Another fish story...

This is a bass that Jared caught a few weeks ago, and I tried to get him to write up the story, but he's been so busy. Anyway, it's such an awesome story, but I'm sure I won't get it quite right. He and his brother Jake were fly fishing in the Milwaukee River, even using flies that Jared had tied. So, Jared gets a small bite, and then all of a sudden he's fighting a bigger one, and he ends up catching the big bass because it was eating the smaller one! So, he got two in one. What are the chances?

Labor Day Weekend

As usual, I'm a little behind posting this, but I wanted to get some of the pictures up from the latest visit from Jared's Mom and Dad. For those who don't know, we live about an hour away from his brother Jake, so when Mom and Dad come to visit, they get to see all five cheesehead grandkids--check out the picture! All the adorable curly-headed kids belong to Jake and Nicki. It was a really fun weekend, we had a delish dinner that Jared did on Saturday--Bobby Flay's skirt steak with avacado relish and chipotle sauce, corn, and fancy beans, finished with a lemon verbena sorbet. Yum! Then Sunday we went up to Jake's for another yummy meal--the picture of the kids on the blanket was them eating the fabulous homemade bread! Then Monday we went to a Cubs game, which was way fun, even for me! I honestly was trying to talk Jared into taking John instead of me, but he promised I'd have fun, and I totally did. Wrigley is so charming, with the old-timey feel--no modern "jumbotron" or tons of ads all over, and being able to see the lake was beautiful, too. It was windy, but that was nice, because it was quite a hot day. It was so exciting, even though they didn't even score. Oh, well. Go Cubs! By the way, thanks SO MUCH to Emily and JJ for taking our kids that day, which was probably the real reason why I enjoyed the game so much! :o)

Mom and Dad left Tuesday, so it was a short visit, but it was so fun! Thanks for coming out!

See the lake in this picture below? Doesn't that look perfect!It was so fun to catch glimpses of the people working behind the scoreboard as they changed the numbers and stuff!Notice the watermelon yarmulka--just thought that was interesting! :o)

Mantis and more...

Last Friday while we were playing outside, all of a sudden, John says there is a praying mantis, and I think to myself, yeah right! But, I should know by now to not doubt him--he knows what he is talking about. Check this out! By the way, after I took these pix and some prodding from Jared, I decided I could catch it, for which I am now officially Mother of the Year. I put it in my trifle bowl, then later Jared and John made an all-out mansion for the mantis, and even bought crickets for him to hunt. This was in my kitchen for most of the week, for which I am about to be Mother of the Century! :o) It was actually kind of interesting, but luckily the kids weren't too distraught when we realized it had died. We once again are pet free. Whew.
Here are the kids playing outside...

Birthday boy..

Here are pix from the many celebrations of John that we had. On his bday we brought cupcakes to the park when we met some friends there, but it wasn't his official party (I just had planned to do his party later since the end of August is so crazy).

We also did cupcakes that weekend when G & G Morton came to visit...(I'll post some more pix of the visit in another post)

Then we finally did a small party--Kung Fu Panda style. John wanted to keep the plate, and we still have it! I thought it all looked so cute with the black and red, but almost immediately some killer bees were attacking us. Seriously the kids were freaking out, so we moved everything out of this shelter and over by the playground. Oh, well, that's what I get for doing an outdoor party, right? It was fun, though, and I think all the kids had fun. I know John did!!

Look at Sara in the picture below--it looks like her plate is levatating!
After the party, John went right to work lining up his gifts, of course!!

It is so crazy to me to realize that he is four now! I remember so well how I felt when I found out I was pregnant. We had been trying for a year and a half, which I now realize was such a blessing, because I just wanted to be a Mom so much! Anyway, things went perfectly through the pregnancy, but as soon as labor began, I felt like something wasn't right. Long story short, he was in distress and it ended up being an emergency C-section. It never got too scary, but I remember so well thinking that he could have died so easily if it had been a hundred years ago, and I feel so blessed for good medical care. He has brought so much joy to Jared and me, and all our friends and family. We love you, John! Here are some baby pix of mini Jared, oh, I mean John...

Check out the pain meds on the table by me--oh, yeah, I didn't mention that my incision came open and then had to heal on it's own, which took about two months--fun.

Sorry, I couldn't figure out how to rotate this one, which shouldn't be that hard, right? Oh, well.

Firemen are cool!

Okay, so if you didn't know, we live right by a fire station, and the kids, slightly influenced by their father, absolutely love this! Anyway, here are some cute pix from our latest visit with friends, where the fireman really went above and beyond and gave a great tour. He put on his "turnout gear," turned on lights, showed them scissors that could cut the truck in half (which John hasn't stopped talking about), and even came down the pole. Wow, you'd think John would now want to wear his fireman costume for Halloween, but he wants to be Tigress.




This was interesting--he said he likes to get in the gear to show the kids so they won't be afraid in case they ever really see a fireman like this.

Growing up

So, even though John thinks he is now bigger than the high school kids, alas he is not. I have agonized over the decision, but anyway, since he is a late August birthday and we get to choose, we are planning to hold him to be older in his grade. Maybe it's just the control freak in me coming out, but anyway, I just want to keep him home longer I guess (and some days, I think I am insane for this). So, for school this year, I am doing a preschool program that is called Joy School. A friend of mine and I are the teachers and we are loving it so far--especially because we each get a morning without the kids each week. Anyway, all you want to see are the pictures, right? So, here are John, Sara, and Gabe on the first day. (By the way, Sara thinks she is all grown up now, too. She refuses to say she is two. She is two and a half!)

If you'll notice, John is holding "Tigress" from the Kung Fu Panda movie. It was the first movie we ever took them to in the theater this Summer, and to put it mildly, John LOVED IT. Especially Tigress, even though she is a girl. What can we say? When the boy gets on a kick, there is just no way to distract him. All he wanted for his birthday were the 2 McDonald's toys that he didn't have. So, yes, I went to trusty old Ebay to buy the Tigress and Tai Lung figures, but boy, was he happy!! John now thinks we can buy anything that we want from the computer...

These other pictures are from the day John decided to be Tigress and drew stripes on himself. The good little boy even asked me if he could, and I agreed and gave him the washable markers, which then wore off on all kinds of soft surfaces throughout the house--oops! Oh, well. Anything to help a budding imagination bloom!

The next pictures are of the kids on their new beds! Thanks to the generosity of one of my friends from church, and thanks to her sons for growing too fast, my kids now have beautiful beds. They love them so much. Got to love hand-me-downs, especially real, hardwood maple beds that I love. This was really a blessing, and I hope I can "pay it forward" someday. I think my babies are offically grown up now! :o)

Jared is happy again!!

I haven't posted in a while, but thought I better put up this post even before I try to catch up on other things that have happened in between. See, Jared caught a 35 inch, 13 lb. brown trout in Lake Michigan tonight from a buddy's boat, so things seem right with the world again. Whew. No, seriously, check this out!!

He had promised John he'd show him if he caught a fish, so he rousted him out of bed. I'm pretty sure John wasn't too impressed, and I think Sara was having visions. Anyway, it was fun.