Fun at the lake

 I love this picture of Dan, Emma and Jesse.  Emma looks like she's ready to fight and Jesse he just cracks me up!

 BFF's in the making!  Emma and Shea just love each other!

Dan's parents rented a couple paddle boards for us to use for the day.  We all had a lot of fun using them.  The kids even did great.  They just hoped on and took off.

 Gracie and Belle

I didn't get any pictures of them tipping each other over and all the fun that they had on them, but I was too busy having fun myself to be sitting and taking pictures all day.   :)  At one point I got both of my sisters to get on one of the paddle boards with me.  Hoping there is a good picture of that because that was so fun!  And guess what else we got a picture of.....

My Family

So thankful to have a picture of all 5 of us in one place! 

What we've been up to this year

Since there is such a gap in my blog from last year to this year, I thought I would post some pics of the things that we have done and been up to.  Keep in mind these are my phone pics.  Not the best quality but so thankful that my phone has a camera on it.  :)

Jesse played baseball and also got braces put on.  Emma played t-ball but I don't have a picture at the moment.

Dan and I were able to go to Vegas for a weekend with some good friends!  It was awesome!!!  We saw Ray Ramono!  :) 

This was a kids meal that Jesse ordered at Silver Mt.  Who puts 3 cheeseburgers on a kids meal!?  Of course Jesse thought this was AWESOME!  :)  They were supposed to be mini burgers but they weren't quite mini, not as big as a regular, but big enough that he could only eat 2.  

We celebrated Gracie's 11th birthday at the local pool with family and then she had a friend that lives out of town stay the night with her as well.  She's growing up sooo fast!  :(

This is the first time that I've gotten all 3 kids in a picture in a really long time.  Jesse hates having his picture taken.  I mean seriously hates it!  So this is far from great but I will take it!

 My sister and I in her new jeep.

Jesse got his first dirt bike and him and his cousin have been putting on the miles riding around together.  I love that we live close enough that they just drive across the hayfield to go play. 

He has also learned to fish.  Since neither Dan or I are fishermen his older cousin Austin has been teaching him lots and Jesse is just soaking it up.

Gracie and Emma with their cousin up at the Lake

 My Love!

Jesse with his new gear

 Emma and I

Emma has lost her first tooth and has gotten her ears pierced.  She is feeling like a big girl, especially with Kindergarten starting in a couple of weeks.

Well, there is a run through of some of the things that we've been up to.  There are way too many to put in one post.  I will post another time about our trip down to Palm Springs to visit Dan's parents. 

Back on

  We have been busy living life and at full speed, but I really want to blog again... so I'm back on.  I looked at the last post and it is from so long ago.  I'm not good at keeping a blog at all, but I love when I do it and can look back at old posts and remember things that we did.  In the last post we were still working on Gracie's room upstairs.  Which is done and looks great!  The kids love having their own rooms and space.  I will get some pictures up soon of the finished work.

  The kids and I have been staying in Missoula 2 days a week through out most of the summer.  Gracie is getting some help with her reading and we've been staying with my sister and her family which has been so nice to have a place to stay and to be able to hang out with them.

 Here we are at Apple Bee's the other day.

 Emma was trying pull herself up on Gracie to look taller than her big sister, and eventually they were both giggling.  I love it!  :)

 Here I am with Jesse.  My phone doesn't take the best pictures, but I'm just thankful when I remember to take pictures every once in a while.  We seem to run so much that I never get the camera out unless I have a photo session and then it's put away while we live life.  We are going up to my in-laws lake house this weekend and I'm hoping and crossing my fingers that maybe we can get a nice/decent family photo on the lake!  We shall see.  :)  

Construction & Birthdays

Construction on Gracie's room has begun!  Yay!!!  We had extra space in our upstairs area which has been an oversized play area for the kids.  Gracie has been begging to have her own room for the last 2 years, so she is very excited about the construction.  She plans to make thank you cards to the construction workers and has already been giving them hugs!  :)  They have gotten this far in only 2 days and now it is time for the electrical part of things.  My brother-in-law Jared is an electrician so he's going to come this weekend and get everything ready, so that by Monday the workers can start the insulation and hanging the sheet rock. 

 They are building in a small entertainment center on this outside wall, so we can hang the tv and put away the xbox and other consoles.

This month has been a busy month of birthdays in our family.  Including Jesse who has turned 8.   I can't believe how fast his little life has seemed to fly by.  He seems like such a little man this year.  He feels for the most part that he's outgrown a lot of the kid toys.  He's not into the matchbox cars, figurines and such that he was last year.  This year he really likes his xbox games, sports of any kind (just like his Dad), and weapons.  His Christmas list includes a BB gun, a sling shot and a swiss army knife.  I think I am really going to miss matchbox cars and figurines!  :(

New Orleans

Lindy, my Mom and I went down to New Orleans for a few days.  It was a lot of fun!  :)

The one day Lindy and I took a tour out to 2 different plantations which was fun.  One was an American and the other was Creole.  So much history... which I love! 

Here is the sunset from our hotel room.

This is the Oak Alley Plantation  

It was my favorite.  It was just like out of the books I read.  The only thing I was surprised by was that there weren't as many bedrooms as I'd always imagined.  I think it only had 3 or 4 bedrooms.  It was beautiful though as well as all of the grounds.

 

This was one of the slave quarters.  So sad, but again it was neat to see the history.  It was amazing how small these were.  The whole time, we kept saying how we couldn't imagine fitting our families in one of these.

Lindy

and this is the Laura plantation, which was a creole plantation.  

It was also really neat, because they have a different kind of history.  They used the plantation homes differently than the American ones did.  In this tour, we learned that the family that had once lived here, supposedly had sent their teenage daughter overseas to try and have her acne cured, unfortunately whatever they did to her, ended up killing her.   I can't imagine, all because of acne.  :(

One night we stopped at this restaurant and of course we had to try a "Hurricane."  We only tried the category 1, but I don't know what all the fuss is about... I think it tasted like kool-aid chlorine.  Yuck!!!

Mom, me and Lindy

We were only brave enough to venture out onto Bourbon Street during the day and even at that I think we were on it for a block or two and headed else where.  

This was the view from a Mexican restaurant that we ate at.  They had a balcony for us to sit on which was fun because we got to sit up above everyone and people watch.  :)

As much fun as it was to get out of town and to experience a place that I'd never been to before, I was thankful to come home. 

~Jenny

Birthday Weekend

We have sure been busy!!!   We have had something going on every day since last Monday.   Thursday we took the kids down to the fair to ride rides with all of the cousins.

Friday was Emma's birthday, so we met up with Dan's parents for birthday lunch and then headed out to her party.  Since everyone was so busy with it being Labor Day weekend, we decided to just have a small kids party.  We just invited cousins, since there is enough of them on their own to make a small party. 

That night we went back down to the fair for dinner and stayed the night in our camper.  We haven't ever stayed down their before, but thought we'd give it a try.  We thought it might be something fun for Emma's birthday plus we were going down for the Rodeo one night, the auction the next morning, plust the Demo derby.   I think next year we'll skip the derby and maybe just do the rodeo.  If my knees weren't so bad, I think it would be so fun to barrel race.  Not in front of anybody!  Ha!  But just for my own fun!

My 2nd Grader!

Jesse had his first day of 2nd grade today!  I asked him if he had a fun day and he told me he did and that he got candy!   I guess his teacher knows the way to his heart!  :)

 Gosh, it sure doesn't seem that long ago that he was in preschool, clinging to my leg because he didn't want me to leave and now he's very independent.  He is so smart, thoughtful and kind hearted!

I got all 3 kids to hold still long enough to take a quick picture of all of them.  Gracie was in a bit of a crabby mood, but managed to put a half smile on her face for one picture and then we ran out quick to meet the bus.  Emma doesn't start school until November, so I have a little bit more time before we have another first day of school around here. 

On another note, I've decided, "If you can't beat em', join them".  So... I have joined Fantasy Football on one of my husbands teams.  So far my team, 'The Magnificents' have a fairly good team!   :)

And I did finish the book by Nicholas Sparks called 'The Best of Me,' and it was really good.  I was sure that I had the ending figured out, but I forget that Nicholas Sparks is unlike most authors and can usually stump even me.