Jake was recommended for a volunteer position this week working as a range caddy for the member-guest golf tournament at Lake Quivira.  This 10 year old aspiring golfer just made $85 in tips today!  His responsibilities were to welcome players on the driving range, clean their clubs after they get done hitting balls on the range, and wish them good luck in the tournament.  There was quite a bit of rain delay today so a lot of the time he was shooting the breeze in the club house.  He is proud to report that he ordered his own cheeseburger for lunch, signed his own ticket, and gave the waitress a $3 tip.  I love that he is learning all of these little lessons.  I guess you have to learn about signing a restaurant receipt and tipping sometime right!?  And being respectful, courteous, and helpful to your elders is also a great lesson.  Jake, great job today!  I hope you get lots of tips the rest of this week and enjoy your time at the golf course either playing or being a caddy.  I could never resist this face, I would tip you big time!  Love you.

Oh no…the snaggletooth is getting worse!  Drew lost his 6th tooth last night.  I think this might be the most funny grin I’ve ever seen (next to my sister’s when we were growing up!)  I would like to insert a picture of her here but I don’t have one handy and she might slap me!  So for now, you’ll just have to envision it and admire this little cutie…

This actually happened several months ago but I was inspired to write about it today.  Most of you know that it’s very hard for me to admit that my kids are growing up!  It’s particularly hard for me to accept that my baby is no longer a baby.  I’m one of those weird people who actually likes all the baby gear…the strollers, the pack-n-plays, baby swings, carseats, and cribs.  The fact that I no longer heave around one of those awkward infant seats into stores and ball games and throwing my back out in the process, makes me super sad.  Ask my kids…every time I see a newborn in public I am immediately staring and wishing I had one.  Ugh…what is wrong with me!?  Don’t worry, there are no more babies coming in this household but I may have a future in volunteering to hold babies at a hospital sometime (thank you Jamie B. for your advice on that!).  This was Reece’s room when she came home from the hospital in May 2010…

This is a picture of Reece when we turned her crib into a toddler bed in July 2013 (look at her sweet face!)

My baby had been trapped in a toddler bed probably for too long because I couldn’t face up to the fact that she needed to be in a big girl bed.  So, we completely redesigned her bedroom and she is now in an appropriately sized bed!  She is also a complete disaster.  She does not clean up, she keeps every little treasure she finds, and stashes stuff in every crevice and corner.  Oh how this completely drives a person like me absolutely INSANE!  And she may be a little spoiled because she’s the baby!  This means she has A LOT of stuff.  Check out this picture and you will see how she likes to live vs. how I like to live…

And I just had to throw these pictures in because it cracks me up!  Who can sleep with this much stuff!?!?

And all of this STUFF came out of that room!  WHAT!?  How is it possible?

With the amazing help of my friend Jen and my mom, we transformed this tiny room into a beach-themed  paradise. I absolutely love it and I love the beach!  Probably more than Reece does.  I think she prefers a pig pen!  The road sign includes locations that she has been super lucky enough to visit in her 6 years.  Reecie, I hope you enjoy this new space to call your own and you let me hang out in there with you…love you to bits!

Thank you dad for finding those old fence posts for her sign!!  And I had some great painters helping me…

I totally agonized over the perfect color of coral!  Oh shoot…and the gray.  I think the painters actually had to paint the gray twice because I changed it after they painted it the first time.  oops!

This is a rendering sketch that our friend Jen did of the room and it is precious to Reece.  She loves it.  She even took it to Kindergarten to show her class and teacher.  She’s too funny!

This was her first night in her new bed…now she looks so small!  It won’t be long and she will fill up that bigger bed (most likely with stuffed animals!)

Sleep tight Reecie Cups…

 

If you see these two girls heading in your direction, you might want to hide or at least pretend like you’re on a phone call or something.  Ha!  I’m just kidding, they are pretty cute and hilarious but very strong personalities.  I caught these two girls playing office in the corner of our living room, brightly colored hair extensions and all.  I’m pretty sure no one would hire either one of them but they sure have a serious business going.  I can’t even begin to tell you what exactly the business is, but the customers sure are getting a mouthful from these two ladies!  And of course there is a plush animal stuffed in a giant slinky on their desk.  Everyone has to have their own personal office decor don’t they?

This totally brings me back to my childhood where I would play for HOURS and HOURS with my best friend Lisa.  We played office, dentist, school (Pawnee Learning Center), fabric store, city & gift store, legos, and I’m sure even more things.  We had so much fun.  I loved being a kid and I’m glad that my little Reecie is enjoying playing similar things when she has some free time.  Keep having fun Reece!

 

 

We never really seem to have definite plans on the 4th of July weekend.  It’s so close to Morgan’s birthday (she was due to arrive on the 4th but came a little early) and generally the baseball state tourney is around this time, so we just sort of wing it!

We usually spend some time at Brian’s parents house sometime during the weekend to shoot fireworks since it’s legal there in KCK.  The kids love it…they are turning into pyro’s which is quite scary to me!  They are learning this from Brian for sure.  Grandma & Grandpa love watching the grand-kids’ fireworks show and the high-light always seems to be catching the parachutes.  Everything is a competition with these kids…

Drew was playing baseball through mid-afternoon so we were only able to fit in a little bit of neighborhood pool time.  School/neighborhood friends of ours usually gather there with food and drinks and the kids go nuts in the pool.  Drew apparently didn’t have enough baseball in the morning so he took in a little pitching practice with dad in the front yard.  I was a total distraction of course trying to get pictures and videos and I’m pretty sure I was almost run down standing in the middle of the street.  I need to stop risking my life to try to document everything I suppose.

That evening the kids wanted to go to Freddy’s for dinner and this may be the one and only time I have not seen that place busy!

and Drew was trying to learn how to take selfies…we have some work to do here…

We made our way to Lake Quivira for their fireworks show.  The beach is full of families and teens (yikes!), docks are lined with people, and tons of boats on the water waiting to watch the fireworks that are set off on the dam.  We had so much fun, playing on the playground, throwing the frisbee and football, and swinging.  Reece became an expert at the monkey bars and probably did it 20 times.  This little 6 yr old is strong (and maybe a bit of a show-off)!

 

 

When it got dark there were bunches of kids decorated in glowsticks from head to toe running around the beach…it was so fun to watch!  Aunt Jenn & Bob joined us for the fireworks show and they were AWESOME…what a show!! Hope we get to come back next year!  And they brought us bug spray which we desperately needed.  From now on, I’m just keeping some in my van for summer activities!  Happy 4th of July…oh no…we are already half way through 2016!?!!

 

My twin brother, Greg, bought a lot at Linn Valley Lake this summer which came with a camper and a few headaches, but they have it up and running, looking good, and a paradise for kids!  He invited our family to come check it out on Saturday but it was becoming quite clear the weather was not going to cooperate.  Therefore, we made a quick decision to make an impromptu visit down there on Friday.  We were done playing baseball for a bit and our family can’t sit idle for long, so we grabbed leftover bday party food and drinks, some swimsuits & fishing poles and drove 50 miles South.  We still had a little bit of daylight left so we were able to be on the lake for a bit.  The kids enjoyed the lilypad, wave runner, some cousin time, and meeting the DeFrancesco family, old friends of ours from Olathe.

The kids were able to do some 4-wheeler rides too (I think Morgan and Alyssa were trying to scare me!)  I see driver’s ed in their future.

They were also able to do some fishing on a pond that is near the DeFrancesco’s lot.  Quite a few snagged and tangled fishing lines and some lessons from Papa but in the end, several fish were caught so I’m calling it a success!

Greg’s lot also came with a zipline.  He had to buy the trolley and the super cool light-up seat to get it moving and now it’s pretty awesome…except at the end you have to weave through some trees to make it out alive….

This is what happened to Morgan on her first time down…

Here are the war wounds to show for it…

and after 2 days…

Just cuts and bruises but that sealed the deal for me.  I probably won’t be getting on that zipline until that tree is cut down!  Needless to say, this did not deter any of the kids and I bet Reece went on that line about 30 times.  It also turns out that it’s not the best idea to ask the kids to pack for an impromptu lake trip.  Reece forgot underwear!  Oops!

We had a great dinner on the grill and started in on the fireworks.  I told you…this is a paradise for kids!  There was a fireworks stand a couple miles away and I’m sure Brian is frantically hiding all evidence of how much was spent, but either way, we had so much fun watching the show.

We ended the night with some night-time ziplining and s’mores and got ourselves back home about midnight.  We are loving our time there and counting just a few bug bites.  My sister-in-law keeps us in line on our bug spray – I swear she reapplies bug spray about every half hour, it’s hysterical!  Thank you Greg, Brandy, and kiddos for having us and hope we can invade your place again soon.  Don’t worry…we’ll bring food, bug spray, and work gloves.  Love your new summer paradise…

 

 

Yep…still got that funny grin!  Maybe by the time Fall ball comes around we will have a few more teeth but for now, I’m still saying it’s his good luck charm.  Even though, these kiddos came up one short in the semi finals, they still ended up taking 3rd place out of 20 teams!  This has been the never-ending KS State baseball tourney.  We played our 3 pool play games on Thursday and Friday and won them all.  Due to weather, we didn’t play on Saturday and Sunday, and the tourney continued into today.  Drew played 2nd base and made lots of great plays, numerous good hits, and many compliments from the crowd…super proud to be his mom!  His little school buddy Beau hit his first homerun this tourney which was very exciting as well.  They are fun to watch!

Behind this sweet smile is a bit of sadness that they didn’t advance to the final game, but we are perking up here as the afternoon continues (nothing a little AppleTV can’t fix).  As the season comes to a close, his baseball pants have definitely seen better days and he’s moved on to a 2nd pair of cleats.  Drewy, keep playing hard buddy, you are a great ball player and we love watching you!  Go Bulldogs!

 

 

 

Morgan is thirteen.  I’m going to say that one more time.  Morgan is thirteen, and even if I say it a thousand more times, I can still hardly believe it!  My baby girl is a teenager?  How did that happen?  I’m a mom of a teenager now!!  In my eyes, she’s one fabulous young lady!  Morgy, I’m so proud of all you’ve accomplished in your life thus far and I look forward to seeing the wonderful things you will do in the future.  You are so special to this family!  However, I do wish on a daily basis that you were still a baby 😉

She’s been so excited for this milestone birthday and I was bound and determined to make it special for her even if that meant barely sleeping for numerous nights.  She truly is deserving.  She helps out so much in our household and becoming a teenager is a big deal! I created a photo book for her of the last year and a video (and she got a new phone!).  I was hoping to get the video on YouTube to share in this post but that is proving to be a little harder than I thought.

Because our family schedule is so crazy, the only time we could find to celebrate was in the middle of the week!  Over the last few months, we discussed when we could have her party over and over again and it was driving us all nuts, even her aunts!  Yes…we are reduced to that now…a family meeting over bday party scheduling.  What is this world coming to!?  She wanted to do something special with her close friends so we planned a “Plaza Sleepover.”  Morgan rarely has sleepovers (thank goodness) but since this was a big bday we decided that would be fun especially if it involved spending the night in a hotel.  We got a babysitter for Reece & Drew (thank you mom, you rock!) and grabbed her sweet friends from school (Emma, Ava, & Ellie) and headed down to the Plaza with snacks, games, and party favors in hand.

We checked into the Marriott and the girls got a really nice room with a semi-panoramic view of the plaza.  perfect!  and Brian and I had a room right next door.

We got settled in then went to lunch at Chuy’s where the girls sat at their own table.  I guess it’s probably more fun to not sit with your parents.  They were so cute and I had to laugh because they all ordered off of the kids menu even though they are all 13! ha!

We shopped all around the plaza until about 5:00pm then went back to the hotel and the girls played cards and headbandz and ordered Minsky’s pizza for dinner.  These girls are so sweet, kind and mannerly, they let me take their picture multiple times.  If this were my boys they would have been moaning and groaning for sure!

They all freshened up and got into cute dresses (thank goodness we bought one for Morgan during our plaza shopping because she hadn’t packed an extra outfit).  They looked so adorable!  I was sending pictures throughout the day to their moms and I had to laugh when Emma’s mom, Stacey, was caught by surprise when she saw Emma in a dress that was Stacey’s.  Apparently Emma had raided her closet while she packed.  Yep…we are already at that stage where we can share clothes with our daughters!  We walked to the Melting Pot for chocolate fondue.  Morgan LOVES going there for the dessert…she’s a chocolate lover through and through.  They sat us at separate tables when we arrived but they were right next to each other and we quickly realized that they didn’t want us so close so Brian and I ended up in the bar!  I think we are kind of fun and cool but maybe we aren’t!?

We had a great time there but it was getting late and time to walk back to the hotel.  The girls tried on their party favors…personalized towel wraps.  Adorable!!  They looked so cute and they were giving me tips they have learned about photography.  I could definitely learn some things from these girls!

By 10:00a.m. the next morning I decided to knock on their door…they were sound asleep!  Morgan is normally an early riser…have we already entered into the ‘sleeping in’ phase!? We had missed breakfast at the hotel by now but thank goodness I brought the breakfast of champions….donuts, cinnamon rolls, and mini bundt cakes.  This is the way to start your day out right isn’t it!?  Hey, it was Morgan’s actual birthday and I’m a firm believer in eating whatever you want on your birthday.  We lit her candles, sang her happy birthday, gathered up our stuff and returned her friends back home.  We had so much fun…a nice break from our day to day activities.

And when we arrived home we discovered that Aunt Jenn had come over for some late night room decorating.  She had 13 balloons in her room with pictures attached.  So cute and a great surprise for Morgan!

I already had everything packed up and ready to go to Lake Quivira for her family party at the Yacht Club that was happening that evening.  This is A LOT of stuff…I wished I had taken a picture of it!   Running on adrenaline at this point…and hoping to transform that Yacht club into the best 13th bday party ever!  It’s actually quite nice on it’s own, a beautiful setting but we like to go all out on our celebrations!  My devoted helpers…Aunt Jenn, Nanny, Brian and Morgan helped so much hanging things and covering tables etc.  Without their hands, I would have been there all day and potentially passed out on the beach.  Reece and Drew were so cute just hanging out on the beach swimming around and gathering up shells.  I think they may have gotten the better end of the deal!

That evening we all gathered to celebrate.  The kids spent 99% of the time in the water…swimming, jumping off the diving board, playing in the sand, and fishing.  It was very hard to capture all of this on camera because it’s a lot of land to cover between the yacht club and the beach area at the Lake.  So I’m realizing that maybe I should just hire someone to come take pictures!  We had great food and a beautiful cake that we decided may have been prettier than our own wedding cakes.  lucky girl!

I think the ants were having a great ‘ol time as well.  Their bellies are full I know for sure.  We ended the night with morgan opening her gifts and the hi-light was probably Reece’s gift.  The boys had already purchased their gifts and wrapped them when Reece realized she didn’t have anything for her.  Bless her heart…she scurried around the house and picked out several little treasures that she thought were Morgan’s favorites and put them in a gift bag!  She was so proud of what she had done and the thought she put into it was so adorable.  We all know that she LOOOOVES Morgan.  She spent a couple of days creating her card.  Morgan thought it was a birthday cake but I quickly tipped her off that it was actually a jellyfish (she needed to turn the card upside down!)  hilarious!

My helpers came through again and helped me clean up and we had everything loaded back into our garage by 11pm.  I still have much to do to clean up but every little thing I touch from the party makes me smile about the celebration we just had.  I feel completely blessed to have a sweet 13 year old and many friends, neighbors, and family members that always show their kindness towards my kids.  Thank you for making this a very special memory for Morgan and for our family!

 

P.S.  MoMo, in the words of our friend Jamie Borgman, You are gonna rule the world one day! 😉  Love you to pieces.

 

I’m starting to see a bit of pattern here…my kids are trying to leave home!!   Seriously…this is a little much for me.  I just got one back and now another one is leaving! This adorable little group of soccer buddies are at youthfront camp for a few days.  I miss his sweet little face already but I know that he will have an absolute blast!  Thankfully he will only be gone 2 nights.  This camp looks pretty awesome and they have enough junk food and money on their accounts to have a 10 year old frat party.  YIKES!  I hope he will refer back to the note I slipped into his bag from time to time…

Youthfront camp is new to our family.  We signed up many months ago because they fill up so quickly and I can see why now.  There were a TON of people lined up to get checked in.  I hope my Jakers has everything he needs and chances are he will only come home with half of what he brought…he’s a bit of a scatterbrain when it comes to hanging on to things!

I already can’t wait for him to come home and tell me all about his adventure!!  Although, I am mildly afraid of his demeanor when he returns.  He doesn’t function well with lack of sleep and we are heading straight into Morgan’s 13th birthday party.  I’m praying for a super fun week for all of us and making lifelong memories!!  And maybe lets try to put a stop to this pattern of leaving home…it’s throwing this mom into a tailspin.

Love you to pieces Jake!!  Hope you are using your manners (he will laugh at this later because I tell him 50 times a day to use his manners).  ha!

 

Is it possible to miss someone so much that your stomach hurts!?  Mine did…for 6 days straight.  But she’s home safe and sound and this little lady had an awesome time on her mission trip.  Maybe too awesome because I’m not sure she missed us like we missed her!  She made some new friends, worked super hard, got very little sleep, and is already talking about doing this again next year.

They were supposed to arrive back to the church between 8-9pm on Friday night which I was not thrilled with since I was going to be at the Royals game with my brother and parents (a belated father’s day gift).   But, as it turns out, they were running late so I had plenty of time to get home from the Royals game and get to the church to greet her.  The kids wanted to see her too so they ventured up to the church with us at 11pm in their pj’s and jake was wearing all of his new favorite things (including his new cleats…that will need to be a separate blog entry).  I love that he was excited to share all of these new things with his sister even if he was sort of bragging 😉

The first van arrived and we had our sign in the air with a flash light shining on it and staring into that van looking for our Momo.

She wasn’t in there.  Then the second van came…she wasn’t in there either.  By this time it was raining on us and it was clear they were trying to torture us by putting her in the last van to arrive!  They finally pulled up and the lights were on inside the van and I could see her sweet face smiling at us.  I couldn’t tell if she was embarrassed or happy that we were making a spectacle of ourselves in that parking lot (I did not even care for a second if we looked like dorks or not!!)  We were the only ones with a sign and little siblings.  But many people commented how sweet that was that we did that for her.  Thank you Aunt Jenn & Shauna for pulling that together for us!  She later told me that she was tearing up when she saw us and our sign.  I still wonder if she will ever know how much she was missed.  She is the ‘glue’ to the family you know!

It was very late by the time they unpacked and finished with a group prayer…we hit our pillows by midnight.  We had to wait until the next day to hear about it.  As always, we had a busy weekend with a golf tourney and baseball so I caught up with her as much as I could between other responsibilities and hugged her every chance I got.  I know I’m smothering her and she probably wants to get back on that bus to Des Moines!  Brian was also traveling this week so I kept our schedule very busy so I wouldn’t think so much about it.  The dynamic of the house changes when anyone is gone for awhile.  Many of you know that I’m not a facebook person but I had to break down and create an account so I could join her youth group page and see pictures and updates of her trip.  I totally need a lesson on this facebook stuff.  I could barely navigate it but I was stalking it every 5 seconds to see if any pictures were posted.  I would magnify everything to see if I saw her…even just the back of her ponytail, or her shorts, or a familiar t-shirt.  obsessed.  Do people actually do this on a regular basis, I’m exhausted just doing this for a week!  So, I won’t be back on fb again until I am forced to for stalking purposes again. 😉

Each night, Greg, the youth group leader would send us an email about what went on each day.  Many times it was the middle of the night.  I’m serious…did these people ever sleep!?  I couldn’t wait to read it each day!  The kids and volunteers did some fun team-building activities, helped each day with children, cleaned clothes closets, packaged meals, washed church vehicles, visited a homeless camp, and ended the week with a tubing fun day.  Morgan really enjoyed the day when they packaged meals because they really accomplished a lot that day…over 14,000 meals packaged for needy people!

Here are a few pictures I pulled off FB:

 

Morgan, I’m so happy that you had a great time (even though you didn’t miss us!).  I hope you always have kindness in your heart, give back to others, and have some fun along the way!!

P.S. I also hope Reece will vacate your room…she’s been sleeping in your bed every night missing you to pieces.  XOXO