Photo Dump #1

Several of these pictures you may have already seen if you follow me on Instagram or are friends with me on Facebook. :)

Photo Dump #'s 2-856 should be coming soon, but I am having problems figuring out how to get the photos in a certain folder on my phone onto my computer.  Any help would be appreciated...it's so frustrating.

Tate and I...don't even remember taking this.

 

I want this clock...ours broke in the move and I saw this one at the mall...

Our basement still looks like this.  Ugh...

I feel like half of my life is spent in these little doctors offices with my 2 littles...

Tate got orange skinny jeans...only he's so skinny that they don't look "skinny" on him...

The Burback Kids came and stayed with us a couple of weekends ago.  Tate was in heaven with his cousins...

I served them a breakfast of cinnamon and orange rolls on the porch...

Brenda clearly doesn't know how to do the duck face...

I LOVE my bedroom.  I have never had a bedroom that I loved until this house.  I spend lots of time laying in bed, watching TV in the evenings. :)

No recollection of taking this picture either, but it was on unpack your backpack night.  Tate loves this hat...has had it for 2 years.

Unpack your backpack night!

Tate's friend Kiley goes to Adams too! :)  We get to have her and Ava a few days a week after school until their parents get off work.  The kids love it.

Tate and I in Kinnick Stadium for Kids at Kinnick.

Sean and I at Kinnick...

Chris and Brenda moved back to Iowa several weeks ago.  It's nice to be able to have them over and just hang out whenever we want to see them!

We had Stewart Girls Night out with my mom, sister and sister-in-law.  It was so much fun!

Worked on the duck face with mom...she's terrible at it!  The guy at the table next to us saw us taking this and said, "that's more like 'sucking through a straw face'."  HA!

We'll stick with our normal faces...

However, Brenda has CLEARLY mastered the duck face since the first time she tried and it just must come natural for Cassie and I. ;) Ha.

This is more natural for Cassie though...

 

More to come!

vacationing...

It's strange...for the first time ever, we are limited to the dates of when we can vacation.  Spring break, Christmas break or summer.  So we plan to fit things in for sure.  Originally, we thought maybe we'd do a cruise (no kids!) over spring break, but due to the fact that we really wanted to do that trip with at least 1 other couple and no one else was game this year, we had to think of something else.  So Florida it is. :)  Our 2 littles have never been.  I CANNOT wait to take them.  Especially our middle child...he gets amazed by almost everything new he sees.  He will love it!  We may drive, but since our middle is completely OBSESSED with airplanes and if we flew we could spend an extra couple of days down there, we may bite the bullet and fly.  It's looking like we will be down there alone part of the time, with my parents part of the time, with some friends part of the time and just this morning I found out that another set of friends is likely going to be down there at the same time in the same area so we will hopefully get to meet up with them as well!  Is it bad that I am already looking forward to our spring break trip and it's still August?!  Ha. :)

Hoping to squeeze in a couple of other weekends away between now and then.  I wouldn't mind doing a few days in NYC.  (MOM????  You in?  You ARE having a big birthday this year! ;)) We'll see. 

For right now, with my 2 oldest kiddos in school, I feel like I am on vacation right now!  I'm hoping that feeling doesn't wear off.  I mean, c'mon...I have time to blog...in the middle of the day!  Unheard of!

and another one starts school...

Tate's 1st week of school went great!  He is goig to do really well, I think.  He loved it!

Our 3 year old starts his first day of preschool tomorrow!  Eek!  That means, I'll be home alone with the baby from 8-2 Monday through Friday.  Not gonna lie...I am pretty excited about this!  However, it will not be leisurely, that's for sure.  Our baby, as you all probably know, has several appointments per week, so it will just make things easier for me when it comes to those appointments since it will just be the 2 of us.  I won't have to lug any other kids with me, or keep kids out of the way when the appointments are at our home.  It will be nice.

I am also super excited that I can say I currently do not have any outstanding photos to edit from my shoots.  I just completed the edits today from my last shoot that I had.  It is such a good feeling to be free of editing for the next week or 2...that is unless I want to finally edit some personal pics!  I need to take some personal pictures to edit first.  I will be taking several of our 3 year old for his first day of preschool tomorrow, but unfortunately it will be a few weeks before I can post those! :)

I am looking forward to coffee tomorrow morning with a friend and then hearing how our middle did on his first day after school gets out.  For now, I better get things set up for his mini photoshoot in the morning! :)

and he's gone...

That's how I feel...like he's gone...forever.

Now, while he's living with us, he'll never NOT be a student (well at least we hope!  Ha.).

Then, he'll move out and go to college and drink under age and party and not call home and won't hug me anymore, I won't know where he's at or what he's doing at all times, he will skip class and eat frozen pizzas and cheetos all day and will be embarrassed of me.

Okay, that may be a bit overboard, but in this moment, that's how I feel.

I want time to freeze...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I want him to always willingly pose with his arm around me for pictures.
I want him to always give me kisses when I ask for them or even when I don't.  I want him to flash me the "I love you" sign unprompted and hold my hand when he is walking next to me.

He didn't look back when he got out of the van...not once.
He ran off to line up with his class.
He didn't even say goodbye.

We are so proud of him and I am just not ready to have a Kindergartener yet...not at all.
I remember like it was YESTERDAY when we were praying for a child, when we got "the call", when we layed eyes on him for the first time and then minutes later, put him in our car and drove away.  I will never forget his 1st birthday, his first steps, first word, first surgery.  I will never forget this day.
It's still unreal to me that my baby is a Kindergartener...because that's what he is, he's my BABY!
We love you Tate Kenneth and are so proud of the little boy you have become! 

this boy...

This boy...

 

...and this boy...

...and this one...

...and this one...

...and this one too...

...and don't forget about him...

...oh, and this one who is so excited for preschool roundup...

...and this one...

...and this one on his first day of preschool...

...and this one...

 

...yup, those are all my baby.  Even in this most recent picture, he is my baby.  He is the one who I have spent nearly every waking moment with since the moment he was first placed in my arms.  He is the one who made me a mother, who made me realize I never knew what love really was.  He was the one who brought me closer to God, who strengthened my faith, who made me want to live for something so much more.  He is my baby.

 

He starts Kindergarten in the morning and it's almost too much for me to take.

The end.

Kids at Kinnick

We took the big kids to Kids at Kinnick on Saturday. Thank you to Brenda for watching the baby for us so we could spend this time with the 2 bigs. :)

Sean was pretty happy to have his 2 big boys with him while heading to the stadium.  There's just something about the stadium...especially when it's surrounded by a sea of black and gold.  Oh how I love the Hawkeyes!

It was our middle child's 1st trip to Kinnick.

 

Love this boy...

Tate participated in the soccer kicking activity.  He was proud to get it in the goal...

He cautiously climbed the bleachers with his little brother the whole time.  However his little brother didn't climb them quite so cautiously.  Those 2 are so different.

We even got to see the Morris Family while we were there!
So good to see them...such great friends who we don't get too see often enough. :(
Brady Morris...

Nile Morris...

Such a wonderful day...gorgeous weather, great company and a team we are so excited to cheer on this year!

GO HAWKS!

a twinkle in his eye...

 

We've joked that our middle child has a bit of the devil in his eye.  He has a twinkle for sure...depends on the day what kind of twinkle it is! ;)

 

We took him to Kinnick Stadium for Kids at Kinnick the other day and I snapped this picture.  It's one of my favorites to date.  The twinkle in his eye in this moment was the Hawkeye Football field at Kinnick Stadium!

pictures of what we've been doing...

We sold the dishwasher we took out of our kitchen tonight! This beauty sold for a whoppin' $100...I'll take it!

 

I mailed 4 disks and hand delivered 2 today of photosessions I completed!  Woohoo!

Now I just have this session to complete and I'll be all caught up!

This is our baby's Physical Therapist, Andrea and her family.

We love her.

We also loved Tate's long hair.
I kinda really don't like his short hair...can't wait until it grows back...I miss it and terribly regret cutting it.
Tate misses it too.
This picture makes me sad...

We did those muffin tin suppers for the kids last weekend when DeCooks were over.
It was a hit...the kids loved it.
I usually do this for Tate over lunch time, but making a picnic on our empty livingroom floor for all of the kids with their muffin tins was pretty fun for them. :)

I took some pictures of Sophia that night too.
Seriously, my favorite picture of Phi Phi yet...

My sister in law, niece and nephew came to visit this last Saturday night.  It was nice to chat and catch up...it had been way too long.  Mike, Sarah and family also came over.  I also had the Burback kids at the same time.  That made for 10 kids and 5 adults in our house.  Nuts...and fun. :)
Abby in her adorable rainbow skirt...

Tate loves spending time with his cousin, Tyler.  They get along really well and play awesome together.  It's fun watching them become closer.  They need to stick together with all of their girl cousins!

Tate starts kindergarten in a week...ugh.

I lied...

You may have all heard me say that we were not planning on renewing our Foster Care License.  We never hesitated in making this decision after the newest additions to our family arrived...our hands our full to say the least!  We have said time and time again, "we're done".  There was no need for us to renew our license.

Well, we recieved an email yesterday with some information regarding renewal classes and what not.  It was pretty much stating that this is it, if you want to renew, you had better get signed up for these classes because if you don't, there won't be time to get them done in order to renew.  Suddenly I had a moment of panic...are we SURE we want to be done?!  I mean, I DO NOT want anymore kids right now...right now.  I am ALMOST certain I don't want anymore kids ever, but the key word there is ALMOST.  Eek.  Who knows how I'll feel in 5 years, I sure don't.  Not renewing felt almost like a vasectomy you know?  I mean, we could always go through the classes again in the future and become licensed again, but that is such a huge process and was difficult enough to find time to do it with 1 child, let alone 3!  Not renewing scared me...it was too final.  However, I needed to ask Sean how he felt.  To my surprise, when I explained that we need to make the decision now, he said, "we better sign up for the classes."  :)  So it's final...we are renewing. 

I know many of you will think we are crazy and well, we kind of are!  Renewing does not mean that we will be growing our family again anytime soon or maybe ever, but it gives us the opportunity to help out in the foster care community by doing respite and also allows us to grow our family again without a huge lengthy process if we so desire to down the road.

So I lied...unintentionally.  I truly believed we were not going to renew and thought I was at peace with that decision.  And again I am reminded that I have no control over my life and need to follow what I feel God is placing on my heart.  Thankful for all He has provided for us by following His paths for our lives and anxious to see how else we will be surprised by Him!

furniture!

I so happy to say that we are FINALLY getting our new couches delivered on Friday!  Woohoo!  We also have a television coming with that delivery as well.  We will actually have an (almost!) fully functioning living room.  All we need is our TV stand that isn't quite ready from Fresh Vintage in Muscatine and we'll have all of our furniture pieces to be able to utilize that space.  We have been in our house since June 23rd and have had ONE piece of livingroom furniture for all 5 of us since then...a futon that is in our den.  I can't wait to actually decorate our living space in the front room with some of the fun pieces I have received as housewarming gifts, a gorgeous (and huge) canvas art painted by my dear friend Leslie and some other odds and ends to complete the space. :)

Can't wait to share pictures!

I suck...

I took pictures from our Saturday party almost a week ago, but do you think I've even put them on my computer yet?!  Nope.  I need to...I want to post them.  The kids were so cute.  It was a success.  Lora and I even got some alone time to chat while the kids watched a movie...that is until they came running to us for anything and everything every 37 seconds.  The 37 seconds between each of their visits were wonderful though. :) 

Not sure I'll be blogging for a few more days...I have the Burback kiddos for the next 2 nights and then my sis in law, niece and nephew will also be joining us for Saturday evening and staying the night.  Looking forward to that!  It's going to be a BUSY weekend, but a fun one! :)

Be back soon!