20 years...really?

I have been busily scanning photos in for my 20th High School Reunion which is next weekend in Edina, MN. Hard to believe it has been that long. Really am I 38 years old? There are many days I still feel about 17. Then I look around at the 4 little boys (a couple NOT so little now) in this house and remember...yep I am 38.

I loved High School, really they were some wonderful years. I still have some very dear friends from high school. It's such a blessing to have friends to journey through life with and I have a handful of those yet who knew me when I was 16. A few are pictured here...

I am thankful to God for giving me some dear lifelong friends and I am so excited to see THEM next weekend. I think I need to update some of these photos next weekend. :)

My dear friend Shelley Wehr Shirley (yep Shelley Shirley & Susan Shisler laugh away friends)

My dear friend Mike Colby, close family friends since we were 3, our Mom's were close. Treasure that friendship.(this photo is from a Spring Choir concert, nice pants Mike)

My good friends Shelley and Leanne (note if I crowd myself in the middle it almost looks like I have an honors gold rope too)

My friend Stacey, proof that I once had a very flat tummy

My very favorite high school dance Prom 89' with Eugene Munster as my date, yep that's his real name (note Mike Colby again on far left) "Gene" Munster is now some big apple stock analyst on CNBC all the time for Piper Jaffery, google him. Funny he hasn't changed a bit, super nice guy and still single. Anyone know of a 30 something girl for him?

before a dance junior year, Leanne again and my friend Linda who was here to meet Max last week. My brother thought that my dress looked like a curtain. Hmm I do think it looks like my parent's chairs though.

Homecoming Court Senior year, yep we had to wear floor length white dresses with long sleeved gloves. Goofy huh? Oh well we thought it was lovely. (shelley front row left) And couldn't we have found a prettier place for a photo of us all than the library?

There are a few pics to make you laugh, grateful I never went with the big hair look (no comment Jen)...but laugh at the curled bangs in most. SO much fun. Oh and let's not forget the bows and ruffles on EVERY dress

Miracle AND Cure

We continue to pray for Cara's Mom, Jean who is battling ALS. The other night as I was laying in bed with Jack praying we prayed the same prayer we have been praying and that is for a miracle for Grandma Jean...and after we prayed Jack asked me..."Is there a cure for ALS?" And I said sadly, "no there is not", Jack's response "Then we really should be praying for a miracle AND a cure Mom. God can do ANYTHING you know."

So please pray for Jean. Pray for a miracle and a cure. Pray for her spirit to be strong, her eyes to continue to sparkle and for beautiful moments and memories. Pray for Cara and Mike too, this is so very hard on both of them, Cara's Dad Bob, and Cara's brother Cort and of course for that Sweet Alice and her fun big brother Charlie.

If you want to follow Jean's journey and be updated here is the link to her Caring Bridge Site.

Care Package

If you remember on the boys' Summer Bucket List they were wanting to make a care package for Lt. Cpl Eric Eikenberry...so we worked on that today. We had fun filling it with crackers, peanut butter, granola bars, peanuts, gum, protein bars and sports magazines. We talked a lot about what it would be like to be serving overseas, in Afghanistan and how that would feel for him. What it would be like to hear the sounds of guns and bombs going off. What it would be like to be that far away from family, air conditioning, TV, homemade food. How very much we take for granted those things and how grateful we are there are people who serve our country. We are praying for Eric...if you think of it, pray for him too. Tomorrow's his birthday! :)

Buckeye Baby Max

A friend of ours, is now selling these "Buckeye Baby" onesies in Columbus, Ohio. She sent one to Max to model for her blog. Isn't he the cutest thing? Well the onesies are pretty fun too. We thought it would be fun to have Brutus Buckeye model with him in some of the pics.

The Summer Bucket List

The boys have come up with a list of things they want to do before school starts in 3 weeks...

In no particular order:

1. Go to the Mall of America

2. Mini golf at Pirates' Cove near the cabin

3. Perfect Games (in Ames)

4. ICubs baseball game

5. Chocolate chip cookie/lemonade stand raising money for Compassion International

6. Care package for Eric Eikenberry (solder serving overseas Drew's class prayed for went to DMCS)

7. Shrinky dinks

8. Float night at the pool

We will have our work cut out for us to get these in...We will do #1 and #2 next week when we head to MN. Jack worked on # 7 last night.

Fun morning

This morning we had the pleasure of watching our friends kiddos, the Lors Family. We had Seth (7), Danielle (5), Lydia (2) and Gracelyn (7 mo) here for a couple of hours while they attended the funeral of a dear friend from church.

Here are some snapshots of our morning. Drew and Tommy both took the Red Cross Babysitting Class last week and are officially certified babysitters. :) They did a great job of playing with the girls, Jack and Seth were together most of the time. They had fun with legos, forts, pool and the basketball court. The girls were sweet as can be. It was a fun morning. We had a very gourmet lunch of Mac N Cheese, grapes and of course homemade chocolate chip cookies.

It was a blessing to be able to help our friends out and keep their kids here. Thanks Makila and Ben for letting us have them over....

School Supplies

Believe it or not we bought all of our school supplies this week. We bought some the other night and finished up with the rest today. We had to shop at 2 different places to get them all. It's not as easy of a task getting school supplies as it was when I was a kid. We would go to Olsen Bros in Edina, I think there were 2 aisles of school supplies. Teachers were not nearly as specific in their list of supplies as they are today. We are told the exact brands of crayons, markers, pencils...the exact colors and types of folders and notebooks. The task is a bit daunting for this Momma, but the boys L-O-V-E it! And I remember VIVIDLY LOVING it myself, so therefore it's worth every minute.

We came home from Target and the boys sorted through everything and put it into bags so we will be prepared in August. Love how Jack labeled his bag. :()

What Saturday morning looks like...

This is what our morning looks like...fun?!

Drew's belated Birthday

We had Drew's "friend" party yesterday to celebrate his June 3rd birthday. It was the first week we could find the time to host it. He had some buddies over and they played whiffle ball, football, water fights, water balloons, dunk contests, just good old fashioned fun boy stuff. Drew planned every detail himself, and even tied all of the water balloons, with the help of his brothers. It was over 100 degrees and so muggy. We were grateful the rain held off and the hose worked, the boys all were soaked when the party was over. We went through 4 or 5 pitchers of kool aid, lemonade and gatorade. It was steamy! Drew went to bed saying it was a great party! So that's success!

Happy belated #11 Drew! We love you!

Happy Belated 13th Tommy!

We celebrated Tommy's 13th birthday tonight at Red Robin with some of his best buddies.

Love watching all of these "almost teenage" boys love on Max

They even brought him balloons and sang to him

Great morning...Mom update

This morning was my Mom's appointment with the neurosurgeon in Minneapolis. I just got a call from her, the Dr. is NOT suggesting surgery. Wahoo!! He thinks what she has is a pinched nerve that the steroid they had prescribed is helping. He wants her to try physical therapy for 3-4 weeks, which she can do near the cabin.

This is a BIG answer to prayer. None of us, including my Mom, wanted her to have to go through major surgery. What a great way to start the day! Dad's voice sounded so cheery today as well, he does NOT do well with my Mom sick or hurt. He sounded more relieved than my Mom did on the phone.

Thanks for the prayers...

Twins vs Indians

Photos from the boys day at the Twins Stadium. They were obviously a bit torn with who to cheer for...Minnesota Twins, for Mommy or Cleveland Indians, for their Dad.

In the seats in plenty of time... ;)

The parachuters Jack mentioned in an earlier post

pre-game warm ups

They had a terrific day and arrived safely home around 8:00 tonight. A long, but fun day.

Max and I stayed home ALL day, enjoyed the quiet and lots of snuggles. Even took a little nap together this afternoon.

Why we do the things we do....

More from the baseball game...via Scott

The Navy had 4 parachute jumpers land on the field.

After it was over Jack said

"Daddy this is the best baseball game I have ever been too.

Seeing the jumpers is a once in a lifetime opportunity"

Love

PS tears for Daddy

Boys at the Twins/Indians Game

Big boys are all up in MN at the Twins/Indians game today...just got this email from Scott. :)

Conversation with Jack

Jack can I have some nachos?

Sure Dad you paid for them.

A few mins later

Dad. That's enough. You are done the rest are mine

Happy Birthday Don!

Today is Scott's Dad's birthday. Don is 83 years old today. We wish you a very happy birthday! We hope your day is blessed.

Love,

Scott, Susan, Tommy, Drew, Jack and Max

My new favorite app

Let me first mention the following...my Dad, whom I adore, doesn't understand my (and many others) love of black and white photos...nor will he understand my love for Polaroids. You see when he was a little boy they had NO other photo options but black and white. So...to my Dad the fact that you would use a modern full color capability camera, and then make the photo black and white, or vintage looking, or sepia...or polaroid just doesn't make sense. Why wouldn't you want the sharp, full color, high res photos cameras offer these days? Love you Dad...but I do love the look of old photos taken in 2010.

I read about these about this app on Pioneer Woman while searching for something else. But love the way these turned out. I have not been so thrilled with the iPhone camera, but this post talked about how to make the best use of a camera phone. And this ShakeIt app is like an old Polaroid Camera...sounds like one and then you shake the camera like you are drying the photo. The boys thought it was fun and they haven't a clue what a Polaroid was....funny.

Enjoy our polaroids from today.

Jack in his disguise from Wendy's

Max and I snuggling in our nursing chair

Max trying Sweet Potatoes

Random Rainy Monday

just because I loved this shot

It was a very HOT weekend here, and our ac has a hard time keeping up. It was HOT.

Tommy played in his last tournament of the year for baseball. He had fun.

love this photo Scott took of Drew watching Tommy

My High School girlfriend, Linda, stopped over on Saturday. She was in town visiting another friend from her Iowa State days. I love old friends.

We had dinner with family friends on Saturday night, last minute and laid back, but so fun. I love newer friends.

Max is starting to sit up more on his own...it's pretty fun.

Jack had swimming lessons last week, we LOVE Swim with Kim. The boys have all learned SO much from her. It's so fun to see them. This was the first year Tommy didn't take lessons.

Max started baby food on Tuesday, he is liking it a little more every day. This was his initial reaction

I was tired out on Sunday afternoon after being up in the night with 3 boys during the storms, so I took a little nap. When I woke up this is where I found Scott and Max. Scott working on his presentation for today and Max, hanging with Daddy.

Monday is cleaning day in the summer, boys don't really like it.

Boys had dental appointments today, no cavities for anyone. We celebrated with Krispy Kremes.

Scott is out of town, speaking in Illinois somewhere. Then onto St Louis. I miss him when he is gone. The boys miss him too.

I am tired of middle of the night storms...it wakes everyone up. Makes for a tired, and maybe even crabby Momma.

I cannot believe we only have 4 more full weeks of summer left. Where does the time go? mmm to rainy, crabby Momma, clean the house days? I hope not.

I have asked the boys to each think of ONE thing they REALLY want to be sure to do this summer. I want to be sure to get that in for them.

That's all the random thoughts and photos for today...