November 25th Luther-Forth Wedding

My cousin Courtney married the love of her life, Kelly on November 25, 2006. Lauren was a flower girl and Alec and Will were the ring bearers. Alec and Will walked down the aisle together with only a few mishaps (Alec was busy looking at all the people instead of watching Will, so he was walking a little fast!). The boys looked so handsome in their tuxedos and Lauren looked beautiful in her gown. Lauren also danced her little backside off at the reception! The boys went home to bed early with Grammie Barbie!

We're off to see the Wizard!
I decided to go with a theme for Halloween this year. Since Lauren's dance costume from last year was Dorothy, I figured "Why not?". Alec wanted to be the Tin man. I thought that Will would make a cute Scarecrow and my sister thought Gavin would be an adorable Lion. So begins the looong journey of me trying to make 3 costumes by following very complicated patterns. Needless to say, my sister ended up buying Gavin's lion costume and a very good friend of the family finished Alec's Tin man costume for me. I DID do Will's costume all by myself! The end result was a VERY cute group of cousins going trick-or-treating together!

Homecoming Parade 2006

Small town homecomings are the best...especially Milledgeville's. Of course I am a little biased since I grew up in this very small town! This year both Lauren and Alec got to be in the parade. They both rode on the Shelley's Dance Studio hayrack. And yes...Alec is in dance. He is in an all boys dance class. Dan is a little worried, but I think dance will make him more agile and flexible for football in the future. Plus, the kid has rhythm! How could I ignore that?!

PUMPKIN PATCH

It was Will's first trip to The Great Pumpkin Patch in Caledonia, IL. When we lived in Rockford we used to go every year. We really enjoy the atmosphere, even though the Fiorello's do not own it anymore. Frank Fiorello is a wonderful artist who painted all the signs and he writes and illustrates children's books.
Lauren, Alec, & Will had fun petting the goats.
We bought their famous apple donuts. YUM! The kids posed for TONS of pictures. And the most fun of all...they picked out small pumpkins to take home and paint. (It is too early to carve pumpkins, but we'll get to that in a few weeks!!) Now I just have to find time to scrapbook all our memories so we can enjoy them 10 years from now, when the kids are too old to want to go to the Pumpkin Patch with their parents!

End of summer...
I took some pictures of the kids out at my parents house. It was fun posing the kids. The picture of them by the tree is of the tree they are always climbing in and swinging on when we go out there.

Firehouse Water Fight

The Milledgeville Fire Department participates in a water fight with other area departments every year in September. In order to practice for this, they play each other on the weekend before the tournament. People from town take lawn chairs to watch the fun. THEN the real fun begins. They have a tournament for kids age 3-10. Now the firemen use a real fire hose and they spray the water at a metal barrel. The point is to try to spray the metal barrel past the opposing team. The kids used garden hoses and a basketball. The first group of kids were 3-4 yr. olds.
Alec battled against 4 little girls and in the end won 2nd place! It was very exciting...well mostly for the people watching! Alec was thrilled with his trophy. Next came 5-6 yr. olds followed by Lauren's age group, 7-8 yr. olds.
Now the group of boys in this age bracket took the tournament VERY seriously. I knew that Lauren didn't have a chance. She beat out 2 little girls and then was eliminated by the boys. She did get a ribbon for participating and she had a great time. She can't wait to do it again next year. I had fun watching them and I find myself looking forward to next year as well!

Fun Run 2006
On Saturday, August 5th Lauren ran in the community Fun Run. This was a fundraiser sponsored by the park district in order to get more playground equipment. There were 10 children in the race with ages ranging from 4 year olds to 10 year olds. First, the kids lined up and stretched out. Then they were told that they had to run one complete lap around the track, which is 1/4 of a mile. Lauren came in 3rd place! I was SO proud of her! She only walked about 50 yards and she ran all the rest! With those long legs, who knows, maybe someday she'll be a track star!

Our Texas Trip

We just got back from our trip to Alvin, Texas where we spent 5 days with the Cornelius clan (Dan's sister's family). Jeff and Chris were nice (more like crazy) enough to let us all crash at their house. Lauren and Alec had SO much fun being with their cousins and their aunt and uncle. It had been 5 years since we had seen them all, so it was their first time meeting Alec and Will. The kids (Troy, Jeffrey, Mehgan, and Adam) have all grown so big and are such great kids to be around. I hope that their behavior rubs off on my children! On our first full day there we went to the Kemah boardwalk. We let the kids play in the fountains, rode the Tower and the Train together as a family, and fed the stingrays at the Aquarium. The first stingray that came up to the side to eat the fish that Alec was holding out scared him so bad he jumped about 2 feet backwards. It was really funny! Adam, Mehgan, and I thought it was really cool when the snapping turtle went up underneath a log and completely picked it up out of the water. On our second day Chris and Jeff took us to East beach in Galveston. The water was so warm it was like swimming in bath water! Alec had a lot of fun digging in the sand with his Uncle Jeff and we could barely get Lauren out of the water to eat lunch. Alec loved being pulled around on his cousins boogie boards, while Lauren was WAY out in the ocean floating with Mehgan. When I put Will in the water he liked it at first, but then a wave washed up over his back and he was a little freaked out! On our last full day we just hung out at the house. Lauren really enjoyed playing with their 3 hairless rats. She has been begging me ever since to let her have one. Mehgan has even taught one of the rats to jump off a stool into her hands. Cool! Alec was having a good time playing video games with Adam. They both were excited that Aunt Chris had a pool. I think they would have stayed in there the whole trip if we had let them! When it came time to leave on Monday morning, both the kids were begging us to stay. It was hard to say goodbye. We all had such a great time. Lauren is already planning our trip next summer. She wants to stay for 20 days...we are going to have to negotiate on that one!

FIELD TRIPS GALORE!
May has been a busy month! Alec had his preschool field trip to the Discovery Center. The kids had fun building with blocks, checking out trains, playing miniature golf, and pretending to be different career people. In the picture, you can see that Alec is driving an ambulance. The center also had a grocery store, a hospital, a schoolhouse, a bank, and a NASA control center. It was very fun! Lauren's field trip was to the Quad Cities. The kids went to see an IMAX movie about the International Space Station. It was 3D and it was hilarious watching the kids reach out to "touch" the things on the screen! Afterwards we ate lunch in the park and then headed over the WQAD Channel 8 for a tour of the news station. They got their tour from the anchorwoman Barbara Dawson, whom I knew in a past life (high school) and they were all thrilled! They got to stand in front of the green screen that the meteorologist uses and Lauren got to sit in the chair that they use in the newsroom for the reporters to make a broadcast. It was pretty cool to see her on TV! The picture at the top is of her sitting at the Barbara's news desk. At the bottom, is her with Barbara and 3 of her friends and a very funny picture of her friend Mikaela and her in their 3D glasses at the IMAX theater. I had a great time on both trips. Despite the headache from riding the bus for an hour and half with 44 slightly loud first graders, it is times like these that I am SO glad that I get to stay home and do things like this!

Sunny Beach Vacation
Well we did it! We took our 3 children on an airplane and stayed in a hotel room for 4 nights. I was SO nervous that Will would scream on the plane and not sleep in the hotel. I was worried for nothing. He did great! And we all had such a wonderful time. Our hotel was right on the beach in Treasure Island, FL (just south of Tampa on the Gulf of Mexico). We hung out at the pool and the beach for a majority of the vacation. Dan and I built a great sandcastle. The kids helped a little!

The kids would spend the entire day in the pool if we let them.

We took the kids to a miniature golf course that had a real live Alligator exhibit. You could even buy food to feed them! The course was fun. Especially watching Alec and Lauren try to "push" their ball into the hole instead of hitting it!

<-----real alligators!

We also went to Busch Gardens for a day. I love that they have animals (especially the white tigers!) AND rides. Lauren went on 3 rollercoasters. She is my adventuress! Alec really enjoyed the kiddie rides. Both of the kids loved the water ride "Congo River", which is like a giant raft. We got SOAKED! Alec was giggling the whole time!

On the day before we left we went to Fort De Soto. it was built during the Spanish American War to protect Tampa Bay from invasion. Here are a few pictures of the kids at the Battery Laidley.

ALEC IS 4!

Alec's birthday party was a big success. We decided to save ourselves the headache and have friends and family at the same time. (I learned my lesson with Lauren's 2 parties in one day fiasco.) Alec invited 2 of his preschool friends and we also had friends from out of town. The theme was "Batman" of course. Alec has officially moved on from Spiderman to Batman. Sorry Spidey. The night before I drew a large Batman on a poster board so the kids could play "Pin the Symbol on Batman" and we also had a Batmobile pinata. Alec had begged me to get him a piranha (pinata) for his party and how could I refuse that cute little face! I was afraid of death and destruction once the candy spilled out, so I made sure the kids knew that we were going to split the candy up. It actually worked out well. They all sat in a circle and took turns counting out a certain number of pieces. Educational as well as cavity inducing! Alec got lots of summer clothes and some really cool Batman toys. He was very pleased. All in all, it was a very memorable birthday.

Weekend Fun

We planned a crazy weekend of fun in Chicago. We stayed at the Renaissance Hotel. It was beautiful! On Friday night we took the kids to see the Chicago Wolves (hockey) play at the Allstate Arena. Alec was having a ball. He kept asking all these questions. "What are they hitting? Don't they get in trouble for hitting each other? How do they get it in the goal? Why is he (the goalie) wearing those things (pads) on his pants?" It was funny! The lady in front of us turned around laughing and said she loved all his questions. Will did great. There were fireworks whenever the home team got a goal and he never cried. It was loud!

The kids went swimming with their dad on Saturday morning. Will and I watched. The water was a little too chilly for Will to enjoy.

Saturday afternoon we took them to the Brookfield Zoo. It was overcast and chilly, but we still had fun. The animals were all inside. We got to be sooo close to the giraffes! It was amazing! Alec really liked the rhinoceros.

Saturday night, Will decided to wake up at 3:00 am and not go back to sleep until 5:00. I stayed in the bathroom with him. I kept thinking if he wasn't so cute, I'd flush him down the toilet! Sunday morning the kids went swimming again and then time to check out. They went to Grandma and Grandpa Schmidt's while I went to a baby shower for my friend Jennifer. Then Dan and I took my sister Amanda and her husband Craig to a Chicago Rush football game. We had fun!

On a side note, it took me until Wednesday to recover!

Happy Valentine's Day!
We had a wonderful Valentine's Day. A little hectic, but very fun! We started out the morning by getting the kids into their Valentine shirts. Then I took their pictures. (Aren't they cute?!) In the morning I went to Alec's preschool party. The kids played games, ate heart shaped cookies, and exchanged Valentine's. In the afternoon I went up to the elementary school to help out with Lauren's class party. It was a WILD time! The game that I was in charge of I call "Heart Hockey". Each child was given a straw and stood across the table from their opponent. They had to blow through the straw and try to get a candy heart to go across their opponent's goal line. Because there is an uneven number in Lauren's class, I had to play against some of the kids. Wow, I got really dizzy from all the blowing! It was funny! After school, the kids helped me cut out construction paper hearts to decorate the dining room table. We got out candles, the fine china, and wine glasses. They helped me bake a cake and make homemade frosting. We ate as a family in the candlelight and took turns going around the table saying one thing that we love about each other. It was very sweet. Both Lauren and Alec kept saying how much they loved everything. Lauren wants to do it every Valentine's Day. We may have ourselves a new family tradition!

Our Growing Family

We are finally settling into a groove here with the addition of little William. Lauren is an excellent helper. She loves to hold the baby and walk around with him to help me settle him down. She also loves to help me dress him. Soon she will be changing diapers and feeding him bottles and I won't have a job anymore! Alec loves to give kisses and talk to his baby brother. We continue to work on being gentle...he is a 3 year old boy and can be a bit rambunctious. Dan and I continue to be sleep deprived. But I must say that Will actually does fairly well with sleeping at night, so we are pretty lucky. I feel blessed to have such a wonderful family!