update, again

So I am really not good at updating, but every 6 mos or so!! So we are still in the apartment. Abbi started Kindergarten and has finally decided that she likes it! She has officially lost 4 teeth now! Anna started speech class this week and had a blast! She starts preschool after Labor Day and is really looking forward to it because she really wants to be in school like her big sister! Brent is still working full time but started on his dream of going back to school, taking one class this semester (anatomy & physiology)! We are busy and don't really know what we do : ) Sorry I didn't get a picture of Brents first day back to school!!

we moved ~ again!

Well, some of you know, we sold our house (rather quickly) and moved to an apartment on April 10. So far, the girls have been sick since we've moved (and I don't mean homesick). It all started with Abbi getting croup (an ER visit was warranted) and it turned into bronchitis. Meanwhile, Anna got croup, which turned to bronchitis. Abbi got better and Anna got worse. Anna ended up with pneumonia and Abbi got sick (vomiting) which only lasted a few hours. Anna seems to be feeling better and Abbi recovered quickly then woke up this morning with a stomach ache (vomiting again). I have decided that each time she ate strawberries, she vomited the next day...hmmm. No strawberries for Abbi to see if that's the cause. Another update, during all the sickness, Anna's x-ray showed evidence of asthma. We knew that it was a possibility since Abbi has asthma that Anna's chances were increased. So, now 2 kids with asthma, ugh! Well to keep it all in perspective, we can be thankful that it can be taken care of and it doesn't have to be a life threatening thing! Thank God that it is only asthma and nothing life threatening!! Well, that's my update for now. I'll try to update as things go along!

Making Cookies

So, when it is COLD outside, Brent goes out and makes snowmen and I stay inside!! (Of course I make hot chocolate for when they come in). But this is what I do when they aren't playing outside!! We decided to make Valentines day cut out cookies! Abbi and Anna each got to do it by themselves! We had some good hearts and some not so good ones!! But they all tasted the same!

Abbi was pretty quick at filling up her cookie sheet (we had to put some on Anna's (shhh don't tell her!)

Anna just pressed that cookie cutter everywhere on the dough, overlapping and all!

playing in the snow

Abbi, Anna and Daddy went out to play in the snow we got last Friday afternoon. It was a very wet snow so it made for good snowman building weather!!

This is the finished product, Anna did help, but decided that it was too cold to stay out and wait for a picture!!

This is the bottom of the snowman!

Abbi began the snowman with a very tiny snowball (you can barely see it in her hand!!)

BURRR says Anna!!

Abbi was excited to play out in the snow!!

potty training

So I decided to start potty training Anna this weekend, (spur of the moment), and she only had 1 accident yesterday and only 1 today!!! YEAH we are on the road to no more diapers (hopefully, lets keep our fingers crossed!!) She still doesn't tell me she needs to go, but I take her every 2 hours or so and tell her to go and she pretty much does! I'll keep you posted on our progress!!

an update

Well, it has been a long time and I don't have much time before the girls awaken from their beauty sleep, but I will try to catch you up for now!

Brent ~ Brent is currently working on the "last" project on the house before putting it up for sale. He is getting wood for the stairs, going to finish it, and give us "new" wooden stairs. His arm is doing much better and has been officially released from the doctor!! YEAH, now he will just give it time to strengthen back up!

Cherish ~ Well, I am still about the same. Just working part time and keeping up with the girls! I have been trying to go through things around the house wondering "what can I sell or get rid of so we don't have to move it...?" We are praying about where to send Abbi to school next Fall because she will be in Kindergarten. (Kleenex please...)

Abbi ~ Abbi is still loving school! Her asthma has been better controlled and she is doing much better and hasn't been sick so much! She just goes non-stop from sun up to sun down! I wonder where she gets all her energy?!?! She now knows all her letters (uppercase and lower case) and can write them all. We are working on her learning her phone number and address, but since we plan to move soon, I'm not really focusing on her address! She just went to the doctor on Monday for her 5 year old check up, needless to say she's not a fan of the shots!! She is 38.5 pounds and 41.5 inches tall!

Anna ~ Anna is quite ornery! She is 2 1/2 and loves to tease you! She can be quite stubborn (not sure who she gets that from!!) and is quite the mama's girl! She desperately wants to go to school with Abbi and just can't wait until next Fall when she can! She will be going to the same preschool that Abbi goes to now. She is becoming clearer with her speech, but still can be hard to understand at times. The next obstacle we will tackle with Miss Anna is ....potty training! She really could care less about it and not sure how this will go... any new ideas???

Family Pictures, bet you can't wait...

I told you that as soon as we got these, I would show them off, we here they are. There were SO many great ones, that this is just a glimpse...

By the way, that water was like 2 degrees!! BRRRR

There were like 200 plus pictures to choose from, so sorry so many on here, but it is so hard choosing, I still have many more GREAT ones!!

something new

Well, after receiving some grief from my family members, (you know who you are...) I am updating that we got some family pictures and some pictures of the girls taken yesterday. It was such a nice day, absolutely beautiful!! I thought that giving the girls a nap would make them much happier before pictures, and all Anna wanted to do was "up mama"! That figures! She finally did "lighten up" (literally too) and we got some great pictures! I haven't actually seen them, but I can't imagine some of them not being great! And Abbi just wanted her pictures taken with our friends the Norton's. And their daughter Abi wanted her picture taken with us!! We should have switched them to see if anyone noticed....just kidding! I'll post the pictures when I get them, I'm so excited to see them!! By the way, we did get some of Abbi and Abi together, they are a cute pair of friends!!

It's a jungle out there!

Here is a close up of our Elephant adn Monkey we had hanging around Saturday night!!

Sorry it is sideways, but here they are in "full length"

Abbi and Anna loved trick or treating! Anna kept saying "next house" and Abbi didn't understand why we couldn't go to every house!! She insists that she saw lights on in every house! Brent and I decided to cherish the fact that this may be the last year of innocence for Abbi, as next year she will be in Kindergarten and will probably want to be what is "in" for the year!

Happy Halloween!!

This one Kelly (a friend of mine) and I did, I know it is sideways, but it is supposed to be an "OH NO" pumpkin!!

This one is Anna's spider pumpkin, again it is sideways, sorry!

This is Abbi's scarecrow pumpkin. She had a cool green pumpkin!

Anna LOVED digging out the insides of the pumpkin!!

Abbi preferred to use the "tool" for that. She did use her hands some, but she didn't like it as much as Anna!

Applesauce

This is only about one third of the applesauce I made this year! I made 5 bushel into applesauce! YUMMY!!!

Jun visits in September!!

Well, some of you may know that Brent went to Japan on a Missions trip in 2000. While there, he became very close friends with Jun. Well, they haven't seen each other in 9 years, and Jun had the oportunity to visit Lafayette, IN in Sept! Abbi loved to hear him speak English and Jun tried teaching her some Japanese. One thing I learned was that Jun loved American food, especially apple crisp!!

Been a long time

WOW, I cannot believe that I haven't updated since the beginning of July! Well, ALOT has happened around here since! Brent still has a brace on his arm, but has more movement! Due to him only being able to use one arm completely, I have been a little extra busy, so that is one reason why it has been so long! Another reason is we didn't have internet for over a month! So...Anna had a root canal done last month and now has a "fake" tooth. We call it our "$300 accident". Abbi pushed Anna down about a year ago (broke her front tooth) and we finally had a second opinion and had her tooth fixed recently. We just got back from vacation a few days ago, if I have time I'll post some pictures. A funny thing...Abbi got a leech on the bottom of her foot in the lake, ask her about it! We also spent a week at Brent's parents in July, just hanging out and spending some time on the lake. Abbi starts school Sept 1 and she is super excited about that! Overall, we've had a busy summer since Brent ruptured the tendon in his arm and I'll try to be better at keeping up, I know I said that last time!

When it rains, it pours, right??

Well, the saying goes that way, but I decided after this past week, that I am going to look at that saying differently! My new saying,"When it rains, it rains a little harder, and then turns to a sprinkle". Now, I'm just waiting for the sprinkle! So, Brent is finally recovering a little nicer and isn't in as much pain, but it has been VERY hard for him to sit down and keep his arm elevated! It seems every 10 mins he is up again, and then swelling, pain, etc! Anyway, we found out on Thursday that Anna is having a root canal (yep) on Tuesday to save her chipped tooth. Right now it is infected and is saveable. We went to Indianapolis for a second opinion and they felt very strongly that the best option would be to save the tooth for spacing and "fix" it so it looked "normal". Won't that be fun?!?! So, since I feel that it just "rained harder", we are hoping for some light sprinkles in the future forcast! On a positive note, I finally got some sleep last night after 4 days!! Now, if we can just pray for that to continue! Thank goodness for Pizza Hut and neighbors for some good food, I can't keep up with things fast enough and then...time to eat again! I am so very thankful that I am not a single parent and that this will end in a few weeks to a few months!! I'm ready for my "partner in crime" to be my helper again!! LOL!

Brent update

Some of you may know that Brent hurt his arm at work last Thursday and had surgery today. If you didn't know, well, now you do! Anyway, his surgery went well and the ruptured tendon in his arm was fully repaired. He has a long recovery to get his full strength back, but the doctor feels that he will regain full strength again. He is staying the night in the hospital for observation and is on a morphien drip for pain right now. I plan to bring him home tomorrow to rest and relax! (If that is possible with two young children!) So, he is on the road to recovery! I think he may be off work for 6-8 weeks, so a visit might just cheer him up! I am afraid he will become bored quickly at home!!

Anna's Two!!

This is ONE of Anna's favorite presents, she even wanted to eat breakfast in it!!

My first cupcake cake!

Here we are "making" Anna's butterfly cupcake cake. Say "CHEESE" I got this idea from my neighbor (Thanks Michelle) when she made one for her daughters birthday. It was really easy an gave me inspiration for making more of them! The only downside....I have TONS of cupcakes left! It took 2 cake mixes to get enough cupcakes to make a butterfly! And I cheated and used icing from the tubs (which took 3 1/2 tubs!!) Talk about LOADS of sugar!! But it was fun and the girls were really into it also!

Abbi's last day of school

Abbi with Mrs. Comella

Abbi with Mrs. Synesael

Abbi with her friend Cara

Abbi with her teachers when they were talking about her

I know, this is REALLY late in comming, since her last day of school was May 15!  She had a graduation day where the teachers gave the kids scrapbooks from the year and talked about each one of the kids individually, which I thought was very nice!  The kids sang a few songs and then "cookie time"!  Abbi is very excited to be going to Pre-K next year, which will be 4 mornings a week!  She does miss going to school though!!

Happy Mother's Day

I just wanted to send a Happy Mother's Day wish out to all my girl "friends" and "family"!  Hope it's a great one.  I look forward to spending the day with my girls, my how they've grown!  I sure have enjoyed being a mommy!!

Anna 6/07

Anna 5/09

Abbi 5/09

Abbi 1/05

Playing Catch UP!

Well, it has been forever since I have added a new post!  We've had lots of exciting things happening!  First, Brent went to NY with his dad to visit his grandparents, and Grammie came to stay with us!  That was fun, as we went to teh Bug Bowl at Purdue and Anna attmepted to eat a chocolate covered bug (seriously, I bought it for her!).  She mainly ate the chocloate and gave me the bug saying "ucky".  We then had an adveterous Sunday morning with the gas man here (everything turned out to be okay, but that alarm wouldn't stop going off!)  

The next week, Abbi stayed the night at a friends house for the first time!  She and Abi (her friend) had a really fun time and when I went to pick her up, she didn't want to come home and asked to stay another night!  Abi has 4 older siblings, I wonder if Abbi liked all the commotion...

Last week, we had my 2 nieces (Hannah, 3 & Leah, 1) from Wednesday afternoon to Saturday night.  BOY that was interesting and I now know why God doesn't allow you to have a 1, 2, 3, & 4 year old at the same time!  Overall it went fine and I'd do it again!  I even took the 3 youngest grocery shopping by myself while Abbi was at preschool!  There was alot of bickering between the 4 of them, but with a little separation, no problems!

Last night abbi had her Spring Program at school, we took the video camera but didn't think about taking the regular camera, so no pictures.  It was a lot of fun and Abbi just can't wait to get to Pre-K now.  I don't think she realizes that she has to wait until Sept.  She has only 3 more days of preschool, it is sad to realize that she is growing up so fast!

So, that is our latest updates, I'll try to do better from now on!

another funny out of Abbi's mouth!

Today was a fun filled day!  I worked at a Book Fair Abbi's school is putting on to help raise money for new furniture, then went to pick up the girls to get to Abbi's gymnastics class.  We then dropped off some books to return to the library only to notice a very LOW tire.  I called Brent to see if it would jsut be okay to drive to a gas station to fill up and then go home for the day.  Well, Brent's work wasn't far away and he wanted to see it (I guess) and fill it up at teh shop where he works.  So off we go back to that end of town to get the tire pumped up.  Brent noticed a nail in the tire, filled it up with air, and told me to go straight home that it was leaking pretty fast, and he'd fix it when he got home.  SO, the WHOLE way home (about 15 mins) Abbi was very nervous about this tire, saying "I don't want a leak in the van" (like she even knew what that meant!).  So we pulled into the garage and Abbi REFUSED to walk past the tire because she was "scared of the leak".  I had to carry her and show her the nail and show her that it was okay and it wasn't going to hurt anyone or anything and that Daddy would fix it and it would be like new again!!  I never imagined that a low (almost flat) tire would cause such distress!!