Jack says...

"Mom, beat that truck!!!!!"

As I am slowing the van down to turn and head north on the other side of a boulevard in town.

I say,

"Jack, it is not a race - that truck isn't going where we are going."

"Yes, it is a race. I can tell."

How can you tell that????? :)

A New Look...

for Linc.
He is getting so big!!!!



Ella said he looks like a little Amish boy. I guess he kind of does. So cute!

Shopping with Children...

Dear local Target employees,

I am quite sure that you must not have any children, or certainly not more than one, or maybe you have only one, very sweet, always loves to shop child each.

Whatever the case may be, I would really love it, if you would stop acting like I am a very negligent mother who wants to put her children in harms way.

I do not think that lying under the cart for my four year old is a life and death situation nor does it pose one for my year and a half year old who is riding in the cart above. If laying there is keeping my four year old quiet and occupied while I shop, I am very happy with him laying there while the cart is not even moving.

And do not be surprised if I do tell my four year old that he must move because Target is worried that I will sue them. Because that is exactly why he most move...

If I lived some where with lots more shopping options and if I didn't like Target merchandise so much and if your prices were not even sometimes better than Walmart, you would need to be worried that I might never take my children shopping, or myself for that matter, at your store again.

-Kate

(There, I feel better now, having vented about that annoying thing that happened today and yes, this picture is totally unrelated but fun none the less. :) )

Jack says...

Jack says,

"Mom, someone stamped on the toilet."

"Someone, or you?"

"hmmm... Me."

"Why are you using the address stamp on the toilet? It is for paper only!!!!"

Ugh.

Catching Up...

Oh, my.

Where have I been? Not blogging that's for sure. :)

We had a whirl-wind summer this summer. It seemed we want from thing to thing with little down time. Any time at home was spent doing laundry, repacking, grocery shopping, and on and on...

But school has started.



Here is Ella on her first day.

And school seems to be in full swing. We are fast approaching the end of September. How can that be?????






These are pictures from a recent trip to DOW Gardens in Midland - they have a fantastic children's garden complete with a bubble table.

I am glad for time to catch up. And take a breath.



Here's Linc when he was sick a couple weeks ago. :( He's feeling much better now!!!

Lake Michigan

Our family has always loved spending time at Lake Michigan. And we are getting a little more time there then usual this year. My parent's little fixer upper is just a 15 minute walk from the beautiful lake. Here are some photos taken in May, June and July. It has slowly gotten warm enough to wear a bathing suit. :) At least almost warm enough most days; what a cool summer!

Visiting the lake in early May. Ella didn't let the cold temps keep her from putting her toes in the water.



On the play ground at the beach in early June. Still really not "beach" weather.



Beautiful.



You can see from Jack's face; they might be wearing bathing suits but it is far from warm in the water. This was taken just last week. :)



Ella really doesn't let cool water slow her down. She loves the beach!!!

pie for dinner???

There has been so much going on here lately with no time to blog about it all. I have had some good ideas for posts and then a few days pass and I never blogged about it and I think, "too late now." But I will try to catch you up on some of the happenings around here lately... And who knows, maybe my post brainstorms will make it onto the blog someday.

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Our family went to Florida for a bit of a vacation a couple of weeks ago. We visited with Jace's sisters and their families. We had a really great time and got lots of great beach time in. It was a lot of fun. The drive was a bit long. Especially for Linc but we all made it - we just won't be doing it again any time too soon. :)

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We also had VBS at our church the week after our Florida trip. I helped organize the kindergarten group. We had an amazing 744 different children involved this year. 621 kids all in one day. We even had 117 different kindergarteners!!!! It was a lot of fun. There was a western theme this year and Jack has of course spent a lot of his time since as a cowboy! :)

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And in other interesting tid bits... I have made two strawberry rhubarb pies in just 4 days. The one I made on Friday, I seriously considered serving for dinner. I had made it just before dinner time and it looked so good and I didn't feel like making anything else. :) I fought the urge and we did eat something else for dinner, I just don't remember what. And the pie was so good, I had to make another today!