September 2012

September

While October is always crazy in our family, September seems to stay easy and breezy.  My cutie pie started pre-school at a local Lutheran church.  It's the only preschool in town, and people said good things about it.

  I was excited for the social experience of it for CJ, as well as helping her get ready to sit through a day of school.  In about mid-October, however, we decided to take her out of the program.  While it wasn't necessarily a BAD little preschool, we just didn't feel like Cecily was benefiting from it all that much.  Plus, it was 100 bucks a month for 3 days a week, 2.5 hours each class- and they only had 30-40 minutes of academic time!  The rest was Bible stories, free play time, recess, and snack time.  I get that the whole thing CAN'T be academic, but it just didn't seem worth it.

Every day when I asked her what she had learned she would say "uhhhh, nothing."  She already knows her numbers and letters, so most of anything they taught was old news to her. 

I guess I was thinking more along the lines of dinosaur units, and under the sea curriculum, exploring space and all those fun things.  I guess we can't all get exactly what we want, huh? 

In the meantime, we are doing "mommy preschool" which, let me tell you, Cecily was not excited for when I told her about it.  But she's warmed up to the idea. We're going on a nature walk today.  Hooray.

And, I have to mention this, because I think its SO funny.  They would sing "Bingo was his name-o" only they would substitute J-E-S-U-S for B-I-N-G-O.  The first time I heard it I literally burst out laughing because it was so ridiculous (and kinda sac-religious? teeny bit?). 
She looked really cute on her first day, though!



It's official: she rocks my socks off.

The next few pics just show you how goofy my girl is.

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At the end of the month we traveled to Helena and got family pictures done by a friend of mine from high school.  She did a great job and got lots of candid, beautiful shots of my kids and our family.  While posed pics are great, I love the natural feel of candid shots SO much too.  You can take a peek at them here if you want.  Or, leave me a comment with your address and I'll send you a Christmas card!  Even better!
That Saturday morning, Mike and I also ran a little 5K that was put on through some kids at Carroll College.  It was to benefit Haiti (not sure exactly who in Haiti..... but I'm sure it was really great), so we went and ran our hearts out with a bunch of college kids.  When we got there we looked around and, with the exception of a very few, we were the oldest ones there.  HA! 

Us "old folks" in our runnin' gear.

October is coming and it's going to be another huge post!
 Don'tcha just LOVE 'em????
  Wooooooooooooop!

August (also in November- but at least it's not December yet!! Go me!!)

Here's what we did in August: 

 

My extended family had a reunion!  Wooooooooot!  SO, I packed the two kiddos up and set off for the great beyond.  Well, Helena.  But that's pretty much the great beyond.  Because anything beyond the borders of this tiny town is pretty much great.  Well, once you get to Billings. Before then it's just bluffs and farms and stinky cows.

 AAAAnywhoo- my brother Jeff came up from Utah with his family and my brother Russ and his fam came down from Great Falls, MT and it was a fabulous time!!  I got to see my darling sister Janet (and fam) and brother Kenny (and fam) who both live in town.  We missed Ryan, but I get to see him in a few weeks at Christmas!!

Back to August, though:

 

Nolan and Stephen (Jeff's kiddo).  Nolan let me know
 "We's just fwowing wocks, Mom!"

Nolan is super tall and Stephen is a tiny bit on the short side for his age.
I think at first Stephen thought Nolan was a fun playmate, but then the 2 year
 old-ness of Nolan showed up with the hitting and pushing, and 3 1/2 year old Stephen
got a leeeeeeetle tired of it.  It's ok, though- in a few years they'll be great pals.

 

During the Saturday reunion, there was some down time and my SWEET cousin Beth and her two fun kiddos were there, so we headed on over to the carousel.

Nolan and Jasper- just holding hands.  'Cause that's what cousins do. 

Beth and her adorable girlie-q

Beth totally got the golden ring!  Free ride on the carousel!

All the chickletts



Outside on the playground... or art sculpture? 
We weren't sure, so they got to climb on it :) 

We had a fun backyard splash party at my parents house later in the weekend.  SOOOO many cute cousins!

 

Stevie TOTALLY cracked me up!  He decided he was too cool
for swim trunks, so lightning mcqueen underwear
 was the next logical option.  SO FUNNY.

PS- how beautiful is my oldest?  HOLY COW. 





 

 



JAMIE!!  He is the cutest 'lil thing ever. 



While I was home, I got to go to the cemetery where my sweet aunt Vonnie was laid to rest right after her headstone was placed.  It is beautiful and I miss her.
 

One afternoon we all went to Lockey park and hung out! 



Mike REALLY wants her to be a climber when she gets older :)

These are Janets kiddos, Jeffs, Russells, and mine 
(well, most of 'em anyway).
 

The rest of August was great, but fairly uneventful.  I did get called to be the new Sunday School teacher at Church, so that threw a wrench into my plans to coast along unnoticed.  It's been good though- it forces me out of my comfort zone every week, so that's a good thing. 

AND, once again, if you made it through that mother of a picture heavy post- props to you!  September is coming soon!  Stay tuned.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

July (in November...)

I'm still behind.  Although, I just looked back and realized that I stopped keeping up with my blog around the same time I started working a new job of a few graveyard shifts per week.  Correlation?  I think yes! Thankfully, (blessedly, wonderfully) I am done with graveyards and I'll now just be picking up a few day shifts here and there when they need me. 

 

Which means it's time to catch up and write all the fun things that have been happening in my little family. 

 

 

SO- Here's our life in July!!

 

July 4th was really low key this year.  I worked the graveyard shift from 11pm on the 3rd to 7am on the 4th, so low key was all I was up for :)

We went to the little lake here with our good friends and their little girlies.  Then we came home and ate sandwiches.  Delish.

Nolan the swimmer-man

Aaaand, he loves to terrorize the ladies.

Cutie pie Addy.

Smoke-stacks in the background

 

Later on in the month THE GRANDPARENTS AND UNCLES CAME TO VISIT!!!!

Does it get any better?  We were pretty excited to have them, since we don't get a whole bunch of visitors stopping through our bustling metropolis of Colstrip. 

 

We spent one afternoon at the Lake:

Uncle Eric and my lil Nolan

Grandma Bamma!

 

 

A teenager drove through our fence at the house we own in Billings,
 so Mike and his brothers went in and fixed it while they were here. 
We were SO grateful for their help!

 

Then, we took a trip to South Dakota to see Mount Rushmore!  The whole time CJ called it "Mountain Rushmore."  It was a BLAST and a half.

 

Is there anything better than hand in hand with Grandma?

I forgot my camera at home, so you all have to suffer through bad cell phone pictures :)

CJ is SO happy when Uncle Eric is around.

The crazies.

SEAN!!  Whom I like to call "Little Sean" just like "Little John"
 (Robin Hood's sidekick).  Except Sean is my sidekick?

The Father in Law (and honest Abe in the background)

Love me some crazy. 

 

 

Nolan got a lil tuckered out and needed a rest by Grandpa



Cj in the "flag walkway" thing.  All the state flags are
there at the entrance to Mt Rushmore.

We also took a detour (20 minutes) to Rapid City, SD.  And, while I've never thought much about South Dakota, I must say: this place has lots of awesomeness.  AND lots of FREE awesomeness. 

Dinosaur park is a bunch of concrete (life size-ish) statues of dinosaurs.
The kids can climb all over and run around and its awesome.

T REX. ROAR! (were you scared?!?)



Uncle Eric trying to keep them both in the same spot long enough for the picture...
 

We also stopped by a place called Storybook Island there in Rapid City.  Also free! WooHoo!!  It is the coolest/most random little place ever.  There are a bunch of little...... displays?  I don't even know how to describe it.  There's every kids character you could ever think of set up for kids to walk through and climb on and explore.  It's just cool.  It was raining cats and dogs on the afternoon we decided to visit, but it was a warm rain- so we just went with it!  It was almost empty and the kids had so much fun. 

PeterPeter Pumpkin Eater's house

Lucky the Leprechaun?  I told you it was random!

Snow White and the Dwarfs' house.

Readin' with the Cat in the Hat

"Ariel!  How you doin' kid?"

Lovely.

They also had a cute little train for the kiddos.  So fun.

He's 2.  I'm scared for 16 a little bit.

On our way home, we went the back way and stopped by The Crazy Horse Memorial (overpriced.... and not as cool as I had hoped.....)  as well as Devil's Tower.  Which I had never heard of, but apparently it was filmed in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind."  It was in the middle of nowhere.  Really.  Nowhere.  I'm surprised we got out alive. 

Behind us is the mountain that will eventually become like the statue below. 
In like, 50 years or something.  I'm not kidding- that's how long the people
who are carving it think it will take. 

 

 

 

This is Devil's tower in all it's awesomeness.

 

And, any of you who know Michael's grandfather will love this next picture.  It was this random wood carving in a museum at the Crazy Horse memorial.  But it looks EXACTLY like Mike's grandpa Speed to me. It's like he drove to SD and posed for it or something.  Ok, maybe not.  But it looks a lot like him!

Speed in his role as "Hamlet"
ok, ok - just kidding

 

 

Whew.  Are you still with me?  Kudos to you if you got through that mother of a post.  Stay tuned for August- hopefully within the next few days?  We'll see if I'm that motivated!