It’s been a while since I last posted.  So much has happened since that last post.  I don’t even know where to begin.  Here’s just the short list of what has happened:

August 1st - We went for a ride on the boat with friends and went to Boatwerks for dinner and then to the big lake to watch a sunset.  We got to watch some nasty storms roll in, but fortunately didn’t get hit by them (phew!).

August 2nd - VanKlompenberg Family Reunion (or rebellion).  We had a great time socializing with family members that we don’t see all that often.  We played a neat game of family trivia - I found out many things that I didn’t know before.

August 3rd - Hower B-Day Bash.  Every year, we have a b-day party for the Hower niece and nephews.  They have a great pool for swimming and the kids love to play with their older cousins.  It was a beautiful day for a party.

August 8th - Loran’s 40th B-Day party.  Our friend Loran turned 40 this year so they thru a great party with a cookout, a washers game, horse shoes, and a ride on the Bike-n-Bar (gotta see the pictures to get it).

Unfortunately, we missed Corbin’s b-day party which was also on the 8th.  I guess they did a HUGE Olympic theme since it was the beginning of the Olympics.  It sounds like it was a bunch of fun and I’m bummed that we missed it.  Sorry, Beans!

August 14th - The Holland Princess Dinner cruise with people from our church and my parents.  It was a beautiful night and I would highly recommend that you try it.

August 16th - April’s B-Day.  Happy B-Day April - sorry we missed you this weekend.  We went out on the boat with Dan’s employees to The Piper and then for a sunset cruise.  It was too cloudy to see the sunset, but it was nice to be out on the boat.  When we got back to the dock, I think that we got to see Holland’s Venetian festival or something.  There were some boats decorated with lights doing a little parade.  There was one that was AMAZING - too much to explain. 

August 17th - A day at the boat with the family.  We spent most of the day out at the boat.  We did lunch, went swimming, the girls took naps, and then we grilled out and the girls played on the playground.  It was really nice to be able to just chill out on the boat while the girls took naps.  I was so glad that the girls took a decent nap on the boat - now we don’t have to wonder and worry about how it will go next time.

Well, that pretty much sums up the last couple weeks.  Other than the part about dog sitting this past weekend.  We had the pleasure of watching Gauge, my sister Manda’s dog.  He was great all weekend and the girls loved having him around.  I had to bring him back to my parents house after lunch and Kylie was just crying so hard.  She kept saying that she was going to miss Gauge.  It was cute and sad all at the same time.  Unfortunately, she will probably be asking more often when we are going to get another dog.  Before Gauge, she wasn’t all that interested in getting another dog.  She’s afraid of most dogs, especially the ones that get all excited and get in her face.  Gauge isn’t like that at all.  He’s just a cuddly dog most of the time.  We really did enjoy having him stay with us.  Thanks Manda & Kyle - next time you need a sitter, you know who to ask.  It would help to delay the need to get our own dog.  :)

We have a busy week ahead, too.  Tomorrow night, we have an open house to meet Kylie’s teachers.  My big girl is starting Preschool this fall.  I’m sure that it will be more difficult for me than it is for Kylie.  I think that she is going to LOVE preschool - she loves to learn and play with other kids.  Then, on Wednesday, Dan is going to race in the Off Road Race at Hudsonville Fair.  I’m sure that we’ll have a good time there too.  I don’t think that we have plans for Thursday or Friday, but on Saturday we are going to go to Berlin Raceway to watch the racing there.  We’re still working out the details for that night. 

Another exciting thing came this past week.  We got season tickets to U of M football.  Dan and I are big Michigan fans.  I’m not the type of Michigan fan that knows all the past and present players, but I really enjoy going to the Big House.  I love to people watch and there are LOTS of people there to watch.  We don’t have plans for all of the games, but I know that I am going to attend the Michigan vs Michigan State game.  I’m not sure how many or which ones Dan will go to, but I’m sure that it will be more than what I go to.  :)

So, that’s about it for now.  Here are some pictures of the last couple weeks:  

Last night we went out to the Ottawa County Fair as a family.  It turned out to be pretty much a free night.  Dan had worked on one of the Carnival employees vehicles and the guy offered to get some wristbands and food for us.  So, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to get free fair food and rides for the girls.  Last year, Kylie was afraid to go on any of the kiddie rides, so we didn’t do anything that I couldn’t go on.  This year, we could hardly stop her from running into each fenced in ride area.  She didn’t even hesitate to go on the bumble bee ride all by herself.  I have some pics that I may try to download at work and post them later this afternoon so watch for the update.  Kennedy wanted to go on anything that Kylie wanted to go on - it was too cute.  Most of the rides say that you have to be 36" tall, which Kennedy is not, but none of the fair guys argued with us about it.  I rode on a few rides with them, too.  We had a great time, but not enough time to play.  I think that we may take the girls back there Saturday late morning to get some rides in before naps and the Off Road Derby.  I’m not sure that I even mentioned that Dan is going to be in the Off Road Derby on Saturday.  I’m not because we gave my car away to another lady who has been having a LOT of fun with it at the Hudsonville Fair circuit.  I almost wish that we hadn’t given it away so that I could try it again, but I also don’t mind not having my yard look like a junkyard (we had 4 derby cars or potential derby cars back behind our barn until this spring).  It would also be difficult to have both of us running in the derby and trying to watch 3 girls at the same time.  This way me and the girls can just watch Dan play.  It should be a lot of fun - I know that Dan enjoys it a ton.

Dan has to work on the medical team at the Fair tonight for the MotoCross, so we won’t be seeing him tonight.  Then, I have a picnic with our Children’s Worship team on Thursday night, so we won’t see much of each other on Thursday night.  Friday night we are going to the Fair, again, to watch my friends brother do the Rodeo.  My lifelong friend, Deanne, has a little brother who does Rodeo’s and no one ever gets to see him because he never says where he is going to be and often times it is long distances.  So, we are all doing a kid-free night to watch him.  Dan doesn’t really care for rodeo’s, so we probably won’t watch much of it, but it will be a fun date night for us.  And then, we will be at the Fair again on Saturday.  Do ya think we like the fair?!

Other stuff…I haven’t been able to watch the last two weeks of Wipeout.  I need to catch it online I guess.  I don’t usually get upset about missing a show, but there’s something about a show that makes me laugh non-stop and out loud.  I really need to work on getting DVR so that I don’t have to miss any shows.  I also just purchased a new mouse for my computer at work.  My other one was working just fine, but I got sick of messing with the cord.  It would get tangled with the phone, my calculator, my phone headset, EVERYTHING.  So, since another guy here really did need a new mouse because his was crap, I decided to give him my old one and buy me a new one.  I found a cordless laser mouse from Circuit City for $19.99.  For that price, I figured that I couldn’t go wrong.  And boy was I RIGHT!  It is so awesome I can’t believe it.  It actually has a little button that magnifies the screen when you click it.  It can be annoying when you push it on accident and I probably won’t use it that much, but it is just cool to have.  The biggest thing is that I save so much time because I am not constantly untangling the cord from all the other things on my desk.  If you can’t tell, it’s the little things in life that get me excited.  LOL  And just in case you were thinking that life is going too smoothly for me, here’s one of my most recent pet peeves.  It seems to me that I have to login twice EVERY time I login to my MSN account.  It is absolutely driving me crazy.  There is NO reason I should have to login two times every time I go to login.  I would understand if I had the wrong password saved or something like that, but it isn’t.  I literally have to login twice with the same frickin’ information before it will let me continue.  It is driving me so crazy that I am about to make the switch to Gmail.  I’m really somewhat anti-Microsoft anyway, but I just keep falling into the same pattern that everyone else does.  Microsoft is so huge that it’s hard to break away from the bad habit.  Well, there’s my gripe for the day.  I would say that Microsoft sucks, but I am using all Microsoft stuff as I speak.  LOL.

Well, I better get some work done now.  I will have to go feed Emma soon and then I’ll come back and download some pics, hopefully.  See ya soon!

UPDATE:   

Well, I hope you enjoy the pics from our night at the fair.  I think there are smiles in almost all of the pics, except the pony ride.  I’m not sure if it was because she was tired or if she was a little bit afraid about riding the pony - but look at that face.  And the funny thing is that this is the best pic I have of her riding on that pony.  She wanted to ride on them so bad, but once on there, she seemed a little bit afraid.  She was also full of questions for the guy running the pony rides - I’m sure he was getting sick of all the questions.  :)  LOL  Okay, I’m off to bed now.  Enjoy the rest of your week.  As I mentioned before, the rest of my week is crazy busy, so I probably won’t be back until Monday with a recap of our weekend.  TTYS

Another week is over.  It was a pretty good week.  We didn’t have too many plans during the evening, so it was quite laid back.  Kylie had swimming lessons this week and her final lesson was on Thursday night.  They had a special class where the parents could come and see what the kids learned.  I was impressed and excited to see how comfortable Kylie had become in the water.  It was also nice to see the methods they used so that we could continue to work with them.  I’m excited to go to a pool and work on all the skills that Kylie had learned.  I’m downloading the 159 photos we have from that night.  I’m sure that not all of them are worthy pics, but there should be at least a few good ones.  Hopefully they will be done downloading soon so that I can post a couple of them. 

Another big event this week was that I placed an order for a new Dell Desktop for my base computer at home.  It was an incredible deal that I couldn’t pass up - especially since my old desktop was purchased in 2000 (that’s almost a dinosaur in the computer world).  I think that I had made a few upgrades in memory, etc… on that computer, but it was certainly getting slow.  We are either going to give that computer to a lady at church who doesn’t have a computer or we are going to keep it for the girls to play with.  We use e-mail to communicate at church, so it would be nice for this lady to get "hooked up" online.  But, if she already has a computer that will work, I will have to figure out how to set up our old computer so that the girls can learn how to play on it.  I’m also hoping that it will keep them away from my new computer (maybe that’s wishful thinking).  LOL

We don’t have any big plans for this weekend.  I would imagine that if the weather is nice, we will head out to the boat/marina to get in some pool time and relaxation.  But, if it rains, I’m sure that I can continue working on my basement.  I want to go thru the stuff that I have just wasting away, not being used.  I have some new found clean space that I can move a bunch of stuff over to that area and designate it as my "garage sale/donate" area.  As I said before, I will probably just donate the stuff because a garage sale seems very overwhelming to me.  Besides, I have lived without the cash for these items for quite some time, I don’t really NEED the money.  Or at least, there might be people who are less fortunate than me that need the stuff more than I need the money.  Or, maybe I’m just too lazy to deal with it.  And, if I were to be completely honest, it’s probably the latter rather than the former possibilities.  LOL

This week I have spent some time trying to figure out where I can save money on things that we use daily.  For instance, our cell phones.  I just changed our phone plan to a share plan in order to save a bit of money.  The other thing I have been looking into is our phone/TV/Internet package.  Currently we use AT&T for all of those services, but it is quite expensive - especially the phone service.  We pay almost $50 per month for basic phone service - OUCH!!!  Part of the problem is that we live out in the boonies, kind of.  We can get cable, but it is analog only - no digital.  Which means, we can’t get the digital cable channels, Internet, or phone service.  I would love to switch to that type of plan, but it’s just not available.  So, I have to figure out how to get high speed Internet (DSL) thru the phone line, but not have regular phone service.  I haven’t really figured out if that is possible or not.  I know that Vonage requires high speed Internet, but I don’t know if I can get DSL without having the phone service.  And the biggest problem is finding time to spend on the phone when there aren’t any interruptions from kiddos.  And I dread spending time on the phone, usually on hold the majority of time, just to find out what I want to do isn’t even possible.  If anyone has any KNOWN suggestions for me, I am willing to try anything.  Right now I am thinking that I may have to play the "I will cancel my service if you can’t lower my rates" card.  The only problem is that I don’t have too many alternatives if they don’t actually lower my rates. 

Alright, my pics are done downloading so here’s a preview of what Kylie learned over a period of 8 days…   

I know that I am posting a LOT of pics, but how can I resist posting the cool things that Kylie has learned.  And this is mainly for the grandparents who didn’t see her.  The last pic is the group with Miss Katelyn, the teacher.  The other teacher was Miss Shelly, who just so happens to have been my swimming lessons teacher when I was a kid.  She thought it was cool to be a part of another generation of VK swimmers.  Both of the teachers are great with the kids - I think patience and gentle reassurance are their greatest gifts.  I was just amazed that Kylie was more than willing to put her face in the water and even go under the water completely.  Until recently, she didn’t even like to have the water run down her face in the bathtub/shower.  Anyway, thanks for bearing with me with this long post and lots of photos - forgive me for the proud mama moment.  :)

Well, it’s now way past my bedtime so I better get offline and go to bed.  I need my sleep and the girls don’t ever sleep in, so we will be up at 7 tomorrow, if not earlier.  I hope you all have a good weekend!  We’ll see ya on the flipside!

It’s Monday again and we had another beautiful weekend here in Michigan.  We really didn’t do a whole lot this weekend.  We went out to dinner Friday night and then to our friends, Loran & April’s house to drop off a table for their garage sale.  The girls enjoyed snooping the tables and picking out a couple of little trinkets (not that I need the junk).  I really could use to do a garage sale myself, but probably not until next year when I will have more baby stuff to get rid of.  But, knowing myself, I probably will get sick of the stuff before then and just decide to donate it all to Goodwill or something like that.  I don’t really have the patience for selling junk and organizing the whole thing.  See, I already talked myself out of the garage sale.  LOL.  On Saturday, Dan took Kylie and Kennedy to the store and to run a few other errands, while I was in the basement cleaning things up and mopping floors.  I hadn’t really cleaned them since the flood, so I figured it would be a good chance to take care of that task.  Our basement isn’t horrible by any means, but I just don’t care for unfinished basements - too many spiders and stuff down there.  I’m glad it’s done, but now I have to finish organizing things and starting a pile of things to sell or donate.  It was a rainy Saturday morning anyway, so we couldn’t do the boat or outside things.  Sunday was a day for church and lunch with my family.  And today, we went to my mom’s for lunch with the girls and then I had to bring Kylie to swimming lessons.  It was fun to bring her there because I got to see her play in the pool for a few minutes while they set things up.  Kylie showed me how she could go under water - I was so geeked it wasn’t even funny.  She has never been that daring with us, so it’s cool to see that she is learning to be brave in the water.  On Thursday, we will all go as a family to watch her and see what she has learned.  I know that Dan will be just as excited as I am.  It’s one of the cool things about parenting - being able to watch a child grow and accomplish new things AND being allowed to experience those things with them.  So often I focus on the bad or negative things like bad behavior, discipline, etc that I forget to just soak in the really cool moments that God has allowed me to be a part of.  It’s just really cool to watch our kids grow and know that they are a small part of us and yet completely individual. 

I just downloaded some pics off my camera, so here are a few of our latest shots.  I think most of them are from our 4th of July weekend.

Lots of photos and I wish I knew how to better arrange them in my post. In fact, it would be even greater if I knew how to create a quick and simple layout with the pictures grouped together.  Maybe some day I will have enough time to learn how to accomplish that task, but then again, maybe not.  LOL  Anyway, the first few pics are from the marina pool.  The group photo was from Sunday dinner at my sister’s house and pool.  It was so cute to see all the kids sitting in a group on the lawn while we prayed before we ate.  As you can see, Corbin, the boy was the only one with his eyes closed.  And, last but not least, my most recent pics of Emma (below).  She was actually rolling over from her tummy to her back while she was on her play mat (first time I had seen that).  And,since I had my camera out, I thought that I would get a pic of her grabbing at the toys hanging from her playmat.  It’s not the first time she’s done this, but I have never gotten a pic of it.  Look at those tiny hands holding the little duck - too sweet.  Finally, I thought I would get a pic of her little feet.  She is very petite all the way around, but her little hands and little feet are just too precious.  One thing I noticed is that I need to learn how to change the settings for indoor and outdoor pics - the coloring just isn’t right.  All these things to learn - I’m sure that I will never learn all of the tricks.  

I’ve also been meaning to mention another TV show that I have enjoyed watching lately.  It’s called Wipeout.  If you haven’t caught it yet, and you’re looking for a good laugh, it is HILARIOUS!  I don’t know what it is, but it’s just plain funny.  I think that I laugh almost the entire show.  It’s on ABC on Tuesday night at 8 pm - you can also check out past clips online.  I’m sure that you will laugh as hard as I do - it’s almost impossible NOT to laugh at these people.

Well, the girls are awake and playing quite nicely, but that can’t possible last too long.  Besides, I have laundry and dishes to do before Dan gets home.  ;)  Otherwise he’ll think that I’ve done nothing all day.  :)  You all have a great week and I’ll post on Thursday night or this weekend with pics from Kylie’s swimming lessons. 

Update:  Sorry for the annoying looks of this post. I have tried to fix it probably 20 times and I’m sick of trying to figure out why it does what it does.  Hopefully it isn’t too annoying to all of you.

I have seen people get "tagged" before and noticed that they usually have to come up with some random facts about themselves.  I personally have never been tagged, until now.  My sister, Amanda, tagged me.  I never understood how someone got tagged or any of that good stuff.  But, since this is my first time being tagged, I figured that I should oblige my sister and fill in the details.  It’s kind of fun to learn random details about people - it somehow makes us feel closer to one another even though we may be miles away from each other.  Anyway, here it goes…

The Rules: Answer the questions using only one word. Then tag four others.
1. Where is your cell phone? purse
2. Your significant other? crazy
3. Your hair? short
4. Your mother? smart
5. Your father? peacemaker
6. Your favorite thing? babies
7. Your dream last night? none
8 Your favorite drink? coffee
9. Your dream/goal? health
10. The room you’re in? office
11. Your hobby? boating
12. Your fear? bears
13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? same
14. What you’re not? stressed
15. Muffins? blueberry
16. One of your wish list items? time
17. Where you grew up? Michigan
18. The last thing you did? ate
19. What are you wearing? birks
20. Favorite gadget? iPod
21. Your pets? none
22. Your computer? Dell
23. Your mood? calm
24. Missing someone? no
25. Your car? BugsVan
26. Something you’re not wearing? earings
27. Favorite store? Target
28. Like someone? yes
29. Your favorite color? Purple
30. When is the last time you laughed? today
31. Last time you cried? baptism

Well, there you have it.  Some of those things were hard to answer in one word or to even pick one out of a few possibilities.  Kinda fun!  ;)

I now tag Nina, Mel, Shawn and Jenn.  I don’t know who all reads my blog and has a blog of their own, so if you read this and you have a blog that I may not be aware of, let me know.  This would also be a good time to pass along to me people that I may know but don’t know that they have a blog.  I love to read people’s blogs that I may know - it’s interesting to me to know that there are more people out there like me. 

I better get back to work now, but I hope that you found this fun and if you want to do it yourself and send me an e-mail with your answers, I’d love it.  Enjoy the rest of your week and this coming weekend. TaTa!

Today has been a pretty laid back day after a busy weekend.  I got my usual cleaning done this morning and then headed to my mom’s for lunch and to bring Kylie to swimming lessons.  Well, it decided to rain/storm here so we just hung out at my mom’s and let the cousins and neighbors play.  We came home for naps and I decided to finish some laundry and bake some cookies.  And now here I sit waiting for the kids to wake up and the laundry to be dry so I can keep going with that.  While I was waiting, I decided to do my July desktop.  I first tried it with B&W pics, but I wasn’t a fan of either the pics or the way they looked in the layout (I’m not sure which it was).  So, the decided to stick with color and maybe try black and white another time.  Here is what I have come up with:

Not much else to say today.  Oh yeah, Baby Borrowers is on NBC Wednesday nights at 9 pm.  I think that they are doing toddlers this week, so it should be interesting.  I personally think that toddlers are more challenging than babies, but I know different people find different stages more challenging.  I hope you get a chance to watch it and let me know what ya think.  I even think you can watch a recap online so you don’t feel out of the loop.  ;)

Enjoy your week.  I’m sure I will be busy at work and then dealing with transportation for Kylie to and from swimming lessons.  Just having to figure out who can drop her off and pick her up is stressful enough for me - that’s why I don’t enroll my kids in every activity.  My mom actually enrolled Kylie in swimming lessons so she has offered to help out with the transportation thing (thanks Mom!).

Earlier this week, I went to this website (not even sure why I went there), and found an awesome reminder about why we celebrate this day.  I realized that so often we just go thru holidays and have some really great plans and parties, but often forget the main reason why we celebrate.  Today is the day we celebrate our independence as the United States of America.  Today is the day that our country adopted the Declaration of Independence that you find on the website above.  Anyway, I just think it is so cool that a local company wanted to put our country first and foremost - more important than sales.  I hope that you all have a great holiday weekend, but try to remember the real reason we celebrate this day.  Our freedom didn’t come free - there was a big fight and ultimately we won, but there were a lot of losses along the way.  I know that I am grateful that God has chosen the USA for the place where I have been born and raised and my children will be born and raised.  God Bless the USA!

Last night we kicked off our Holiday celebration with tonka’s and fireworks at my parents house.  They have an amazing location and home to host such a fun event.  Dan and Kyle had gotten some serious fireworks a week or so ago and have been anxious to set them off.  Last night was that night and it was AMAZING!  There were so many fireworks that a large portion of the back yard was filled with smoke (got rid of the mosquitos real quick like).  It’s nice having it out at my parents house because the little kids can watch them from inside and they aren’t quite as loud.  I think it gets the kiddos used to the whole thing - the loudness can be scary for the little ones.  Kylie and Braelyn weren’t bothered at all by the noise.  It was a beautiful night and lots of fun.  Our family isn’t perfect, but we all get along quite well and have a lot of fun together.  And the kiddos love hanging out with their cousins.  There are 13 kids 9 and under, 11 girls and 2 boys.  It gets loud and crazy when we all get together. 

Today has been quite laid back so far.  Dan made us breakfast again - he makes the best breakfast.  Then, he went outside to burn some brush/trees that we have cut down.  The girls, of course, wanted to go out with him, so I was inside doing some laundry.  We had hoped to go out to the boat this morning and get some swimming in at the pool, but we just got busy around the house and then it was lunch time and nap time.  We’ll probably head out there after naps.  We might do dinner from OBI and then go to our friends house for fireworks and dessert.  Tomorrow we plan to go out to the boat again, and then we’re having friends over to do a cook out and move our swing set.  Then we can get the material for the border and the sand to fill the area.  It will be so nice when that is finished.  Although, the mosquitos have been so bad this year, we don’t go out as much as I would like to.  :(

Alright, on a completely separate side note, did any one watch the show, Baby Borrowers?  I didn’t watch the entire thing, but I watched a lot of it.  At first, I couldn’t hardly stand to listen to it.  There were babies crying and "parents" getting frustrated and acting childish.  After figuring out that the "parents" were actually teenagers, it started to make sense.  I like the concept of the show, but I felt bad for the kids and the real parents.  I can’t imagine watching my baby being taken care of by teenagers who had absolutely NO CLUE!  One of the parents actually busted in on the teenagers because her baby was crying, the kids were getting frustrated because they could get the baby to sleep, but they hadn’t bathed, put PJ’s on, or fed the little girl her bottle.  I mean, COME ON!  How dumb do you have to be????  Then I realized, that this is a clear example of why teenagers should not have kids.  They do not have enough life experience to manage it.  The mom who broke in, was actually very kind to the substitute mom, and even encouraged her.  I’m not sure that I would have had the patience to do that.  I also don’t think that I would be strong enough to let someone else, especially kids, watch my baby in a house all by themselves for 48 hours.  I might be more willing to allow them to watch my toddler, but even that would be scary.  Anyway, I am curious if I am the only parent out there who thinks this whole thing is a little crazy.  Again, I understand the purpose of the show, I just don’t think that I would be able to entrust my child to these kids.  I must say that one of the couples, Kelly & Austin, did a great job.  They seemed to be able to actually handle the task quite well.  They seemed to take their responsibility seriously.  Let me know if you watched the show and what your thoughts are about it. 

Well, I got my internet time in, so I better finish folding my laundry before everyone wakes up.  I still have to get ready to go out to the boat if that’s what we decide to do.  I have to get myself ready, as well as get the girls stuff packed up.  So, I better get at it.  I’ll check in with ya’ll later.  Have a great day!

Wow, June seems to have just flown by.  We only have a few more days left to this month.  We have been so busy this month that we haven’t been able to really enjoy it.  I had the liquid conference the 2nd weekend of the month.  We had a wedding the 3rd weekend, and this past weekend I had a retreat which was a follow up to our conference.  And now the month is almost done.  It’s one of those months that has been incredibly short and long at the same time. 

July should be a pretty laid back, summer month.  I am hoping that the weather cooperates so that we can spend lots of time out at our boat.  Of course, we start the month out with the 4th of July holiday weekend, which will be busy but lots of fun.  We are kicking off the holiday weekend on Thursday night with Tonka Toasters and fireworks with my family.  They have a great location for doing our own "big" fireworks so we will have a bunch of people over there to enjoy the show.  Then, we will probably spend the 4th out at our boat if it is nice.  On the 5th, we are having a cookout at our place with some friends.  The party is two-fold.  We wanted to entertain our friends, but we also want the guys to help move our swing set to a better location.  We’ve found that guys don’t mind working if they are provided food and drink (and by drink, I mean the alcoholic kind).  That should wrap up our holiday weekend events.  After the 4th of July weekend, I have Kylie signed up for swimming lessons.  She is very excited and I am glad that she will learn how to swim.  It will make playing at the marina pool, my sister’s pool, and being on the boat a whole lot less scary if she knows the basics.  The logistics will be a little tricky, but my mom has offered to help and my work is very kind and flexible so it shouldn’t be too big of a problem.  And I think that is all we have for plans for the month of July.  Yipppeeee!!!

One big thing that has happened in our household this month is that I finally got my Mother’s Day gift.  This is what I got… Yep, that’s right.  I now own an iPod classic (80 GB).  I got to choose which one I wanted and I chose the classic because of the memory size.  I really didn’t need a teeny tiny one like the nano.  I prefer to pay more money for the amount of stuff it holds, instead of the physical size of the thing.  So far, I haven’t used it much.  It’s kind of funny.  I have been doing all the downloading of music and Dan has done all the listening to the music I have downloaded.  So far, I have approx. 640 songs and just over 2 gigs of music.  There  is so much space, that I have just been downloading all of my CD’s into my iTunes and I figure I can go back later and delete the songs I don’t really care for.  It really takes quite a bit of time to load all of my CD’s into my iTunes.  I have so much to learn about how to use the thing.  I don’t even know how to set up a playlist on my iPod so that I can just pick my top 25 songs or whatever so that I can just play that instead of having to listen to an entire album or flipping thru all the time.  I’m sure that I will learn when I get a chance to play with it, but I figured I should just finish the task of downloading all of my music first.  One thing I have looked into a little bit is how to download new music that I want.  Paying $.99 for a song seems like a little bit much.  I have found some websites that have you pay a one-time fee and you can download unlimited music, videos and games.  Does anyone know anything about these sites?  Are they legit?  I can’t see spending the $30-40 for something that is a rip off, either.  It’s one of those things that seems too good to be true.  I also wanted to download some comedy skits for my hubby off from YouTube, but I haven’t figured out how to do that either.  So, if anyone has some good tips for me on how to download stuff and even how to use the thing, I would appreciate it.  We did finally get the correct thing to hook it up in my van, so at least now I am able to listen to it in my van.  Dan has been listening with the ear phones, but that’s not my style.  I’ll probably use it in my van the most (that’s where I spend most of my time listening to music). 

Has anyone else noticed how absolutely HORRIBLE the mosquitos are this year?  They are absolutely TERRIBLE at our house.  I have now decided that our new family policy is that the girls must wear long pants and long sleeve shirts outside at all times.  AND they need to be sprayed with Deep Woods OFF (25% Deet).  I did purchase the family OFF that has 15% Deet, but it doesn’t seem to work as well in our location.  It smells great and it goes on really nice, but we still get bug bites.  Dan has fogged our backyard at least twice a week and they are still bad.  And the stuff says that you should only have to fog your yard once every 4-6 weeks.  My girls have bug bites all over them.  The other downside is that when you use the OFF, the girls have to take a bath before they go to bed, whether or not they are dirty.  And, normally they would get really dirty at our house, but since the bugs are so bad, we aren’t outside long enough to get dirty.  I’m looking for a better solution to this problem.  I hate that we can’t even enjoy our backyard because we get eaten alive and almost carried away by the mosquitos.  If anyone has a good solution to this problem, let me know.  I’m ready to try almost anything (even the really expensive propane machines that are supposed to work to get rid of mosquitos).  Help me, Please!

I know that I said I would have some pics to share with you all, but we never did get any pics of the IROC-Z or the wedding we went to.  I even felt really bad that the couple who got married didn’t have a photographer for their reception.  I was going to take my camera, but I didn’t.  The reason I felt bad is because I could have so easily taken some good pictures of the key events of the reception, but I didn’t take my camera.  They only had people with simple point and shoot digitals.  I don’t claim to be a good photographer, but I do have a great camera.  There didn’t even seem to be a parent or aunt or anyone specifically taking pictures of their cake, their first dance, the parents dancing, etc…  I could have taken some pics and burned them to a CD for them to do what they want with them.  Who knows if those other people will keep those pictures to themselves or if they will copy them for the newlyweds.  Anyway, there’s nothing I can do about it now, but I did and still kind of do feel bad for not taking my camera.  

Well, that’s all I have for now.  I keep hoping that I will be able to post more often, but it just doesn’t seem to work out that well.  I’m sure I’ll be back next weekend!

I just realized that I don’t think that I have ever used that title before - surprisingly.  I am certainly glad that it is Friday.  This work week seems to have dragged on and on for some reason.  Anyway, I am glad that this work week is over.

We have a fairly busy weekend ahead.  We are going to Dan’s mom & step-dad’s house to meet his step-dad’s sister.  She is from Texas and wanted to meet the kids and grandkids - it’s always nice to put a face with a name.  So, we are going to be grilling burgers and dogs at their place for dinner.  Dan is picking up our old neighbor and babysitter, Racheal, on his way home.  She is going to spend the night because we have a wedding to go to tomorrow.  The wedding is at noon and the reception is at 4 pm.  That pretty much takes up our entire Saturday, but in a way it is nice because I can feed Emma before the wedding and then again before the reception.  The wedding is for the guy that works for Dan.  He’s a great guy and his fiance seems to be quite nice as well.  So, that pretty much takes up our Saturday.  I’m a little excited about the whole thing because Dan finally got his Camaro all ready to drive and we’re taking that to the wedding.  I will try to get pics of the car and ourselves if I can figure out who can take the picture.  I’m not sure what I am going to wear yet.  I don’t really have a nice dress or dressy clothes for a wedding (at least none that fit).  The bad part is that I don’t really feel good out my post baby body, so it’s hard to even get excited about shopping.  I also don’t have much extra time to go and try on clothes, but maybe I will go shopping early morning since I have a sitter here.  :)  I’m not sure what our plans are on Sunday, but I’m sure we will try to get out to the boat after naps.  We’ll see how the day and weather turn out.

Baby update…Emma had her doctor appt last night and everything looked just fine.  She is on the bottom of the curve, but at least she is on the curve.  She weighs 10 lbs 4 oz and was 21" long.  The doctor wasn’t concerned about her size, she just said that she is petite and the only reason she would be concerned is if she didn’t continue growing with the curve.  She suggested starting solid food sometime between now and 6 mos, but agreed that it wasn’t anything that we needed to start right away.  It’s funny how as a first time mom you can’t wait until they can eat solid foods, but after number 2, you wait as long as possible to start the solid foods.  Who has time to deal with the mess of baby cereal and baby food when you have a toddler running around.  ;)  So, we’ll probably wait a few weeks to start that next phase.  I don’t know if I have mentioned, but she is pretty much sleeping thru the night every night now.  There are a few occasions where she will wake up early morning, but she pretty much goes to sleep around 8:30 and sleeps until 7:30.  WoooHooo!!!  She is usually quite happy and smiles easily.  It’s amazing how quickly a baby’s smile can change your mood.  She likes to stand up on our laps - I think she’s strengthening her legs in order to be able to get away from her smothering sisters (smothering with kisses).  :)

Well, I’ll try to get back later this weekend or early next week with pictures from this weekend.  I hope you all enjoy the weekend you have planned. 

I’m currently downloading 291 pics off my camera.  I have taken a lot of pics lately.  Pics of the kids, my weekend conference, and a few other miscellaneous things.  I’m a regular picture taking fool.  Not sure that they are all worthy, but that’s one of the greatest things about digital cameras and more specifically my Canon Rebel.  I absolutely love this camera.  It is so nice to be able to take pictures of my kids while they are busy and moving and actually have at least one of those pictures turn out really nice.  I still have a lot to learn about taking great pictures, but this camera takes better pictures than any other camera I’ve had.  I just can’t say enough about my love affair with my camera.  I’m even considering getting a better lens so that I can have great capability to zoom in without having to be in the way.  I’m sure it will be a while before I get that piece of equipment since they aren’t really inexpensive. 

We’ve been on the go a lot lately.  We’ve been out to the boat a few times, playing outside in the yard, and lots of other things too.  I had my leadership conference at my church this weekend and it was great.  The speaker, Craig Jutila, was amazing.  He is a great speaker and I loved his message.  It was mostly about being a great leader in regards to children’s ministry, but his speaking was more about honesty and the mess his life had become because of his service.  I don’t know about you, but I’m drawn to people who are willing to be completely open and admit that they don’t have everything all together.  It’s refreshing to hear well respected Christians admit their flaws and struggles.  He said that the reason he was being open and honest about his life was so that he might be able to spare fellow believers from the same type of struggles.  Anyway, I learned more about how we should be "real" than I did about how to be a better leader.  But I think that it’s important to be real and honest in order to be a great leader - that’s why his message worked so well.

About the boat…I haven’t even seen our boat in the water yet.  We’ve been to the marina, but we don’t make it past the pool.  We’ve also had plans to eat dinner out there a few times, but our plans have gotten foiled every time.  The weather seems to get real gloomy by dinner time and there is only one grill out there, so if we don’t get it right away, we’d end up eating too late.  Oh well, we’ve had a great time in the pool.  I’m sure we’ll eventually make it out the boat.  :)

My brother and sister-in-law just had their 3rd baby girl.  I think that it is their final baby, but I haven’t heard confirmation of that.  We’ve been so busy, that I didn’t even get a chance to go see my new niece.  You can check out their blog and see some adorable pics and get the update.  No birth story is simple any more.  It seems like every story has a twist and turn somewhere.  I’m sure all will be well in no time for little Lucia, but it just didn’t start out easy.  Congrats to Dino & Nina, I can’t wait to meet Lucia in person!

Finally, my 291 pics just finished downloading so I’m going to quickly scan them and see if there are any post worthy pics.  I’m sure I can come up with a few to show you.

Hot summer fun - the girls playing in the sprinkler at Grammy’s.  Manda - I’ve got lots of pics that I have to burn to a CD for you.  I’ll work on that.  :)

Eva’s Fancy Nancy B-Day party.  Look at all those adorable little girls all dressed up.  Thanks Eva for a fun dress up party!

These are the baby racoon’s that were in Dan’s back barn.  I made him take pics of them while he was trying to get them to go into the woods.  Somehow they got split, two and two.  Aren’t they adorable!?  Haven’t seen ‘em since, I hope they are still alive and well.  There was no mother to be found, so it’s hard to say.   

Here are a couple of the pics from my weekend conference.  They did a super cool communion time where we had to right something on the little postcard and then place it in the fish tank of water and we would take a piece of sea glass as a reminder of the commitment we made.  It was a very cool experience. 

And then, last but not least…Can you believe that Emma is 4 months old already?  I can’t believe it.  She is still so tiny that when most people see her, they think she is a newborn.  Which isn’t all that outrageous, since her new cousin, Lucia, is probably as big as she is.  :)  But, you can see that she is starting to grab at toys which means she is advancing well.  We have her 4 month check up on Thursday, so we’ll find out how well she is doing.  

Well, I better get to bed now.  I’ll post later this week with an update on Emma and her doctor’s appointment.  Until then, have a great week!