Indiana Jones

Last night Jim and I went on a group date. It was a lot of fun. At the end we all went and saw the new Indiana Jones movie. Some parts were funny, but I wouldn't recommend spending the extra money to go and see it.

But the coolest part was at the very beginning. There is a car full of collage aged kids weaving in and out of army vehicles. I was looking at the background and it looked very familiar. Then I saw George O’Keeffe mesa!!!! They were filming the road right after abiquiu and Ghost Ranch; that flat stretch before you get to the little amphitheater!

At first I felt really silly telling Jim that I KNEW that place but in the credits it said NM! How cool is that. I guess that make me famous right?

Answer to the movie quote: Disney's Bedknobs and broomsticks

Happy Birthday NJ

Today is NJ's Birthday and she is turning the big FIVE. She is excited to be old enough to ride the bus and go to school in the fall.

We celebrated her birthday on Sunday. For dinner she asked for Mac & Cheese, cottage cheese and apple sauce. A different kind of meal, but Hey! you only get a birthday once a year. Why not have what you like? For her cake she asked for a lemon cake with lemon frosting and she picked out cherry nut ice cream.

For her birthday she got a new bike and had a hard time waiting until today to go outside and ride it.

Today we did have a little get together with some friends and they watched the movie Barbie of Swan Lake. AND my mom was worried that I would make my girls into tom boys. One things for sure they come out with their own personalities and she loves princesses and my little pony's, but she can play a mean soccer game! So I'm doing alright.

This last one is of Banana. Because NJ has a new bike Ban has inherited NJ's old bike. This is of Ban showing of her new gear.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NJ!!!

Flowers

I wanted to show everybody my beautiful flowers. There is a picture of my Bleeding Heart bush that is in the back of our house and the tulips are in the front.
But nothing is as beautiful as a gift from the heart, brought to me by little hands. Natalie loves Dandelions and she always makes a bouquet for me. It makes me feel important that she is always thinking of me and in her little way saying she loves me. It's what being a mother is all about.

Friday

I am so glad that today is Friday. This Saturday is the Dodgeville's junk day. That means you can put out whatever you no longer want and the garbage man will help you get rid of it. I think that it is kind of funny, because I see people driving around looking at other people's junk and taking things they may want. It's like a garage sale, but a garbage or junk sale. Two Saturday's ago it was the towns yard sale day, and I guess now it's "Get rid of all the stuff you didn't sale day." How does that saying go, "One man's junk is another man's treasure."

Last year I did put out a few nice things that I no longer wanted, just to see what kind of person would go through and take the stuff. Needless to say, the stuff was taken. The things we do for entertainment. I think that I should have gone into psychology. Hum. I wonder if I need to pay these people for my experiments, or at least let them know that they were volunteers.

"If there's one thing we like it is volunteers! Eh Birdie." Movie quote. Do you know what movie it comes from? Chelsea may know!

Also I put up another picture of Jared and Hannah on Jared's cool snowmobile. See the smoke in the background? It's running and Hannah wasn't scared at all! Jared has made a snowmobile fan out of her. This one is for you Jared.

Mother's Day

I hope everyone had a great Mother's Day, even the ones who ended up having to do the dishes. I still have a few more pictures that I would like to post from the weekend. I'm sorry about my scary picture but at least I look dumb on purpose, something I have learned from Jenny. Why not look silly on purpose cause then if you do, it was because you meant to. A great pearl of wisdom for those of us who are not models.

Anyways, if you are sick of all my pictures that is because I want my blog to appeal to all. Even those who aren't great readers. Like poor Gaston and I quote, "How can you read this thing? It has no pictures."

Gage's Birthday

This past weekend we all went to Iowa to visit Jared, Amy and Gage for Gage's 2nd Birthday.

The weather was cooler and the ground was wet, resulting in very sandy wet shoes, socks and pants, but that made it all the more fun! What's fun without a little mess? Not as fun. This is a known fact of life. If you don't believe me, then you must not have a washing machine. Sorry digression Humm...

Where was I? Oh yes Australia...

We had a great time in Kalona and we had Gage's party at a really cool park that had a lot of fun things to play with, but as you can see Andrew's favorite part was the circle of bricks. Who needs expensive things to have fun?

The kids loved the all you can eat cake and ice cream (How's that going Jared), and blowing bubbles. Hannah had a little hard time with that, quickly realizing that bubbles do not taste very good.

Here are a few pictures of the good weekend we had.

Melanie

While in Vegas Melanie bought my kiddos some new cool outfits and she wanted a few pictures. I have a bunch of funny pictures because Natalie was into "posing" and "modeling." She kept asking for a photo shoot.

It was a little windy and Hannah has very sensitive eyes so if you look closely she has tears in her eyes. Or for Melanie's benefit she is so happy with her new clothes that she is crying.

A funny story about Hannah. Because Hannah's eyes are so sensitive she does not like to see me put in my contacts. She covers her eyes and cries, "Oww! Oww! Stop Mommy STOP!!" So one time just to bug her I said, "Hey Hannah." And she looked over and I moved my contact with my finger and of course I got the wanted response. "Ahowwwaaa." Just a few of the perks to being a parent. Another one is being able to eat where ever in the house you want to, but I will save that for another day.

Also something to look at is Natalie's necklaces. She made the beaded one. Oh! This reminded me of something funny. I asked Natalie to make dinner and she told me that she couldn't make dinner. I then asked her, "What can you make?"

She thought for a while working her mouth. Then she said, "Hum, I can make letters, pictures and necklaces. Oh! And Waffles I think!"

That got her going and with Hannah's help they got down the flour and measuring cup. Natalie then pulled a big bowl out of the cupboard and and began counting cups of flour and dumping it in the bowl.

I was curious how this would turn out so I continued to watch as Natalie tried to be in control of the situation.

Natalie told Hannah that she could help, so they moved the whole project to the kitchen table to make it easier for the two of them. Natalie told Hannah to get the sugar, but Hannah was really excited about the eggs.

So Hannah ran to the frig and got the eggs and climbed up on her chair at the table. Natalie tried to direct Hannah into getting the sugar, but Hannah was focused on the eggs. Hannah picked up an egg out of the carton and Natalie told her that she is not old enough to crack the egg.

"I'm not going to crack the egg." Hannah said as she looked the egg over. "I'm just going to hold it." She lifted it up for Natalie to see and then......

She dropped it. They both froze in shock as the egg fell and splatted on the table. They looked up at me and when I did not respond, they proceeded to take care of the problem. Hannah first tried to pick up the egg and put it in the bowl.

"Not yet!" Natalie yelled shaking her measuring cup at Hannah.

So Hannah went to set the gluey mess down, but she knew that was not a good idea either and then the thought of "What does this taste like?" crossed her mind. Without further ado she tried a bit of it. This is when I stepped in and took care of the mess. Though I did have to clean it up, it was sure worth the entertainment.

AHHH! It is spring

We took these pictures after church. Poor Andrew is napping.

Isn't the grass so green? It better be after such a long winter!!

Spring? Is it here?

The girls love being outside rain or snow!

It was a very cold afternoon, but they wanted to be outside and Natalie wanted to use her umbrella.

Sometimes life gives you a broken umbrella, but that can't stop you from having fun!

painting

Little artists at work!!

Andrew, Gage, Hannah and Natalie

Banana's birthday

Banana's birthday was in February and I was happy with the way the cake turned out. I bought some cake decorating "thingies" and I'm slowly working on my birthday cake making, nothing fancy yet.

You can also see how far behind I am.