Happy Birthday Dash from Isaac

On Tuesday morning i had a voicemail from Isaac doese wishing dash a happy birthday and asked him to call him back. So after dinner i had dash call Isaac back and this is what we heard!

This is only a glimpse of how the conversation went! It was cracking me up!

Only 26 days until they are in town!

Birthday Boy! (5/25)

The Birthday Boy! Wow I can't Believe he is 3 today!

We had dash open his gifts from us in the morning to get him ready for the day!

Extra bubble wands from Sammie

The bubble chef from Dad and Mom

and more bubble solution

The bubble chef in action!

Dash playing with his gift from Mr. Winston and Mrs. Kim from last years birthday!

Dash is getting pretty good at his batting!

Daddie and Sammie playing in the outfield

dash's "atar" cake!

I wanted to make dash a thomas the train birthday cake this year since i knew he was getting some tracks and that he really likes trains. When i started looking to see if wilton made a thomas cake pan i quickly discovered it was discontinued. so i checked Craigslist and ebay. not really many hits off of craigslist and an average of $30-$40 pre-shipping costs on ebay. I love my children but i am not about to spend that much on a pan! Esp. since dash is still young enough and not really into the thomas cult that i decided i would take him to Michaels and let him pick a pan from there. To my surprise he passed up the race car and basic train pans and went for the guitar cake. On the directions there were three designs to choose from and dash picked the acustic guitar~also the one with the most work :)

We had a hard time lighting the candles in the wind!

He just watched the wind blow out his candles

"mmmm, my big bite"

"My dress!"

Everyone laughed when he said that but i had to quickly explain. I always say, "ok lets get dressed" and they both call everything a dress. I am working on it with them but that is what came to his mind.

Dash was hysterical when it came to reading his cards. He would take what was on the outside and the inside as pictures and then "read" the card by making up his own story. He received 2 of the same cards and he recognized that and used the words, "my mcqueen, my mater, again"

Gretchen Weber, Sammie, Dash

bucket of train tracks from Gma Kitty

This is a combination of the two small sets of tracks we had and the bucket of tracks he got from gma kitty as well as his new bridge and "nig nigs" from Mr. Winston and Mrs. Kim

My Big Boy!

ACtually smiling at the camera!
Nice work Beth!

My Big Girl!

The kids love backpacks and i found some very cheap ones at the jackson rummage. This morning in particular Sammie wanted to wear "her" backpack. She then came into the living room to do puzzles. Wow she is getting so big!

Happy Mother's Day/Happy Birthday Ryan!

This year Ryan and I shared mothers day and his birthday since they fell on the same date. It was nice. The kids and i gave him a few small gifts in the morning since his big gift was his new glasses a few months ago. Then we went to church. We put the kids in class everyweek except for mothers day. I want the kids to pick out my flower, they have minds of their own. So we kept them with us until after flower picking. Unfortunately this year an usher saw that dash was sitting with us and handed a flower for dash to give me. It kinda defeated the purpose. Oh, Well!

Family Day!

Today was the first time in about a month or two that Ryan had off and we were able to go and do something as a family. I had last minutely planned a day at Betty Brinn Children's Museum since I have heard wonderful things about it but have not been there. Earlier that morning Sammie and I went to the store while the boys were still sleeping and picked up our lunch. Came home packed lunch and packed things up for the day. We left the house a bit later than I had wished but it was ok. We were headed down St. Paul Ave(for those that know where that is with our house) and passing the firestation when I said to Ryan, "hmm, is that us that stinks?" In which he responded, "i cant tell we are in a pack of cars." Unable to get over if it was us or not i slowed down to get out of the pack and the smell was getting stronger. (this is impt to know~we have a hole in our exhaust pipe under the front seats so we often get that smell in the car if the windows are down). As I continued to put my prego sniffer to use I found out that it was us, just as Ryan discovers that it is getting smokey in the van. So i looked out my rearview mirror and the cloud of white smoke behind us was scarey! I said, "hmm, it is our exhaust." I paniced and pulled over at the nearest opening. (still on st. paul ave, over by Metal Tek) Mother Bear kicked in and I was ready to pull the kids from the van and run! But ryan said hold on and had me pop the hood. Come to find out something was on fire. We didnt see any flames but it was a smoldering fire. We poured our Grape Propel on the area and pulled the kids. Ryan was going to try to drive it home but it wouldnt even start! So we called AAA for a tow. Thinking, lets just get this towed and then take the car to the museum. Well, we had an hour and half wait for the AAA truck. In the mean time ryan and the kids walked, yes walked back home to get the car. All the while i was ready to buy a new van since this just happened along with $3500 worth of work that needed to be done! Ryan and the kids made it home and back before the AAA truck arrived. They did it in about 1 hour! (Ryan clocked it, we were 1.1 miles from the house) So we spent the next 30 min entertaining the kids in the car. By time we dropped off the van at Tires Plus it was too late to go to the musuem since it was nearing nap time. We stopped at Frame Park played, ate lunch, and then went home.

We later found out that it was the starter was going bad and it was pulling too much juice from the battery thus starting an electrical fire! I can only be very very thankful that it happened when and where it did.

1. I had ryan with me

2. I was not on the freeway

3. I didnt have anyone else's kid with me(just the night before i went to johnson creek with reece)

4. i acutally had water in the car to pour on the van

5. it was a beautiful day out!

Thank you God for timing that just right. We are always amazed to see you at work, even in the things that are not that fun, like a car breaking down!

Beth and the Kids

I always love coming home on Fridays and seeing the pictures that Beth took of and with the kids that day :)

Sammie and the Potty

1st of all, please note the title of the book she is reading!
2nd of all, keep on eye on this foot of hers as you look at the pictures. I have always loved how she holds books. Even on the couch when they are on her lap and the couch is holding up her foot she puts the book on her lap and curls her foot!

Potty Training Sammie I think is going to be a long process but I think a bit easier than dash~maybe! She is very much into potty training herself! These pictures were taken back in April. Since then we went back to diapers and are in pull-ups now! Over this past week she has gone potty(initated by herself) three times and ucky one time. I am very proud of her! However I am not ready to push it on her yet. Yes she is almost 2 and yes it would be wonderful to have only 1 in diapers in a few weeks. But I have also heard that kids regress in things they have concoured when a new baby is brought home. So I am not going to push the potty thing until fall arrives and we have all become use to Ali in the house and we are able to get into our fall routine! But who knows she might want those M&Ms so much she teaches herself this summer.

The Kids Room

The curtain to the left is the window while the curtain to the right is the closet. We had to make a double hanging closet to accomodate all of the their clothes. With only room for 1 dresser we need to hang a lot of Ali's tops. Thankfully Sammie's bed has three drawers built in and the stairs are Ali's drawers. To help elminate the kids from pulling all the clothes off of the hangers we put up this curtain to hide them. It also hides their laundry baskets and I think gives the room a much better finshed look when all is said and done.

These are the stairs and Ali's dresser! We have since put carpet squares on the tops and sides to prevent dash from cutting up his legs as he climbs up and down. It is also helpful so that he doesnt slip.

Ali's bed ready and waiting for her :)


To help with storage we installed some cabinets. They still need the doors painted and installed but they get the job done for now :)

Dash's Bed aka his house

Sammie's Monkey Bed

Dash in his bed loving it!

When we heard the news of Ali we knew we had to do something in the kids room to get it preped to room three kids. Thankfully we started Dash out in the "bigger" of the two rooms we have in the house so we only had to adjust how the room looks. The best thing we could think of was to loft Dash and Sammie and then put Ali's bed in the crib corner :) Well for months I kept coming up with ideas to make this thing/room/loft work for the least amount of money and the least amount of work. We had to wait until tax return time to purchase the materials and then find some time in our busy busy busy schedules to get it done. In March we finally sat down together and planned a general idea of what was in my head. Ryan took that and went to work! This is what he created! He is soo good to beable to take my lack of words and create the perfect bedroom that was pictured in my head! Thanks Love, you are amazing, kinda like God knew what he was doing when we put us together :)