Decorating Cookies

The other day Mom went grocery shopping and brought all 3 of us kids! We actually did really well at the store. We left right after she fed Marisa so she was in a good mood too! When we walked into the grocery store they had a display of cookies! They also had my favorite kind! Sugar cookies with frosting and sprinkles! Of course we asked if we could buy some and she said no. She told us we can bake some cookies when we get home. So we ended up picking up some frosting and some decorations for the cookies. Noah came over after lunch and I had to go to my Children's Farm class at 1:00pm. Mom made the cookies while I was at class and when I got home all three of us got to decorate the cookies. We had so much fun! I told Mom that this was much better than buying them at the store. She even let us eat a couple of them while we were decorating! Below are some pictures Mom took while we were decorating. Enjoy!


I was really into putting a lot of frosting on the cookies


Nicholas eating one of his creations


Showing off our cookies


Mom wanted us to smile nicely, but me and Nick couldn't do it!


Don't they look yummy?!

I've Started To Wean Marisa/Sleeping Through The Night

I've started to wean Marisa off of breast milk. She has been doing really well. She is already on 3 bottles of formula a day. She only eats 5 times a day now too since these last few days she has been sleeping through the night. The last couple nights she has gone 9 hours! She is such a good girl! Below is a picture of Nicholas feeding Marisa a bottle. He was so proud that he could do it just like Jon did (sorry, no picture of Jon feeding Marisa). I always said that if I could nurse this 3rd child that I would like to go for 3 months. I almost made it and I could have done it, but I realized it is just so much easier for me to not be tied down. Oh well! She is definitely a healthy girl!


Look how proud he is!

Mike's Company Picnic

Every year Mike's company throws a picnic and invites the entire family to go. This year they had some inflatables that the kids could play in, Volleyball, Bocce Ball and a few other sports. The big hit of the picnic was the Dunk Tank. It was pretty cool! They had a bunch of Directors and Managers signed up to sit in it. The first to go was Mike's boss, Mark. It took awhile for someone to actually hit the target, but when they did it was a good splash! There were a few other people that went after him and Jon managed to dunk 3 people right away. I kept on telling him to pretend that the target was Daddy's glove and it seemed to work! I told him to save his throws for Daddy because he was going to be sitting in the tank later. When it was Mike's turn, I unfortunately did not get good pictures of him because I was in line to see if I could dunk him! It was a great picnic and the boys had a lot of fun! Below are some pictures and I got some good motion shots of Mark in the Dunk Tank. Enjoy!


Mike's boss, Mark waiting to get dunked!


Jon's turn to throw the ball


Nicholas was next

Motion shots of Mark getting dunked!

Daddy's turn in the dunk tank.

No motion shots of him, but I did manage to dunk him on my first throw! :)

Jon & Marisa

Jon was holding Marisa the other day (he always wants to hold her) and she was just all smiles when he was holding her. So he yelled for me to get the camera and I managed to get a couple good shots of both of them smiling. Too cute!

Guess What Marisa Likes To Do?

Marisa was taking a nap earlier this week on her bouncy seat and this is what I found when I checked on her. She was sucking her thumb! It was so cute! Although I would rather have her sucking on a Nuk, she sometimes does this too. It is funny because Lola will always move her hand away when she catches her looking for it and Marisa gets SO mad! I usually take it out and than give her the Nuk right away so she is not too mad. I had to post these because I thought she looked so cute!

Jon's 2008 Summer Tee Ball

We signed Jon up for Summer Tee Ball again, but we went with St. Croix Valley Athletic Association this year instead of Woodbury. Most of the kids in his class play sports though this league so we thought it would be better for him to play with his friends. There was 5 kids from his kindergarten class on his team. He was so excited. I didn't get that great of pictures this year, but I did manage to get a few good ones of him fielding the ball at Shortstop. He looks like a natural! Next is soccer! He starts in Aug and it will be interesting because Mike and I know nothing about soccer. We didn't sign him up last year which would have been the fundamentals camp so this one he actually plays games and has practice. We will see how it goes!:) Enjoy the pics!


Running to 1st base


Collage of him fielding the ball from Shortstop


Getting ready with one of the coaches


Father & son


I told Jon he had a great jersey number! That is the number I wore in High school!


They got a trophy and medal at the end of the season

The Children's Farm

This Summer we decided to do something different for the boys. Our neighbors told me last summer about this place called The Children's Farm which is located in Stillwater and not that far from our house. It is basically a Farm that allows kids to feed the animals, plant some seeds, learn about farming, and a bunch of other neat stuff. I heard great things about this place so I called them last year to be on the mailing list for this summer. They have summer classes that fill up fast! They sent out the registration back in Jan. or Feb. and I had sent our registration in about 4 days after receiving it and I didn't get my first choices for classes for the boys. I signed Nicholas up for the Preschool session that lasted 5 weeks and he went on Tuesdays & Thursdays. Jon was signed up for Woodworking Class and the Nature Class. Nicholas just got done with his session this past week and Jon finished up his Woodworking class this past week as well (Jon's classes goes for one week going every day). So on their last day they invite the parents and rest of the family to come the last hour of class. We all got to go to Nicholas' Family Day, but I was not able to go to Jon's because I was taking care of Callie that day. I will take pictures of Jon's Family Day for his Nature Class. So below are some pictures from Nicholas' Family Day. It was a ton of fun and Noah was with us so he had fun too. They got to do a lot of neat things on the farm. I am hoping to sign them up again next summer since they both had so much fun. Enjoy the pics below!



On the first day Nicholas talked about how he got to ride on a horse. I thought that was so cool! I didn't get to ride on a horse until I was in Junior High!


He definitely enjoyed it!


I think he said the horse's name is Gordy




Than they all got to feed the Geese


Than the chickens


Jon got a turn in the chicken coop


They even planted their own veggies! Here Nicholas' teacher was telling him which ones he could pull out


Getting ready to pull out a radish


Nice radish!


They had an old tracker the kids could play on too!


Good photo op!


Of course they had kittens too

4th of July Celebration

For 4th of July our cousins from Oklahoma came to visit us. It was the McBride family and they stayed with uncle Paul and Auntie Tesa. Which basically meant everyone one else was living there too while they were in town. The boys were so exhausted by the time they left. They were staying up really late and waking up early. Only a couple days would they sleep in. We had a ton of fun with the relatives and 4th of July was a blast. We BBQ at Uncle Paul's house for lunch and dinner and than it was fireworks time! Uncle Paul ended up spending $400 on fireworks and Daddy spent about $100 too! It was a great show and the kids loved it! They also got to do sparklers before the "older" kids did the big fireworks. Below are some picture from the weekend. Thanks McBride family for all the fun we had with you! We hope to see you again soon, otherwise next year for Thanksgiving!


Maita & Marisa


Auntie Missy w/ the two babies


Auntie Missy bought all the girl cousins match outfits to wear for the 4th of July. Maris barely fit into her! Aren't they cute?!




Lolo Jim, Auntie Melina, Uncle Thomas, Rianne, & Ashlyn


Jon and his Sparkler


Goofing around


Nicholas & his sparkler


He liked to use his as a sword


Maria playing with her sparkler


All the cousins eating a snack


I love this picture! The Koehn & Ramos cousins


Evie and Eddie joined in


Rianne and Nicholas. Maria got in the picture too


Auntie Missy and Gen


Our cool fireworks! This one was nailed to the tree






The boys watching the festivities




All the cousins again


Uncle Matt got to hold one in his hand!


Couldn't put the beer down!


Than he really got into it and started dancing!


Uncle Paul held one too!