after Emily was born and it's been a wonderful job from home.

2) As most of you know, Jeremy's mom is a speaker and writer through Proverbs 31 ministries. I edit her blog, help with her e-newsletter, and do some mailings for her.

3) I do math tutoring. I am currently just tutoring one student once a week, but I love it and it's a good way for me to keep up with my math!

4) I teach piano lessons. This is mainly just for fun as I only have 2 students and am not actively looking for any more! Maybe if it worked out. . . (in my "spare" time)

These are the jobs I get paid for. These are the ones I don't: cook, childcare provider, laundry doer, payroll manager (Jer's work), housekeeper, grocery shopper, bill payer. But I love staying home and wouldn't trade these jobs for anything. And the ones I get paid for are nice, too!

The WaWa Song

Ok, here's my first attempt at putting a short video from my camera on here. Here is Emily singing an old song from The Kids Praise Album. Did anyone have this when they were little?

Due to several people telling me they couldn't really understand a word she said, here are the words:

I'm gonna walk wa wa, sing la la, shout oh, and clap my hands until Jesus Christ comes again, whoa yeah.

It started!

After our unfortunate incident yesterday with the boat's dead battery, Jer took the battery back and they gave him a new one since we had just gotten it last year. Since it was such a beautiful day we decided to try our luck once again this evening. We launched onto the Rum River at the Anoka County fairgrounds and headed up the river. The girls did great and we had a lot of fun. We spotted many ducks, geese and other birds, turtles, and one unidentified animal scurrying up a tree (maybe a woodchuck?)


We brought along some popcorn to feed the ducks, but they weren't interested in it.

Luckily the girls were. Here is Bri munching away on some popcorn.
The girls did great and I think really enjoyed the outing.

This weekend

This weekend had some high points and low points. First of all, the low points:
1) We had to put our cat Gabby to sleep on Friday. To make a long story short, she had a large cancerous tumor growing on her back and it was quickly getting worse.
2) We attempted to take the boat out today for the first time (with the girls, mind you), but after pushing off from the launch at Rum River, the battery died. We tried charging it but it just wouldn't stay charged. Better luck next time! Also, thank goodness there was someone close to tow us in or Jeremy would've been swimming.

The high points:
1) This was Thursday but I'll still count it as the weekend. Jer came home in the afternoon and said, why don't you go play a round of golf at Majestic Oaks? I realized I had nothing major going on and quickly took him up on it. (Moms have to take advantage of offers like this and leave the house as quickly as possible before someone wakes up or gets a poopy diaper, or else the offer might be rescinded.)
2) Beautiful weather this weekend -- trip to the park on Saturday with a friend, out on the boat this afternoon (nevermind that the boat wasn't moving, we were still outside!)
3) A trip to "Big Dipper" with friends Saturday night. How can ice cream not be a highlight?
4) Rather than spend his afternoon watching the golf tournament (which didn't sound half bad to me either), Jeremy decided we should clean the garage. Since Emily chose not to nap today, she "helped". A job like that always makes you feel good. And I am definitely planning a garage sale this summer if anyone is interested in contributing anything!
5) We finished off the day with pizza and games with our small group at church. Free babysitting is always a highlight! Except when I went to pick Emily up at the nursery and saw her shorts in a bag -- apparently she "hid under the elephant" and pooped her pants. She's been doing really well with potty training but still isn't perfect!

2 low points, 5 high points, all in all it was a good weekend :)