Clean up your room!

We have started getting better at making Maddy pick up her toys and clean up her room. We want to teach her a little responsibility and also realize that she needs to take care of her things. It has also been more challenging for me to be picking up after her all day now that I have Colby, so really, she does need to be helping out some.

Anyways, she has not been real thrilled about picking up her toys, but has been more into "cleaning her room" and making her bed. The other day I asked her to go clean up her room and this was the result..............








When I asked her why she just piled everything on top of her bed, her response was...."because it goes faster that way".......I can see we have some work to do ;-)

Fun with the cousins!!

Dana, Steph, Lizzie and Adam came down to stay with us for a week a couple of weeks ago. The kids went to Vacation Bible school at our church in the mornings and we went out and did some other fun things in the afternoon (Adventureland, Science Center, zoo). It was a fun-filled week!!


Watching the singers at Adventureland



Vacation Bible School

Colby and Adam at Adventureland

Jeremy babysat for Dana and I one night so we could go see a movie -- yes, that's right, Jeremy at home with 5 KIDS!!! 2 of which were babies -- ok, so both Adam and Colby
were asleep when we left and Maddy was all ready for bed. Steph and Lizzie are pretty
much old enough to get ready themselves and go to bed, so we thought it would be a piece
of cake, right??? (in hindsight, probably not so much; just too many variables involved ;-))

Well -- about half way into the movie, my cell phone starts buzzing.....it's
Jeremy.....oh, no, what's wrong??? Adam has woken up and won't go back to sleep. He is
a great baby and normally doesn't cry much, but of course I can hear him wailing in the back-
ground --- (Jeremy does seem to have this effect on babies sometimes ;-), but he really was trying hard to get him to sleep, so I did feel bad) Dana is still nursing him, so Jeremy couldn't really do much in the eating area :-)

I had walked out of the theater to talk to him, so I tell him I will go back in and talk to Dana and call him back. Dana decides that it will be ok for Jeremy to give him some formula in a bottle. This will be a last ditch effort as Adam has never had formula and hasn't had a bottle in quite some time (as you can probably tell, it has been a long time since Dana and I have gone to a movie we both want to see, so we're trying anything at this point!).

I go back out of the theater, call Jeremy back (and at this time Jeremy is walking around in circles in our bedroom with Adam as this is the only way he can get him to stop crying :-)) So, Jeremy gives him the bottle and it ends up working and Adam falls asleep with Jeremy holding him in the chair. At this point, Jeremy is too afraid to go lay him down for fear of him waking up again, so when we get home from the movie, this is what we find!! We all had a pretty good laugh from it afterwards!!

Not quite sure who is bigger here......

Our Family

Maddy's sidewalk chalk rendition of our family.....(I think she thinks Jeremy and I are really tall :-))

Rock Person

So, I was walking outside in the back the other day and found a little pile of rocks on our patio. I asked Maddy who put the rocks there and she informed me that it wasn't just a "pile of rocks", but a "rock person". Her cousin Meg made it while she was here visiting. It's pretty cute, so I haven't moved it yet :-) Much more creative than I could ever be!

Colby Turns 5 Months Old!!

Colby turned 5 months old on July 16th. He has been sleeping through the night for awhile now and goes to bed pretty early, around 6:30 or 7:00. It has been nice to have the evenings to hang out with Maddy and relax some. He can roll over from back to stomach and stomach to back. He is making a lot of cooing noises and smiles and laughs alot. He is getting to be a really fun baby!! He is also getting very heavy. My back is usually pretty sore at the end of each day from carrying him around. I think he will be out growing his infant car seat soon! He is eating baby foods (all kinds) at least once a day and sometimes twice. He is also sitting up with some assistance, but can sit on his own for small periods of time. He is getting big too fast!!!

4th of July Fun!!

We headed up to Sioux City for the 4th of July this year and spent the weekend at my parent's house. A lot of my family was in town as well, so we had a great time seeing everyone. Maddy had a lot of fun with her cousins.

Every year in Sioux City on the 4th of July weekend, there is a festival called Saturday in the Park. Various bands come and play and there are activities going on all day at the park. There is a big band shell where the bands play which is very cool. This year Counting Crows was the headliner, so we had fun watching them Saturday night.

Maddy was too wiped out to stay up for fireworks this year, so we'll have to try again next year!

This was the first year we did not make it to the 4th of July parade, so we were bummed about that, but with the 4th being on a Saturday and traveling, we weren't in town to go, so maybe next year for that as well!!