I'm Baaaack!

Whew - what a whirlwind of a summer/fall. Let me update you, as I'm sure many of you are wanting to see pics!

Nathan graduated from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and we moved out of our tiny apartment. I miss my Trinity friends and the playgroups that we were a part of. But I am involved in MOPS at our church and am keeping busy running Kate to preschool and cleaning the (bigger) home.


Speaking of bigger home, we moved in to our first house Memorial Day weekend. We closed on a Thursday, painted on a Friday, and moved on a Saturday. On Sunday we drove 3 hours to Indiana to see my grandpa who had recently had a stroke. Too much craziness for one weekend! But thanks to Dan and Mary (Nathan's parents) who came and helped paint, move, and do a little unpacking while we were in Indiana!!

The weekend after moving in, we headed up to Milwaukee for my step-sister Tiff's wedding. Kate was the flower girl and I was a bridesmaid.

The weekend after Tiff and Ryan's wedding, we headed up to Lake Geneva for a super fun weekend with some friends from our church. Mike, Alice, and little Hannah invited us to join them, and I am so thankful and glad that we did! What a relaxing time!



Nathan left in the middle of June for Guatemala for 2 weeks, and I was left with the job of finishing the unpacking. I had some friends stay with me a few nights and helped me move some of the big furniture. Kate stayed with Aunt Lindsey and Uncle J in Baraboo, and Matthew and I had a great time working on our house. Then Matthew and I drove to Baraboo to pick up Kate and we stayed a week longer with my family. Nathan met us in Baraboo, we celebrated Kate's 3rd birthday, and Nathan and I celebrated our 6th year anniversary. Then we headed up to the Twin Cities to visit friends over the 4th of July weekend.

There was some more events that happened this summer, but I'm forgetting what they were at the moment! So I'll skip to the biggest thing that happened this fall. I turned 27!!! No, wait....that wasn't that great. But I did get my hair cut! Here's the pic (I took of myself!) after I got back from the salon:

I love my haircut! My dear, dear friend Susie watched the kids so I could go alone. That alone was a great birthday gift! As you can see in the background of the pic, we started our kitchen-renovation project the same day as my birthday (tearing down my kitchen - Nathan's present to me). Nathan planned the whole kitchen out (I did help.... a little) and the results are AWESOME! Nathan did quite a bit of the work himself, but we did hire a contractor for the main things like electrical and gas line stuff. Want to see the results??





















We took out the wall between the kitchen and living room, we moved the new appliances all over the place, we extended the flooring, and the obvious, we got new cherry cabinets and new granite countertops. It's been fun having an island, although it is a challenge to keep it clean. I usually fail. Anyway, we are not completely done with our projects, but need to finish soon. We still have quite a bit of boxes in the living room off to the left (in the new edition photo). If I want to put up a Christmas tree, we need to make room for one!

In October, my little boy turned 1!! He is growing so fast! He is doing so much talking. He says, Kate, ball, book, duck, backpack, uh-oh, banana, dog, yogurt, thank you, night night, and a few more. He signs milk, please, thank you, and more. If I don't watch him close enough, I find him climbing the stairs, and he is a quick one. He's been walking since 10 months and a month ago I heard Kate trying to play tag with him. He didn't get it.:)

Matthew LOVES Elmo and dogs. He sleeps with 2 Elmos and a little dog and looks at his Elmo and dog books a couple times a day. It is so cute to see the excitement in his eyes when he sees either of his objects of affection. I made him some Elmo cakes for his birthday:





Kate is now going to preschool. She is one of the quietest kids in the class, so Ms Cheri tells me. She is learning fun songs and making fun projects. The only requirement to be in this preschool program is to be potty trained. We finally got this under control around Kate's birthday. As many of you know, from reading my past blog posts, this has been a tiring thing with Kate. She is strong-willed and not a lot motivates her (at least not for long-term results). So I gave up and figured she'd do it when she was ready. Well, Grandma Mary bought her Dora underwear for her birthday, and that's what did it. We wouldn't want to get Dora wet, now would we? She's been doing great ever since!

This year for Halloween, I was so excited because this would be the first year that Nathan would be able to go trick-or-treating with us. The Monday before Halloween, Nathan, Kate and Matthew were playing tag (Matthew still didn't get it) in the house. All of a sudden I heard a "thud, crack" and Nathan moaning. He had broken his pinky toe. Anyway, his toe is fine, but I was bummed because there went my Halloween dreams. Well, I made him walk around with us on his crutches anyway. :) This year, at preschool, Kate was Woody the Cowboy- she's never seen the movie, but I found the costume at a garage sale earlier this summer. You know me - deals, deals deals! Come to think of it, Matthew's costume was from a garage sale too. He was a monkey. But his costume ended up not fitting him. So he was a doggy for the middle school little kiddie party on Halloween Eve. But then on Halloween it was so crazy warm that I put him in Kate's lion costume from last year. And Kate decided she didn't want to be Woody anymore, so she went trick-or-treating as Cinderella. Too many costume changes and too much candy!





We recently got a new computer, which makes posting pics to my blog so much easier. Hopefully I can keep up with my blog better now. Thanks, all ye patient readers! Have a wonderful, blessed Thanksgiving!