Sippy Cup!

YEAH!! With Logan being tongue tied I have had such a hard time switching him from a bottle to a sippy cup, but try no more! Today at breakfast it was like Aha! I know what to do. He didn't even need a bottle at nap time!! Woohoo!!! My little man is getting big!

Look how big he looks in his chair!

My cool sippy cup!

Look whose under my feet waiting for a bite to eat!

Conference

I just got back from my teaching conference in Indy late yesterday afternoon. This was unlike any conference i have ever been at! We had a blast. Granted, we worked and learned our butt off! We had class everyday from 8-4 ,but then we were able to bond as a staff. There were 9 of us there. The first night we had a dj with drinks and orderves, the second night a few of us went to a scholastic warehouse and my favorite....O'Charley's! They put up with my excitement for the restaurant. It was an awesome week getting to know people better, but it was definitely nice to come home to my boys!

Indianapolis

I am leaving at 4:00 tomorrow morning to go to Indianapolis. There are nine teachers from my school going to a conference until Thursday afternoon. I am taking my laptop wiht me, and hopefully I will be able to get an internet connection....if not, I will see ya'll Thursday night!

I Love Blankie

Wow, the apple sure doesn't fall far from the tree!! Logan still loves his blanket. We have one in the crib, and one that can be dragged anywhere.

Saltwater Tank

Tim has been researching saltwater aquariums for a while and we started ours right after moving into the new house. You have to have a lot of patience because it is a step by step process. First, live sand, mixing salt water (you can't just use table salt!), adding a skimmer, and now we added the live rock. It is actually pretty cool, because all of these little creatures are coming out of it. There are crabs, anenomes, starfish....none of which we actually bought, it just came out of the live rock when we put it in the tank! And, we don't even have the fish in it yet!

I was dragging my feet on this project, but now that it is going, it is actually pretty cool! Logan loves it, and there is nothing in it. He kept trying to help Daddy put in the live rock and would stare in the tank and pucker his lips and put them to the glass! He loved our tank before and this one will be so much cooler.

Not as good as the real thing.....pictures don't do justice!

Up close to the rock

One of our little starfish friends crawling up the side of the tank.

Fun with Olivia

Yesterday while we were out, Logan had a blast playing with Olivia and her friend Joselyn. It gave Meaghan and I the chance to play catch up without worrying about him! We spent most of the afternoon playing in the basement thanks to the downpour outside!!
Logan loved the trampoline!

Can you tell in the next picture, Logan is trying to crawl THROUGH the doll house!

I guess he's not used to this kind of toy!

Suprise Visit!

Tuesday evening I got a call from Meaghan saying that she and Reece wanted to come see our new house while Jason was in Chicago! They spent the whole day with Logan and I while we were watching the trips at their house. Olivia loved having two little ones around all day!

Fun where I shouldn't Be!

O.k. So, instead of taking these pictures I should have been telling Logan and pulling him out. But, I couldn't help but laughing. The one thing that broke during the move was one piece of glass in the curio cabinet. Logan knows he isn't allowed to pull on the handles to open the doors, but he found an opening without the door! Luckily it is all cleaned out on the inside!

Great Time!

How did this happen....I took absolutely no pictures last night! Thanks girls for inviting me last night, I had a wonderful time. I'm sorry that I cut out early, I will make sure it doesn't happen next time! Great job at Karaoke!

Tractor Play Time

Today is the first day that I have felt relatively decent this week. I think that the whole move and owning 2 houses had finally caught up with me. After getting some stuff done in the house we went outside to play. It was just right, not as hot as it has been. Logan had fun playing with his John Deere tractor from Grandma and Grandpa Wilson (They were in town for the fourth of July) as well as with Daddy's John Deere!

We never really played in the driveway at the old house because traffic went flying by so quick. It was a nice change to be able to clean out my car while Logie was playing in the driveway. This kid loves playing outside, so this neighborhood is a plus!

Logan spied a dandelion in the yard, so he went and picked off the head and brought it to me saying "here mama" How sweet, a weed for mommy!

Logan loves riding the big boy tractor with Grandpa Umlauf, so he thought it was time to ride when he found it in our garage! At the other house it was in a shed, so he couldn't find it...oh well...at least in a few years I'll have a boy to mow my yard. (I guess that is more than a few years!)

WOOHOO!!!!

Yeah! Our house appraised for the selling price and we have an official closing date. July 23rd at 3:00p.m. I don't think there is anything else to get in our way! This means...no double house payments!

On the flip side, we got our first house bill for the new house. What a relief, paying only one house bill!!!

Pool Time!

We have been playing in our little pool in between cleaning and organizing our new home! Logan was having more fun finding the sprinkler and glasses on the back porch.
We have been enjoying our summer now that we are moved in!

We had a lot of fun!

Can you see the little plumbers crack?!

Is there something in this glass?

Playing with part of daddy's sprinkler!

Appraisal

Well, one more big step is out of the way. I met with the appraisor at our house in DeMotte this morning. He was very complimentary, so hopefully it will appraise for enough. I wouldn't be worried, except for the fact that we upped the price so we could help the buyers with their down payment and closing costs. Please pray that we get a full appraisal value, this way we can move to closing next week. Otherwise, we are stuck!

PTL!

Well, we got the call today! Our family trying to buy our house got their financing! Woohoo! One more hoop to jump through and that is the appraisal. It is scheduled for Wednesday morning at 11:00. please pray that it passes the appraisal, because we upped the price to compensate for us paying their closing and down payment. One last step and we can own only one home!!!!

Bike Ride

Julie and I wanted to take a bike ride in the subdivision, this was definitely a trip! She came over with all three kids and we ended up having to wait for my mom, because she had Logan. By the time my mom got there and we got the trailers hooked up to the bikes, we had some not so happy kids. Reygann went with Logan and Kylie went with Brody. Kylie was bawling from the start. She wanted to ride her bike. Brody and Logan were tired, and Reygann was mad that Logie was leaning on her. We made it around my subdivision one time, about 1.5 miles before the kids were driving us nuts. I think we planned and set up for the ride longer than the actual ride! We'll try it again later this week.....preferablly way before bed time!

Happy Birthday Mom

July 1st was my mom's birthday, and my dad sure did surprise her! They had been looking at the new Honda CRV's about a month ago and my dad would not budge to get one. They have one vehicle and a gas guzzler of a truck. Whenever someone wants to use a vehicle, the other person is left looking for a ride. Dad went and bought one for my mom for her birthday. If you know my dad, this is a huge deal. One: he doesn't make large purchases by himself, Two: He doesn't buy brand new, he returned his dodge 4 times back in 96 because he couldn't take having a new vehicle, and Three: he doesn't want mom shopping all the time (He-He) Mom was so excited, Pretty much everyone in the family already knew, except for the triplets. (They can't keep a secret at all!) Here are a few pics, she was really excited.

All Stars!

Way to go Lowell All Stars! We went to Austin and Graham's second All Star game last night. Julie came over to our house to use the internet and have some quiet time, but be a warm body in the house while Logie slept. (Thanks Julie!!!) The game didn't start till 8:30 last night. This was game 2 of a double elimination series. The boys played the Highland All Stars. We creamed them! (sorry Jody and Boz!) The have a 4 inning, 10 point rule. That is, if you have played 4 full innings and are winning by more than 10 points it is a slaughter rule and the game is over.

Final Score: Lowell: 23 Highland: 9

The boys play in their next game on Monday night vs. Dyer. When they win, the championship is on Tuesday night!

Go Austin and Graham!!!

Finally

There are no words to describe the relief of being completely moved in. Some people may be thinking, one or two days of chaos and poof, no big deal. I beg to differ. I have been packing, moving, and unpacking for about 6 weeks. And finally, i am completely done. No more boxes, no more moving trucks, just my new house (And 1 empty one, until it is sold.)
Thank you to all of our friends and family who helped us finally get this move finished. There is no possible way we could have done this without you all!

All of our furniture came in pieces, I think Logie enjoyed them more before they were put together.

Testing out the new stairs. It took 3 tumbles before he realized he needs to sit down instead of trying to stand and walk down them. That's what happens after spending the first 15 months of your life without stairs!

Thanks, Kim, for the great picture (ha!). We had the couch finally put together, now for the tables.

Austin, Graham, and Olivia checking out the new furniture....even resting without working!

Do you think we had enough garbage on our first garbage day!

House of Blues

I'm not sure if I told everyone, but I won through 89.7 a whole Father's Day gift for Tim. We ended up going to the House of Blues the day before we closed on our new home. We met Tower from the radio station before the show and he did a short interview, and then we went in for Tim's guitar lesson with Ben from the band skillet. It was so cool!
We spent about 45 minutes in the green room for the House of Blues. We had to go up several flights of steps where the walls are lined with pics of celebrities who have performed at the House of Blues. From what we heard, there are not many people who get to go in there, let alone bring cameras.
I met Lori, who is the drummer and Ben the guitarist, we didn't see the other two members. Tim had a 45 minute guitar lesson with Ben that went really well. Afterwards we went outside along the Chicago River and were interviewed by Tower, from Shine.fm, and Andy, from CCM magazine. We then were able to go inside and watch the whole concert! It was definitely a cool experience. If you want to check out the video of the whole experience, you can go to shine.fm It was in the middle of the home page, otherwise you can click on the picture of the band Skillet.

Oh, yeah, and Tim got an autographed guitar from the whole band!

Ben unwrapping the guitar for Tim, he also tuned it.

Andy from CCM Magazine and Tower from shine.fm watching the guitar lesson.

Erik, Tower (both shine.fm DJs), Ben (from Skillet), Timmy, Me, Andy (CCM Magazine)

Pics for CCM Magazine being taken

Ben with Tim