Wordless Wednesday!

As you can tell from my blog, "I love WORDLESS WEDNESDAY!" Why do you ask? It is so simple to put pictures up rather than words. Did I ever tell you that I'm a visual learner. Yes, if there are directions I like pictures rather than words. Sometimes I just think words mess things up and make it complicated! Especially directions to locations! One last little tidbit, if you ever give me directions to a location you must give me points of interest. Well, I mean points of interest that I'm interested in! J/K

So for Wordless Wednesday I want to show you the pictures of my kids with a very nice camera that I borrowed from my dear friend Kelli. Thanks Kelli for letting me borrow your camera. I had so much fun taking them and just drooling over the quality of the camera. So enjoy!

Yummy Smoothies!!!!

I want to tell you about my new find, Yoplait Smoothies! I tried them with the kids today and they absolutely loved them! They're an excellent source of antioxidant Vitamin C and made with natural fruit. As a bonus they have live and active cultures!

I also love that you just need to add 1 cup of milk and then blend it in the blender. This is great especially for cold season. Which right now Ellie has a cold, so this is perfect. The kids really thought it was ice cream. I put sprinkles on it and they kept on asking for more. Though they really were just eating fruit.

One last thing, my kids love yogurt, but it is really expensive and we go through it in two days. I have three kids and the packages of yogurt come in six, so we run out of yogurt quickly. This is a great alternative to yogurt. It makes a lot with one package. You can find this great find at Cosco!

Helpful Avi

I just want to brag about my little Avielle. She has really matured in the last month and is becoming a little me. I hear her say my sayings and talk to her sister and brother the way I would, by saying come here honey. Lately she has been saying, "Oh, my gosh!" I didn't realize it, but I must be say that a lot. I continue to correct her and say, "No Avi, it is Oh, my goodness!" So now she corrects herself.
The below picture is of her putting her baby in the booster seat. She absolutely loves babies and loves taking care of them. In the mornings I find Avi and Anderson playing with their babies. Yes, Anderson does have a baby and it is blue. He always pretends he is the father and she is the mother.
Also in the mornings Avi is so helpful to me. When I am taking a shower she will say to Ellie, "Come play with me Ellie." She is really helpful to me and her sister Ellie. Though I must say Ellie is very strong willed and isn't so nice to Avi. Avi just persists and asks her if she would like to do something else.




Below is Avi helping out with the babies, Brynn and Ellie. Well, there not really babies, but toddlers.

When Ellie sees someone on the floor she loves to roll on them. I know it is quite strange! Avi is such a trooper and she will get on the ground and have her sister roll on her, as you see in the picture below. They just giggle together!

Wordless Wednesday!

Yes, that is my daughter's hair! Anderson is so jealous!

Where Is Your Hair?

I was teaching piano on Saturday morning so Ryan took the kids out to run some errands. I know Ryan is amazing to take all three kids out all by himself. I must admit I very rarely take the kids out to run errands, because it is too frustrating and I don't have the patience.

Ryan went to CVS first to take advantage of our 20% off coupon and then he saw that there wasn't a long line at the Great Clips next store and he went in to get Anderson a much needed haircut. Yes, he took all three kids in with him to get Anderson's hair cut. Amazing I know!

Now we use gel on Anderson's hair to make it spiky or mold it into a mohawk. He loves it when we make it into a mohawk. I think all the ladies comment on it and he loves the ladies. So don't you just love the style in the below picture, exhibit A?

Now in exhibit B, you will see a much different haircut. I believe Ryan asked the woman to leave the top long and the sides shorter. Well, I don't think she heard his request and shaved the whole head the same length. So I'm very disappointed with his new look. I think his hairstyle looks like Jim Carry in Dumb and Dumber!

Thank goodness hair grows and we can start over!

Wordless Wednesday

Ellison with her Papa

I Hate Disappointing?

The other evening Avi and I were driving to gymnastics for her usually class. She starts the conversation saying, "Mommy I want to play soccer with Anderson." I said well, Anderson is going to start playing soccer after Halloween and you can't do both soccer and gymnastics at the same time. Her response, "Aunite Renee did soccer and gymnastics at the same time!" I couldn't stop laughing at her two year old response. I thought where did she come up with this?

Her Aunite Renee was in town last week and I remember talking to Renee about her experience in gymnastics and it must have come up that she also did soccer. Auntie Renee already has their lives planned out with the sports that they are going to play. Auntie Renee is a high achiever so I hope they will be as dedicated as an athlete as she is.

I feel sorry for Anderson, because every time Avi goes to gymnastics he asks when will he be able to go to soccer. He even asked Avi if he could take her gymnastics lesson, which he did once while Avi was in Michigan visiting her Nana! He really was a good listener in the class and did really well. It just breaks my heart to have to disappoint him and make him wait each week. I tried to get him into soccer for September, but they wouldn't let me, because he wasn't 3 at the start of the class. Though he was going to be 3 by the end of the session. I think that was unfair, that is a mom talking! My mom even offered to pay for Anderson to take gymnastics. Both Ryan and I feel that we want them to be in individual things, so there won't be competition. I keep telling him that he will get to do soccer after Halloween, when he is 3! So poor Anderson I hate breaking your heart each week. I love you!

College Friends

It is always hard for me to believe that I'm 30 and college was over 10 years ago. Man, time flies. In the picture above there are two of my really good friends in college. Actually both of them stood up in my wedding! Jenny is on the left and she was my roommate for three years. God paired us up as roommates and we became the best of friends. We have many funny stories to tell! I'm still waiting for Chief Joseph to show up! Inside joke. I will need to do a post about him, Chief Joseph, and our journey through college together. On the right is Stephanie, . She met her husband at Trinity and then moved to Arizona. She is deeply missed living so far away. Stephanie's little girl, Abi, is three years old. Her other daughter Leah is two weeks older than Ellie. It is so funny to see Abi and Anderson together. They look like they could be sister and brother! I never knew I would have two red heads! Stephanie was in town visiting her parents. We had the opportunity to meet up with Stephanie and Jenny at the Kohl's Museum. It was so good to catch up and have the kids play at an awesome museum. We actually got a membership if anyone is interested in going? The kids had a lot of fun in the water room. Ellie got really wet! The next day Stephanie and her two kids and her mom went with us to Great America. It was a fun time and we let the kids skip their naps. Ellie ended up sleeping in the stroller. We went to Wiggle's World and then spent most of the afternoon at the water park. Stephanie, my sister-in-law Rachelle and I were able to go on the Viper and on some large water rides. Ryan, my mother-in-law, and Stephanie's mom watched the kids so we were able to go. It was so special to see both Stephanie and Jenny!

Wordless Wednesday

Half Marathon

Yesterday I completed my first half marathon, 13.1 miles! I have been training all summer, running about 4 times a week. Lisa, on the left, approached me about running the half marathon in May and we have been running buddies ever since. We usually run our long runs together. Lisa is very good about mapping out our runs. She definitely helped me and motivated me to be able to do this. Without her I don't think that I would of ever trained for it.

Renee, on the right is my sister-in-law. She is from Michigan and is going to be turning 21 on Thursday. She runs a lot and I asked her to join us and she did. So this is all three of our first half marathon. We were so nervous, but we did it! I think we are hooked to do more races! I know that both of the girls have talked about a triathlon.

We had the biggest crowd cheering for us. My family came and our friends also came. It was great of them to celebrate with our accomplishment.

The night before the race we stayed at the Hyatt and went to PF Chang's for dinner. Afterwards we went to see a movie and saw Julie and Julia. It was a cute movie! It was so much fun to get away from the norm and focus on the race! Thanks Ryan for watching the kids and bringing them to the race at 8:00 in the morning. The race was in Oak Brook, which is very far from the house.

Our cheerleaders!

Lisa and her two kiddos!

Wordless Wednesday

Michigan Trip Continued

The day that we left the cabin it was rainy and yucky outside so we decided to leave earlier than we had planned. As we were driving we thought maybe we should call the indoor water park in Shipshewana and hear if they have any specials. So we did and they had a good special, so we decided to go for it and make it happen! Again I'm the type who likes everything planned, but I thought Ryan is not going to get any time off for a while and it would be a great family experience that would definitely stretch me.
So it is nap time and we decide to put the kids down in the room. Needless to say putting three kids down for a nap in one room is absolutely impossible! So we decided to hit the water park and the kids had a lot of fun. I must say the water park was nice, but much smaller than Keylime Cove, which is perfect for a 2 year old. That night the kids went down well in their bunk beds. They were so excited to sleep in them. Avielle slept on top and Anderson on the bottom. Ellie slept in a pack-in-play near our king bed. We kept finding Anderson on Avi's bunk and we would ask him what he was doing and he would say, "I'm trying to see if Avi's eyes are closed!" We couldn't punish him for that it was just too cute!

The next day we went to the water park and then we packed our stuff up to go back home. Shipshewana is an adorable town. The Mennonites and the Amish run the town with their cute shops. The kids loved seeing all the horses. I also added some pictures of Ellie on our trip back to Chicago. The picture of Avi at the water park is blurry, because my lens fogged up!