God, thank you for magnets! Amen.

Last night I had the wonderful opportunity to have my niece, Sophia, stay over night at my house. Her brother got very sick and ended up in the hospital. He's doing much better now but last night Sophie needed somewhere to sleep and I gladly volunteered. I had let Ryan put the kids to bed and was enjoying some time with my friend Amy when the kids started begging that I come up and say good night. After dragging myself upstairs unwillingly I was blessed in a major way. The girls all wanted to say prayers so I let them and Joey and Hayden's prayers were precious but really pretty repetitive of past prayers. Then Sophie started her prayer.

Sophia's prayer:
Dear God,
Thank you for loving me God and for wrapping your heart around me. Thank you for my friends, for my bunk beds, for my family and for my grandma and my grandpa. Thank you for scissors and for paper to cut. And God do you know what? I think you're wonderful! Thank you for magnets.
Amen

This little girl just turned 4. I was so blessed by the simplicity of her prayer yet the depth at the same time. God has wrapped His heart completely around us in many different ways! He sent His only son to die a horrible death just for you and me. God loves us so much that He found a way that we can continue to sin, like He knew we would, but yet He can still see us as white as snow and love us as though we hadn't just torn His heart in two with the sins that we continually commit. She also just seemed to get what a prayer was at her young age; a conversation between her and her wonderful Heavenly Father! I am so lucky to have Sophia in my life! I love her dearly! Thank you for the humbling lesson in prayer last night sweetie!

Not perfect

If ever I thought that I was on the verge of being a perfect mother it was all shot down this week. Christian has been learning a new word every week at school. We get a list of these words and had I reviewed these words sooner I could have seen this coming. Christian jumped into the car after school and got all buckled in along with his sister and we were off. The kids were just chattering away when all of the sudden Christian piped up above them all.
Christian: "Mom?"
Mom: "Yes Chrsitian."
Christian: " I really wish our house was orderly."
Mom: "What!?"
Chrisitan: "I really wish our house was orderly because our house is always messy."
Mom: "Sorry buddy that's just the way it goes sometimes."

In the back of my mind all I could think of was, "Did he tell his teacher this?"
Oh well. Maybe in a few years our house can be orderly Christian. Especially if I have 4 little helpers instead of destroyers.! :)

Boy that boy is cool!

Well in the last three weeks Christian has really grown up!

First off he can officially ride his own bike (not his sisters) all by his self.

The second thing is that he has finally lost his first tooth. He already has two of his adult teeth grown in, so there's only a little hole where the baby one used to be.

He was sooo proud of losing this thing. He didn't cry when I actually pulled it. 3 minutes later when he looked in the mirror and saw the blood however is when the water works started! I really wish I would have gotten it on camera.
After he had shown his tooth to everyone that was at their house he decided he would write a story about it.

The cover page is to Mrs. Strong which says, " Ihope you like my story."The story says:
Once upon a time there was a boy. He lost his tooth.
Boy that boy is cool!
The end

I thought this was priceless!!
He sure is growing up fast!!!

Another year older

Well within a week we celebrated two birthdays. Hayden turned 6 and Joey turned 5. They both think that over the night before their birthdays that they grew. Hayden thinks that she can now read because she's six. She's getting closer but not quite there. Joey thinks that pants that were too big for her two days ago should now fit her. Sorry Joey, I think that you might end up being vertically challenged. :( The days turned out to be pretty big successes. Hayden actually got to celebrate her day for a day and a half because of Daddy's work schedule which was just fine with her. Joey turned out to be like I was with just being completely excited that the day was all about her. I hope she is always like that! The cakes weren't nearly the disasters that Christian's was. I even got it down to only two cans of frosting. Here are some pictures of their days.

Hayden insisted on a pink horse with sparkles on it.She seemed to really like it.When opening her gifts she didn't take much time to actually look at them. We made her hold up this one so we would have a least one present on record.Here's Hayden wearing her new tapping shoes that both Joey and her were dying to have!!!

Joey got to look with me on the computer to figure out which cake she wanted. She finally decided on a duck after looking for an hour.

When Joey came downstairs the morning of her birthday she immediately started trying to guess what was inside each box. Who does that sound like? (Grandpa Werling):)

When she started opening her gifts she discovered that she had only gotten 2 of them right. Maybe after a little more practice she'll have it down to a science.:)

Sorry it's been so long since we've posted a blog. We had some trouble with our pictures downloading. We promise we'll get you caught up.

Thank you for this deal!

I was thinking about all of the funny things that our kids say so I thought I would share the latest funnies.

The other day it was just Kinnick and I at home for the morning. He came up to me while I was doing something and he asked, "Mom can I please have a snack?" This was right after I had just given him a fruit snack so I said, "No." He thought that if he continued to ask my answer might change so he did so about three more times. After my third no it got pretty quiet for a while until I heard this very sad, "Mom." I stopped what I was doing and gave him my full attention.
Kinnick: Mommy?
Mommy: What Kinnick?
Kinnick: Mommy, I might die if I don't get a snack.
The way this three year old asked was so pathetic and sad that I died laughing and then gave in.

Joey came up to me one day out of the blue and stated, "Mommy, you are so compilated!"
I did spell that right she must have heard someone else say that they were complicated and then repeated it. I'm not really sure where it came from however because, to my recollection, neither Ryan or I have ever said that to the kids (not that we haven't thought it!).

Christian has had to wear a patch on his right eye for the last two weeks because his left eye is weak. He had a neighbor friend over yesterday while he was wearing his patch and the neighbor asked, "Why do you have that patch on your eye?". After a little bit of silence Christian looked at the neighbor with the most serious face and told him, "My eye fell out." Ryan and I both died laughing! He was so serious.

Every night we say prayers with the kids before they go to bed. Hayden insists that she says a prayer as well which is fine with us. They have listened to us say prayer and now copy what we say at the beginning of our prayers. Ryan always prays, "Dear God, thank you for this day...." Hayden for the longest time mumbled very bad while she said her prayer and we have just recently made her speak clear while she prays. When we could finally understand what she was saying we realized that, at bed time, she would say, "Bless this food to our bodies and make us healthy and strong." twice. We also realized when opening her prayer she would say, "Dear God, Thank you for this deal...."
This struck me funny because our days at times seem to be quite the deal.
Although they are messy and loud and full of pure chaos we still need to be thankful that God has provided the day for us to live and praise Him!
So... Dear God, I truly do thank you for this deal that you've given us to live through and be blessed by!

Weird Events

Well school is well under way and we have had some weird things happen already. Two days ago Hayden came home and informed us all that she now has a boyfriend. SHE'S IN KINDERGARTEN!! Daddy was not very happy. I think Hayden might have a tough time convincing Ryan that she can date.:) This is definitely a different story than when she was convinced that her daddy wasn't a doctor but was in fact Super Man.
Christian came home yesterday and told us that in art class they learned about Vincent Van Gogh and they watched a video that talked about him cutting his ear off. We didn't think anything of it until bed time came and he, all of the sudden, was terrified to go to sleep. They must have played some scary music in the video while they were talking about Van Gogh's ear. We contemplated whether or not he was just trying to get out of going to go to bed until the tears started pouring down his face. Poor guy!!! Who knew History could be so scary.
Joey and Kinnick haven't done anything too surprising yet so I'm chalking it up to grade school. I'm now making sure that I enjoy every moment of the preschool years that I have left. If the last few days are a hint of what is to come I think that we're in for a rough road!:)
I'm sure it will be just fine but is a little surprising right now!

She did it!!!

Well after a long summer of Joey trying to learn how to ride her bike with the help of her dad and mom she decided that she would just learn by herself! Her best friend Hannah came over one day this week and helped her because she had already learned how to ride (which is what started this whole endeavor). Two days later Joey got her bike out and took off by herself. She's not so great at steering through tight places. We found this out when she ran over her sister who was sitting on the sidewalk. Oh boy was Hayden mad! Other than that she was doing great.
Once Joey is determined to get something done it will be done!!

She got to be great at riding until we decided to go on to the sidewalk where she was a little more limited as to where she could ride. It really frustrated her for a while but she didn't give up and now can ride anywhere she wants! She even made her brother a little upset that she could ride and he couldn't so he got on Hayden's bike and learned as well. He was doing great until the chain broke on his bike and we had to take a break to go get his old bike. For some reason the ride from here to Grandma yellow house made him scared and it was a war to try to get him to ride back. I think we're back to square 1 and a half. Not quite as bad as it was but not really riding on our own anymore. Oh well maybe this weekend he'll learn. I'm not really sure that Hayden has any interest at all yet. Needless to say Joey is the go getter of the family. She has accomplished many things before her brother and sister.
It kind of freaks me out!!!

School Days

Well we've officially gotten everyone off to school. Today, Joey was the last one to start. They are all doing very well.

Christian has only gotten in trouble a couple of times for giggling at the class clown.

Hayden has a few mornings where she doesn't want to leave Mommy but overall she is doing well. Now we just have to get her to remember the names of the friends that she makes!

The biggest problem we have with Joey is getting her to want to leave preschool. She loves it there. She did say that her legs wouldn't stay in pretzels today. What a rough life when that is your biggest problem of the day!

Kinnick is quite the character! When I dropped him off yesterday he acted like he knew exactly what he was doing and where he was supposed to be. I guess that he has been riding back and forth for four years now while I've dropped everyone else off. He is very happy that it's his turn now!

Hopefully this year ends up being full of knowledge and fun (and a little bit of break for Mom).

Christian's 7th Birthday

Yesterday we celebrated Christian's 7th birthday. He decided that he wanted to be batman for most of it as you can see above. We had a lot of fun! We went to church in the morning where Christian walked around all morning saying that it was his birthday to the air and then was surprised when people would tell him Happy Birthday. He would say, "How did you know it was my birthday?" After that we came home and grilled out. When that was over I finished his cake.

This is what his cake was supposed to look like.

This is what it ended up looking like.

fgThis is how many containers of frosting it took to get the cake to look like that.
While I was trying to make the boat the cake split in half after I had already started frosting it so then I had to piece it back together and frost it again. We kept telling Christian that we were going to have cake flavored frosting for his birthday.

It was a pretty rich piece of cake that's for sure!!

After I got done making the cake we went on a bike ride that took over an hour to get started. We rode to Pickard Park and played at the playground.
While we were there Christian practiced riding his scooter around that he got


and broke his two new Bokagon toys that we got him. (when I figure out what these toys are I'll let you know)


After we got home Christian blew out his candles.

We ate his cake,


and then had fun with his Kung Fu Panda party masks.

It was a blast!!!
Luckily this year he isn't sad because he can't be 6 anymore like he was last year.

Football Season Has Started!!!

Well yesterday was the official start to the Iowa football season. The Iowa Hawkeyes played the Maine Black Bears. Luckily we beat them 46 to 3. Ryan and Ron (Ryan's dad) both threatened to never come back if we had lost. Yeah right!! We decided to take Christian to the game beings it was supposed to be pretty good weather and there was also a good opportunity that we would be able to leave early.

A good time was had by all!!

We saw a lot of cool things while we were at the game.


Christian started asking if he could go home 2 minutes into the first quarter so I decided to walk around with him in the concourse after half time where he seemed to have the most fun of the day.



He played on the statues,

and after saying hi to every policeman he could find he finally found two that would take their picture with him.
He really likes policemen and police cars!

Overall a good time was had by everyone!!!