Catching Up

I know I am posting alot tonight...but I am in a groove so I am trying to get caught up!! Andrew has asked me numerous times throughout the year if he can bring Emily for his Show and Share day. (He "gets" to bring an item in every Thursday to show his classmates and they have the opportunity to ask questions about what he brings). I have always told him that is doesn't work because Emily is sleeping during his show and share time. Well when he asked last week, I couldn't turn him down because it was his last one for Kindergarten and I don't know how much longer Emily will be a novelty to him! Here are the photos from our time in his classroom. He was such a proud big brother!! I put Emily on his lap and he says in a strong voice..."This is my sister Emily and I play with her everyday! And she can crawl really fast and I can make her laugh!" The questions that the kids asked were. "Do you really play with her every day?" "How does she crawl?" Which of course he allowed Emily to demonstrate, by placing her on the floor. She did a great job and crawled right across the room to me at record speed. All the kids thought that was hilarious. And notice two things...Check out how red Andrew's face is in the first picture....They had just come in from recess and it was super hot and humid. Several of the boys, including Andrew, were just dripping with sweat. Must have been a great game of kickball! Also, notice Emily's face in the 2nd picture...doesn't she look terrified??? Oh wait, now that I look closer....perhaps the face is because her leg is folded up behind her body!!
Show and Share is at the end of the school day so Kelli, Emmers and I sat on the lawn and waited for Andrew to be dismissed. Emily doesn't really like to crawl around on the grass yet, but I snapped these two shots and love em so thought I would share them too!

My first grader

Andrew is officially done with Kindergarten and I can hardly believe that I have a first grader! It seems like just yesterday when he was born and now he is all grown up!! As we were leaving this morning I told him I wanted to grab a quick picture of him to see how much he has changed since the first day of Kindergarten. When I compared the two, I almost cried!!! I am so proud of him and all he has accomplished this year!! He is such a sweetheart and even though he can be a stinker sometimes, he is really a good kid!

Cheap Entertainment!

When Brian built the new garage last summer we tore down the old one, which left a large concrete we'll call it a patio, but I use that term loosely. It is great for the kids for riding bikes and running around and coloring beautiful pictures with sidewalk chalk. The only downside is that there is a low spot that collects water when it rains. It wouldn't be so bad except it is just a little bit outside of the back door and it never fails that the van is parked right along side it. At least with the new arrangement this low spot is out in the open. When the old garage was there it was right inside the side garage door. So picture this....it's raining, and it has been raining for a while. You are all dressed and ready to go somewhere and you get three kids dressed and ready to go and you stand at the back door waiting to make the dash 5 feet from the house to the garage. So you decide to go and you all race across and mom throws open the side garage door and you all run in....right in to a gigantic puddle that has formed. This happened more than once...totally soaking wet...all of us...up to our ankles!! Well, now you see the puddle as soon as you walk out the back door and we are able to avoid it for the most part. There of course is the occasional 6 year old boy who just simply cannot resist the temptation!! Anyway, back on task here. The other day the kids had played hard all day and it was HOT!! and HUMID!!! (gave me some flashbacks of last year when I was so miserable and HUGE with child!!) And Brian had worked all day long outside as well. Later in the afternoon it started to get cloudy and cooled off a little bit and then started to rain. Kelli and I had already gotten cleaned up and went to get a few groceries while Andrew and Brian finished up outside and Emily was napping. By the time Kelli and I got home it was pouring rain and Andrew was running around in the rain having a blast and soaking wet! Emily had woken while we were gone and Brian was sitting in the garage with Emily in the stroller. When Emily sees me she is no longer content to sit, but wants to be held, so I took her out and held her for a while and then she got bored and wanted to get down and crawl around. Since the garage is not the cleanest place for crawling, I only let her down for a few seconds, but when I picked her up her legs were already black with dirt. So I headed for inside to get her cleaned up and get dinner ready. Wow, this is getting lengthy. Well on the way in, I see our famous puddle and decide to clean off her legs a little bit in the puddle and then take her in and give her a bath....Well, she went nuts!! I have a feeling this girl is going to LOVE the pool this summer! Please ignore her bright red knees from crawling around on the concrete! I promise she wasn't in any pain and the redness went away after only a short time....=) These pictures of the puddle party make me smile and I hope you enjoy them as much!!

Last full day of school

Update....Our play group is a fair weather play group, so I didn't have to make the decision between the two! So instead of basking in the sun by the pool, I spent the entire day on my knees scrubbing our dining room floor! YUCK!!!! I don't feel I have ever gotten the floor really clean in the 6 years that we have lived her, I know disqusting right. But everything I use seems to leave a film or residue. SO on my hands and knees I scrubbed with a mixture of vinegar and water and it still looks crappy. Pardon my french. SO I scrubbed the whole thing again with plain water thinking maybe it just needed to be rinsed. Nope, no improvement. So then I went over the whole thing with windex thinking that would maybe restore some of the shine, nope. So then I scrubbed it with a mixture of water, dishwashing detergent and laundry detergent. And while this I felt left it the cleanest looking, it still looks dull and well yes, crappy. So if anyone out there has any tricks for sprucing up laminate flooring, I am all ears!!


Well, last August I dropped my baby off for his first day of kindergarten and stood in the hallway sobbing because I couldn't imagine him being gone from me all day!! Now here we are the last full day of school and I am frightened at the prospect of having all three kids home with me all day! What a swing of the pendulum?!! At least I am not sobbing. We will see if that statement is still true later in the summer! So my plans for today? I am waivering between going to a play group with Kelli and Emily or getting a couple majorish projects done on my last full day with Andrew occupied at school. I will let you know later which I decided to do! =)

Excited!

(Not sure why, but half of this post is underlined and I cannot get it un-underlined!!)

Well, I got my new computer and I LOVE IT!!! It is so fast that I can hardly keep up! It was taking me 15-30 minutes to edit a picture with the old computer and now I am getting them done in about 2 minutes!! Talk about a time saver! So I am now just catching up with the shoots I was waiting to edit and then I should be able to start posting more regularly again! Here are just a few pics from the last couple of days. I can't beileve Andrew only has 2 more full days of Kindergarten! It has gone SO fast! I am excited for Kelli to have him home this summer, I think she has missed him! They play so well together (most of the time)! Emily is standing on her own more and more and you can see her thinking about taking a step away from the furniture, but then she chickens out and goes down to her knees and crawls to where she wants to go. I am thinking it won't be too much longer before she gets brave and takes that first step! She is still doing well in the attitude department and is more happy than sad, which is such a great change!! The whole family is appreciating it! We are heading to Andrew's school in just a little while. Andrew has Show and Share every Thursday and is allowed to bring something from home in to show his classmates. He has asked me several times if he can bring Emily and I always told him no because it is always during her nap time...but since today is his last Show and Share of Kindergarten I thought we could make it work! I am sure the kids will love it! Well, that is it for now...Looking forward to be able to be more consistent with updating! I am sure we will have many summer adventures to chronicle!!

The Lord's Prayer

Okay...I just came across this and it is absolutely a must watch!!

The best video ever!!

This makes me laugh so hard everytime I see it!

Blogging Sisters

Well another Cronkette has joined the blogging world! Check out Danielle's blog. And Nikki is going to continue blogging as well. It is a fun way to keep connected!! Lauren...you better get on the ball!!

Still Alive

Well, we are still alive and kickin around here...just seems like life is busy and keeps us hopin each day! The other reason I haven't been bloggin is because my computer gets slower by the day and it takes SOOO much time to upload pictures. My wonderful very soon to be brother in law is presently building me a brand new super fast computer that should be up and running in the next week or so. So I should be back at it with some regularity soon! This picture is one that makes me laugh! I took Emily outside for a spontaneous 9 month photo shoot and this is how it ended! Can't believe how quick the time has gone! She is going to be walking in the very near future. She cruises around the living room holding Kelli's hands and laughs the whole time. I think she knows it is crazy how she is so active at 9 months! She is working on her 5th and 6th teeth and is expanding her diet every day. She loves to feed herself so we try to do as much finger foods as possible. She still LOVES baby einstein and it is a great babysitter for her while I am trying to get dinner ready! I plop her in the Jumparoo (thanks again Heidi), pop in the dvd and as soon as she sees that little caterpillar she starts a jumpin for joy!! She is a much happier baby in the last month or so as we have figured out a schedule that seems to work for her. Although this past week with teething she is totally inconsistent! She sure gives out the smiles freely and this week started clapping and giving big wide open mouth drooly kisses! It is such a privilege to be these kids mom! I'll update on everyone else soon....here is one more of Emmers 9 month shots

Kori Mauch Photography

Some of you recieved an email last week that my website was up and running, but I wan't able to do an all out announcement because two sweet girls from church had me take their pictures for a Mothers Day present and I have them all over my website! So now that Mothers Day is over I can officially launch the website and announce it to everyone! I am so excited about it and I hope you will take a minute to check it out! Just click here!! I also have set up a blog to post sneak peeks for clients so I can keep it seperate from the family blog and that website is The View Through My Lens. If you click on View My Complete Profile you will notice that there are several other additional blogs/galleries listed. You will not be able to access those as they are the private galleries of clients. But check Kori Mauch Photography and/or The View Through My Lens for samples from all of those galleries! Thanks so much to all of you who have helped me get this up and running!!