A couple of days worth of news...

Yet again, I feel like I am on the computer all the time, and don't get anything posted on here! Sorry again! Anyways, we have been having beautiful weather up north! The sun is shining, and while we did get some rain a couple of nights ago--we actually got some thunder and lightening{doesn't look right, but...}--you can't tell right now. I watched the weather this morning though, and they are predicting rain for the next four days, which could turn to snow at night. Several inches of rain, so we also have a flood warning for most of north eastern Minnesota and parts of Wisconsin, so...

Yesterday morning was MUMS Bible study. Which I have been looking forward to for a few days. Well, I told myself that it didn't start until 10:30, when in fact it started at 9. So we should up pretty much as it was ending, and I decided that it wasn't going to be worth it to go in, so I turned around and left. Apparently Wyatte was looking forward to playing with the kids, that he has been hanging out with alot lately, also. He started crying and saying that he wanted to go to church and see the kids, and no matter what I told him he wouldn't stop. So being the tired emotional wreck that I am, I started crying and preceded to show up at the grocery store with red eyes. So I sent a couple of emails to the other moms that go to MUMS and asked them to remind me next time we have Bible study that it starts at 9 AM!!!

After the grocery store we tried to go to the park , but I thought it was a little to windy for Aubrie, and the slides we still wet, so we went to get ice cream instead. Nevaeh also didn't like the swings at all, which is shown in one of the pictures!!! Wyatte had fun for the couple of minutes that we were there and I told him there would be plenty of days that we could play at the park. So I think he was happy with that.Later we played out side with some toys Grandma Kris had brought home from one of our cousin Robb E's . He had a lot of fun "grating" the driveway, and moving the dirt from the flower box to the deck! Nevaeh got her fingers stuck in the gas door on the Grandma Kris' van and we couldn't figure out where she was! All she would have had to do was pull her fingers out, but she just stood there and cried! My poor little girl.

Lastly, we have a pic of Kirk and Aubrie, and Aubrie snuggled into the baby carrier that my cousin Amy made for us! THANKS again Amy, we use it often.

Marvinetti's

Last night we had a Potter's Clay, the young marrieds group at church, event. We got an invite a few weeks ago that invited us to "An evening of elegant dining Marvinetti's". John got home about 5, took a quick shower, we got the kids ready and left the house about 10 minutes to 6 (the dinner started at 6!) We then had to drop the kids off at the nursery at church, which when we got there had about 30 kids and only one sitter!!! A couple of the parents stayed in there until the other sitters got there, but it was still alot of kids! We then went in to the "restaurant" and the host asked us if we had reservations, and under what name... the whole nine yards. We then got our picture taken under an arch... and were then escorted to our table. We sat down to a table with a few crackers in a basket, a few salad dressings (I didn't realize that is what they were to later...) and glasses of water for each of us. Then the host passed out a few table games to play, and then the menus. The menus had a picture of Italy on the cover and the "restaurants" name, then you opened it up to a listing of food items in ITALIAN. No other description of the food was given! I am not sure how many of you have been to a mystery dinner, but this is what we were at! So with no idea what we were getting we had to write down numbers of the items on the other page in what order we wanted them. For my first course I got my salad, lasagna and a fork. John got his salad, a knife and a fork! Our second courses were soup, toothpicks, and a napkin (Chare) and juice, spoon and a napkin (John). Third courses were soup, corn, and toothpick (John) and corn, juice and a spoon (Chare). Lastly, John got ice cream, lasagna and garlic bread; and Sharalee got ice cream, garlic bread and a knife! We both did pretty good, until John's last course. He ended up eating his lasagna like a sandwich, and his ice cream with the biscotti that they served with it!

-----We had a lot of fun with the couples that we sat with! I really didn't know one of the couples very well, but enjoyed getting to know them better. They have four kids all under five. They are spaced out like mine are... about a year and a half apart, I think anyways. I added a link to their blog if you want to check it out. The Knudegaard Kronicles is their page. The other couple was a couple that I know the wife fairly well, and have talked to Chris a few times, but we did get to know him better too. John graduated with Heidi and Chris, but didn't do anything with them for a while. Chris and Heidi have twin boys about 2 and a little girl on the way.

-----So we had a long night last night, didn't get home until after 9 and then the kids, even after playing in the gym for a long time and using all the energy playing with the kids in the nursery, wouldn't go to sleep. I think Wyatte was up until after 10. AND THEN THEY WERE BOTH UP BEFORE 6 THIS MORNING!!!! Neveah actually woke up about 3:30 and I went to get her and she kinda slept in my bed until 6, but not very well. So we are all pretty tired today. I actually tried to get the kids to take a nap at 7:30 this morning, but that didn't work. So I made them breakfast, eggs, biscuits, and bacon...then they took a bath with John and then took a nap so...hopefully this afternoon is going to go better. We are going to go outside as soon as Wyatte wakes up and clean up some garbage from the yard, so that should keep them busy....


-----I forgot my camera last night, so don't have any pictures. They did have someone there taking pictures, but I will have to see if they send any too us or not. If we do get them I will post some up here!

Aubrie's Smile

Hey again everyone! I finally got two of the kids to sleep at the same time today, so here I am on the computer instead of doing the housework that I should be doing!!! Aubrie just got done eating and we were just sitting on the couch and she looked at me and got the hugest grin on her face! So cute. Anyways a while ago we were sitting on the couch and I started playing with her mouth. She started to smile, and then the more that I played with her mouth the bigger smile she got on her face until she was almost laughing! I have done it a few times since then and always thought I should try to get it on camera, so today I started to do it and then ran to get the camera and here is what I got...

It isn't the best video, or the best smiles that she has done, but still pretty cute! I can't believe she is as old as she is already. It seems like each kid gets bigger faster...

A very long update, may take some time to read!!!

So I know that I have been a little lax in writing on here, and I am sorry for that. We spent the weekend in the Cities with John's brother and his family. Saturday one of my cousins got married. Then Sunday we went to the Mall of America, to Nickelodeon Adventure Park and the Underwater Adventure. Then Monday I made a quick trip to Hibbing. Then today was a MUMS fun day! So alot going on in the last few days to catch you all up on!

So Friday morning it started to snow, just like the weather man said. I had been hoping that he would be wrong, but... Anyways, John wasn't sure he was going to work because of the snow, but he told me to get everything packed because we were going to the Cities for the weekend. I thought he was crazy! He did end up going to work, and said we would see what the roads were like when he came home and decide then if we were going. He said they were fine, and really the most trouble we had was in our actual driveway!!! We did hit a snow drift around Swan River that almost sent us sideways into the ditch at 65 mph!!! Got my heart pumping there!!! So we got to North Branch kinda late and then stayed up even later talking to Jim and Kara and the kids didn't get to bed until around 10. Then they were up before 7. We played around with Jim and Kara's girls for a while Saturday morning, and then headed a little farther south to Burnsville to my cousin, David's wedding. The kids took a cat nap in the van on the way there, but apparently not enough. We only lasted about 5 minutes in the wedding ceremony before Wyatte was trying to talk over the pastor, and Nevaeh wanted to pick up the flower petals off the isle runner. So John took them out to the lobby where they could run around. Then Wyatte did something to get in trouble and started hollering at John to "Stop talking to me" Needless to say John wasn't happy. Anyways, the wedding was pretty much no fun for any of us! The only good thing was the fact that another one of my cousins made a baby wrap (carrier) for me! It is awesome! I have hardly taken it off since she gave it to me.

This is how the kids and I slept on Saturday night. John got the whole mattreww to himself, and I had a three year old being a bed hog, a one month old who couldn't breath laying down because her nose was soo stuffed up, and a 2 year old who wouldn't sleep anywhere but my lap.....
Then Sunday John and I decided to take the kids to the Mall of America. On the way to the wedding on Saturday we drove by a billboard that said they had changed Camp Snoopy to a Nickelodeon Theme Park. We both thought that Wyatte would love to see Deigo and Dora and all the other characters that we see on TV every day. So we packed everything up and headed back south. We got to the mall, and John got all excited to take Wyatte to see the sharks in the Underwater part of the mall. So we headed over there, and, yes, the kids loved it!!! Nevaeh is facinated with turtles right now, and there were some huge turtles in there so that was cool to see her so excited! So we walked around there for a while. Ate lunch...during which Wyatte decided to have his first accident in over a month. So then we had to find somewhere to buy pants for a 3 year old that don't cost 30 dollars! Ok, so it wasn't quite that bad, but... Then it was finally off to the rides! Aubrie was in the baby carrier on my chest, so John got the fun times on the rides. The first one he wanted to go on was the log chute. So the first ever ride that Wyatte went on in his life, is a log chute! Nevaeh pretty much cried the whole time that Wyatte and Daddy were on the ride because she didn't understand why she couldn't go too. So the next ride they went on was a balloon ride that both kids could go on. The kids had fun, but John went in circles backward and got a little dizzy! We went on a few more rides, but didn't even use half of the points that we bought, so I guess we are going to have to go back some time in the near future to finish them off! I must have had 25 people come up and ask me where I got my baby wrap because it looked so comfortable and they hadn't been able to find one like that. Huge conversation starter.

All strapped in and ready to go....

Wyatte was having a stare off contest with the alligator in the tank, I think that alligator won because we made Wyatte leave!

One of the turtles that Nevaeh loved! Along with some other fishes in the ocean!!!

Daddy and Nevaeh looking at some of the fish while a shark, I think we decided it was a Guitar Shark (???) swam over their heads!I took a picture of the picture of John and Wyatte coming down the log chute. You can't see it as well on here, but Wyatte has a totally horrified look on his face. My poor baby!Both of my kids were scared to death of this "big" Dora! Nevaeh did wave at her, but told John that Dora was "big"!!!We did get a cute pic of them with her though. I don't even think the kids knew she was there when I took the pic!!!John, 'Veah and Wyatte on the balloon ride.Driving the big rigs, while daddy enjoyed the ride!

So, our Walmart is going to a Superwalmart, and so instead of moving everything they are just selling everything down and then clearancing what is left. Well, there are still a few things that you can't find in places other than Walmart, so the kids and I took the 35 mintue drive to Hibbing to the Walmart there to get the stuff that I needed. That trip went fine, took longer than I wanted it too, but went fine. I had a lady ask if she could by my baby wrap right off me. I gave her the website that Amy had given me and told her I liked mine too much to get rid of it yet!

Then Tuesday morning we had a MUMS fun day. The kids got to paint their own shirts! Wyatte had alot of fun. Nevaeh had fun until she realized that she was getting paint on her hands and arms, and because she is all girl, that was not acceptable! We had to keep washing her hands to get her to finish! Wyatte painted Aubrie's shirt too! Then it was off to McDonalds with some of the moms and kids from the group. That was alot of fun for both the kids and me! I really enjoy doing things with them, gets me out of the house, to do something other than spend money... And it gets the kids a little wore out, so they take better naps. Yesterday I actually got to take one! While at McDonalds we were trying to figure out how many kids had been at the church to paint shirts and we counted between 30 and 35 kids. There were about 14 moms there, so that is a lot of kids! Once at a potluck that we had we only had about 12 couples and had almost 30 kids there and 4 of us were pregnant! So if we all stay in this church we are going to have a huge youth group when they get older!!!!!!!!

On a wonderful note, the sun is shining, and the snow is melting!!! And we have a swimming pool in the driveway!!! The yard is soaking wet, and muddy, and messy, and I haven't let the kids play in it yet, but I don't know how much longer that is going to last. We are going to try to get out for a walk today, so I am sure that they will get muddy then. Oh well, that is what a washing machine is for right!

So I am sitting here looking at family web pages, and I realized that despite my promises to let you all know how Aubrie's checkup went, I neglected to put any of that info in a blog, so sorry so late but here it is!

--She was 9 pounds 12 ounces (at three weeks, because we had to change her appt because the doctor had a meeting that came up unexpectantly). She has grown a 1/2 inch (or they just measured her little legs different!!!). Her head was about the same size I believe. Right now she is in about the 50th percentile for everything, so we will have to see if that changes or not. Nevaeh started out like that, but then dropped.

--I got Aubrie's baby announcements out in the mail, so if you want one and didn't get one my the first part of next week, let me know and I will ship one off to you! I made these all by myself!!! I am pretty proud of them! I also made Paul's Graduation announcements, which are also going to be mailed out soon. Mom has those, and was trying to decide if it would be ok to email them to some of you, or if you wanted to get the real thing!!! Keep an eye out for both of them soon!

--On a gross note, the whole state of Minnesota is under winter weather warnings for today and tomorrow morning. Duluth has a blizzard watch out, this morning they had 60+ mile an hour winds there, so...... We still aren't sure if we are going to make it to the Cities for David and Natalie's wedding, and the visits with family, but we are going to try still I think. John told me before he left for work, to get everything ready to go so that we could leave when he gets home from work. We are going to call his brother and see what the weather is like in North Branch before we go, because we don't want to drive into anything on the way down. And with the three young kids, we don't want anything to happen to us on the way down. So keep us in your prayers today, and I will post on here if we do decide to leave or not!

--This is the second day in a row that I have got all three kids sleeping at the same time, so I am going to take advantage of that and catch a few z's myself!

Grandpa Stan's Turkeys!!

Wyatte (left, in grey and orange striped shirt), Nevaeh (head, with a teal shirt on), Vera Wourms (you can only see part of her face on the bottom of the picture), and Willie Wourms (right with grey shirt on) looking at Grandpa Stan's baby turkeys!
Wyatte actually caught one! He really liked holding it.
This is as close to holding one as Nevaeh got! She just loved seeing the "chickens!"
Vera (born 2 weeks after Nevaeh), Willie (born 3 months after Wyatte), and Wyatte playing on toys that Grandpa Stan brought downstairs!

-----We went to see Grandpa Stan and his baby turkeys this morning, and some friends of ours were there that we haven't seen for a while. Paul and Carrie Wourms, Mike and Julie's son (Mike is a very good friend of my dad's, he has done quite a bit with our family over the years...) recently moved back to Minnesota from Wyoming to be close to family and they were at my dad's visiting him, and the turkeys! Wyatte and Willie are only a few months apart in age, and "Veah and Vera are only a few weeks! It was fun to try to keep the kids' names straight when they are that close!!! They all had fun, and I told Paul that once the weather gets nicer we are going to have to get them all together again to play! My house is tooooo small for that many small bundles of LOTS of energy!!!!!

MORE SNOW

John and I were watching the news this morning before the kids woke up and they are predicting another snow storm. The weather service has issued a winter storm watch for most of central Minnesota, and parts of Wisconsin. Blizzard warnings for Duluth and the surrounding areas. 8 to 12 inches, depending on how warm it is, and the path it takes to get here. Could also bring some rain.... So depending on this storm, we might not make it to the Cities. So keep us in your prayers as the storm gets closer, we don't want any more snow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

leaving the house

I finally got to leave my house!!!!!!!!!! I did almost get stuck in the driveway, but did make it. The driveway and the road weren't plowed when I left, so I wasn't sure if I was going to make it or not, but we did. I had a conversation with God, telling him that if he wanted me to go to the MUMS Bible study today he would let me get out of the driveway. So I got to enjoy my first Bible study! With this group anyways. Now that I am home with the kids I get to do all the cool stuff that stay at home moms do. Like go to story time at the library, and Bible study at church, and play dates with other kids, eating at McDonald's with the other church kids, going to the beach---when it is warm enough!!! Yesterday I actually had my living room totally clean (that never happens in my house), my laundry was almost all done, and the dishes were clean! And John had gone to work, so I did all that and was home with three kids by myself!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YEAH FOR ME!!! Friday night we are going to travel to the Cities to spend some time with John's brother and then Saturday, some or maybe all of us are going to my cousin David's wedding! Fun times for us in the future! Better go, John is home and is going to be looking for supper which I haven't started. :( Never said I was perfect!!!!!!!!!!!!

snow, part 4

Yes, this Jeep is sitting on the ground. And it has 33 inch tires, and a body lift. So just to give you an idea of how much snow is really out there...
Just another shot to show you how much snow is around our house.
This is a normal deck railing, and that is all snow at the bottom. All fresh snow from today. We had nothing there yesterday. Nothing but boards and paint and nails. And now nothing but snow and snow and more snow...

Wyatte wanted to eat some snow! So, John told him to go out and get some, and this is how he did it! He was biting the snowbank! Oh, to be 3 again!
All done eating snow and coming in from the cold.
If you look at one of the other posts I did today about the snow, you will see another picture, taken about 12 hours before this one, with a lot less snow. Right now we have about 19 to 20 inches of snow on the deck railing. They still don't think that we are done getting snow either. A chance of snow until 4 am tomorrow morning. So the cities thought they had it bad, when they got 8 or 9 inches, eat rocks....

snow, part 3

up to Wyatte's knees
the camera was upright on our deck...
john trying to clean the snow off his jeep
his trail down the steps...

AND IT IS STILL COMING DOWN.....................

snow, part 2

So John just went out side with a ruler and on the railing of the deck there is 11 inches of snow! I am sure there is more on the ground, but... Nevaeh is enjoying a full bowl of freshly fallen snow! She was trying to eat some off of John's boots, so John brought her in a whole big handfull to put in a bowl. She then got a spoon and is eating the whole thing. I am,in all honesty, eating something my Aunt Dawn showed us once. Some not quite to full strength koolaid poured over clean snow, and you have a homemade "snow"cone!!!!!!!!!!! Well, Aubrie needs some attention, so.... I am sure I will be back on here later to let you all know how the snow is piling up!!! Because it is still coming down!

SNOW

So Wyatte wanted to pull the wagon, and I don't know if you can see this in this picture, but he just ran and ran and ran in circles! There is a warn down circle from all the tires!!!
Still going around and around! Nevaeh loved it! And Wyatte wore off some of the energy that he seems to have an abundance of!!!
Two kids---heading for ahuge puddle---looks like trouble to me!!!
We walked to Grandma Linda and Grandpa Tuffy's house, and Wyatte built a spaceship with the lego blocks they have!
This is what Nevaeh's hair looked like this morning when she woke up! I had part of her hair in a pony tail last night, and her hair likes to stay the way you put it, even with out a hair tie in!!!

Those first few pics were of the yard yesterday, and the last five were of the house this morning. We got a ton of snow during the night, so......... I guess I need to dig out the snowpants and boots again!!!

aubrie's announcement

oh, by the way if you want an announcement and don't think i have your address send it to me at jashoard@yahoo.com and i will get one out to you. hannah that includes you because my kids tore up your envelope with aliya's announcement!!! jenn k. too, because i want you to have one, and even though i am sure marilyn has your address i think you should just email it to me!!! they are really cute!!!

Pics and words, and words and pics

Well, here are a few of the pictures that I haven't been able to upload lately. Aubrie is getting to the point where she wants to be held all the time, and she won't hardly even sleep anymore unless she is being held, which makes it hard to get anything else done in the house. Well, the other day when I was putting away the baby boy clothes that I had washed just in case we didn't get the girl that they said we were getting, I found a baby carrier that I didn't realize I had. I tried it out with Aubrie and she actually fell asleep in it!

This next picture is a pic of Nevaeh on our way to church on Sunday. John thought that she needed her hair in pig tails so... What is really sad is that this picture was taken about 45 seconds before we pulled into the parking lot at church, and by the time I was unbuckled and ready to get her out she had lost one of the hair ties, and her hair was sticking straight out of her head. So she got a messy ponytail for church.

Then the other night I decided that instead of ordering Aubrie's birth announcements from a company for 1.65 a peice, I was going to make my own. So I spent a few hours (it has ended up being....)picking the right pictures, the right places on the announcement, the right colors for the words and graphics, the right words to put on it, and so forth and so on. Then I had to decide how many pics to put on and it didn't look right with 4, but I didn't have 5 pictures that I liked enough to put on the announcement, so at 10:30 at night I decided to have a photo shoot with Aubrie....

Then this is what happened about five minutes later.... yep, she is nursing!!! I woke her up and she decided she was hungry!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I still didn't like the pics that I had taken, and had on the announcement, so today I got her all dolled up and took some more! These ones turned out really cute I think. I finally got the camera figured out to where I can take pictures of Aubrie with out the "angel kiss" on her forehead looking like one of my older kids colored on her with a bright red marker. So here are a few of my favorite ones!!!
So there are my last few days in a few pics! We also did buy a van, but I didn't get any pics of that yet either, so.... It is a dark green, a little shorter than most van's, but the kids are still little and so it works for me! The radio doesn't work right now, but John thinks he can fix it. We are getting an oil leak fixed, for 200$ less than we thought. AND ALL FIVE OF US FIT IN IT!!!!! I need to run off to bed now though, stayed up way to late last night watching John play Rock Band on X-box. They tried to get me to play, but it was a no go. Someday maybe, but.... I haven't even heard of half of the songs that they have on that game, I must be getting old, either that or my kids are way too young!!!!