Daddy's girl? yep

Day Trip to Brazos Bend

We decided to head out to Brazos Bend one Saturday to see the alligators. No luck- turns out you have to come in the spring for all the action. We've been too scared in the past to go but decided that since thousands of visitors go each year and no one has died yet- that it's probably safe. Unfortunately it was too hot- so no gators and we melted. Thank goodness for the awesome visitors center. They had baby alligators, snakes and tons of cool fossils and rocks to look at. We had a great time. Until next spring...

Hangin with Tara and Rubin!

We got together with Tara and Rubin a few times at the end of summer and it was so fun to be with their cute family! Kasianna is a little charmer and baby Jonah is so adorable! We did some swimming and went to the children's museum. Love the pic by the cow. I think Lucy is saying "Not this kind!!!!"

School Starts

We booked it back from Utah (return trip is too painful to recount- just a blur of eating lots of Twizzlers, Twix, pop, chips, fast food, hearing Lucy cry and the boys fight... yep, let's not talk about it anymore.

Anyway, all the boys are in school this year!! I can't believe it. They don't have half day Kinder here, which really stresses me out. But the good news is that the teachers are great and they let the kids rest and have snacks and it seems to be going pretty well. On the first day of school all the other kids at Daniel's table were crying. :( He actually held it together pretty well.

All the boys like their teachers so far, which is great. Jonah actually has 4 different teachers- he's only in 4th grade. This kind of drives me crazy. I know it's less work for the teachers but it's a lot for the kids to juggle. Jonah's also in challenge this year, which means he has to catch up on one day of schoolwork each week. So far it seems to be working and he loves the "thinking outside the box" aspect of challenge. Isaac LOVES his teacher this year. She is terrific. I'm so impressed with Isaac. He works so hard and it really pays off. His reading is totally taking off- he's almost to the point of being able to read an A to Z mystery by himself! Yea!!

I have been volunteering for various activities in the boys' classrooms but it is so hard to be everwhere at once. Especially since there is a strict no sibling policy. Arghh! I'm reading "The Boxcar Children" to Jonah's class and painting a ceramic piece for Daniel's. I get to read to Isaac's class in a couple of weeks, which will be fun. I've forgotten a few impt things this year and they all have happened with Isaac's teacher- I know she thinks I'm a total flake. Arghh!

Kuddos to me, I haven't let the kids buy lunch once this year. Partly because I can't be bothered to set up their lunch account and partly b/c I'm trying to make up for last year. They bought a LOT! I found some awesome water bottles for them here. I'm trying not to use so many bags that get thrown away and have found some good tupperware pieces that are working pretty well. Okay, that's all.

NF's in Utah

Church in Utah

Cute cousins all ready for church. Me and Steph

Stop in Moab on the way to visit Rich and Steph

So we are crazy. We decided on a Wednesday to go to Utah and left Friday morning. We have never really traveled more than 8 or 9 hours- not with kids anyway. Crazy. I can now officially say New Mexico is my least favorite state. ugh! I love DVD's in cars. Somehow I talked Curtis into listening to "Twilight" on CD. How was I supposed to know that the narrator had the most irritating voice on the planet and her interpretation of Edward's "velevet voice" was almost enough to make me not love him. To Curt's credit, we listened to the whole thing and he agreed that it wasn't the worst book he ever listened to. Score 1 for Cathy!

We ate really well on the way there. I had a huge tupperware of cut of watermelon and canteloup and another of fresh veggies. Lots of crackers, cheese and yogurt and water bottles for everyone. The kids were actually pretty good- minus some wrestling matches in the backseat. The main problem is that Curtis and I aren't great travelers. I get a serious headache when I drive for more than a couple of hours and Curt's back cannot take too much time sitting up. waaahhh. I know- we're old.

We had fun driving through Cortez- which of course always makes me think of my old BFF Naom. She called us a millino times to give us tips and tell us interesting facts about CO and that area. Love ya Naom!

Anyway we stopped in Moab for a couple of hours on the second day and it was so beautiful and amazing to just sit in the grass without fire ants attacking! The best part was that Lucy randomly started crawling for the first time. i think it was an automatic response to being locked in a carseat for 20 hours!

Working on this

I discovered an awesome tutorial for making a cathedral quilt here. I decided to give it a go. Here is what I have so far. I can't decide how to finish off the edges. Should I put a border around it? Just white, maybe a cute brown and white polka dot? Can't decide...

Lucy Eats Dirt

Minnesota & Ontario

So we went back to Minnesota and Canada this summer for a visit. It was so great to see our family and old friends there. In many ways Minnetonka feels like home to me. We lived there for almost 9 years, had our first three children there and LOVED our friends, neighbors, church, school, co-op... Guess I still miss it a bit. We decided to fly into Minneapolis and then rented a car to drive the 8 hours to Dryden. The car ride wasn't bad. We forgot how beautiful Minnesota is. We stopped in Orr at our favorite little hotel there. It's an AmericInn with a pool and really fun water slide. We all went swimming and had a great time! No trouble at the border this time and no moose or deer sightings on that crazy last 2 hour stretch. :)














We had a great time at Granny Turners. She set up Granny's boot camp in the basement for our boys and their cousins, Clint and Tyler. They had a ball. The weather was pretty awful and Jonah's allergies to the cats were pretty bad but we still enjoyed long walks, good talks, a few games of Quiddler, great food including Granny's blueberry cheesecake and Great Gran Brisson's rhubarb pie. Yum! The wedding the beautiful and Sara and Jonathon looked so happy. It was really great to see so many memebers of the Brisson clan- we even got a picture with a LOT of us there! Later that week, we took a freezing dip into lake Wabegoon (so cold I couldn't form words), enjoyed some kayaking and a great meal by Suzie and Rod. One of my favorite moments was when all the kids were rocking out to "Eye of the Tiger" on Noah and Olexa's Rock Band game. They were singing like they meant it.














We drove back to Minneapolis and stayed there for 3 days, catching up with old friends. Jonah was reunited with his 4 Kinder/1st grade buddies from Groveland. It was so fun to see how big all the kids have gotten. I LOVED seeing the hydrangeas on Vine Hill Road- absolutely amazing! We hung out at Wekota beach for an afternoon and spent a day at the Thomas' where of course we were fed well and had lots of laughs. It was good to get back to our own beds and out of a suitcase but dang- we miss our friends/family in the North.

4th of July

Kids, swimming, fajitas, glowsticks, candy, fireworks, friends... I love Independence Day!

Addicted. To. Baby Legs.

I found baby legs online while searching for comfy baby tights. They seemed they best idea! Easy on and off and no hassles while diaper changing. I'm not a big fan of baby shoes so that worked out too. I bought a couple of pair online and they are very cute but I wanted some other patterns and while searching around discovered a great tutortial on how to make your own. I saw these socks on sale at Target and had to have them! Added bonus: padding on Lucy's knees while she crawls around on the tile floor. Fashion and function!


http://everythingyourmamamade.com/2008/01/21/make-your-own-baby-leg-warmers/
Sorry, can't be bothered to figure out how to make that a link. I'll work on it later!!

Swim Team

Okay, so I am so tortured about kid's activities. I love sports and music and want my kids to have all those experiences. But it is so hard to schedule it all in. I see some families who are so overscheduled that they can barely eat together and I don't want that. I think it's pretty much inevitable once you have teenagers but at least while the kids are young I would like to have as much family time as possible. Curtis is a big fan of down time for the family. Just relaxing, playing games, reading, having a swim. Having said all that, we signed the boys up for swim team. It was insane. Practice 4 days a week for the last month of school and then every morning at 8am for the month of June. 5 or 6 meets that last for 4 hours (in the sweltering heat with a sticky, nursing baby- arghhh!) But towards the end of the season I found myself saying that maybe we should do it again next year. Swimming is such a great sport and the boys love to be in the water. It's one of those things you can still do when you are 80, which is pretty unique.

The hole in our backyard

We finally decided that since it's HOTTER than the sun here and you can swim 9 months out of the year that we should think about a pool. It was really cool to see it put in. When I got back from the weekend with Lisa, this is what the backyard looked like.





The kids were so excited to swim in the pool that we let them while it was filling up. Even Lucy had a bathe (I just finished reading "A Room With A View" and LOVED it. My favorite scene was the pond scene, same as the movie. :O)






Finally finished! The best thing about this pool is that it's saltwater. We hate chlorine and salt water is a completely different experience. We LOVE it!