A play date with Friends!

After a yucky, rainy day off yesterday, the boys and I headed to Richland Center today to visit some friends. I didn't get going as quickly as I wanted to since I woke up with a sledghammer pounding in my head. It was awful. I made coffee and downed Excedrin Tension Headache and it took the edge off, so off we went. I posted some pix I took of the boys playing. They have an air hockey table, ping-pong table, swing and video games stocked in their basement. They also have a bounce house that blows up in about 30 seconds. The boys didn't jump too long in it. I think the fact that both of my kids have a nasty cough hindered their enthusiasm. After jumping in it for 5-10 minutes, Cayden and Kieran proceeded to cough for the next 20 minutes. Nice.
Thanks to my friend for putting up with me-I wasn't the best of company. I felt really out of it with my head issues. It seems that I couldn't come up with anything to talk about and was only good for answering questions.
Anyhow, I got a couple cute ones of the baby girl. She is such a ham. When you say, "Smile _!", she scrunches her eyes tight and grits her teeth in a sorta smile. It's too funny! She looks more like she's trying to push out a big load! ROTFL!

After we played there for a few hours, then we went to visit Papa and Nana. That is where I got the cute ones of the boys in the hat and the precious one of them on Papa's lap. It's been a long while since I had a picture of them with Dad, so I had to share it with everyone. OK-this blogger is not letting me upload those pictures so I will add them in a separate entry above.

The sun was out today and the air was pretty mild for a change and tomorrow sounds like we may even hit 60* whoo-hoo! What a joke, being excited about 60* weather in October. As I've said, it'll be a long winter.

Cayden's tooth is getting wigglier and wigglier.. We are all very excited about losing that 1st tooth. So expect pictures!

The proof is in the pudding (a.k.a. snow)

Yep-a snowman in mid-October. Makes me want to lay right down and cry...(SIGH)

As if we didn't know summer was gone..

OK, flurries in October I can handle, but accumulating snow that doesn't melt away for a couple of days? That is a little too much. If this is a sign of things to come, it'll be a LLONNNGGG heating season. Last year was bad enuf, so I'm wondering what I can sell in order to help pay my Alliant bill this year. My head hurts to think of it-so change of subject!

Aunt Jess and Uncle Shane thoughtfully invited the boys to accompany them to Jess's parents' house Sunday afternoon for a family get-together. So we had a quiet house! How sad is it that when I know that I have some time to myself that I wonder what grown-up movie I can watch? I could take advantage of the time and go through the toys and "weed" out what isn't needed or ones that are missing pieces or broken. Or I could organize my bathroom closet that seems to collect the things I don't have a place for. Nope- I watched a "Smallville" episode and threw laundry in the washer. BORING! Later, Jerod and I went out to Todd and Misty's house. Jerod set a couple of doors in their basement and I enjoyed visiting with the girls. After dinner, Brit and Val played 3 violin duets for us. Lovely! They are really good! I was impressed.

Wes and Deliverance Riley and kids are coming this weekend for a visit. I'm looking forward to spending time with them. Well, technically, Wes and Jerod will be hunting every day, but Deliverance and I will have plenty of catch-up time to visit. I hope the kids do well. Perhaps Saturday we will drive down to Dubuque to the Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium just for something to do. It's not much compared to the Milwaukee Zoo, but it's a lot closer!

Last Sunday I spent the afternoon at Carrie Palacios' house and scrapped for about 4 hours in her basement. It was so nice. John took care of the kids so we were totally uninterrupted. In the end, I think we talked more than scrapped, but I thoroughly enjoyed myself and hope to do it again soon.

Last Friday Cayden's Kindergarten class had their first field trip to a local pumpkin patch/market. He was so stoked about riding on a school bus, bless his heart! The weather was bitterly cold, so they didn't stay as long as planned, but long enough to go through the corn maze and to pick out a pumpkin to bring home. Cayden is insisting on me making a pumpkin pie from his 2 pumpkins. So here's the deal, I have never made anything from a real pumpkin b/4. It should be interesting. If nothing else, we can roast the seeds and eat them, right? I'll have to surf the web to find myself an easy pie recipe that calls for real pumpkin instead of the canned stuff.

Kieran has been really intent on learning letters of the alphabet and can recognize over half of the alphabet. The trick is to catch him in a "learning mode" otherwise he will have nothing to do with "book learning" It's amazing that he is trying to write his name already and can make K, I, R, N. So I've been trying to work with him on the "E" and "A". I'm pretty proud of him.

OK, that's all for now. Next post, I'll try to get some pix on.

Indian Summer is GONE!

Well the word "snow" is officially in the forecast. YUCK! A freeze warning is in effect for tonight/tomorrow morning. Chad and Cindy left in the nick of time.

Last weekend we headed up to Richland Center for Centerfest. We stopped at Peck's Farm Market and let the boys play for a couple hours. My brother Shane, his wife Jessica and little Ava joined us there. The kids are so cute to watch playing together. Ava is half the size of Kieran, but she keeps right up with him. She even tackles the boys and rough-houses with them. She is a princess with a bent tiara and a rip in her ball gown! HA! After that we were off to Oakwood Fruit Farm for their awesome caramel apples. There I ran into an old friend from high school-Jackie Clary. I don't know her married name, but it was so good to see her again. Man, she hasn't changed a bit, at all! Then we headed to town and visited my grandma Burnham. She was so happy to see us. I hadn't seen her new apartment-it was alot smaller than I thought it would be. But she has 24/7 care if she needs it and other residents to visit with and lots of activities to take part in. In fact, that evening she was riding the bus downtown to watch the CenterFest nighttime parade. If she were in her own house, she wouldn't have been able to do that since she really isn't capable of driving anymore. It's sad to say, but she is pretty crippled up and wouldn't be able to see over the dash very easily anymore. I know it kills her, driving is a way of expressing independence, and to give that up would be hard to do. But it is for her own safety.

After a very interesting dinner at the Fish House, we headed downtown to find a place to sit for the parade. Jessica and I left together with the kids and Shane, Jerod and Jessica's sister and boyfriend were to follow. However, the keys got locked in Shane's SUV somehow and it took a while for the locksmith to get there. So Amanda and Luke hitched a ride with Mick and Danielle and found us. Our seats weren't very great, since I thought the parade started at 7:30 and it really started at 7:00. So half the county was already camped out in the choice spots by the time we got there. There was a 5 ft opening to the street directly in front of us, which was just enuf for the kids to squeeze into and score candy and watch the parade. I have to admit that this parade was pretty disappointing compared to last years'. Oh well, the kids had a blast and that is all that matters.

My mom and dad left for Door County last night for a short get-away. I hope that they are able to enjoy their time away from here. But when I say short, I mean really short, they will be back by Thursday night. So only 2 nights away. I guess that is all that they needed. I got to thinking-next March will be their 25th anniversary. We should do something for them. But what? Shane and I will have to brainstorm on that one. A party? An expense paid trip? We'll see.


I got some of my pictures back from our little going away party for the Genschaws. I've put the Grandkid picture here. These are all of the grandkids on my husband's side of the family except for his brother Kial's little boy-Issak who is 4 yrs old. So from the back we have Andrea, Noelle, Tricia, Myranda; Lydia, Summer (goofball!), Megan; Melyssa holding Micah, Breanna, Brittany; Tiffany holding Kieran, Derek, and Valerie holding Cayden. It's such a precious picture-probably the only time all of us will be together for a very long time.

Jerod had only one day of work this week. Thank goodness he has a side job to fill in for most of the rest of the week. Construction is slow right now, I guess. Lovely.

Well, that updates our life right now. Will post again later.

Yeah for Indian Summer!

Oct 2, 2006
So it's going to be 84" today. Holy moley! Yesterday (Sunday) was just awesome as well. Kinda bummer that I had to work at Arthurs'. Boy were we busy, my feet were on fire by the end of the night. I didn't get home until 11 pm and we closed at 9. The dining room was a wreck, the salad bar was depleted-we really needed to have a bus person to help. Oh well, I made over $100 in tips, so I shouldn't complain too badly. Finally I'm able to catch up on my day care bills.
My hubby had to work all weekend. Profitable, but since the boys were in bed by the time he got home, they didn't see him from Thursday night to Sunday afternoon, 15 min b/4 I had to leave for work. Kieran didn't seem to notice too much, but Cayden was missing Dad pretty badly by Saturday.
Tonight we have a little family "good-bye" shin-dig at Clint and Joyce's for Chad and Cindy. I hope that we have a nice time together. Cayden is pretty adament about not wanting them to leave. This morning he said, "When they move, can we call them or go and visit them?" I told him that we could call them every so often, but visiting would be a completely different story. I can't imagine the boys on a long airplane ride. The takeoff and landing would be exciting for them, but the interim would be impossibly "BORING" (as Cayden is so fond of saying lately.) Hopefully, we can arrange for the kids to come back to visit a few times. We'll see.