To My Child....

My Aunt sent me this in an e-mail today and it struck a chord in my heart and I just love it so I wanted to share it....

To My Child....

Just for this morning, I am going to smile when I see your face and laugh when I feel like crying. Just for this morning, I will let you choose what you want to wear, and smile and say how perfect it is.

Just for this morning, I am going to step over the laundry, and pick you up and take you to the park to play.

Just for this morning, I will leave the dishes in the sink, and let you teach me how to put that puzzle of yours together.

Just for this afternoon, I will unplug the telephone and keep the computer off, and sit with you in the backyard and blow bubbles..

Just for this afternoon, I will not yell once, not even a tinygrumble when you scream and whine for the ice cream truck, and I will buy you one if he comes by.

Just for this afternoon, I won't worry about what you are going to be when you grow up, or second guess every decision I have made where you are concerned.

Just for this afternoon, I will let you help me bake cookies,and I won't stand over you trying to fix them.

Just for this afternoon, I will take us to McDonald's and buy us both a Happy Meal so you can have both toys.. Just for this evening, I will hold you in my arms and tell you a story about how you were born and how much I love you.

Just for this evening, I will let you splash in the tub and notget angry.

Just for this evening, I will let you stay up late while we sit on the porch and count all the stars. Just for this evening, I will snuggle beside you for hours, and miss my favorite TV shows.

Just for this evening when I run my finger through your hair as you pray, I will simply be grateful that God has given me the greatestgift ever given.

I will think about the mothers and fathers who are searching for their missing children, the mothers and fathers who are visiting their children's graves instead of their bedrooms, and mothers and fathers who are in hospital rooms watching their children suffer senselessly, and screaming inside that they can't handle it anymore.

And when I kiss you goodnight I will hold you a little tighter, a little longer.

It is then, that I will thank God for you, and ask Him for nothing, except one more day...

End of our camping trip

The last night we were camping, after dinner it started to rain a little bit so we let the kids all have fun outside and get wet and then we brought them in to have warm baths and get all clean and in their cozy jammies. After everyone's baths, we invited Madalyn and Craig to come into our trailer and watch "Cars". I know, really "roughing it"! :) We didn't have hook-ups where we were camping, but all brought generators so Jeff started ours up and we popped some popcorn in the microwave, started a movie for the kids (and Mommy's!) and then us 3 mom's played Skipo at the table while the kids watched a movie. It was a really fun way to end the weekend!

Here's Ryan Monday morning, watching everyone getting packed up from the doorway of our trailer.
He even got to help his Daddy close up the pop-out slider and thought that was really cool!
After we picked up camp and got all packed up, we all headed into town to get our annual ice cream cones before heading home! Thought this was so cute of the kids: Craig, Ryan, Madalyn and Annalyse on their saddles eating their ice cream!
Daddy & Ryan walking back to where we parked so we could head home! About 10 minutes after being on the road, Ryan was OUT! He had such a fun and busy 5 days with all of his friends!

camping...

One of the little girls from a campsite just down from us came over and we caught Ryan stopping to make conversation with her- our social bug!

Madalyn and Ryan sitting in the doorway of their trailer sharing a snack. Cute!
Ryan and Daddy making their first smore of the trip! Yummy!!
I was taking a bunch of pictures of Ryan and Jeff and so when walked away, Ryan saw my camera sitting there and asked Jeff if he could take a picture- he actually did a pretty good job for a 3 yr. old!
And after a long, fun day of playing in the dirt and everything else, it was time for a nice warm bath before bed!

camping continued...

Jeff and I just had to laugh when we saw Ryan under his wagon, "fixing it". I think he's seen his Daddy working in the shop a few times!

One late afternoon it started to sprinkle and we looked over at Ryan and he had gone in our trailer and gotten out his John Deere magazines and was just sitting under the awning reading them!
A few minutes later he invited Madalyn to come over and look at them with him. They sat there for at least 10 minutes- it was so cute!
Later when it dried up, Annalyse offered to take him for a wagon ride and he LOVED it! He got so excited when she would "go fast!".
Then, like every night, we'd all hang out around the (big!) campfire!

Annual Memorial Day weekend camping trip!

Last weekend we headed with our group of friends on our annual Memorial Day weekend camping trip! We usually leave on Thursday, but since it was raining and there was nothing that Jeff could do around here as far as farming goes, we left a day early. Here's what Ryan looked like when I hopped in the pick-up as we headed out. He was listening to radio headphones and rocking out to whatever he was listening to! So goofy!! :)

Once we got to camp, Ryan helped unpack some of his things. He was so proud that he could put his Diego chair in his wagon and take it to wear it needed to go!
All the kiddos getting a snack from our friend, Aimee.
Jeff and Ryan playing catch one afternoon.
Madalyn, who is 5, and Ryan coloring nicely together at their table.

Two Little Monkeys!

My Mom & Dad are out of town this week so my mom isn't able to watch Shelby and Ryan, instead my sister-in-law and I swapped days so she worked today and I watched Shelby and then I'll work tomrrow and she'll watch Ryan. It worked out really well! Here's the little monkeys earlier today just being silly!

Shelby REALLY wanted to go roller skating so we thought we'd try it, but unfortunately the rink was closed today except for party's that were booked ahead. Sort of a bummer, but Shelby and Ryan were easy going about it and not too disappointed. As a treat they each got to pick out a sucker- Shelby asked for the Hello Kitty one and Ryan the Superman one!
We decided to go to the local Children's Museum and they had a great time! Here's Shelby climbing the ropes!
They loved the little water gun area and getting everything wet!
We also discovered for the first time, the music room.... and boy was it loud in there with these two! We tried to see just how noisy we could be! Ryan was at the drums, Shelby had the "microphone" and I was using the tambourine! Afterwards we went and got a few groceries and a milkshake for each of them on the way home!

It's a.....!

Here's the proud big brother showing off the pictures of his baby BROTHER!!! Yep! It's a boy!! Jeff wasn't able to make it into the office today for the ultrasound to see what we were having so Dr. Logen typed it in on the ultrasound (and I didn't peek!) and sent it home with me, taped in an envelope to open when Jeff got home. Let me tell you, that was a LONG drive home with that important information sitting next to me unopened! :) We were both very excited to see it was a boy. We really thought it was, but a small part of both of us wondered if it wasn't a girl only because I've been a little more gaggy with this pregnancy than I was with Ryan, but sure enough- it's a boy! Yay! We've both said that if we have another boy like Ryan, we'd be thrilled!
Here's the picture of our other little man with the family jewels visible... but probably a little hard to see as I had to take a picture of the picture since our scanner isn't working. I think it's a picture looking from the bottom up.
I keep forgetting to have Jeff take some belly pictures of me so I improvised and took my own tonight since I'm well over due to put some on here at the request of a few of you! :) I'm showing WAY earlier this time than I did with Ryan but I've been told by many that it's totally normal. Here's the tummy at 17 weeks!
As I was getting ready to take a picture, Ryan came over and pulled my shirt up and was rubbing my belly and talking to the baby... sooo sweet! I think he's going to be such a great big brother!

Now it's time to start thinking of names!!!

Hot spring day!

On Saturday when it was really hot, Ryan was a busy boy. He ran errands with me in the morning, then got to ride on the tractor with his Daddy for a few hours, just to come home and help me mow the lawn! He took turns riding his bike around the yard and sitting with me on the lawn mower, but it was pretty cute at one point when he was riding on his loader tractor toy and was getting frustrated with it and almost starting to cry. So I came over to him and he just looked pooped (no nap) so I asked him if he wanted to take a break and sit on the swing in the shade on the deck and have a cold treat. That sounded good to him so here he is. Just before I took this picture, he was all reclined and it was so cute like "this is the life!" :) A couple popsicles and he was good to go and all cooled off!

Mother's Day continued....

After church, a little lunch and a good nap (for all 3 of us!) we went out to my parents house for dinner! Since the weather was decent, we bbq'd hamburgers, hotdogs and had all the fixin's including my mom yummy potato salad. Afterwards the kids went and played outside for a bit until Ryan got hit in the face with a ball and got a tiny bloody nose- then Shelby & Ryan decided to come in and watch Scooby-Do so they got all cozy on the couch with their favorite blanket, pillows, and something to drink. They were so cute all cuddled up together!
















Shelby requested a picture with "goofy faces" so here they are... I think she just wanted to show off her missing tooth! ;)















Plus we all got to hold and cuddle with Miss Anna Marie which is always a joy...















Including Great-Grandma!















I hope you all had a great Mother's Day, too!!

Mother's Day!

Well I certainly can't complain one bit about my Mother's Day! It started off by me getting to sleep in!! Just that in itself is a luxury as most mom's know! But then to top things off, my son and husband attempted to bring me breakfast in bed, but I was just getting up when they came up the stairs. Still was a very nice way to wake up, though! Then I came down stairs to find this beautiful flower and a card waiting for me and Ryan was VERY excited about it! I had no idea how Jeff would have time to get me anything seeing how he's been working from about 5:30am until close to midnight most nights, trying to get all the corn planted. It was pretty cute, though, when Ryan woke up, Jeff got him all dressed and they went to town to get this for me and breakfast! Jeff had sneeked upstairs to get Ryan's clothes out of his dresser so he could get him dressed and get out the door before I knew they were gone! Very sweet! Definitely was a good Mother's Day!

Morgyn's Birthday!

Ryan had such a fun time at our friend, Morgyn's 2nd birthday yesterday afternoon. Sadly, I forgot my camera so we don't have any pictures, but couldn't go with out mentioning it! She had a Dora themed party with yummy food for lunch like hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken skewers and, of course, Dora birthday cake! Ryan also got sent home with a little party bag filled with fun treats including this "John Deere green" candy cane! He was very excited about it! :) Thanks again, Nicole, for inviting us! We had a great time!!

Happy Mother's Day to all you Mom's out there! I hope you have a great day! :)

Busy night!

Jeff was busy, planting like crazy all day and Ryan and I were out and about running a bunch of errands during the day and then we still had sort of a busy night. Jeff's parents were in town staying with us, so after we ate some dinner we headed outside. Jeff's dad and mom went to a field to fix something that was broken on a piece of equipment so that Jeff didn't have to stop planting to do it so that worked out well. In the mean time, Ryan went outside to ride on his tractor around the yard.

After I took one picture he said, "Take a picture of my tractor, Mommy." :)
Then we got out the side-walk chalk so that I could draw him a line on our yard of where he couldn't go past as the trucks were coming on and off our yard in the big silage trucks. After we drew the the line, Ryan asked me to draw a tractor so here it is. He was so excited about it! He also drew a "racecar" off to the left there, but I think he mostly just wanted to try to use every single color in the box and drew some lines. :)
Before we went in, we went out back and checked out the silage stack to see how the progress was going and it was going! This is Jeff's cousin, Tyson, who works for us pushing the pit. He drives up onto the stack and back down to get it nice and compact. Kind of a crazy job, but they do it safely- not a job you could pay me to do, though! Especially when it gets really steep.
It's hard to see since it was getting dark, but here he is on top of the stack- I was telling Jeff's mom that he probably has a great view of the area from up there, though! Shortly after this they finished for the day and then by this afternoon they were completely done with the grass silage so that was nice. Unfortunatley, one of the sides of Jeff's 12 row planter broke this morning so him and another farmer friend were working most of the day to get it fixed. They're getting there and should be up and running soon. What timing, though, when he was on such a roll. Oh well, just the way it goes!

Anna

The other day my sister had her 2 week post partum appt. so I got the privilege of babysitting me little niece, Anna! She's so dang cute- we're all just in love with her!

Stretching and growing!
Trying to smile!
Ryan loves to come check up on her every so often and give her a little love pat and some sweet words. :)

Who says...

...happy cows come from California????

I think they're wrong. :) Aren't they cute?!

Helping Daddy

After Jeff and Ryan were done planting behind my parents farm the other night, they moved to another field down the road. Here's the boys on their way! Ryan LOVES to drive on the road in the tractor- I think he just likes being able to go fast in it!

Getting ready to set the planter down. You can see Ryan a little better in these next couple pictures.
Checking out the back. (both of them)
Ryan waving to me! What a lucky boy to get to help his daddy so much!