The amazing balancing act

Thank-ful notes

For Thanksgiving, I wrote notes to everyone at our Thanksgiving table telling them why I was thankful for them this year. Here are the ones written to our family so I can toss the actual paper:

Garrett:
We are so thankful you were born this year! We love you so much! We are glad to see your smiles and hear your giggles. We are glad you are eating baby food and that you take a bottle! We are so thankful that you sleep so good and that you're such a mellow kid. We're glad you love all the attention you get from your big sis'. We're glad you don't have a receding hairline anymore :) Karsten is glad that his friends like you and that you love him!

Morgan:
We are thankful for Morgan! We love you and are especially thankful that you got potty-trained so quickly, that you started talking, that you can buckle your own seatbelt, that you are such a good big sister, and that you make us laugh! Karsten is thankful that you help him.

Karsten:
We are so thankful for Karsten! We love you and are so glad that you continue to be our mellow child. We are thankful you graduated Preschool and that you started Kingergarten. We're thankful you love school, that you love Morgan & Garrett, that you love to read, that you're a good friend to everyone. We're also thankful that you make us laugh and that you learned to buckle your own seatbelt this year too.

Theron/Dad:
We are so thankful for you and we love you! We are especially grateful that you graduated and have a real job that you enjoy! We are glad that you love spending time with us-that you'll play, read & watch movies with us every day. We're thankful that you teach us so many things. Mom is grateful that you're always willing to give her a break and tell her to go shopping when we (the kiddos) are driving her crazy. Mom is glad you let her get her elliptical machine this year and that you love her. Karsten is glad that you play with him alot.

Too tight.

Look at me! I am 2 1/2 and I can wear baby Garrett's size 3-6 month sweatshirt ( I also got to pick out my own PJ's today, can you tell?).

Dad, we're ready for the farm.

Halloween

I didn't get any good photos this year...we were rushing around and Theron wasn't home so it was the last thing on my mind. We will have to get them back in their costumes for a photo shoot. The first picture is Karsten's classroom halloween party. Can you find Karsten?
For those who follow Karsten's school stories-his "used-to-be" bus riding pal, Quinn, is in the front with the glasses. His table mates are Gabby and Campbell (on either side of him) and Will (his best buddy in his class) that sits across from him. His teacher, Mrs. Myers is on the far right.
At our church Trunk-or-treat.
Just before leaving to trick-or-treat. Garrett is on the very end scrunched next to Morgan the chicken. He was a dragon.

Some Random Photos

On an hourly basis, I am telling Morgan to get out of my lipstick. This time, figured I might as well get a picture of her makeup artistic flare. Check out her lips. Looks like she's sporting the Katie Couric look. Did anyone else think she wore her lipstick like this or was it just me? :)o

Sneak peak at our Pirate. He waited a WHOLE WEEK for this to finally show up at our doorstep. It was a LONG week.

Garrett is trying to sit up on his own. He's got a strong back, but bad balance (or maybe he's just top heavy-all those brains, you know). So, we're still working on perfection.

Hey. This turned out to be a pretty fair post. A picture and a story about each kid :)

Halloween Tradition

We started a tradition, thanks to some friends when we lived in Iowa (who may be readers of this blog) of taking pictures of our naked little infants in a pumpkin. We've timed the birth of our children just perfectly so they can adhere to this tradition for us. So, this weekend we followed suit with #3, little Mr. Garrett. Here are the not so perfect results. We had a hard time getting him to look AND Smile. I think he was wondering what the heck was going on. For fun, I've loaded a picture from Karsten and Morgan's experience as well. Enjoy

Karsten 2004

Morgan 2007

Karsten, Garrett & Morgan 2009

Garrett 2009

Morgan got her haircut

Little miss Morgan got her haircut a few weeks ago. We went to Cookie Cutters by Mimi and Papas house (a chain for anyone looking for an entertaining place to get your kids haircut). The cut was nothing fancy, just the yucky ends cut off, but it turned out cute. Check out the braid and sparkles she ended up with (about 5 lolipops later..) ! I think she had a good experience. Thanks Mimi!

Mr 5 month old!

Here's our little 5 month old. I've promised pictures to the Auntie's for the last couple of days so here they are. Garrett is our little happy guy. We can count on him to smile and ah..goo all day long. Leave the rest of the chaos for his big brother and sister.

So, what else is he doing?...
--He's not so into cereal yet--he sleeps terrible the days he gets it :(
--He loves his binkie at nap time. He's working on getting it his mouth all by himself! I can't wait.
--I think he actually enjoys his carseat now. Our rides are much more pleasant--now it's just his big sibblings who constantly "need" something.
--He loves playing on his playmat, in the exersaucer and in his bouncy seat.
--He rolls over and over
--He takes good naps and is working on sleeping through the night...we're not quite there yet :(
--He loves taking a bath. He gets all excited when he hears the bath water running
--He has a big sister who loves to take care of him and he loves the attention (usually)
--He pretty much just goes with the flow and we love him for that!

Here is Garrett helping me in the kitchen.


He LOVEs playing on his tummy and is pretty close to scooting because of all the time he spends there.

We love him to death!
tHE eND

Cute kiddos

This picture is from last month, but I thought it was worth sharing. It was taken after bathtime one evening

A few photos from the week

This is my mini me. When I younger, I was infatuated with cash registers. I begged for one for a few years and finally got one for my 10th or 11th Birthday. I just brought it home for the kids to play with. Morgan knew you were supposed to put money in it and is seen here placing her coins in the cash drawer.

Had to capture this moment on camera-Karsten is NOT normally my little cleaning helper. But, look at him, he's really getting down and dirty here :)

Karsten came in to show me the HUGE butterfly he caught with his bare hands. He has a butterfly net, but apparently didn't even need it to catch this one!

What's wrong with this picture? I thought it was funny.

Last Saturday Theron and I ran a local 5K race. It had been quite a while since we've ran one together. We discovered one of the benefits of living in a small town......we both won our age division! ......We thought it was pretty funny so had to capture a photo.

On another note--I've had my MP3 player for 1 1/2 years. Today I ran for the FIRST time with my own playlist of songs and not to annoying radio commercials! It was great! What took soo long for us to download music?? Does anyone have any cool running songs? I'd love more!

What did you do today?

Karsten recounts his first day of Kindergarten:

All the kids met in the library and then went to the playground to play. When the bell rang they followed their teacher, Mrs. Myers, to the classrooms and checked their backpacks for anything that needed to go to her. They played a game in the classroom. They waited "a long time" playing. Then they had snack time--milk or chocolate milk and goldfish. Karsten doesn't like goldfish so he didn't eat any. He had chocolate milk to drink. They played on the playground again. When they went back to their classroom their teacher read them a book. They went back to their classrooms and played at their tables with "Unifix" (sp?) blocks, cubes and shapes. Then it was time to go home! We picked him up from school the first day and he said he had a great day and couldn't wait to go back the next day.

He's now completed his first week of Kindergarten. He started riding the bus and has enjoyed it. One of the kids in his class is on his bus and they have sat together every morning. The only downside is he was the first kid in the class to get in trouble, so hopefully Karsten is learning bad things from him :).

We hope his excitement continues and we hope he learns lots this year!

Kindergarten, here I come!

I can't believe how the time has flown. Karsten started Kindergarten today!! Really, we just went and met his teacher, explored the classroom, met some of his classmates and came home. The "real" first day is tomorrow. Karsten and I got to go together this morning and had a fun little time. He likes his teacher and is excited about all the fun things he'll get to do in his classroom. We are so grateful for a WONDERFUL preschool teacher (thank you Sister Bryner!!)who prepared him for this day. I give her more credit than I can take for where he is today.

Karsten is in morning Kindergarten which begins at 8:15a. I am dreading getting him ready on time in the morning, but today I was pleasantly surprised. He woke up before his alarm and got dressed before he came downstairs. He ate breakfast quickly (usually it takes him a good 30 minutes to finish his 3+ bowls of cereal) and was ready to go with 30 minutes to spare! WOW- Amazing (it really was :)- ) I hope this trend continues....

Anyhow, here are some pictures from this morning:

(In order: In front of school, before we left home- Karsten and then Karsten & Morgan, at His locker, the "1st" day of school, exploring the library, at the bug table in his classroom)

Garrett playing and Morgan dancing

To our Runner Friends

My sister showed me a cool website where you can measure how far you've ran/biked, etc. I haven't spent much time using it yet, but it could be helpful for those faithful runners or bikers. Perhaps this is old news and I'm just the last to hear about it, but if not you should check it out! www.mapmyrun.com

Garrett Smiles

These are the best I've been able to capture so far...

First Day of work

Today is Theron's first day of work!! I had to take a few momentous, yet unexciting photos this morning...
Eating Breakfast. His last meal before he starts his first real job. Isn't that exciting : )
Off he goes! (boo hoo for us..we've enjoyed having him around all month!!!)

We love you Theron and hope all this training has been worth it! Hope your first day is great!

IT'S OFFICIAL!

ODE to Theron...

Theron has officially graduated from Residency!! I am so proud of his huge accomplishment!! He graduated the last weekend in June and has the month of July "off". He starts working in his practice on August 1st so we have been enjoying having him around and exploring everything amoungst the cornfields that surround us :)

Here are a few pictures from Graduation weekend. We were lucky to have Theron's dad and brother with us. (And THANK YOU to 1) my parents for watching Karsten and Morgan for the weekend AND 2) to the Gibson's for allowing us to camp out at their place!)

And a cute photo of the kids the week after graduation

Motorhome Mania

Karsten has been quite interested in Motorhomes and Campers lately. Mimi, Papa and Ashley took him and Morgan to a dealership to check out the Motorhomes. They were given a specific list of poses that they needed to come home with since I was not going along. They did pretty good thanks to Aunt Ashley's photography skills. Here are a few to share-->