Happy 4th Birthday Audrey!

BIRTHDAY GIRL!!
Kaydri, Sophia, Taelor, Audrey and Ava tired out after jumping on the inflatables

On Wednesday Audrey turned 4. We had decided to have her party a little early due to the fact that one of her friends was leaving for Nicaragua. So Monday night the 14th was the big party day. We began with supper at McDonalds. Braidon (her cousin) is only 3 days younger than her also decided to join us with his "boy" party that night. So we (Holly and I) had about 12 very excited kids eating supper. After we were done eating we headed over to the Y to run off some energy on the inflatables. They all enjoyed playing but the boys probably had more fun because they could throw each other around and wrestle and not get hurt. I guess boys will be boys! We had some very hot and sweaty kids when we left about an hour later. It turned out to be a beautiful night after kind of an overcast day so we headed to the park to open presents and have cake and ice cream. I have decided that next year maybe I'll just decorate a cardboard box since I don't think any of the kids even ate cake. They all just wanted to see what was on the cake and help blow out candles. A box is much cheaper than a cake! We ended up bringing most of the cake home and freezing it. After ice cream, opening presents, and playing at the park, we had some very tired and dirty, kids. Taelor spent the night at our house because it seems it has become a tradition that someone will spend the night when one of the kids has a birthday. The girls took a bath and watched Princess Gigi and then it was time for bed. I'm not sure why I tried to let them sleep in the same bed but I gave them one chance. Of course they blew it and ended up in separate beds. You would have thought after such an eventful night they would have slept in but I woke up to hear Audrey in her most motherly voice telling Taelor it was time to get up. So they played a while on Thursday, fought a little bit, made several messes, and then the birthday party was officially over!

Dana's Farm

At church on Sunday Dana told Ryan that he had stopped along side the road and picked up a family of skunks that had lost their mama to a car accident. He said to bring the kids over to see them. Supposedly skunks can be good pets if you get them when they are little and remove the scent gland. The kids were so excited to see these little skunks. We actually ended up spending several hour over at his house because Dana also had a pig which Audrey "rode", seveal playful cats, and some very tasty strawberries. I do have to admit that the skunks were cute. I don't however think that I could manage having one for a pet. It is after all, still a skunk.

Casey's Last Day of School

Lake Erie Walleye fishing. What fun but now we have clean them all! UGH!!

Casey Taelor and Miss Marcy on the last day of school

Casey, Taelor and Miss Kelly

I can't believe that Casey is officially done with preschool. It seems like that year really flew by and the more shocking thing is that in a month or so we will be getting ready for kindergarten! His last day of school they had a class picnic which I was really disappointed but I was not able to go. Ryan had scheduled a fishing charter to go walleye fishing up on Lake Erie and I was planning to go. He didn't consult my calendar (otherwise known as my schedule for life) before booking. So needless to say the two events conflicted. Since the party was only like an hour long I decided to skip it but he went with Holly. Our Lake Erie trip was fun too. We were a little afraid of the weather as we were driving up but we ended up only having to come in for an hour or so while the storm went through. The first fish I caught I thought would go down in the record books as the largest fish ever caught on Lake Erie. I reeled and reeled and thought I would end up with bruised on my ribs from pulling so hard. After all that work I got the fish in and it was a huge sheephead. Little did I know that these fish are not apprecited on Lake Erie. The captain gave it a good whack over the head and threw it back in. So all that work for nothing! I did catch some nice walleyes then after that but there was always the chance that a big tug on the line could be a sheephead. We probably caught twice as many of those as walleye. The most comical part of the trip was when Chris (a friend of Ryan's) almost went for a swim. After a big thud I looked over to see feet straight in the air. Chris threw his line out and his feet slipped out from under him and some how he had miraculously caught himself on something under the boat. It was good for a laugh though. All in all, it was good trip and I think we caught something like 32 walleye...each of us getting to keep 6.

Slacking once Again!

This was the way home from the cabin. Notice how tired Audrey is. She is such a little stinker when it comes to sleeping. Guess you have to have one that doesn't need to sleep right?

Casey and his crayfish. They did end up cooking and eating those gross things!

Casey and Ryan on Friday night with the first blue gills of the weekend.

I have been thinking that it's been awhile since I've posted anything here and come to find out it has...over a month! So once again I will try to do some catch up work with my blog here and bring it back up to date. I have kept myself busy that's for sure. Seems there is always something to catch up on. That's why this blog gets pushed to the back since no one really notices if it gets behind. Anyway enough excuses...the month of May we had a garage sale which was mainly to clean out the basement. We were being taken over by boxes and boxes and more boxes of clothes. So I hauled them all over to Holly's house for a sale. In hindsight, I'm not sure the hassle was worth the money we made but at least the goal was accomplished and the basement is much cleaner. The kids thought the garage sale was great because what could be better than going over to play at their cousins house for 4 days straight! (We didn't have the sale for 4 days but it took us seveal to set up stuff). We also went to the cabin twice in the month of May. Once at the beginning of the month with Ryan's mom and dad and then again at the end with my mom and dad. My mom and dad went with us over Memorial Day weekend. It was a beautiful weekend. I don't think it rained at all except for just a few drops as we were leaving. The fishing was great. We went several different times, well at least Ryan did. He just took different people each time. Casey, Dad and I went at different times. We caught some awesome blue gills. The rest of the weekend was filled with other mind relaxing activities such as our ABC scavenger hunt, playing frisbee, and catching turtles and crayfish. I just love going down there and being outside playing in the woods. I'm even more excited for our next visit as the black raspberries should be ready. The only bad part was that Sunday night at about 3 a.m. we lost power. Made it a little hard to cook and clean in the morning. We ended up making scrambled eggs over the fire and bringing lots of laundry home to finish washing. Oh well..could have been much worse.

Princess Audrey

My little Audrey really is a princess and she is quite certain she must behave like one as well. She was so excited a couple weeks ago when I told her that she could pick out a couple bottles of nail polish at CVS. After purchasing her nail polish she has proceeded to paint her doll's fingernails, and toenails, her own fingernails and toenails, and Chelsea's toenails and fingernails. It was all quite cute except for the fact that she was not supposed to be getting into the nail polish without permission. I had been gone for an evening and was greeted at the door by Audrey who looked like she had a black eye. Come to find out, she had decided it was also time for her to start wearing make-up. As I walked in to find Chelsea, I noticed her toenails (and a lot of her toes!), and fingernails were painted pink. Audrey was very proud of her accomplishments and I'm sure had a blast but she was firmly infomed that she is only allowed to get nail polish out with permission and as of this date at age 3 she is not allowed in mommy's make-up. She also decided Sunday morning that she wanted her hair curled. Since I happened to be up pretty early sunday morning I told her I'm curl it for church. She was thrilled with her curls. Only sad part is that her hair has really no curl and about 2 hours left after church she was in church because "all the curls are gone mommy!" We did however capture a picture that we refer to as "Curly Sue" that she likes to look at to remind her of her curly morning.

Kindergarten Registration

This morning is Casey's official kindergarten registration. He will be able to go in and see his school and also be "tested" on several things. I guess what they do is rotate through some stations while teachers ask them some questions. While the kids are doing that the parents are in another room going over procedures. I think he is excited but one of his first questions when he found out we were going was if he would get to ride the bus there. I'm not sure what the attraction is with the bus because I remember hating riding the bus! He doesn't know yet to hate bus rides so I'll let him find out on his own that bus rides take forever and you have to stop at least 50 times! To him it just looks like a more exciting way to travel than getting in a car. I'm kind of interested to find out more information about his school day as I feel like I know very little about Marlington school district and that's where he will be attending. I'm not sure I feel like he is totally ready for kindergarten. Some of his letters still look a little more like Chinese characters than they do actual letters. Yesterday we were working on letters and making them sit on the line. Many of them were still floating. Maybe I'm just too picky or he's just extra stubborn for me because I'm him mom! Oh well....we'll see how things go today!

Motorcycle Rides with Grandpa

Audrey didn't get a ride because it got too late but she wanted to pose for a picture anyway.

The other night Casey called grandpa to see when he could get his first motorcycle ride. Later that night grandpa drove in the driveway ready to take Casey. My camera was acting up so I didn't get any pictures with the helmet on but never fear...he did wear one for the ride!