New pics

Okay, so I'm still so way far behind! But here are a few photos to show you the kids are great. I need to blog about MJ's birthday and all the fun stuff that we've been up to, but where is the time? Soon, hopefully, soon. But until then, I hope you enjoy these latest shots from J's 8 month photo shoot! It's getting a little harder to get him to sit in one spot, as he is quite mobile.

A little update

Thanks for your comments on the blog; seems that some can see the background photos and still others can't. I haven't had time to fiddle with it, but hope to soon. Seems we haven't had much excitement around here, but we're keeping busy. I hope to post some new pics soon.

MJ loves school. She can't wait for the bus to arrive every day and runs off of it when she gets home to tell me about her day. I love that part. We sit and talk while she eats a snack. She has an immense love of learning, which I hope stays with her. She is enjoying her ballet class too. Carla opened a dance studio and is teaching the class this year since Mich is in college. She said Mackenzie retained a lot from last year. MJ turned 6 a few weeks ago and had a fun weekend of celebrating with family and friends.

Little E is also doing well in school. She brings home speech papers that we work on. Every day brings new words and phrases. I love how excited she gets when I repeat something she's said to make sure I understand. Life is just so exciting for her. She pretty much does everything with tons of energy and excitement.

J Man is officially a crawler! He started out kind of dragging his legs and scooting, but he now has the motion down. We're finding out what needs baby proofed! He is also trying to pull up on things and pulled up to the bathtub today. He's still all smiles, loves food, laughs at his sisters, loves to cuddle, is a good sleeper, feeds himself Cheerios and yogurt snacks and is an incredible joy to all of us.

In September, we've made many trips to the local fruit/veggie stand down the road, cheered on the Broncos (both Denver and BSU), attended the local high school football games, watched Nascar races, spent time with friends, started organizing scrapbook stuff, played outside, stayed close to home and enjoyed the last days of summer. And it is definitely fall. The temp dropped about twenty degrees today and there is a freeze advisory for tonight. Yikes! We'll see what October brings.

More posts and a recipe

Just to let you know I started several posts, but didn't finish them until tonight, but the videos of Little J went up after them. Make sure you go back and read the others. Also, here's a quick recipe that I made for dinner. It was fast, easy and everyone loved it.

Easy Skillet Hash

1 lb. hamburger

1/2 bag southern style hash brown potatoes (could use O'Brien)

1/2-1 cup corn (I cut some off a leftover cob and added a little more frozen)

1/2-1 cup green beans (I used frozen)

1/4 cup red pepper

1/4 cup onion

1/2 cup water

2 TBS sour cream (optional)

Seasoned salt, pepper and garlic powder to taste

I browned and drained the hamburger, then added the vegetables and water. After seasoning it, I cooked it all until tender. At the very end I added the sour cream. I would have added cream of mushroom soup, but I didn't have any. You can leave out the sour cream too. You can't really mess it up.

More new tricks

Aunt Mar's visit

The kids with my mom's sister, Aunt Mar.

Our zoo has penguins. The girls posed by the statues outside the exhibit.

This was our first visit to the zoo.

A few weeks ago my Aunt Marilyn visited from California. It was great fun having her stay with us for a few days. We went to the Zoo and to a waterpark. She did awesome with the kids--playing, reading, helping out, etc. And Josh and I enjoyed our conversations with her about cows, sports and politics. We made a lot of fun memories that week. Thanks again for the visit Aunt Mar!

Enjoying time with Zani

We have been spending a lot more time with the horse lately. The girls are getting to the ages where they can safely (well, we're still working on E. She gets a little excited and still runs around a bit. Good thing Zani is used to it.) be around the horse. They love to brush her, lead her around and ride her. Little J even had his first ride. (You can't seem him in the photo, but Josh is right there holding on to him).

Emma talks about "brushing my Zani cause she's dirty, dirty, dirty," all the time. She wants to give Zani oats in her pan. And she asks, "my Zani home?" which means "Is she standing next to the gate?" in Emma terms. We have the horse in the pasture right next to the house. We've had great weather for it and I hope we'll have more days of riding through the fall.

Mackenzie's Bag

Here she is modeling her newest creation.

She was really getting into it.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, MJ and I started a new sewing project. Josh had wanted to find some fabric for me to make Little J a blanket so we found that then he suggested I get the girls some too. I thought a bag might make a nice second project for us to try. I'm not really big on following recipes; I find them merely a suggestion. Same goes for patterns, well at least in this case. When I was growing up and sewing in 4-H, I definitely followed a pattern, but these days I just felt I could wing it. Plus, I wasn't sure exactly what kind of bag I wanted to make so I didn't want to be limited to a pattern. I did look at a few, but wasn't convinced by any of them. I'm not sure flannel was really the best fabric for the job, but it's cute, it was on sale, it's soft and so far it's holding up well.

I did look online at some different blogs and searched bag patterns, but for the most part I just kept imaging in my head what I wanted it to look like and worked it through that way. I took a suggestion for size off a blog and started with that. I knew I wanted to line the bag and put pockets in it. MJ did most of the straight sewing (side seams, top hem, etc.) and learned to safely use an iron. She thought that was really cool. Now I don't claim to be any kind of expert in the sewing department, but I am pretty excited with how it turned out. And it was a fun bonding activity for us. I look forward to more of them. Now the key will be if I can re-create this bag again. :)

Emma picked out a monkey pattern (imagine that). Not quite sure if I'm going to make it into a bag or a blanket.